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josiahgould posted:My only real problem is unless I find an amazing deal (like someone telling me it's free...) I won't have a radio until around Halloween. Are there any very cheap rigs that are out there that would hold me over until I can get something more permanent? I just want to get on and start chatting on the Gulf Coast Repeater Net. xergm posted:Anyone ever build a 2m/440 yagi or modify an old TV antenna?  "WA5VJB Cheap antenna" for a proven homebrew antenna and diplexer design that can be made with (mostly) junkbox parts.
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Aug 8, 2011 11:13
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I don't know if any of you guys watch the "Falling Sky" tv show on TNT, but they had a Globe Scout 40a transmitter in the last two episodes this season. Of course, it's like hollywood with computers so there's a couple things I had to overlook with it. Still neat though.
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Aug 9, 2011 16:42
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I've been finding listening in on the emergency radio for my city rather interesting. At the moment I'm listening from an internet stream. I'd like to get something small or portable so I can listen in directly. The system used looks to be a trunked system, so it sounds like I'd need a radio that can handle that. System is a motorola type II smartnet, operating in the high 800Mhz. Would something like the yaesu ft-60r work for that? or anyone other recommendations for a cheap entry level type radio?
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Aug 11, 2011 01:24
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Golluk posted:I've been finding listening in on the emergency radio for my city rather interesting. At the moment I'm listening from an internet stream. Well, you'd likely want a scanner for this, not a ham radio per-se.. The FT-60r does not handle trunking (I own one) and I don't think many do (if any?) I'd like to know too on this what a good entry level scanner is though, it seems that everyone I know at least just ends up shelling out $200 to $500 for something like a bearcat. See: http://universal-radio.com/catalog/scanners/0346.html
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Aug 11, 2011 01:31
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Picking an entry level scanner really depends on where you live. You need to take into account is what kind of trunking the nearby systems use. Most trunked systems in non-metropolitan areas are just normal motorola analog systems. However some systems are normally trunked, or even non-trunked, but use digital voice (Project 25 CAI) You need a digital scanner to receive these. Then there are trunked systems that are Project 25 Phase I, meaning they use digital trunking AND digital voice. Only the higher-end scanners will do both digital trunking and digital voice. I think the cheapest one right now is $350 at Radio Shack. (Pro-197) Then, there are trunked systems that are Project 25 Phase II, meaning that they utilize a special type of TDMA/FDMA hybrid trunking that only one scanner on the market can decode. (The GRE-800) The best thing to do when picking a scanner is to figure out what method of voice encoding (analog or digital) agencies near you use, then figure out if any are fully Project 25 Phase I or Project 25 Phase II systems. Then buy accordingly. If you live way out in the sticks, you can pobably just buy a conventional non-trunking analog scanner, as your county/city agencies probably don't use trunking. However you may not be able to hear your state police agencies with these, as many states have started using trunking. If you live in a small/medium-sized city you may be able to get by with a normal analog trunk-tracking scanner that will not decode digital voice. You can probably get one of these for $150-$200, or cheaper used. Many of these scanners support computer programming through USB, etc. If you live in a big city such as DC though, you pretty much won't hear squat unless you have a Project 25 Phase I digital trunking scanner. Sure you will hear stuff like cab companies, airports/planes or old multi-use trunking systems, but nothing very interesting. (Other than aircraft) If you get a scanner capable of Project 25 Phase I, you will hear just about everything, except for any agencies that are Project 25 Phase II. There are very few agencies that have moved to Phase II, in the DC area there are only two (Prince George's County and Loudon County.) The cheapest Phase I scanner that I know of is at Radio Shack and runs about $350 (Pro-197.) There's only one Phase II scanner out right now I think, and that's the GRE-800. ($450 - $500) Phase II uses hybrid TDMA/FDMA and those are just now coming on the market. The best thing to do to start is go to the database at http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/ - find your state/province/county, and the nearby counties. Make a list of what systems the agencies in your area use, then buy a scanner accordingly.
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Aug 11, 2011 16:13
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The price difference in scanners is a lot less than it is in ham radios. Just save some pennies, and get a high-end Uniden or GRE. You'll have access to all that fancy trunking stuff, plus you won't find yourself wishing, "gee, I wish I had this feature."
