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eddiewalker posted:(Sup fellow KC ham)  So anyone have any idea why the VOX on my Wouxun isn't triggering? I've been trying to play with APRSdroid and I've connected my old phone (HTC One X) up with a 3.5mm headset split adapter as follows: Headset adapter Out -> 3.5mm cable -> Wouxun Mic In Headset adapter In <- 3.5mm cable <- 3.5 to 2.5mm adapter <- Wouxun Speaker Out It seems to decode fine, but it doesn't key up whenever APRSdroid starts outputting AFSK. If I remove the headset adapter and plug the 3.5mm cable from the jack on the phone directly to the Wouxun Mic In, it keys it up just fine. For a one way tracker on my motorcycle, this should work just fine, but I wanted to connect the radio output too so the phone can monitor other stations and avoid stepping over them on TX.
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Mar 9, 2015 19:46
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xergm posted:I wouldn't be surprised if the availability of cheap receive-only devices like an RTL-SDR stick caused more than a few of those licenses. The $30-40 Baofeng UV5R is what pushed me over the edge. I had been RX only with scanners for the longest time, but once I learned about a cheap rear end transceiver I couldn't help myself. Evidently they are coming out with a Baofeng/Pofung (they've rebranded apparently) dual band mobile in the next month or so. They already have a UHF only unit for $149 (http://www.amazon.com/Baofeng-BF-9500-Transceiver-Vehicle-400-470MHz/dp/B00RFI8YXK/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1425933085&sr=8-6&keywords=pofung), but there is talk of a dual band coming out. If it's under $200 I'll probably snag it.
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Mar 9, 2015 21:32
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charliebravo77 posted:Evidently they are coming out with a Baofeng/Pofung (they've rebranded apparently) dual band mobile in the next month or so. They already have a UHF only unit for $149 (http://www.amazon.com/Baofeng-BF-9500-Transceiver-Vehicle-400-470MHz/dp/B00RFI8YXK/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1425933085&sr=8-6&keywords=pofung), but there is talk of a dual band coming out. If it's under $200 I'll probably snag it. gently caress yes. I've been hoping something like this would pop up.
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Mar 9, 2015 21:49
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There is a shifty baofeng dual band already out iirc and it was not good. Same with the anytone, and the passable tyt th-9800. You get what you pay for with those.
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Mar 10, 2015 00:14
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xergm posted:
Check you pin out, I believe I had to lift the ring from one of the two, because it would trigger either PTT or the phone to thing the headset button was pressed. It was not plug and play for both, but either or should work. Working from memory.
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Mar 10, 2015 00:19
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charliebravo77 posted:The $30-40 Baofeng UV5R is what pushed me over the edge. I had been RX only with scanners for the longest time, but once I learned about a cheap rear end transceiver I couldn't help myself. Dual band... they've already come out with SIX BAND for less than $150 -> https://anytonetech.com/purchase  I can't get over the naming schemes for the radios, how rad will I feel with my trusty OBLTR-8R in hand! And apparently the path to heaven is paved hawking cheap chinese radios to the congregation of customers that is Amazon. Taken from their about page:  "Have you heard the good news? He has risen! 73!"
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Mar 10, 2015 04:44
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Supposedly one of those is part 95 certified? Interesting. Also they are multi band for crappy receive, they look to be dual band tx yet, 2/.7 m
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Mar 10, 2015 12:36
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Anyone know a good supplier/maker of really rugged wifi-antennas? We're looking to set up a 10 km LoS link in the 2.4 GHz wifi band and one end of the link is a small mountaintop with fairly extreme weather during winter, so a temperature spec of ~-40 degrees C and good icing performance would be excellent. Gain around 6-20 dBi, we can always increase power since it's a ham band. Looking at the TP-link grid parabolic antenna for the ground level part but we're not sure it's rugged enough for the remote end, servicing will be a massive pain in winter.
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Mar 10, 2015 21:21
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I've messed around with this antenna, but only for a short link to garage built away from the house. 2 things to keep in mind: This has an N connector, so you'll probably need an adapter as most consumer equipment uses RP-SMA. If you up the power to operate under amateur rules, you can't use encryption, so it'll have to be an open access point.
