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So I'm flush with Trumpland Funbucks, what better to do with them than radios? I've decided to get my General and get into FT8, maybe SSTV later. I think that means I'm looking at 40/20m as the bands where the action is? Antennas will be an issue, since I'm in HOA hell, but what I'm looking for is radio recommendations. I know Mr. 290 probably has every HF radio ICOM sells by this point after all. 
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Jan 12, 2021 01:15
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Eh, only a 735, 746, 271a, 475a, 7300 and 9700, not counting HTs. a modest pile, really If you want a swiss army knife radio (does many things, none of them amazingly) the ic-7100 is the go-to HF through 70cm radio still in production. (I'm assuming you're not dumb enough to go to hamfests in person right now). FT-991a is the Yaesu equivalent but i just hate the new Yaesu front panels. Honestly though, if you are looking for just a good basic radio, I like the low end Yaesus. I facilitated a purchase of a minty FT-450d for a fellow goon - seller didn't want to ship but it was local to me - and I was very impressed with it during the weekend i had it before re-ship. It's discontinued but they float around lightly used on the various forums and ebay for reasonable prices. If you want something brand fuckin' new and don't reeeeeeeally care about having 2m and 70cm (remember all but the highest end radios are one-band-at-a-time, so if you like to listen to repeaters while you HF the VHF bands aren't useful on those) it's hard to beat the FT-891 for the price. It's 100w of HF and 6m, with a very simple interface and good DSP noise reduction. I have an old Kenwood TS-50S in my truck and am seriously considering picking up an 891 to replace it. The last thing you want in a vehicle is touchscreen garbage and menus. Anyways, if you're fine with going from the 600 buck range up to a grand, you cannot spend it better than on an IC-7300. I love mine so much, though with its USB port and my recent obsession with my FT1000MP, it may be parked on dedicated digital mode duty for the foreseeable future. Not the rig's fault, it's wonderful. Jonny 290 fucked around with this message at 02:35 on Jan 12, 2021 |
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Jan 12, 2021 02:33
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Jonny 290 posted:Honestly though, if you are looking for just a good basic radio, I like the low end Yaesus. I facilitated a purchase of a minty FT-450d I love mine, and the only time I ever touch it is to move the volume knob. I don't give a poo poo about font panel buttons/knobs because of the way I operate.....it's all CAT control, even when I'm running voice. I absolutely understand that different people have different needs and wants. Just punching in with my sample.
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Jan 12, 2021 02:39
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So I'm gonna jump into the rabbit hole that is EME but have been running into many questions based on the information I've seen and just can't wrap my head around the antenna design. My understanding is you TX horizontal polarization and it basically gets flipped if you're looking to echo, but on RX to a greater distance the polarization isn't as heavy in degrees? A lot of the arrays I have seen I'm guessing they're getting a vertical polarization by having the horizontal in kind of a grid form? Without going into the LNA/amplifier side of the question, what am I missing about the antennas; or is it what I'm saying without going into that plays the role I'm missing?
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Jan 12, 2021 03:48
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From everything i've seen, all the 'little gun' stations (which is where you'll be for a bit) just use horizontal yagis and take advantage of ground gain at low-moon times. Pretty sure the big huge stations do have polarization switching to match, but really they're just doing burnouts and showing off there. The moon's not a glassy sphere, there is absolutely no way to predict the polarization of the wave as it comes back in my mind. What band are you going to try first?
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Jan 12, 2021 04:53
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Jonny 290 posted:From everything i've seen, all the 'little gun' stations (which is where you'll be for a bit) just use horizontal yagis and take advantage of ground gain at low-moon times. Pretty sure the big huge stations do have polarization switching to match, but really they're just doing burnouts and showing off there. That's still up in the air. Sounds like the middle ground is on 2m, with 70cm being a close second. It does seem like 6|2m as being the easiest to handle the polarization via software and LNAs, so kind of leaning more towards 2m and a long yagi (8 elements?). I will need to buy a radio, so it's kind of like "look at the IC-7300 or IC-9700" from what I've seen so far. Both would be suitable buys for long term. With the obvious if I go 6m using the 7300 if I do either 2m/70cm the 9700.
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Jan 12, 2021 05:24
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9700 is such a good radio and for EME i think having 100w on 2m and 70w on 70cm is stronger than having 100w on 6m with the 7300. And this argument is strictly focused on EME - i think in general if one has to pick one to get first for General Nonspecific Hamming, the 7300 is the clear winner, just for versatility reasons.
