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It's been a busy few weeks for me. Had a windstorm knock my 2m antenna down, so I took my tower down and moved it to the opposite side is the house. When I re-strung my dipole it wasn't tuning for poo poo so I took it down and built a w5gi mystery antenna. I love this thing. It's 1.2 to 1.7 swr on 20m without a tuner and under 3 on most others. With the tuner I can get it to around 1.3 on all bands. I also made a desk for my equipment, will add pics when I can. can't figure out how to do it from the phone
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May 28, 2010 01:12
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Welp, I just got back from taking the Technician exam. I passed with 100%. They asked if I wanted to try for the General as well since it was free and I did so well on the other exam so I figured what the heck.. Nope, failed hardcore. Oh well. Now I just need to start studying for General and head back out for that in a few weeks.
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May 28, 2010 02:48
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Congrats, and welcome to the hobby. If you want to get your general soon, I'd suggest starting to study ASAP while the Tech content is still fresh in your mind. While you're at it, study for Extra as well. It will not only prepare you to save the cost of one more testing session, but also strengthen your understanding of the General class material. Once you understand the General stuff, start studying for Extra, and you'll notice that much of the stuff described in the Extra study material is just General stuff at a higher level. I'm studying for Extra this weekend, and hopefully getting Extra relatively soon. Again, congrats, and I hope to make a QSO when you get your call! Be sure to post in the thread with it when it shows up in the ULS database. Depending on the VEs that administered your test, and how backed up the FCC is, you could get it by Tuesday if you're lucky. Most likely, it will be closer to next Friday, or sometime during the week after. The FCC doesn't operate during the weekend, so there's really no point in checking on a Saturday or Sunday unless you didn't check Friday.
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May 28, 2010 05:44
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Phuzion posted:Congrats, and welcome to the hobby. If you want to get your general soon, I'd suggest starting to study ASAP while the Tech content is still fresh in your mind. While you're at it, study for Extra as well. It will not only prepare you to save the cost of one more testing session, but also strengthen your understanding of the General class material. Once you understand the General stuff, start studying for Extra, and you'll notice that much of the stuff described in the Extra study material is just General stuff at a higher level. Well, my main interest is in HF so I have a definite source of motivation to work toward the General and Extra licenses. I passed my Technician exam a few hours ago but I'm already studying intensely for the General license. I don't foresee this being a problem. I'm really hoping I show up in the database soon because I wanted to have the license available during my trip out to Yosemite park in a week and a half. We'll see how that goes. And thanks!
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May 28, 2010 06:23
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Catastrophe posted:Well, my main interest is in HF so I have a definite source of motivation to work toward the General and Extra licenses. I passed my Technician exam a few hours ago but I'm already studying intensely for the General license. I don't foresee this being a problem. Given how quickly my General upgrade appeared in the database (5 days I think) you should most likely be able to have it by then. I don't remember how long it took for my original ticket to show up, though. (I could go and find my old CSCE and compare the exam date to the granted date and see, if you would like an idea) Also, if you happen to upgrade down the road, you can start using HF privileges immediately, as long as you have your CSCE. You'll just need to use /AG or /AE depending on which class you have upgraded to until your upgrade shows up in the database.
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May 28, 2010 09:52
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Has there been any debate about D-Star and HAM radio rules? I mean, you're supposed to use publicly available protocols, and D-Star is somewhat proprietary. Shouldn't there at least be freely available software for it to run on say, .... Windows 95? Or is it enough that that the radios are available for purchase, i.e. not secret?
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May 28, 2010 17:10
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Vir posted:Has there been any debate about D-Star and HAM radio rules? I mean, you're supposed to use publicly available protocols, and D-Star is somewhat proprietary. Shouldn't there at least be freely available software for it to run on say, .... Windows 95? Or is it enough that that the radios are available for purchase, i.e. not secret? I thought D-STAR was open, but only Icom made the equipment for it.