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Mar 10, 2015 21:29
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The thing about the SDR based Baofeng type radios is a: their UI is ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE like who wrote this? and b: they are by nature cheap on the RF side with little to no RF filtering so you get massive intermod and desense if you're in an urban area. If you live in a city and have problems with pagers and trunked systems blowing your poo poo up, it's so much more worth it to go find like a Kenwood TR-7950 or an Icom IC-28h, something like that. The lowly Realistic HTX-202 was 'disruptive' back in the day because it covered exactly 144-148 mhz, with strong bandpass filtering. It put even the 'wideband' Icoms and Yaesus that covered 138-174 receive to shame when you got within earshot of pager towers. Bonus points for going full greybeard and reprogramming some old Motorola gear, but the learning curve and barrier to entry is so high on that poo poo you almost have to justify it by setting up an under the table business
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Mar 11, 2015 01:18
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Jonny 290 posted:The thing about the SDR based Baofeng type radios is a: their UI is ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE like who wrote this? and b: they are by nature cheap on the RF side with little to no RF filtering so you get massive intermod and desense if you're in an urban area. The thing to take away from this is GET THE loving PROGRAMMING CABLE. No, you aren't just going to spend a few extra minutes and use the keypad. No, you're not going to program in 20 repeaters by hand. You will realize this the first time you try to change any setting, and then you'll have to wait a week for your programming cable to arrive so you can use Chirp to program it like a normal person and not want to kill yourself. Also if there's a driver link on the product page from whoever you bought the cable from, don't lose the link, because there's about a 300% chance the FTDI chip is counterfeit and probably only works with their drivers (mine is counterfeit as all hell but luckily they were nice enough to include counterfeit drivers too.) I suspect that when the chip is going to be encased in molded plastic and will never see the light of day again unless you're literally destroying the cable, there's not much motivation to use genuine chips. SoundMonkey fucked around with this message at 02:26 on Mar 11, 2015 |
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Mar 11, 2015 02:23
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SoundMonkey posted:The thing to take away from this is GET THE loving PROGRAMMING CABLE. No, you aren't just going to spend a few extra minutes and use the keypad. No, you're not going to program in 20 repeaters by hand. You will realize this the first time you try to change any setting, and then you'll have to wait a week for your programming cable to arrive so you can use Chirp to program it like a normal person and not want to kill yourself. You'll also realize the programming cable is worth its weight in gold when you're able to load all of your presets back into your radio after accidentally wiping them because you weren't paying attention while you tried to adjust the squelch setting and were back a menu, which is factory reset.
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Mar 11, 2015 02:39
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poeticoddity posted:You'll also realize the programming cable is worth its weight in gold when you're able to load all of your presets back into your radio after accidentally wiping them because you weren't paying attention while you tried to adjust the squelch setting and were back a menu, which is factory reset. In case anyone thinks this guy is joking, he's not. I'm also still not entirely convinced the squelch setting actually does anything. Another thing I'm a fan of is the FM radio function, so that with a single button press I can be listening to classic rock from a terrible speaker. Use that feature all the time. Don't let that dissuade you from getting a Baofeng HT, they're still a great value for the dollar and not complete trash, just some odd/incomprehensible quirks. SoundMonkey fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Mar 11, 2015 |
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Mar 11, 2015 02:59
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SoundMonkey posted:I'm also still not entirely convinced the squelch setting actually does anything. There's an update to CHIRP that might help if your firmware is new enough: http://www.miklor.com/COM/UV_Squelch.php
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Mar 11, 2015 03:50
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MisterOblivious posted:There's an update to CHIRP that might help if your firmware is new enough: http://www.miklor.com/COM/UV_Squelch.php Glad someone mentioned CHIRP, it's great. Also it's the Prolific cables that are always counterfeit, the FTDI ones are usually legit. Though there was that recent thing where bogus FTDI stuff was getting tagged but that's just the name of the game with Prolific clones like the 1st party Baofeng cables for the UV5R for instance. Use Linux.
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Mar 11, 2015 05:39
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MisterOblivious posted:There's an update to CHIRP that might help if your firmware is new enough: http://www.miklor.com/COM/UV_Squelch.php I just checked my firmware version and I know what I'm doing in the morning. Wonder if I'll stop getting blasted by the hospital pager
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Mar 11, 2015 05:54
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local cops running mototrbo breaking through is almost more effective than a radar detector though.