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Aug 11, 2011 16:19
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Still learning things here. I found someone selling a "uniden 780" for 130 bucks. As far as I can tell, it should work for my cities emergency radio system. Here's the radio reference information sheet btw. http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?ctid=4296 It lists the tone as CTCSS. I'm assuming this is analog compared to DCS which is ditigal? Also the 780 is over 10 years old it seems, and analogue only. Not sure if I should keep looking for a newer model that handles digital as well.
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Aug 13, 2011 11:23
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Golluk posted:Still learning things here. I found someone selling a "uniden 780" for 130 bucks. As far as I can tell, it should work for my cities emergency radio system. Here's the radio reference information sheet btw. http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?ctid=4296 It looks like that scanner will do all trucking except project 25. It's also an analog-only scanner, meaning you won't be able to hear digital voice transmission. That's fine for the Hamilton City system HERE as it has normal analog voice. It will also pick up the conventional non-trunked channels on the page you linked. The "Bell Fleetnet - Ontario Provincial Government Zone 1" system is Motorola but seems to be Analog voice/Project 25 voice hybrid. So you may be able to get some/most of the transmissions. I'll tall about this more in a second. The "Hamilton Police Service (Intelligence)" system is Motorola as well, however it is Project 25 CAI voice, and encrypted to boot. Meaning, the Uniden 780 scanner can follow the system and talkgroups, but all of the transmissions will sound like weird digital sounds. Even if you were to get a scanner that decoded Project 25 CAI voice, that system is encrypted so it wouldn't matter. Then there is the "Metrolinx - GO Transit" system. That one is fully Project 25, so you need a high-end scanner for that. About Hybrid voice: Some large systems have lots of different models of radios on them. Most new-ish motorola commercial radios support Project 25 voice, in addition to analog voice. However a lot of old handheld radios only support analog voice. Since it's not as cost effective to just throw away hundreds/thousands of radios at a time, motorola will setup a system as hybrid so it can use both types of radios. Basically, if all of the radios on a certain talkgroup are Project 25 CAI capable, then that talkgroup will use Project 25 voice, and an older scanner won't be able to monitor it. However, if an analog-only radio joins the talkgroup, the system will switch all of the radios to analog-only mode so that the old radio will be able to hear all of the transmissions. So if there are enough old radios on a system, older scanners should be able to monitor it most if not all of the time. You may also want to look into getting the programming software and a cable if you get a trunking scanner, they are a bitch to program from the front panel. With most programming software, you can just interface the radio reference database directly (with a subscription) and have it download everything to the scanner.
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Aug 13, 2011 12:55
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This Saturday, August 20 from 1300Z to 2100Z, our local Ham Club will be running a special event station for the Heritage Days Festival in East Grand Forks, MN. The Heritage Days has reenactments and displays of old time technology and such, more info can be found here http://www.egfheritage.com/ (I have nothing to do with that abortion of a site, or the heritage village, BTW) We are going to be issuing certificates of some sort for QSO's; I haven't seen what they have come up with yet, if anything, but that's what I've been told. Anyone interested listen for N0GF special event station.
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Aug 18, 2011 15:29
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Will you be using steam powered tube gear?
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Aug 18, 2011 17:50
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That might be fun, if I could figure out what quit working on the old tube radio I do have. I just haven't had the ambition to fix it. I'll be running an Icom IC-7000, most likely on 20m.