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May 28, 2010 17:15
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D-Star itself is an open framework, but all the radios from Icom use a proprietary voice codec plugin which you can't use to build your own radio. That is, unless you buy the patented chips, or do it ilegally, you can't make them yourself. The current Icom voice mode is "available" both because you can buy radios from Icom, and because as a patent it is published (that's the whole point of a patent : stimulating publication of innovations by rewarding it with a time limited monopoly). So it's available, but it just isn't free, neither free as in beer nor free as in liber. Some of my ham friends think that the ARRL and the FCC should have banned the non-free Icom radios from the Ham bands. There are people working on an open voice codec, but don't buy an Icom radio now if you want it to work with the new D-Star standard in voice mode - except if you want to mod it, and I think modding the current Icom radios has to be an option.
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May 29, 2010 01:16
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D-STAR is in no way limited to being Icom-only by patents or any other sort of legal limitations. The only reason it is currently Icom-only is because other manufacturers have not chosen to make D-STAR radios. The entire protocol is open (which is all that's required to make the FCC happy), so anyone can make a radio to decode everything except the voice portion of the data frames. As is the case with almost every existing (or at least those popular in the US) digital voice mode, Digital Voice Systems, Inc (DVSI) holds the patent to the vocoder, which is required to encode or decode the voice portion of the data frames. If you want to make a homebrew D-STAR rig, DVSI is more than happy to sell you an IC to perform the vocoder functions. As far as using the D-STAR network via computer, there are a few options available right now: The DV Dongle DVAP Dongle (I have no idea where you buy one of these yet, maybe HRO has them) Perhaps I can provide some insight as to why almost all of the widely used digital voice formats use some variant of DVSI's vocoders (such as IMBE for P25 P1/ProVoice, and AMBE for D-STAR/MOTOTRBO/OpenSky). The main issue with presently available voice codecs is that of packet loss. Using Speex or other free/GPL codecs might be fine for TeamSpeak or Skype, but when it comes to putting it to use in mission-critical environments, they just don't cut it. The other big reason is bandwidth. D-STAR, for instance, has a voice bandwidth of 3600 bps, and fits quite nicely into 12.5 kHz spacing. P25 (phase 2), along with currently available MOTOTRBO stuff uses (or will use) TDMA to fit a single voice channel into 6.25 kHz spacing. Try finding an open codec on the market today that will handle packet loss reasonably well and doesn't take up massive amounts of bandwidth when you pump it into an RF environment. For all the bitching that's gone on since the standardization of P25 and DSTAR -- and don't get me wrong, I'd love to see a good digital voice format over RF that uses an open vocoder -- given present technologies, it's not available. As was alluded to, there are groups out there working like crazy to develop open codecs. If they can come up with something that is reliable, compact, and doesn't sound like rear end, I'm sure you'll see a big push in the ham and public safety worlds to eventually migrate to it.
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May 30, 2010 08:29
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You should also be able to grab a copy of the patent and use the information in it to build it yourself. If you're not able to do this, the patent is invalid by reason of not adequately describing the invention. It is slightly legally risky to make one yourself though, because using a patent without permission is still generally an infringement of the patent even if you don't sell the thing. Consider a paper mill which builds a patented machine and uses it without selling the machine - they are still using the patent illegally. Amateur radio may fall within an exception though. Since amateur radio by law only can be used for noncommercial hobby purposes, you might get away with homebrewing your own radio and referring to Peppenhausen v. Falke, 19 Fed.Cas. 1048, 1049 (C.C.S.D.N.Y.1861) (No. 11,279) and Roche Products Inc. v. Bolar Pharmaceutical Co., 733 F.2d 858 (Fed. Cir. 04/23/1984) where it says that it has long been "well-settled that an experiment with a patented article for the sole purpose of gratifying a philosophical taste, or curiosity, or for mere amusement is not an infringement of the rights of the patentee." You can't start selling kits with the patented codec. And note that it says "experiment"; if you start using it on a daily basis, it might found to be an infringement.
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May 30, 2010 12:32
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Vir posted:You should also be able to grab a copy of the patent and use the information in it to build it yourself. If you're not able to do this, the patent is invalid by reason of not adequately describing the invention. The patent doesn't require you to be able to completely reconstruct the codec. What the patent does cover is the overall algorithm but it does not specify many (any) of the relevant values for the synthesis tables or other filters. However all of that is available in whatever standard P-25 is published in (you have to buy the standard), I believe. Someone has gone and written an open source library for performing this task though: http://sourceforge.net/projects/dsdmbelib/. That broke out on the Radio Reference forums here. Current take on U.S. intellectual property law is that having the source code is OK, but as soon as you compile it you are in violation of the patent unless you have a license from DVSI. You could try to take your "experimental" argument to court, but for some reason I think DVSI has more reason to throw money at lawyers over the issue than you do (unfortunately). I hope someone comes up with a clever patent-unencumbered speech codec that is low bit rate and doesn't destroy speech too badly in the presence of bit errors and frame drops.