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Mar 11, 2015 05:55
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before: after: There's a few spots driving around where I can really tell if this is making a difference. Excited to see what happens PuTTY riot fucked around with this message at 15:32 on Mar 11, 2015 |
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Mar 11, 2015 15:28
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I'm working on learning CW right now - but all I have is a cheap HT for 2m talking. What would I need (obviously in addition to a CW key) to start talking to people with bleeps and bloops? Is it mostly only seen on HF? What's the current best deal for getting started with HF?
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Mar 12, 2015 18:26
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Can I take a 12v wall wart for an old alarm panel and connect it to a cigarette lighter socket, and plug a uv-5r battery eliminator into that? Will I end up with a weird hum or something?
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Mar 12, 2015 18:39
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PuTTY riot posted:Can I take a 12v wall wart for an old alarm panel and connect it to a cigarette lighter socket, and plug a uv-5r battery eliminator into that? Will I end up with a weird hum or something? The battery eliminator is probably a 7808 or LM317 so it probably won't hum but expect it to get warm when talking.
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Mar 12, 2015 18:43
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longview posted:The battery eliminator is probably a 7808 or LM317 so it probably won't hum but expect it to get warm when talking. would replacing the batt eliminator internals with something like this be a wise move?
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Mar 12, 2015 20:38
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longview posted:The battery eliminator is probably a 7808 or LM317 so it probably won't hum but expect it to get warm when talking. ...which it will anyways, as per a datasheet for one of the many near-identical UV-5* radios, the duty cycle (hourly) is specified as 55m/4m/1m (idle/receive/transmit). That may just be nonsense since I've only noticed mild warming with mine but still.
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Mar 12, 2015 22:59
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COOL CORN posted:I'm working on learning CW right now - but all I have is a cheap HT for 2m talking. What would I need (obviously in addition to a CW key) to start talking to people with bleeps and bloops? Is it mostly only seen on HF? What's the current best deal for getting started with HF? older, but not too old, japanese radio. icom/kenwood/yaesu. 706-mk2g's, which are incredible swiss army knives, go for about 600. below that is the 400-600 range which is like nice 80s/ 90s base radio money, ts-850s, ic-751a, that sort of thing. Down around 250-400 you have things like the IC-735 (my battle axe), ft-757gx, ts-450s, so on. If you can run the long game on ebay and be patient, the right radio will come through and you can get a good deal. Shop and shop and shop some more. (you can look all those model numbers up below) best suggestion is to hit up http://www.eham.net/reviews/products/14 start readin, pay attention to the ones with lots of reviews and a 4.5 or better average. don't go for some old FT-101 clunker or a tube type radio for your first, even if there is a CB dude selling a hacked up somethingorother on CL for $175. They're just too cantankerous and hard to work on, which you frequently need to do. Jonny 290 fucked around with this message at 05:41 on Mar 13, 2015 |
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Mar 13, 2015 05:39
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SoundMonkey posted:...which it will anyways, as per a datasheet for one of the many near-identical UV-5* radios, the duty cycle (hourly) is specified as 55m/4m/1m (idle/receive/transmit). If it's anything like the one I bought for my Puxing radio then it's literally a LM317 hot glued in a battery case with no heat sink. It didn't get warm so much as it melted. PuTTY riot posted:would replacing the batt eliminator internals with something like this be a wise move?
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Mar 13, 2015 08:05
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Jonny 290 posted:older, but not too old, japanese radio. icom/kenwood/yaesu. 706-mk2g's, which are incredible swiss army knives, go for about 600. below that is the 400-600 range which is like nice 80s/ 90s base radio money, ts-850s, ic-751a, that sort of thing. Down around 250-400 you have things like the IC-735 (my battle axe), ft-757gx, ts-450s, so on. If you can run the long game on ebay and be patient, the right radio will come through and you can get a good deal. Shop and shop and shop some more. (you can look all those model numbers up below) -. .. -.-. . (Nice.) Thanks!
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Mar 13, 2015 13:13
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Was walking to the community radio station to fix something the other day, walked past this house. ...I think I should get to know whoever lives there. Needless to say this was also at nearly the highest point in town.
