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...amazing. Glad to hear it. It's a very good band and i forever hold a grudge against the Japanese manufacturers for not caring about it. IC-375 is north of $1500 for a clean one now.
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Apr 12, 2016 07:07
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Jonny 290 posted:Wow, somebody else knows 220 exists. I <3 220... if you convince your buddies to get radios too you can have nice conversations rarely interrupted by anyone. The band works well, almost as good as 2m as far as coverage but with less noise and shorter antennas. Northern Delaware here.
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Apr 12, 2016 12:06
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I'm a sucker for weird bands. We have two 6m repeaters here that are active for 30 minutes a week, during the weekly "keep these things operating" net. Trying to convince people to give it a shot - hell, everybody has 857's in their car/shack here, and 2m 5/8 whips are usually decent 6m quarter waves
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Apr 13, 2016 02:08
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Do any of you have experience with the BladeRF devices? What does the FPGA actually do in normal cases? I understand why one might want to have a FPGA for the standalone functionality and/or doing some processing on signals to reduce the load on your host CPU, but if everything I want to do is purely CPU driven and running on 3rd/4th gen i7s does it actually matter? Is the x115 model worth the extra $230? Would I be better off spending that money on the transverter? Is a SDR that wide really even useful on the low bands?
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Apr 13, 2016 02:12
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CB antenna install question: I've got a CB radio that I'll be installing in a 1981 RX-7 for a road rally (there's a thread in AI if you're interested), and we're picking up a 102" whip tomorrow. I'd like to mount it in the factory FM antenna hole. I gather it's a good idea to put a spring at the base, but how should the antenna be grounded? It won't be a mag mount - I'd like to hard mount it through the existing hole in the body. Is there an available base that will work? I've seen different opinions on grounded vs ungrounded whips, and needing to use the coax as part of the antenna in some applications. What's the easiest solution that will give me a non-fatal SWR?
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Apr 13, 2016 06:14
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Easiest way is to run a hole through and use a 3/8 to UHF mount Pretty simple The strongest way is to use a ball mount. If you're going to be hooning, I strongly strongly recommend a: ball mount, b: spring.  You get a few extra fender holes but the main hole in the center isn't any larger than the above mount, and angle is pretty tweakable. And the sheet metal will rip clean off before the mount does.
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Apr 13, 2016 11:28
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For a 102" antenna whipping around during a road rally the ball mount on a fender is your only option. (Even if you weren't in a road rally I would say this) The first option will very quickly rip out of the sheet metal hole, enlarging and deforming the hole, ripping out your coax, and generally ruining your day. Leave the stock FM antenna in place or fill the hole up and paint over it. Another option, which would involve a welded fabrication, is to mount a custom bracket to something on the underside of the car and extend out the rear to where the antenna can mount. If you aren't up for drilling holes or making custom bracket I would suggest a mag mount. Mag mounts do suck tho. Real antennas on cars typically involve drilling holes unless some kind off the shelf or custom bracket is appropriate to bolt or clamp to something.
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Apr 13, 2016 12:06
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Cool, thanks. For a stainless whip like that, will I need to insulate the mount from the body and ground to the frame?
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Apr 13, 2016 20:00
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I just tried my hand at an 80º pass of SO-50, but no luck. Are weekday afternoons more quiet in general? I also don't have a full duplex HT so I couldn't tell if I was even hitting the sat
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Apr 13, 2016 20:10
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DrakeriderCa posted:Cool, thanks. For a stainless whip like that, will I need to insulate the mount from the body and ground to the frame? No, all of those mounts provide their own insulation. The metal portions of the mount that contact the body are supposed to in order to provide a counterpoise for the radiating element. Edit: Depending on the size of the fender you are attaching to, you may want to bond it to other panels and the frame nearby electrically, and you can a also run a 103" piece of copper wire somewhere just to guarantee enough of a counterpoise. At the end of the day, everything is a dipole basically... except those off center fed antennas, I still can't figure them out. AbsentMindedWelder fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Apr 13, 2016 |
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Apr 13, 2016 23:49
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I am trying to decide on a mobile radio for my truck. So far i think it is between the YAESU FTM-400XDR, the ICOM 5100a, or the KENWOOD TM-D710G. Anyone have any opinions on those radios?
