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Jose Pointero posted:One would think that they would be more concerned about Echolink than D-Star... I don't think they have a problem with the Internet carrying radio traffic, but with Ham radio carrying Internet traffic. Anyway, it's silly. For emergency use, having the ability to route IP over Ham radio is pretty much essential, or at least to browse for files on server harddrive plus sending datagrams. Vir fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Jul 4, 2010 |
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Jul 4, 2010 22:46
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BigHustle posted:I assume that running my feedline into the house alongside the power lines entering the house is going to cause massive interference, not to mention that I'd end up having to run the ground back out the same channel in order to make things safe. Am I just asking for disappointment going this route, or have any of you had luck with it? First, make sure that you can SAFELY run your coax through the utility chase. No point in having a good setup if you're dead. 2. It's to your advantage to have your coax enter the house at that point, since you can bond your grounds together to the house ground (which will be on the outside of the house, hopefully. This will cut down the chance of lightning damage (it will keep any stray current outside) and also remove any ground loops that might develop. C. If your equipment and antennas are grounded well, there shouldn't be much if any pickup from the 240V flowing on the utility drop as long as you use decent coax; I would use something that has 100% shield.
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Jul 4, 2010 23:05
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nmfree posted:Not necessarily. 1. Safe shouldn't be an issue. I plan on making a tuned fan dipole array on the roof and will drop the coax straight down the side of the house and into the access hole, which is is a good 3" in diameter and only has roughly half of that with line running into it. 2. I was planning to run my own ground for the equipment just to be on the safe side. I'm picking up two 14" copper grounding rods. One will be connected to a lightning arrestor and grounded before entering the house, and the second will be connected to a grounding strap behind my bench which will be the central grounding point for the gear inside. 3. I found a guy on Craigslist selling LDF4-50A for a decent price ($75 for a 50 foot run, $150 with N connectors already installed) and that should be all I need to get into the house and have some extra to spare. I was going to make my own ladder line with the excess wire I'll have left over from the dipole array, but I don't think that would work in this case since there's little insulation to block out the possible electrical interference coming from the main power lines and the breaker box. This brings up another question... I don't plan to keep my antennas connected to the rig when I'm not actively using it. Would there be anything wrong with putting an SO-239 on my grounding strap and connecting the antenna to that just in case the lightning arrestor fails, or would I end up with a fried rig if my 'worst case scenario' were to happen?
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Jul 5, 2010 01:43
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Well, this thread has convinced me to get my license. I started studying for the technician exam a couple days ago, but I figured I might as well go for my general while I'm at it. Taking the tests Thursday, hope they go well 
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Jul 5, 2010 22:29
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Blackmjolnir posted:Well, this thread has convinced me to get my license. I started studying for the technician exam a couple days ago, but I figured I might as well go for my general while I'm at it. Taking the tests Thursday, hope they go well This is definitely the way to go. Unlicensed to extra in one go is a tall loving order, but general on the first try isn't very hard at all. I got 100% on both elements. I'm studying for extra now. Last week I went to my local club's (Superstition ARC in Arizona) field day event. My neighbor down the street (who has quite the impressive antenna farm on his roof) invited me. I got to operate on a couple of older Kenwood and Icom radios (the latter of which was attached to a bitchin' Slinky dipole strung between two trees) and made my first 4 contacts as a new ham! Edited to add: In the last week I've been forced to relocate to Colorado Springs. Any Ham goons in the CO Spgs area?