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Jan 12, 2021 05:28
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Really they should just hand out 7300’s when you pass your General The Wirecutter: The best HF radio for most people: IC-7300
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Jan 12, 2021 05:29
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Jonny 290 posted:9700 is such a good radio and for EME i think having 100w on 2m and 70w on 70cm is stronger than having 100w on 6m with the 7300. And this argument is strictly focused on EME - i think in general if one has to pick one to get first for General Nonspecific Hamming, the 7300 is the clear winner, just for versatility reasons. Just to clarify: 9700 for the purpose of EME would be ideal over the 7300? I plan on picking both up anyways. My immediate focus is just EME while I get into the other stuff.
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Jan 12, 2021 05:30
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Jonny 290 posted:(I'm assuming you're not dumb enough to go to hamfests in person right now). Hey, you don't know me. (of course not!) I do live near an HRO store, so I could do curbside. That 7300's front panel is soooo pretty. Not having 2m/440 would be a bit of a bummer, but I have a pair of SDR dongles or my trusty IC-W32A I can use to listen to old farts ragchew on, I guess...
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Jan 12, 2021 06:44
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Jedi425 posted:Hey, you don't know me. (of course not!) I do live near an HRO store, so I could do curbside. Wanting one radio that can do absolutely everything is kind of a noob trap. If you want to do HF, get a good HF radio. If you want to to local FM, get a good dual-bander. You’re not saving anything by jamming them into the same box. Love my 7300, but I’m not into the niches that the 9700 excels at. Speaking of niches, how much traffic is actually bouncing off the moon?
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Jan 12, 2021 13:59
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drunk mutt posted:Just to clarify: 9700 for the purpose of EME would be ideal over the 7300? Yeah. Big thing is engineering really. JT65 is good, but you're going to need a 2-3 wavelength long yagi to play ball. a 6m beam big enough is gonna be a _monster_ but a 2m or 70cm long yagi is 100x more manageable.
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Jan 12, 2021 19:32
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Jonny 290 posted:Yeah. Big thing is engineering really. JT65 is good, but you're going to need a 2-3 wavelength long yagi to play ball. a 6m beam big enough is gonna be a _monster_ but a 2m or 70cm long yagi is 100x more manageable. Most of the designs I'm finding have 4 directors but only get like 6dBi which seems like that wouldn't work from what I've gathered? I do plan on finding/building the antenna before I buy the radio. None of the locals I've spoken with know poo poo about this, so any insight is greatly appreciated to help me get the ball rolling.
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Jan 12, 2021 21:03
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that's where it gets into It Depends territory. Depends on the moon position, if you have a clear horizon shot, and whether or not the other station is a big gun. yagi gain is set by boom length, not number of elements. Something like the M2 6M5 _might_ get it done, if you have open plains to the horizon, it's moonrise/moonset, you use the very best coax you can afford with a preamp, and the other various stars align. But even that antenna is 13 pounds of unwieldy mass and has an 18 foot boom. Flip side of this argument is that at that point you're basically speccing out a really good 6 meter station, and even if you aren't successful on EME, you can work tons of sporadic-E for about six months out of the year, and if you are ok with waking up before the chickens, can work lots of meteor scatter 365 mornings a year. Not trying to discourage you - it's a great challenge. We're still way better than we were 20 years ago, when you _had_ to have a 500 watt amp and stacked yagis in order to pick up some CW echoes.
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Jan 12, 2021 21:28
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Jonny 290 posted:that's where it gets into It Depends territory. Depends on the moon position, if you have a clear horizon shot, and whether or not the other station is a big gun. yagi gain is set by boom length, not number of elements. Something like the M2 6M5 _might_ get it done, if you have open plains to the horizon, it's moonrise/moonset, you use the very best coax you can afford with a preamp, and the other various stars align. Good set of information that helped clear some of my confusion. It is sounding like it'll be more fun to actually try to engineer the antenna than spending hours hunting for something. Was initially hoping there would be a ~$100-200 antenna that would be suitable to get started, but not really finding anything. This is totally a "We don't do these things because they're easy" situation, so no discouragement here. Do guess if I am gonna design the antenna I need to put together a dummy load and probably should go ahead and get the radio as that'll be usable outside of this effort as well. Any suggestions to the preamp/coax? There are always amps that pop up on CL around here and wonder if just scooping that would work or if there is something I'd want to look for.