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Mar 14, 2015 01:42
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My uv5r came in the mail today. I also ordered the microphone, because it brought be into the range of free shipping on amazon... It's a nifty little radio for $25, or whatever I paid for it. The menu system is a bit weird, and I haven't tried programming it yet (I got the USB cable), but it'll be great for just bullshitting around with.
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Mar 17, 2015 02:09
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chrisgt posted:My uv5r came in the mail today. I also ordered the microphone, because it brought be into the range of free shipping on amazon... If you only have 2 or 3 local repeaters (like I do), you can in theory just use the keypad, but yeah the programming cable will make your life a lot easier (see also the squelch adjustment stuff someone posted earlier.) By default mine just listens to fire and ambulance dispatch as a halfassed scanner, but I have a bunch of repeaters programmed into memory mode. CHIRP makes it so impossibly easy. The UV-5R actually can "scan", by the strictest definition, but it's really goddamn slow and the squelch is terrible so not really. I do like its ability to scan down CTCSS frequencies when receiving though.
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Mar 17, 2015 05:13
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Well the USB cable is dead ... Plug it into linux and it spits out garbage in the syslog about USB CABLE BROKEN NO WORKEY. lovely. Yay china garbage. It's just a serial interface, I'll just wire something up to use a normal usb to serial thingy and never mess with this garbage again...
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Mar 17, 2015 14:58
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Another "I've been out of the game a long time" question. I want to pick up a dual band 2m xceiver to put in my car, since, realistically, I'm still a tech and don't really need a HF rig at the moment. What's the standard entry-level recommendation these days? Years ago I had a Yaesu, but I didn't know if there was a Wouxun/Boufeng equivalent of mobile rigs that won't make my car explode.
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Mar 17, 2015 15:13
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Personally I just use a UV-5R with an external (fender mounted) antenna I don't have any problem hitting the local repeaters with this setup.
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Mar 17, 2015 15:27
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PuTTY riot posted:Personally I just use a UV-5R with an external (fender mounted) antenna Sounds like a good setup. I know the Nagoya 16" antenna is the recommended add-on antenna, but what about a mag mount antenna? What do you have on your fender?
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Mar 17, 2015 15:35
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I've got the following antenna and vehicle specific mount (it uses an existing fender support bracket bolt) http://www.theantennafarm.com/catalog/tram-1180-1566.html and http://www.theantennafarm.com/catalog/suburban-chevrolet-sierra-pickup-sierra-3863.html
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Mar 17, 2015 15:40
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COOL CORN posted:Another "I've been out of the game a long time" question. You got the HT recommendation, but do you want a decent setup with like 50+ watts? I was going to say get the Yaesu FT-1900r because I have one and like it.......but then I looked at the price. When I bought one a couple years ago it was like $135 and there was a $35 rebate from Yaesu. Quick price check has them in the $160 range now. WTF happened? In any case.....having 55 watts in a mobile is nice. And the Baofengs are so cheap you should just buy one of those too.
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Mar 17, 2015 16:17
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Motronic posted:You got the HT recommendation, but do you want a decent setup with like 50+ watts? I blame preppers. I don't know why, but I do.
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Mar 17, 2015 17:22
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PuTTY riot posted:I blame preppers. I don't know why, but I do. It's true. My mom had a stint as a wannabe prepper, and went through a "GASP all communications are going to be knocked out, I'm going to become a licensed ham operator!!" phase. But, then the first section of the study guide was going over Ohm's Law, she got overwhelmed and stopped.
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Mar 17, 2015 18:40
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Blame subaru guys too. All those rally kids run illegal 2m simplex in the woods. I've turned down a couple mobile install gigs because "we're just going to use it out in the woods" and "who are you, the fcc?"
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Mar 17, 2015 18:59
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One of the guys in my club with a tall tower at his house said he heard some people on 2m simplex not using callsigns or anything. my guess is hunters/off road ppl. I guess that's the dark side of the $35 baofeng. Speaking of towers it's really nice having that antenna up above my roof, I can press the reverse button and actually still hear people!
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Mar 17, 2015 19:18
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chrisgt posted:USB CABLE BROKEN NO WORKEY. lovely. Prolific or FTDI? Prolific cables are notoriously counterfiet, and have to use weird rear end old or hacked drivers. I have one of each and the FTDI works 100% of the time any OS, the prolific only works on my Mac.
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Mar 17, 2015 21:41
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