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Apr 14, 2016 04:58
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As somebody who owns double-digit quantities of Icoms and just bought an FT-8900.....get the Kenwood. Seriously. It's a beautiful radio and if you think you will have interest in APRS or packet, it is the #1 most-ready-for-action rig on the market for that stuff. The 5100a is a nice radio, but a tier below IMO. The 400 has a terrible interface and I hated it on a UI and build quality level when I played with it at HRO.
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Apr 14, 2016 04:59
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I am interested in APRS, although i have never used it for anything. Is dstar anything to be excited about?
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Apr 14, 2016 05:13
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Depends on your area. Here in the Rockies, DMR/Trbo has clearly won out, there are a couple D-star fans that keep a repeater or two up, but if you buy digital in Colorado, you're buying DMR. Other areas, it's basically ask around and see what protocol is favored. Repeaterbook listings can give you an inkling of what's going on. The first D-Star satellite was recently launched too, so there's that. Neat angle.
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Apr 14, 2016 05:52
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There's also lots of DSTAR-at-home products and kits like DVAPs and other more homebrew hotspot setups which allow you to connect to the various reflectors either by using your DSTAR HT or directly from your computer with a chip doing the voice encoding like DVDongle. Out here in NJ I think DSTAR has pretty much won the "digital war" though I don't think the other modes ever appeared as more than niche options.
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Apr 14, 2016 08:32
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in 2010 I was a huge D-Star fan boy. Over the years I have seen everyone in my ham community outside of southern new jersey, basically shun D-Star as if it's a disease. Then Yaesu comes along and instead of making a system compatible with existing things and hardware like D-Star, DMR, P-25, let alone go for something ground breaking and forward thinking like Codec2, they chose to make yet another useless Proprietary single manufacturer piece of garbage. (At least D-Star was open to any manufacter outside of name licensing.) Sure it sounds better then D-Star, DMR, and P-25, I'll grant you that but it does so only by using a new version of an AMBE chip and keeping a signal as wide as Analog FM. In any event, Fusion comes around with their fantastic marketing (much better marketing then Icom could dream of) and all of a sudden the SAME EXACT loving PEOPLE who denounced D-Star became Yaesu Fusion fan boys now. I bought an FTM-400 so I can listen in, but they can really go gently caress themselves now. I even put up an experimental homebrew D-Star repeater, and while it has it's issues, even the people I know who have D-Star radios are completely uninterested... I'm going to decommission it soon because maintaining isn't worth my time. I'm also at the point after years of listening to digital voice... I can't stand it anymore. I prefer to talk to people who have full quieting FM analog signals now... It's more natural and comfortable to my ears. Hell, I'll even be happy to listen to a little bit of noise vs a digitized voice. When Codec2 becomes a thing and hardware is more widely available for it, I will be interested in playing around with it.
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Apr 14, 2016 12:07
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We have a fusion repeater and another on the way (eventually lol, that deal must've been super popular). It's in mixed mode so analog users miss out on nothing. I have 0 interest in digital until there's something that's manufacturer agnostic. It's just not worth it to me, idk. And yeah, whoever said above that digital is annoying to the ear, I agree 100%.
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Apr 14, 2016 12:47
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The only thing proprietary about DSTAR is the AMBE chip used to encode the voice, currently available off Alibaba for $0.10-$1. It does make software-only applications harder needing workarounds like the DVDongle, ThumbDV or PiDV (or your own homebrew solution) but I don't think it's an unacceptable solution except to the diehard open source people or people looking for a hardware-free ham experience. At the time of DSTAR's launch AMBE really was about the only option available. I think the reason you don't see DSTAR gear from the other manufacturers is that if they come out with only a HT they're still driving Icom repeater sales by making DSTAR more popular. Codec2 is interesting and I'm curious to see what ham stuff comes out of it (though I haven't looked at it in depth for a couple years).