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Jan 13, 2021 00:24
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i thought of testing again with a mini-whip so i went to da club and saw what i had in my parts box and i had an 12v bias power supply, noice. i went home and turned it on and it fried my airspy hf+ and motherboard . i then remembered that that power supply was the BROKEN one and the GOOD one was given away. wth past me, why put broken things into a box? laziness good news is that i found cheap replacement parts and there is lower noise operating on my other stationary computer.
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Jan 13, 2021 14:26
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Probably a noob question, but how do you guys try to figure out and learn what certain radio signals are in your area when farting around with an SDR? I'm having fun just scanning up and down and finding interesting patterns and stuff. While in the 70cm band I'm seeing this huge burst on 434MHz happening at 30 second intervals, and the smaller one slightly below at 34 second intervals.  432-438 MHz is allocated primarily for radiolocation here with amateur use being secondary. I'm in a big building right under the flightpath of an airport so I'm thinking that's what it is, but I could be way off base. Is it just a matter of trolling through the Signal Identification Guide wiki?
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Jan 14, 2021 05:24
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Coxswain Balls posted:Probably a noob question, but how do you guys try to figure out and learn what certain radio signals are in your area when farting around with an SDR? I'm having fun just scanning up and down and finding interesting patterns and stuff. While in the 70cm band I'm seeing this huge burst on 434MHz happening at 30 second intervals, and the smaller one slightly below at 34 second intervals. It’s also smack in the industrial/scientific subband and could be something like a weather station. If you can get the signal into rtl_433 you might start seeing some decodes.
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Jan 14, 2021 05:29
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Coxswain Balls posted:Is it just a matter of trolling through the Signal Identification Guide wiki? I have definitely been helped by https://www.sigidwiki.com/wiki/Signal_Identification_Guide in the past and it's also a great place to browse around for signals to look for.
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Jan 14, 2021 05:54
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It completely slipped my mind that I have a weather station on my balcony, that's exactly what that huge burst at 30 seconds is. I wasn't expecting it to be that strong, but on the other hand it's not like I have much in the way of transmitting equipment in my home to compare it against that isn't regular 2.4GHz stuff. That 34 second burst is still going, along with a bunch of other regular signals. I'll check out rtl_433 to see if I can read those other signals, probably more weather stations and the like. e: That's exactly what I'm pulling up, and dang there's some people around here with some fancy-rear end setups. Now I want to use the data from the person who has this sweet rig that puts mine to shame. Stack Machine posted:I have definitely been helped by https://www.sigidwiki.com/wiki/Signal_Identification_Guide in the past and it's also a great place to browse around for signals to look for. I got a lot of use out of that page when playing with HF WebSDRs and trying to figure out what this one signal was that was happening every night in the 40m band for an hour. Turned out to be a Digital Radio Mondiale station in Romania. Coxswain Balls fucked around with this message at 06:28 on Jan 14, 2021 |
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Jan 14, 2021 05:55
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Update on the FT-101 issues! I got some useful advice on the qrz forums. The 160m band now gives a whopping 140w of power, which is more than okay for this radio. 80 and 40m were already fine. 20 and 15 are weak, with just 65w of power. And 10 is still glitchy. Weird things going on there. What i did was first check the neutralisation again - the guy who i first went to for advice, apparently did it wrong. Odd, he's a knowledgable guy. Oh well, everyone makes mistakes. Then: peak RF frontend for max signal strength of the internal calibrator, het osc trimmers for maximum TX power, and then grid and plate of the driver for max TX power. Somehow, for 20m and upwards this was not enough. I got a 10-15w increase after doing that, but 65w... not enough. Well, it's enough for what i wanna do, but it should be able to do more.
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Jan 14, 2021 21:30
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i think low power on higher bands means tired tubes, but i could be wrong
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Jan 15, 2021 18:30
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Does anyone have advice or websites on setups for mounting antennas to balconies? Because of my location overlooking the airport FlightAware is sending me a dedicated ADS-B feeder so I want something sturdier for permanent antennas as well as swapping in antennas as I make them and check out different bands. I ran it by the building manager and as long as it's for hobby use there shouldn't be a problem as long as it's safe and the permanent antennas aren't an eyesore. Plans for fabricating one are preferred over pre-built solutions, since I'm trying to keep costs down and DIY would probably make something with better fit (on top of just being more fun). I have a Metal Supermarket down the street so whatever I can't find with scrap I can get from them. This is the balcony I'll be mounting it on, with pigeons for scale. 