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Jul 5, 2010 23:45
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BigHustle posted:1. Safe shouldn't be an issue. I plan on making a tuned fan dipole array on the roof and will drop the coax straight down the side of the house and into the access hole, which is is a good 3" in diameter and only has roughly half of that with line running into it. BigHustle posted:2. I was planning to run my own ground for the equipment just to be on the safe side. I'm picking up two 14" copper grounding rods. One will be connected to a lightning arrestor and grounded before entering the house, and the second will be connected to a grounding strap behind my bench which will be the central grounding point for the gear inside. BigHustle posted:3. I found a guy on Craigslist selling LDF4-50A for a decent price ($75 for a 50 foot run, $150 with N connectors already installed) and that should be all I need to get into the house and have some extra to spare. I was going to make my own ladder line with the excess wire I'll have left over from the dipole array, but I don't think that would work in this case since there's little insulation to block out the possible electrical interference coming from the main power lines and the breaker box.
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Jul 5, 2010 23:48
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Frustrated that I couldn't get HRD to key my FT-817ND for CW through a SignaLink USB interface, I broke out a cheapie MFJ keyer, soldered a couple of wires and, TADA!, I'm attempting to just key out morse code manually. I absolutely suck at it but it's a load of fun. Why the heck does every mode work through a PC interface but CW?? The radio has a built in keyer and everything. What the in the world? Catastrophe fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Jul 6, 2010 |
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Jul 6, 2010 01:24
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nmfree posted:I was more addressing the last part in that I didn't want you to go jamming a screwdriver into the conduit indiscriminately or something. Now that you bring it up, however, make sure that the ends of the antenna aren't touching anything (or even better, have insulators on the ends) since several thousand volts can be present with 100W output. Even with 5-10W I'd be careful with where I put the ends; it doesn't take much to start a fire. Already planned for. I have plastic 'dog bone' insulators for the ends of the dipoles and will be running the wires through the air in the backyard and tying them off in the trees. I still need to plot out the configuration in the backyard, but if all goes well I'll have everything tied up about 50 or so feet off the ground out of the reach of the bastard neighbor kids. quote:If you're going to run your own ground rods, either one 8' long or four 4' long; anything less than that won't really do much. Still, though, since you're running in next to the electrical service I'd just bond to that. I strongly suggest reading this thread on eHam about grounding; his specifics are different from yours but a lot of the same general principles apply. I planned on running 4' rods, since those are easy to source. I'll definitely check out that link. Grounding is the only thing that really concerns me for some reason. quote:Ladder line, due to its balanced nature, is generally quieter and less prone to RFI (both in and out) than coax. Having said that, the coax you linked is good stuff; $1.50/foot is a steal. Also, most plans that I've seen for fan dipoles use coax all the way to the center insulator, since each dipole is tuned for one relatively narrow part of each band. Yeah, the fan dipole plans I intend to use also have coax from the top down. The only thing I need to do is build or buy a balun to connect to. That coax doesn't appear to be good for making an airwound choke. I emailed the guy and he said the stuff he's selling is actually the plenum wire, so it's up to code for fire resistance and can be run through ductwork. He also says he has 100 ft. runs of 7/8" Heliax, but that would be way too much excess line to have lying around. I think 50 ft might even be more than I need.
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Jul 6, 2010 07:33
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Welp, I quickly got frustrated by trying to use a straight key for CW. I started looking at iambic keyers online, waffled a bit over whether or not I should use one of those or a WinKeyer or equivalent instead and ended up back at the radio again once I realized I wasn't going to make a decision today. I then stumbled upon something wonderful, in my opinion. I ran across an option buried in the infamous Yaesu 400-pages-deep menu system. "MIC KEY - OFF" ... spun the dial and it switched to ON. Now, in CW mode, the radio's mic's buttons send morse code. Down key sends dashes, Up key sends dots. You set the speed it sends CW in the radio's menu system. I just left it at 12wpm for now. All you have to do is hold the mic like a video game controller and click back and forth on the up/down buttons to send out code. This has vastly improved my morse code abilities. I was having dreadful problems with timing and spacing. I also gave up on using DM780 to decode CW for me because its auto-WPM detection kept failing and thinking I was keying at 50+wpm so it kept misinterpreting what I was sending. The only amusing part of that was it then read "X" as "teet".