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Apr 14, 2016 14:55
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I never had an issue with the user of AMBE... except that DVSI is unwilling to license their codec as software, which is what people really want. Yaesu could have easily made a D-Star repeater, they would have just had to license the Icom G2 software. Even Yaesu's fusion repeater is a piece of poo poo... if you open up a fusion repeater all you see are 2 FTM-400's and a control board. You can't run the 2m unit on high power without blowing up the finals. I'm left with the impression they slapped something together as fast as possible to keep up with the Marketing dept.
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Apr 14, 2016 19:46
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AbsentMindedWelder posted:No, all of those mounts provide their own insulation. The metal portions of the mount that contact the body are supposed to in order to provide a counterpoise for the radiating element. After looking at the mount on the car, I think it would have worked. It's apparently aftermarket and inexplicably over engineered for a sports car FM antenna  Unfortunately it's sitting right where the spoiler needs to mount up. So we're probably going to run the antenna off the bumper. In that case, I guess we'll be building or buying a mount.
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Apr 14, 2016 21:03
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AbsentMindedWelder posted:Even Yaesu's fusion repeater is a piece of poo poo... if you open up a fusion repeater all you see are 2 FTM-400's and a control board. You can't run the 2m unit on high power without blowing up the finals. Haha, jesus. That is terrible. I have 0 interest in digital because it's sold as "You can talk allll over the world on an aych teeeee" when that's a function of a bunch of cable modem connections, not any digital codec. It drives me crazy and I'll be damned if I see us lose one khz of HF allocations because "Nah yall got digital repeaters you don't need this 15 meter allocation"
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Apr 14, 2016 22:12
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Jonny 290 posted:Haha, jesus. That is terrible. After I passed Tech I asked the VEs for some fun things to do to start (I already had a 2M HT) and they just wouldn't stop talking about Echolink. "You don't even need a radio! Just talk to people around the world right from your computer!" I didn't exactly understand what it was but all I could think was "Then why did I bother taking a radio exam? Why don't I just loving skype?"
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Apr 15, 2016 00:08
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I am a huge fan of linked repeater systems. I am also a hardline conservative in this regard, and hold that if any part of the remote link goes over something that is not ham radio, then it's not ham radio. Tentative waiver of this policy for POTS-linked systems, but you'd better be on opposite sides of the Rockies or something. It's horrible for users - they become dependent on systems that are running over very low-reliability cable modems and DSL lines, subject to consumer Internet outages. It's horrible for admins - instead of just building an RF linked network like Cactus or whatever, where you can charge for membership, the running costs are offloaded to the person running the node (in the form of the internet bill). Nobody on Echolink is going to chip in to pay for the Comcast to run it. It is an excellent way to get 13 year old scouts curious. But the tenth time you turn on the echolink'd repeater and they're talking to the Alaska reflector and talking about the weather, you get burnt.
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Apr 15, 2016 00:44
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Jonny 290 posted:I am a huge fan of linked repeater systems. I am also a hardline conservative in this regard, and hold that if any part of the remote link goes over something that is not ham radio, then it's not ham radio. Oh, absolutely. We have a really nice one here in MI (http://w8ira.org/ but their link status is horribly out of date, the Lansing node is down). It gets all over; I've heard people with really good antennas checking in from Wisconsin and Ohio. e: My biggest thrill on the radio so far was a QSO with WW2COS on June 6 2015 on 20M with a weekend-guerrilla Buddipole at my old apartment from EN72rr. Such a big dumb grin. I can't imagine it would have been near as cool if I'd just used the internet. hogmartin fucked around with this message at 01:07 on Apr 15, 2016 |
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Apr 15, 2016 00:55
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AbsentMindedWelder posted:You can't run the 2m unit on high power without blowing up the finals. I'm left with the impression they slapped something together as fast as possible to keep up with the Marketing dept. I'm pretty sure we run ours on high power and haven't burned up the finals...yet. Though I don't think we ever run the thing longer than 30-45 minutes once a week. It sure hears well, but that's more a function of the better location we were able to get right around the same time the repeater came in.