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Aug 18, 2011 20:28
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The Hurricane Watch Net is active and can be heard online here: http://www.hwn.org/Net%20Activation%20Plans/NetActivationPlan.htm
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Aug 27, 2011 19:43
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This weekend is the Region 1 Field Day. Listen for "CQ Field Day" or "CQ FD" on HF SSB, CW or digimode, and on the FM and SSB/CW satellites this weekend. Each country has different rules for scoring, but the exchange will be 59(9) and serial number. (Which is a bit like a half-deaf man screaming "I can hear you perfectly" after trying many times to get your name correct - perhaps it's time to lose the RST from the field day exchange?) Even if you're in America, Australia or Southern Asia, this might be a chance to pick up some DXCC entities or special event stations in Europe, Africa and the Middle East which aren't usually so active. I think they welcome log submissions for cross-checking too. Region 1 of the IARU has also made some changes to the HF band plan http://www.iaru-r1.org/ quote:The IARU Region 1 conference in Sun City made some changes to the Region 1 HF band plan. On 40m the CW contest preferred segment got withdrawn; four new 10m FM Repeater channels were introduced which required a shift of the 10m FM Simplex channels. Vir fucked around with this message at 11:14 on Sep 2, 2011 |
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Sep 2, 2011 11:09
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Crap, I always miss region 1 field day. I'm going on vacation this weekend. It's a great way to work some non-garden-variety DX on CW without having to send and copy 25+ WPM. Sure there are tons of QRQ super-stations but you can hear some QRS ones too.
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Sep 2, 2011 12:36
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Just picked up 2 ICOM IC-U400 units at a goodwill for 10bux each. Good deal? Anyone have any background on these?
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Sep 7, 2011 01:10
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ASSTASTIC posted:Just picked up 2 ICOM IC-U400 units at a goodwill for 10bux each. Good deal? http://www.icomcanada.com/archive/land/ic-u400.htm They're UHF business band radios that work in one of three frequency pairs ( 400-430 MHz or 450-480 MHz or 480-520 MHz) and will need to be reprogrammed to use for ham frequencies if the previous owner hadn't done so already. The programming is done with a separate programming module. So, if you can find an EX-494 lying around, you have a couple of 35w ham rigs. If you can't find one, you have some $10 paperweights.
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Sep 7, 2011 01:41
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BigHustle posted:http://www.icomcanada.com/archive/land/ic-u400.htm Once those are reprogrammed, do you still need the EX-494 attached to the radio? How will I be able to tell if they have been reprogrammed already? I'll get a few pictures up for you all to see very soon.
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Sep 7, 2011 04:04
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ASSTASTIC posted:Once those are reprogrammed, do you still need the EX-494 attached to the radio? How will I be able to tell if they have been reprogrammed already? I'll get a few pictures up for you all to see very soon. The EX-494 is only needed when programming. You plug the radio in, enter your frequencies, and unplug it until you need to change the freqs. The easiest way to see if they've been reprogrammed is to connect them to a power supply and fire 'em up. If they've been reprogrammed for the ham bands, they'll have a frequency range from around 420 mHz to 450 mHz. The US band plan chart is here. You might want to hit your local ham clubs or QRZ and see if someone has one that you can use if you don't want to buy one or don't care about reprogramming them once you get your local repeater info set. Most of the guys with niche equipment don't mind showing it off or meeting up for a quick reprogramming session.
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Sep 7, 2011 23:05
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Well, I take my test in the morning. Now after I pass I just have to convince my wife to let me order my radio. I'm planning on starting out with the Baofeng UV3R. Wish me luck (on both)! (Edit: Aced tech, tried and failed general. KI5FR loaned me Wouxun KG-UV2D until I get my own in a few weeks.) josiahgould fucked around with this message at 18:00 on Sep 10, 2011 |
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Sep 10, 2011 04:40
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Sniep posted:Well, you'd likely want a scanner for this, not a ham radio per-se.. The FT-60r does not handle trunking (I own one) and I don't think many do (if any?) It's pretty easy: 290's Scanner Shopping Guide: Look on radioreference if you need P25. If true, buy Bearcat 396 or 996. If false, buy Bearcat 346 or BCT15. For lack of a better term there are 'old world' and 'new world' Unidens. The old ones have 20 banks of 50 channels each blah blah, all that crap is fixed and alpha tags are an afterthought. The new style doesn't stick with banks/channels as much; you program a system and as many channels as it has; that 'bank' then only has that number of channels. The old style is clunky and crap; the new style is smooth, fast and makes more sense from a design standpoint to Computer Guys. If you just want a radio on in the background that hits the local PD and fire depts, I guess one of the old style ones would work. Be aware that the cheapie $100 Unidens, even though they do 800, will probably not play nicely with trunked systems; you'll have to kind of kludge it and program all the trunked systems' channels, then change which one is locked out whenever the data channel changes (usually midnight). I really can't recommend Uniden's newer scanners enough; they are built well and work great. My 396t turns 5 in November, and it works exactly like it did on day one, and I've dropped it on pavement, left it sit in a 130F car for a weekend, etc etc. Only thing to watch are the rotary encoders, which seem to crap out after 2-3 years from what I hear - mine's still fine. e: Dijkstra very nice post, I wasn't aware p25 phaseii was rolled out yet. CMON UNIDEN Jonny 290 fucked around with this message at 08:33 on Sep 11, 2011 |
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Sep 11, 2011 08:25
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josiahgould posted:Well, I take my test in the morning. Congratulations on getting your Tech. If you haven't checked it out yet, try HamExam.org for studying and test taking. That's the site that got me through my Extra ticket.