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Jul 7, 2010 00:32
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I just had an idea. Tell me if this is dumb... With all the people here who are ham operators, why couldn't we pick some random frequencies across the bands as "goon contact" frequencies? Like say we just decide that, to contact other board members by CW on the 40m band, simply listen to 7.031.50MHz for traffic or to try and catch them using SSB phone on 10m, use 28.435MHz, etc. It'd be cool to run into some of you on the air and it just struck me that having specific preferred frequencies chosen ahead of time may increase the chances of that. Maybe that's retarded and goes against all ham radio logic/rules/stuff. We could hold goon contests. 
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Jul 10, 2010 20:29
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Catastrophe posted:I just had an idea. Tell me if this is dumb... Now I have to upgrade to general! Maybe we could hook up a receiver to Echolink or something too.
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Jul 10, 2010 20:36
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Rev Quackers posted:Now I have to upgrade to general! Maybe we could hook up a receiver to Echolink or something too. You can but it isn't strictly necessary. Technician class operators actually have the ability to use a bunch of the HF bands. Check it out: http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Hambands_color.pdf We have slivers for CW-only on 80m, 40m and 15m. We also have CW, data and phone privileges on part of 10m. General should be an easy upgrade, though.
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Jul 10, 2010 21:12
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You might hear me calling CQ FD in September. I have not taken my license yet, but I'm planning to help operate a club station as a recruit.
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Jul 11, 2010 00:19
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Well, passed my technician and general a couple of days ago, just waiting for my call sign now. I was probably the only person under fifty taking the exams, and they had stuffed us into a tiny kindergarten classroom that was about 90 degrees because the air conditioning wasn't working. Now imagine five 50-70 year old greybeards and me sitting in tiny chairs hunched over a table about two feet off the ground. Fun times...
Blackmjolnir fucked around with this message at 05:22 on Jul 11, 2010 |
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Jul 11, 2010 00:32
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Catastrophe posted:I just had an idea. Tell me if this is dumb... I'd be down once I get my antenna built and up in the air. I'm not much for CW though, and it seems that the CW/digital mode software I have installed on my linux netbook (FLDIGI) sucks rear end. It's a shame that we're stuck following the universal rules regarding IDing. Nothing would be more hilarious than calling CQ only to have a chorus of 'GET OUT' and 'Stairs?' as a reply. Maybe we need to get with JetReadyGo and have some patches/t-shirts made. Oh, I'm also calling ownership over the terms 'Goontesting' and 'Calling CGoon'.
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Jul 11, 2010 01:00
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Is there any reason why we can't have a legitimate Something Awful radiogoon net?
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Jul 11, 2010 02:29
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How long do you guys think that it takes studying wise to pass at least the technician exam? I've had the book from the arrl for a while now, and I just need to find some time to read through it and take the test, but I don't know about how much time I actually need :/ edit: gently caress me ambushsabre fucked around with this message at 03:03 on Jul 11, 2010 |
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Jul 11, 2010 02:49
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AstroZamboni posted:Is there any reason why we can't have a legitimate Something Awful radiogoon net? Not as long as we adhere to general ham radio rules and regulations. If we do it, we should look for a frequency that sees relatively little traffic. One problem is finding one in the allowed freqs for Techs. Those are usually crowded as hell when conditions are good. If we get something going we should also try and get an IRC or EchoLink thing going at the same time for those without radios or whom are in the shortwave thread and want to join in. Ooh... Maybe we can start a frequency 'turf war' between us, Hamsexy, and that 4chan ham site that was linked eariler in the thread to try and upset the greybeards.
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Jul 11, 2010 02:53
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ambushsabre posted:book from the aarp Did you mean ARRL or were you making a joke about OFs on the airwaves? Also, it depends on your knowledge level, desire to understand vs. memorize, and ability to choose common sense answers out of multiple choice. I'd say if most tech-enabled people crammed for 2-3 nights for a couple hours a night youd have a solid chance. Longer than that if you want to really understand some of the fundamental material however, if you don't know it already. (I.e. Ohms law, basic math and ratios stuff.)