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Jun 1, 2010 13:56
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Lucid Smog posted:I hope someone comes up with a clever patent-unencumbered speech codec that is low bit rate and doesn't destroy speech too badly in the presence of bit errors and frame drops. Alternatively, wait a few years. Patents expire, and I believe a number of the AMBE patents were issued in the early nineties. I'm having fun with my IC-92AD, and am now thinking about a IC-2820. Apparently the southern NJ counties got a grant to deploy D-STAR repeaters, so suddenly I have a lot more D-STAR to play with.
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Jun 1, 2010 16:17
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I've finally begun drafting my QST submission on the LEGO telegraph key in earnest. I'm up to 1 page (without photos) and I hope my wordsmithing is eloquent enough while still being accessible.
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Jun 1, 2010 20:38
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Kick rear end, keep us up to date. I would love to build one.
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Jun 1, 2010 20:40
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fordan posted:Alternatively, wait a few years. Patents expire, and I believe a number of the AMBE patents were issued in the early nineties. A quick patent search shows 20 or so patents assigned to Digital Voice Systems, Inc. 11 of them were issued from 1990-1995, so they're not too far away from expiring (barring an extension). I haven't bothered to read them, but it's probably fair that a decent bit of the MBE concept could be recreated with what is contained in them, if not the exact AMBE/IMBE vocoder. Given that AMBE is newer than IMBE I would guess one or more of the newer patents covers some aspect that makes it better.
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Jun 3, 2010 12:57
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Alright. I know this is obvious to every other ham here but I'm quickly finding out that there is a lot more to amateur radio than chatting back and forth with strangers on 2-meter repeaters. So I set up my radio for APRS use.. I have no idea what it's actually good for but it's cool to see my callsign pop up at my location on http://aprs.fi and see who else is around me. This is like fancy technological stuff, right here! The technician license gives you CW rights on a bunch of the HF bands so I'm going to string up a huge length of wire and see who I can reach with morse code, too. Excitement! The only thing I don't understand is why it seems like every 2 meter repeater around here has the same 'problem'. It seems like most any time there's someone speaking on it, there's a modem-like screeching data sound over their voice obstructing what they're saying. What kind of data is it and why is it always over everyone's voice??
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Jun 3, 2010 20:56
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Catastrophe posted:Alright. I know this is obvious to every other ham here but I'm quickly finding out that there is a lot more to amateur radio than chatting back and forth with strangers on 2-meter repeaters. I love APRS too. My neighbor, a fellow ham, hates that I have my VX8R set up on with a frequent beacon because he's worried that the goverment's going to track me. I'm always out and about with mine, feel free to track. Oh, and if you're running a VX8R the "data screeching" sound you are hearing is your APRS beacon on the B band transmitting. You can mute this in your menu. IonClash fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Jun 3, 2010 |
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Jun 3, 2010 22:47
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IonClash posted:I love APRS too. My neighbor, a fellow ham, hates that I have my VX8R set up on with a frequent beacon because he's worried that the goverment's going to track me. I'm always out and about with mine, feel free to track. Nah, I'm familiar with the short APRS data bursts' sound. This is a longer, different sound... almost like what a pager's data sounds like but longer than that. EDIT: Yes it's a VX-8R. Picking up an FT-817ND in a few days, though. double EDIT: I shot a quick example of what I'm talking about. It's so common that I'm sure there's an easy explanation for it but I'm just not familiar with what it is. It's the weird data noise over the voices in this video. I hear it on many of the repeaters in the area. I'm simply curious about what it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eN-2KbZSqdg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eN-2KbZSqdg triple EDIT: Oh god, I made my first voice contact with my radio a few minutes ago. W3RM from Abington, PA. This is awesome. Catastrophe fucked around with this message at 02:12 on Jun 4, 2010 |
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Jun 3, 2010 23:12
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Catastrophe posted:Nah, I'm familiar with the short APRS data bursts' sound. This is a longer, different sound... almost like what a pager's data sounds like but longer than that. That's intermod... Do you live near a cellular tower, FM transmitter or something like that? You may be able to adjust the sensitivity of the radio to help it.