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Sep 11, 2011 16:49
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Got my callsign about an hour ago. KK4EBQ Got my first contact and called into my first net. Yeah, I know you can look up my address from that. I like visitors!
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Sep 14, 2011 02:33
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BigHustle posted:Most of the guys with niche equipment don't mind showing it off or meeting up for a quick reprogramming session.  But yeah if any of you guys need programming done for any moto XTS (except the 3000) or XTL radios, let me know. Some of the work I do requires me to maintain a subscription to Motorola's ASTRO CPS stuff, so I have the cables and software lying around. Also as a protip, if you happen to find an XTL radio in a consolette setup (big white box that holds the radio, power supply, and a couple of fans) for a decent price, snatch it up. You might luck out and get a 110W version, but they make excellent base station radios regardless (and are likely P25). If there's any interest in the latest and greatest of public safety radio stuff, I might be able to take some pictures and show how the current generation of dispatch consoles handles multiple radios with multi-band (VHF, UHF, 700/800 MHz) patching capabilities. It's pretty awesome, and I'm hoping that the ham world will catch up eventually.
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Sep 14, 2011 12:53
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Jose Pointero fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Aug 28, 2019 |
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Sep 22, 2011 04:06
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Ho lee poo poo, Jose. That is beautiful. Great find. I cut my teeth on a borrowed 101 for a while back in the day. Now I want to get wire up so we can try to finally have a qso  my 80/40 dipole took a dive in ice and I haven't put it back up yet.
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Sep 22, 2011 07:52
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Jose Pointero fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Aug 28, 2019 |
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Sep 22, 2011 14:58
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That's awesome Jose. Hurry up and get that thing on the high bands... solar flux is up and 10 and 12 are rockin. I worked Guam yesterday on 10 meter CW with 70 watts. My first club had one of those FT-101s. I think you can easily convert it to work on 12 meters by replacing the 11m crystal. I've been wanting one of those to tinker with... nice find.
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Sep 23, 2011 13:11
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Jose Pointero fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Aug 28, 2019 |
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Sep 23, 2011 13:22
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It's been picking up in the late afternoon/evening, but the southerly paths have been open most of the day. Some people are saying 12 is staying open half of the night but I haven't had as much luck. I got Guam at 2145 UTC. KH2 is NW from my QTH (DC area) People are working the 4W6A Dxpedition from the 5th call district on 12 meters as late as 0300z. (WNW) I also got Montenegro on 10m CW the day before about 2 hours earlier in the day (1900z). That's NE from here so all of these directions definitely suggest F layer propagation. The cycle's picking back up, you chose a good time to build the yagi. I'd like to build a moxon for 12 or 10 but I have nowhere to put it up. My wife and I are hopefully buying a house with a yard before too long so hopefully I will soon.
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Sep 23, 2011 14:12
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Around 0100Z Last night was probably a good opening somewhere. A buddy of mine who was out on the road trucking called to tell me he was getting a lot of skip on his CB. I turned my rig on and spun across 10m for about 5 mins, and didn't hear anything, but 27.185 was jam packed. My guess is nobody was calling on 10m so they didn't know the opening was there, since he told me it was absolutely quiet right before he called me.