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Jul 11, 2010 02:56
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ambushsabre posted:How long do you guys think that it takes studying wise to pass at least the technician exam? I've had the book from the aarp for a while now, and I just need to find some time to read through it and take the test, but I don't know about how much time I actually need :/ Go take a handful of the QRZ practice tests and see how you do. Honestly, as long as you read the info and have a decent understanding of it you should be fine. I passed Tech and General in one shot using the practice tests and only had the Tech test prep book and studied (sat on couch loving around with the QRZ tests and reading the book while on the can) for like 2 weeks and passed with no problem.
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Jul 11, 2010 02:57
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BigHustle posted:I'd be down once I get my antenna built and up in the air. I'm not much for CW though, and it seems that the CW/digital mode software I have installed on my linux netbook (FLDIGI) sucks rear end. Really? I don't find fldigi THAT bad in Windows. I mean it's kind of clunky but most ham radio software is. I also use DM780 which is hilariously frustrating to use. BigHustle posted:It's a shame that we're stuck following the universal rules regarding IDing. Nothing would be more hilarious than calling CQ only to have a chorus of 'GET OUT' and 'Stairs?' as a reply. That would make me laugh for ages. The idea of that just made me laugh for a while. We could all jump on and send out SSTV images of byodood and Responsibility Clam. EDIT: If they sent out goony replies but no ID at all, how would anyone ever know who sent it? eh? eh?? Wink wink nudge nudge. (That would be wrong. Don't do it. I'm just sayin.) BigHustle posted:Not as long as we adhere to general ham radio rules and regulations. If we do it, we should look for a frequency that sees relatively little traffic. One problem is finding one in the allowed freqs for Techs. Those are usually crowded as hell when conditions are good. If we get something going we should also try and get an IRC or EchoLink thing going at the same time for those without radios or whom are in the shortwave thread and want to join in. I want to do this! The only problem I see is that the only HF band that allows voice traffic for tech license holders is the 10m band... and only a 200KHz wide window of the 10m band at that. Unless we all want to learn morse code, we're pretty stuck to 10m unless you want to flip tech licensees the bird and pick a section of the 40m band or something (which would force me and others, I'm sure, to upgrade to General quickly). Catastrophe fucked around with this message at 03:38 on Jul 11, 2010 |
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Jul 11, 2010 03:34
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Catastrophe posted:(which would force me and others, I'm sure, to upgrade to General quickly). I think that'd finally motivate me to get off my rear end and upgrade.
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Jul 11, 2010 04:23
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<-- Has a general class, yet lives in an apartment, and has no place to put a HF antenna that I can think of. 
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Jul 11, 2010 06:08
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Jose Pointero fucked around with this message at 04:20 on Aug 28, 2019 |
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Jul 11, 2010 06:11
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Jose Pointero posted:<-- Had a badass HF setup, then moved to a condo and have no place to put an HF antenna that I can think of. Yeah.. but you SOLD your stuff instead of GIVING it to me. 
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Jul 11, 2010 06:13
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Jose Pointero fucked around with this message at 04:20 on Aug 28, 2019 |
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Jul 11, 2010 06:45
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Catastrophe posted:Really? I don't find fldigi THAT bad in Windows. I mean it's kind of clunky but most ham radio software is. I also use DM780 which is hilariously frustrating to use. Catastrophe posted:That would make me laugh for ages. The idea of that just made me laugh for a while. We could all jump on and send out SSTV images of byodood and Responsibility Clam. Catastrophe posted:EDIT: If they sent out goony replies but no ID at all, how would anyone ever know who sent it? eh? eh?? Wink wink nudge nudge. (That would be wrong. Don't do it. I'm just sayin.) Catastrophe/Wolrah posted:]I want to do this! Speaking of... Sniep posted:<-- Has a general class, yet lives in an apartment, and has no place to put a HF antenna that I can think of.