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Jun 4, 2010 15:55
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Yeah, the front end of that radio is BLOWING UP due to RF overload. That's one of the downsides to these wide-coverage reciever radios - they have to have wide coverage, so they can't use the old selective filters. Go ask any older ham what they think of the Radio Shack HTX-202 HT and they will universally say "it's one of the best most bulletproof radios ever made". Radio Shack. $199 handheld. Why? They DIDN'T add the 138-174 wide FM reception capability, letting them use a rock-solid filter that only lets 144-148 through, as a result the HTX-202 will camp happily in an area that brings any icom or yaesu to its intermod-filled knees.
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Jun 4, 2010 16:33
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There may be an FM-Narrow mode or something on that radio, as well. I don't know, but my FT-817ND has such a filter built in, and I have to imagine it's exactly for those kinds of situations. EDIT: It is a Yaesu, so it may be buried on menu page eight thousand or something. 
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Jun 4, 2010 16:47
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Dijkstra posted:That's intermod... Do you live near a cellular tower, FM transmitter or something like that? You may be able to adjust the sensitivity of the radio to help it. I live in center city Philadelphia. I could probably reach out of my window and touch 17 strong transmitter sources. For the same reason, my guitar amp picks up tons of radio stations whenever I turn it on. The VX-8R is already on NFM mode. Looks like I'll just have to live with it. I'm moving to Portland next month so we'll see if it's as bad there.
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Jun 4, 2010 17:58
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Catastrophe posted:I live in center city Philadelphia. I could probably reach out of my window and touch 17 strong transmitter sources. For the same reason, my guitar amp picks up tons of radio stations whenever I turn it on. Ouch, yeah not much you can do... Just try to play around and figure out how the environment affects the overload. For instance what room in your house is the best, etc. Sometimes weird things like that can make a tiny difference.
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Jun 4, 2010 19:23
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TC the Giant posted:There may be an FM-Narrow mode or something on that radio, as well. WFM -> FM broadcast reception NFM -> 2-way FM radio comms Also, I picked up the Bluetooth module for my VX-8... it's going to be very handy (especially when I have the radio in my car and have the windows down), if picky about switching over to BT/ positioning of the headset for clear audio.
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Jun 4, 2010 20:17
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nmfree posted:That's a mode filter, and has nothing to do with intermod rejection. I was going to get the GPS unit for mine until I looked it up and saw that the unit plus its mounting bracket are basically half the size of the radio itself and mounts awkwardly to the top of it.  Pass.
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Jun 4, 2010 20:30
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Well most people I've seen using the GPS also got the external mic and mounted the GPS on that. Isn't the text message input a bit awkward, because you have to advance the cursor for every letter? Then again you might not be sending as many text messages as with a Blackberry/cell phone.
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Jun 4, 2010 23:28
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On my 8R, I lost the little rubber gasket/cover that seals up the base of the antenna and covers the speaker-mic, anyone know where I can get a new one? I'm guessing they're probably $5 or more.Catastrophe posted:I was going to get the GPS unit for mine until I looked it up and saw that the unit plus its mounting bracket are basically half the size of the radio itself and mounts awkwardly to the top of it.
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Jun 5, 2010 04:49
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Jose Pointero fucked around with this message at 04:15 on Aug 28, 2019 |
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Jun 5, 2010 05:13
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Prince of Dicks posted:On my 8R, I lost the little rubber gasket/cover that seals up the base of the antenna and covers the speaker-mic, anyone know where I can get a new one? I'm guessing they're probably $5 or more.
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Jun 5, 2010 07:38
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Jose Pointero fucked around with this message at 04:16 on Aug 28, 2019 |
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Jun 6, 2010 11:16
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Took and passed the General exam today. I might try for Extra before the end of summer.