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Apr 15, 2016 14:47
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The 2m finals on fusion repeaters is a well known issue. I believe I heard somewehre Yaesu has actually confirmed that. Your club would be well advised to stick an amplifier in there and turn the repeater's power down to low or medium.
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Apr 15, 2016 15:31
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AbsentMindedWelder posted:The 2m finals on fusion repeaters is a well known issue. I believe I heard somewehre Yaesu has actually confirmed that. Your club would be well advised to stick an amplifier in there and turn the repeater's power down to low or medium. I think the same even goes for the radios as well; at least that's what I've been told so i don't run above medium power; I didn't know it was only 2m specific though.
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Apr 16, 2016 06:03
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uapyro posted:I think the same even goes for the radios as well; at least that's what I've been told so i don't run above medium power; I didn't know it was only 2m specific though. I'm sure the problem is there as well, it's the same final. Difference is assuming a 2 way conversation where both people are talking the same amount, your radio is getting 50% duty cycle where the repeater transmitter is getting 100%. Big difference there. Also your radio isn't sitting in an enclosed box either like the repeater. Also, you can always add another fan blowing on the heat sink if duty cycle is an issue in your shack while running at full power.
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Apr 16, 2016 12:28
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Jonny 290 posted:I am a huge fan of linked repeater systems. I am also a hardline conservative in this regard, and hold that if any part of the remote link goes over something that is not ham radio, then it's not ham radio. Tentative waiver of this policy for POTS-linked systems, but you'd better be on opposite sides of the Rockies or something. This really hits home for me, I have a couple friends, one a Dane and one from Ozzy land, and I talk to them semi-regularly on Skype from the good ol' US of A. This is not ham radio, and if I was using an HT it still wouldn't be ham radio. Just a Rube Goldberg curiosity. I'm not against digital modes, but I am against digital propagation and calling that ham radio. It doesn't help that I remember the ham shacks set up in my home town mall to send messages all over the world. 
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Apr 18, 2016 01:12
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Come onnnnn 6M and open up... I got a boner for some sporadic E bad.
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Apr 18, 2016 01:16
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I'm seeing the moonbounce guys show up on the 6m spot map regularly, which means they're getting anxious and spinning up their stations as well. Soon the ES comes. Fair amount of trans-equatorial prop happening too. 10's been quiet past few days, not much squawking. Other than that, not much playing radio right now beyond running the weekly 2m net. Saving my mojo for summer eskip and June VHF/Field Day.
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Apr 18, 2016 08:20
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Jonny 290 posted:I'm seeing the moonbounce guys show up on the 6m spot map regularly, which means they're getting anxious and spinning up their stations as well. Soon the ES comes. Fair amount of trans-equatorial prop happening too. Moonbounce has been my ultimate goal; that and talking 1 on 1 with ISS. For now I'll settle with APRS with ISS. I think I set a record yesterday for net check ins. Got the local weather group's net for weather, the local simplex net, southeast Dstar weather net, and then the international Dstar net. Sadly I missed last week when they had a record high of 124 check ins. If I had remembered I would have made it 125!