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Jan 16, 2021 01:44
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I think i've hit the limit of what my starter dipole can pick up on the ol SDR from my apartment, so I wanna upgrade to sth that's either indoors (can place it right by a window if need be) or is easy to temporarily mount on a patio or out a window, and which stows away compactly when not in use. I'd like to be able to pick up 40m etc band amateur frequencies on SDR and ideally be able to do QRP stuff on the same frequencies down the line (I actually built a Pixie but haven't done anything with it b/c no antenna); beyond that it'd be nice to have a better general-purpose antenna for SDR noodling-about. Given the above, I'm thinking... magloop design, with a trombone capacitor for tuning? I also had a vague idea of replacing a rigid loop fabrication with a lightweight, springy design by using copper tape on a stiff plastic strip backer for the loop, with a similarly-produced strip for the capacitor; I saw a design that used copper tape wrapped around a hula hoop, might as well take that approach to its logical conclusion. it might even be able to fold away completely flat, holding the loop shape via tension when 'assembled'. as i understand it, having the antenna conductor be a flat strip is suboptimal vs an idealized round-profile conductor, but i have no idea how true that is or how much it actually matters if im not badly off-base I think imight as well try it, after all the material cost is basically zilch. if i can find some scrap plastic that'll fit the bill i'll have everything needed to attempt it Ambrose Burnside fucked around with this message at 03:08 on Jan 16, 2021 |
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Jan 16, 2021 02:57
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Get an MLA-30 if you want to dabble in HF. It's receive-only but it works great. Most of the time i use it instead of my 43' long wire. Mag loops are super finicky to start with, and when you run them indoors they interact with fuckin' everything.
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Jan 16, 2021 03:02
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Jonny 290 posted:Get an MLA-30 if you want to dabble in HF. It's receive-only but it works great. Most of the time i use it instead of my 43' long wire. Mag loops are super finicky to start with, and when you run them indoors they interact with fuckin' everything. wow, 78.6384 Meters long wire  edit: sry, u probably mean inches, not fathoms.
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Jan 16, 2021 14:05
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12w FT8 is loooooong distance. that horizontal loop must be insanely good, it is the second time they have heard me.
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Jan 18, 2021 16:15
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Ambrose Burnside posted:I'd like to be able to pick up 40m etc band amateur frequencies on SDR and ideally be able to do QRP stuff on the same frequencies down the line (I actually built a Pixie but haven't done anything with it b/c no antenna); beyond that it'd be nice to have a better general-purpose antenna for SDR noodling-about. Loops are nice, compact, and a godsend in high QRM areas. In my place, i have always had better reception results with the loop than with any other antenna. But they have big limitations. Firstly, you gotta tune them every 10-25khz or so. This means that you either have to set it up near your RX location, or build a remote control for it. Secondly, they are not as efficient (in transmitting - they are perfectly fine for receiving) as something like a dipole or a quarter wave monopole. For reception, any old wire will do. For QRP transmitting, make it out of copper brake line or out of thick coaxial cable. An old broadcast air variable tuning cap will do for the voltages you'll find at QRP levels. Up to about 15w you're fine if you put both sections of the cap in series. Making a trombone capacitor seems like it's gonna be really frustrating when you gotta tune it all the time. For transmitting (especially QRP!), you're much better off with a dipole or perhaps even just a quarter wave. For 40m, this means stringing up 10m of wire to a tree or something and creating a good ground system. LimaBiker fucked around with this message at 16:43 on Jan 18, 2021 |
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Jan 18, 2021 16:36
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Jonny 290 posted:Really sorry you had that experience. I'm back on the air slightly (via hamstick on the fence) and am just stickin to js8call and psk, because no way am i getting out on SSB with this lol, and even if I could, yeah a lot of those fellas are loud these days about that poo poo. Rage against the dying of the Is js8call only keyboard to keyboard live, or are people running BBSes that you can post to via weak signal modes? I'm interested in getting into this, apparently a lot of older radios that suck for voice make decent packet base stations so I could pick one up cheap-ish.
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Jan 21, 2021 04:30
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Twerk from Home posted:Is js8call only keyboard to keyboard live, or are people running BBSes that you can post to via weak signal modes? Wait what the hell is this thing I didn't know anything about? I've played around on WSJT a bunch, but I don't know anything about this and gaddm I want to set up a BBS over radio.
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Jan 21, 2021 04:41
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I have a traditional packet (Ax.25) modem sitting around, and a BBS would be a dream. But i lack the knowledge in antique computer stuff to do anything with it. AX.25 is a pretty good mode for vhf. No idea how it compares to more modern data modes on shortwave. But imagine a shortwave BBS... Today's weak signal stuff is even better. I would opt to use a decent amount of bandwith to get any throughput though. At least something psk63-like.