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Jun 8, 2010 23:43
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Catastrophe posted:I was going to get the GPS unit for mine until I looked it up and saw that the unit plus its mounting bracket are basically half the size of the radio itself and mounts awkwardly to the top of it. If you mount it as shown in the image, it's pretty sturdy. It looks awkward, but it really isn't. Mine is mounted that way. I should be getting the speaker mic today and i'll mount it to that too. Stay tuned for pics. edit: Any Oregoons out there? The family and I will be venturing through the Colombia River Gorge to Portland, then to Cannon Beach. If anyone's interested in chatting, shoot me an e-mail at phyzzx1 at me dot com. IonClash fucked around with this message at 21:58 on Jun 9, 2010 |
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Jun 9, 2010 19:28
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LtDan posted:Took and passed the General exam today. I might try for Extra before the end of summer. Congratulations! By this point your callsign may already be in the FCC database; I think mine was there within a day or two.
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Jun 9, 2010 20:38
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Prince of Dicks posted:
Here's mine with it's new speaker mic. Love it.  Click here for the full 650x488 image. Aaand here's one with my new Smiley Antenna 270A Tri Band Antenna. I love this thing.  Click here for the full 500x667 image.
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Jun 9, 2010 22:24
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IonClash posted:Aaand here's one with my new Smiley Antenna 270A Tri Band Antenna. I love this thing. I cant pimp Smiley antennas enough, ive got that same 270 on my FT-60 and it's great.
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Jun 10, 2010 03:00
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What would be the pros and cons between the VX-8DR and the FT-817ND? I've narrowed it down to one of those two for my first radio, and I am finally in the position to work towards getting one. On another note, I read up on UVB-76, sounds crazy, anyone have any thoughts on what it was used for?
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Jun 10, 2010 15:14
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Xenpo posted:What would be the pros and cons between the VX-8DR and the FT-817ND? I've narrowed it down to one of those two for my first radio, and I am finally in the position to work towards getting one. The vx8 has APRS support if that matters to you. It's much smaller, has an alphanumeric keypad for frequency entry and navigation, gives 5W output on battery power (ft817 gives 2.5w on internal battery), has a wider receive range, etc The ft817 scores huge in other respects. It supports numerous digital modes, can interface with HRD and tons of other pc based control software, is nearly pocket sized but covers 160-10 meter AM bands as well as the VHF and UHF FM bands (vx8 is FM only and doesn't support SSB modes while listening to the AM SW bands), has support for CW, etc Basically, the vx8 radios are fantastic handhelds if you want a tiny pocket sized quad-band FM transceiver. If you want to transmit on the shortwave bands, interface with a pc for control, work CW, still want the ability to run portable with an internal battery and don't mind the meager power output, the ft817 is a good little do-everything radio that also happens to be TEENSY. Owning both personally, I say the vx8 is superb but, if you want the ft817, I suggest you skip it and get the Icom IC-703 Plus.
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Jun 13, 2010 00:05
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Catastrophe posted:ft817 gives 2.5w on internal battery The 817 does 5w on internal batteries, chief. It does 2.5 when it's plugged in, and 5 again if you hook it up to a 13.8v power supply over 3A. It also has APRS support, though it lacks the GPS module of the vx8, due to its' larger nature. It's a surprisingly full-featured QRP radio. If you plan to set up an amp and a tower, I'd say go 857 or 897 instead, though.
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Jun 14, 2010 01:29
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TC the Giant posted:The 817 does 5w on internal batteries, chief. It does 2.5 when it's plugged in, and 5 again if you hook it up to a 13.8v power supply over 3A. It also has APRS support, though it lacks the GPS module of the vx8, due to its' larger nature. Those power supplies aren't hard to come by. The wall-wart kind-of sucks, but if you have an old computer power supply around, you can rig it up to run off of that with no trouble. I'm really pleased with mine, they're a great little radio.
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Jun 14, 2010 03:20
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I'm not going the towers and amps road yet, I need land for that, which will have to come later in life ha ha. GPS at this point in time is not huge for me, and the size of the FT-817ND is great. The one thing that stands out for me between the ICOM and the Yaesu is the internal antenna tuner of the 703 plus. My research continues....thanks for all the good input!
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Jun 14, 2010 16:23
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