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Jul 11, 2010 08:25
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Jose Pointero posted:
Sniep posted:<-- Has a general class, yet lives in an apartment, and has no place to put a HF antenna that I can think of. edit: BigHustle posted:Do it up Miami Vice style and make/buy one of Don Johnson's DK3 Screwdriver antennas. nmfree fucked around with this message at 08:35 on Jul 11, 2010 |
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Jul 11, 2010 08:33
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nmfree posted:I wonder how many hams get the joke... Does it have something to do with the article being full of references to the author's Big DK? I know I saw the name and immediately thought of the Dead Kennedys, and how 3 of the former members screwed the 4th one.
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Jul 11, 2010 08:44
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AstroZamboni posted:Is there any reason why we can't have a legitimate Something Awful radiogoon net? At this point I think we could probably organize a club as well.
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Jul 11, 2010 15:14
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LtDan posted:At this point I think we could probably organize a club as well. The minimum members to have a legitimate ARRL sanctioned club is 4. We could drat skippy start a club.
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Jul 11, 2010 17:15
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AstroZamboni posted:The minimum members to have a legitimate ARRL sanctioned club is 4. We could drat skippy start a club. But how can we have a club when every time someone tries to join we tell them to  ?
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Jul 11, 2010 18:04
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Got an Icom 92-AD DStar HT over in SAMart if anyone's interested.
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Jul 11, 2010 19:50
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BigHustle posted:But how can we have a club when every time someone tries to join we tell them to In reality, true goons would take that as a friendly greeting or invitation. People who would seriously get out after that are simply not worthy.
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Jul 11, 2010 22:29
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Today's callsign of the day: W0TUP. 
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Jul 12, 2010 00:56
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nmfree posted:Today's callsign of the day: W0TUP. W0RF is a pretty good one too. As is W0OT.
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Jul 12, 2010 01:58
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BigHustle posted:Where the hell is TC the Giant? He had plans to broadcast an SSTV image of the Get Out frog for all of Hamkind once he got his license. I haven't had the time to put together SSTV images yet. I got one of those job things everyone talks about. It's still the plan, though, but you have to find a place to broadcast it, plus identifying your callsign every ten minutes or so. Not to mention I can't cause much GET OUTrage with a 5-watt transmitter...
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Jul 12, 2010 02:37
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Once I pass the Extra element I'm gonna treat myself to a vanity callsign. I have a few ideas and will update you all with the nugget of hilarity I happen to strap myself to when it all goes down.TC the Giant posted:I haven't had the time to put together SSTV images yet. I got one of those job things everyone talks about. It's still the plan, though, but you have to find a place to broadcast it, plus identifying your callsign every ten minutes or so. If I can get this laptop configured properly and an antenna up soon, I'll see if you can pick me up out there for some decoding.
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Jul 12, 2010 03:08
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TC the Giant posted:I haven't had the time to put together SSTV images yet. I got one of those job things everyone talks about. It's still the plan, though, but you have to find a place to broadcast it, plus identifying your callsign every ten minutes or so. I don't know about SSTV but, depending on mode, 5W will go FAR. As I posted earlier, I very very clearly picked up a 1-Watt CW broadcast from a beacon in Chicago here in Philly recently. That's about 800 miles on 1W and I'm sure it'd reach much further since it was incredibly easy to copy here.
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Jul 12, 2010 03:29
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CW also has one-dimensional bandwidth requirements. SSTV needs about as much bandwidth as a normal phone transmission, and isn't terribly robust to begin with. I'm still going to make the test pattern GET OUT image, but I don't know how far I'll be able to throw it. On the plus side, if someone gets seriously up in arms over it, I promise I will issue a public statement calling them a loving retard.
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Jul 12, 2010 22:02
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