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Jan 21, 2021 12:07
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Twerk from Home posted:Is js8call only keyboard to keyboard live, or are people running BBSes that you can post to via weak signal modes? Wait what? This sounds interesting as hell. A quick digging around shows this mostly works with serial enabled(CAT control, etc) hf radios. I've half a hf frontend and a dds around, whats the worst that could happen?
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Jan 21, 2021 19:41
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cursedshitbox posted:Wait what? This sounds interesting as hell. A quick digging around shows this mostly works with serial enabled(CAT control, etc) hf radios. i set up js8call a couple week ago and i managed to decode a signal. i should test the keyboard speed and see what throughput i can get with jscall.
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Jan 21, 2021 19:47
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js8call is still largely keyboard chat and a very simple mailbox system but I know people have discussed using it more as a protocol front end for more diverse BBS backends. Jordan Sherer (the developer) is pretty good about feature requests and keeping the code updated. Could be interesting to start a chat and see if js8call could expose an API backend or something to staple other stuff to.
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Jan 22, 2021 23:48
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LimaBiker posted:Loops are nice, compact, and a godsend in high QRM areas. In my place, i have always had better reception results with the loop than with any other antenna. But they have big limitations. Firstly, you gotta tune them every 10-25khz or so. This means that you either have to set it up near your RX location, or build a remote control for it. Secondly, they are not as efficient (in transmitting - they are perfectly fine for receiving) as something like a dipole or a quarter wave monopole. this is useful, thanks. I was leaning towards a trombone cap for two main reasons: 1) I'll probably end up fabricating whatever capacitor type I use, and a trombone cap is much easier to put together from scratch than a multi-plate rotary capacitor; adjusting the tubing length is far simpler than fabricating additional stator/rotor pairs for a rotary cap 2) trombone caps trim at a linear rate, which makes them well-suited to being automated In builds I saw with trombone caps, a stepper motor and leadscrew or similar arrangement is often used to adjust the tuning, either manually at a distance or automatically based on the current frequency. i don't intend to automate it unless i find someone else's project + code to cannibalize, but tuning via stepper seems easy to implement and would give me very fine + repeatable tuning increments Ambrose Burnside fucked around with this message at 05:11 on Jan 23, 2021 |
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Jan 23, 2021 01:46
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Worth just taking a look at the relatively universe-brain design of the WIMO Baby Loop too: Hinged at the bottom and the linear actuator there pushes/pulls the two loop halves to mesh/unmesh the plates -- One of these days i'll execute one of my dumbass ideas which is to build a capacitor sandwich with two sets of plates airgapped and fixed, and instead of moving them, sliding a stack of cutting boards in and out of them. HDPE has a dielectric constant of ~2.2 versus air, which should be enough to cover a single band but not as touchy or finicky as a traditional variable capacitor.
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Jan 23, 2021 04:11
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Jonny 290 posted:One of these days i'll execute one of my dumbass ideas which is to build a capacitor sandwich with two sets of plates airgapped and fixed, and instead of moving them, sliding a stack of cutting boards in and out of them. HDPE has a dielectric constant of ~2.2 versus air, which should be enough to cover a single band but not as touchy or finicky as a traditional variable capacitor. I like it. It's like the capacitive dual of the RF inductors with the little ferrite slug you screw in/out with a plastic tool.
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Jan 23, 2021 04:26
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Yep! Added benefit is that its breakdown voltage is way way higher than air, so at high-capacitance positions where the voltages and currents end up being highest, you have the best arc protection.
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Jan 23, 2021 04:42
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Jonny 290 posted:One of these days i'll execute one of my dumbass ideas which is to build a capacitor sandwich with two sets of plates airgapped and fixed, and instead of moving them, sliding a stack of cutting boards in and out of them. HDPE has a dielectric constant of ~2.2 versus air, which should be enough to cover a single band but not as touchy or finicky as a traditional variable capacitor. Either you posted that several years ago*, I read about it somewhere else, or had the same idea. It seemed a lot less finicky to keep physically aligned than a normal trombone and you can use larger plates rather than lots of little ones like an air variable. I always pictured it in my head as a simple wooden frame with some slots to support and guide the plates. *: Not talkin' about your reddit post
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Jan 23, 2021 05:18
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 This counts as 3 contacts, right? Do I get double points for portable operation?
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Jan 28, 2021 23:26
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