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Sep 23, 2011 15:44
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Jose that's good photos actually. I think I already said in this thread that I wanted an FT-101 some day. Thanks to good propagation, and the other guy having a high gain beam, I was 59 into Ireland on 20 meters on a little 2 meter long indoor antenna, inside a concrete and rebar apartment, with just 5 watts on Thursday. This is fun.
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Sep 24, 2011 17:10
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I'm going to the radio club meeting after 2 months of being off the air due to the new job and being fed up with the bullshit. Hopefully I'll get an update on my FT-101, assuming that Paul has had a chance to get it on the bench.
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Sep 24, 2011 17:21
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I have just discovered http://www.radioreference.com/apps/audio/?feedId=4746 and it has been non stop entertainment. These guys are funny and the gimick people like "squeaky voice" have been pretty good. Someone did a "Mobile church of the .435" where you could confess your sins on air. A bunch of people confessed to all sorts of things and the "reverend" just came back and explained that every thing from porn addictions to smoking weed were all very normal.
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Sep 25, 2011 00:56
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yummycheese posted:I have just discovered That used to be W6NUT. It's also known as the poo poo hole of the ham community. Great stuff to be heard there. EDIT: Fixed the hosed up auto-corrected post above. I also have been listening to .435 since this post and got to hear a big "friend of the family/human being" namecalling fight, then the repeater owner got involved and it turned into a fight between her and the one shouting "friend of the family", then some dude logged in totally stoned out of his gourd sounding like a mix between Chong and a redneck. Great stuff. BigHustle fucked around with this message at 06:17 on Sep 25, 2011 |
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Sep 25, 2011 04:53
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Jose Pointero fucked around with this message at 05:11 on Aug 28, 2019 |
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Sep 25, 2011 06:49
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Jose Pointero posted:I'm gonna get a decent tuner, of course. One thing I'm trying to decide on though, should I feed it with coax or ladder line? I've been eyeballing some of the higher-end tuners that put out a "balanced" output to ladder line, seems like they'd be ideal for a setup like this. Personally, I'd feed something like that with ladder line if I could, since keeping as much as possible balanced is easier to deal with (electrically speaking).
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Sep 25, 2011 07:05
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Jose Pointero posted:5 watts into Ireland?!? Holy crap I need to get my antenna up. I would either 1) Find one of those fancy coax-fed SGC Autotuners that are meant to tune loops and what not, stick it in the attic near the feedpoint and just attach the antenna elements directly to the terminals of the tuner. Those SGC tuners run about $400 though. Alternatively: 2) Like nmfree said, get a good 4:1 balun, some ladder line, an inexpensive MFJ or LDG tuner and just run coax to the balun. You could also experiment with running coax all the way instead (leaving out the ladder line) to see what works better. You could always get some opinions from the eham forums. By the time everyone is done arguing about it you should have a pretty good idea of what to do.
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Sep 25, 2011 21:08
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Jose Pointero posted:5 watts into Ireland?!? Holy crap I need to get my antenna up.
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Sep 26, 2011 13:51
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What's your indoor antenna look like, Vir? I'm in a dorm room with a couple rolls of magnet wire and some 300ohm twin-lead. Any suggestions? I tried taping up a horizontal loop, but all I got was pretty much static. I'll have to investigate if I can get the screen of the window out. Maybe I can throw some wire out without too much trouble.
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Sep 26, 2011 15:05
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It's actually a zipline dipole cut for being a half-wave long on 27MHz, tuned with the Elecraft T1 auto-tuner. I use it for my CB radio, with a tuner on ham bands, and I also use it as a balanced feed line for larger dipoles; or random wires - you can tune up pretty much anything, at which point you know you have either a resonant antenna system, a dummy load, or something in between. At the time I hung it as a vertical in front of a window, with the shield half as a counter-poise on the floor. It's probably a pretty terrible antenna for 20 meters; as I said it was the other guy's 15-element log periodic and the conditions which really did the work. After I get my ZS6BKW built, my next antenna projects will be a UHF/VHF beam and then maybe an indoor HF loop. Vir fucked around with this message at 17:11 on Sep 26, 2011 |
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Sep 26, 2011 17:01
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