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Apr 18, 2016 22:23
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I finally got around to getting back to work on the antennas. First step is to get an initial idea of where the feed-point is. For that I just take some RG-8X coax and clamp it to the pipe. Then using the spectrum analyzer and SWR bridge, I can plot the SWR curve for the entire band, and throw up markers at the band edges and in the middle. I tried getting a screen grab, but for some reason it didn't like the USB stick I had with me. By adjusting the coax and hose clamps up and down I can fine tune the SWR and then mark the location on the pipe with a sharpie.  With that done, it's time to turn my attention to the permanent feed point. I'll be using panel mount N type connectors and I had already previously prepared some pieces of copper to bolt them too. I'll be using silver brazing alloy to bond it to the pipe. The silver brazing alloy is stronger then regular solder, and it also melts at a higher temp so when I go to solder the pipe into the elbow fitting I don't have to worry about it melting.  This is what it looks like after getting really really hot.  A wire wheel and some barkeeper's friend do quick of work of making it purtty again.  Round 2 of tuning the feed point.  Here they are finished. Final SWR readings are 1.2 for 2m, and 1.6 for 220. I could get the 220 down lower, but I'd have to melt and re-braze the copper square in a slightly different position, which I may do in the future. 
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Apr 24, 2016 22:09
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I feel like I did such a lovely job on my j-pole now. Very nice.
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Apr 24, 2016 22:16
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Agreed.. mine is more or less step 1.
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Apr 25, 2016 01:38
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Motronic posted:I feel like I did such a lovely job on my j-pole now. Join the club. Mine at least has acquired a lovely green patina from 2002.
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Apr 27, 2016 02:51
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Nice work! Just passed my general last night! I have yet to even use my license in any way. Trying to figure out what sort of radio I should get started with. I'd like to be able to communicate with my grandfather on his radio about 600 miles away and am interested in antenna design and doing crazy stuff life moon bounce. Any recommendations on cheap starter radios or good ways to get started?
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Apr 29, 2016 14:08
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BaseballPCHiker posted:Any recommendations on cheap starter radios or good ways to get started? If you are looking for cheap... find an old 2m radio or something, get on the local repeaters and make friends, join your local radio club. Unused equipment collecting dust and stuff from estates can be had really cheap or even for free sometimes.
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Apr 29, 2016 15:24
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The best starter rig if you want to dabble with HF as well as fall back to just local chatting is gonna be one of the radios we term 'swiss army knife' rigs icom 706 (make sure you don't get the first revision if you want to have 70cm) icom 7000 (a good radio) yaesu ft-857 (everybody and their mother has one, clunky UI but otherwise great) yaesu ft-817 (uhh it's a 5 watt radio but it's pretty good at what it does - buy this for your second or third, not your first) yaesu ft-100 (Do not buy, some of them had final amps that were really flaky and you can't find the replacement module at any price) In general these do not have the best filtering and because of their size, they need to have menu-based UIs and stuff, but it's not too bad. For the first 2-3 years of your hobby you won't miss a fancier radio, gotta station build to take advantage of an FT1000 or whatever. I wouldn't pay more than about 550-650 for any of them except the IC-7000 which is probably worth about 750-800 still. Wouldn't pay less than $300 either unless it's a buddy and it's a known-good deal. People unload blown ones all the time "Just needs a transistor", see the FT-100 note above. Can't think of any kenwoods that i'd be looking at beyond the TS-2000 which is a little hefty in the wallet. e: EME ballpark to get started, i'd budget somewhere around 2-3k, you need a decent radio, $1k or so, power amp will run you 500 bucks...you can get it done with 200ish watts, a single long yagi and some good feedline if you station-build right. Jonny 290 fucked around with this message at 06:20 on Apr 30, 2016 |
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Apr 30, 2016 06:17
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Jonny 290 posted:yaesu ft-100 (Do not buy, some of them had final amps that were really flaky and you can't find the replacement module at any price) nmfree posted:So I get back from passing my test, and my FT-100 decided that the AM/SSB receive isn't going to work anymore.
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Apr 30, 2016 09:27
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Apparently, there's not much that can be done because Yaesu doesn't support the radio anymore. So, now I have a $400 dual band V/UHF radio that isn't very reliable on either band (the finals are made out of paper or something).