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I’ve got a legit buddipole and it’s the most obnoxious thing to use, with the having to bring it down to change bands and stuff. I feel like it was hot poo poo when I got my general, but now I rarely see them.
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Jul 7, 2021 01:16
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Yeah, I've gotten way more mileage out of my EARCHI random-length endfed, which is basically a 9:1 balun and like 30 feet of wire, plus a counterpoise. So much easier to get up on the air with, at least for portable. My home station is just an 80m doublet fed with 300-ohm ladderline to an ATU, and it works pretty well.
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Jul 7, 2021 01:51
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the dipole setup with tapped coils is kinda dumb if you want to hop around bands imo. those setups are so much more convenient when you're just using one side as a vertical
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Jul 7, 2021 02:28
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I've got a portable antenna kit coming in the mail - planning to make a lightweight 3-band linked dipole for summit activations. I'll have to take it down to change bands, but I also have a small tuner (Elecraft T1) in case I want to change bands rapidly. I'm getting a small SOTABeams mast/fiberglass whip since I couldn't find any stores selling fishing poles that long around there. Might still bring the regular fishing pole to fish. Edit: I also have a hacksaw and a pile of aluminium lawn chairs, so building a homebrew HF beam is not out of the question this summer. Vir fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Jul 7, 2021 |
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Jul 7, 2021 19:50
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Vir posted:I've got a portable antenna kit coming in the mail - planning to make a lightweight 3-band linked dipole for summit activations. I'll have to take it down to change bands, but I also have a small tuner (Elecraft T1) in case I want to change bands rapidly. I'm getting a small SOTABeams mast/fiberglass whip since I couldn't find any stores selling fishing poles that long around there. Might still bring the regular fishing pole to fish. I use a 20/40 linked dipole with an eBay fishing rod and it works great for summits. I'm able to tune 30/17/15 with the elecraft and make contacts, so it should work well for you. I also find that 20m is usually sufficient for SOTA unless you're chasing other activators for summit-to-summit, I've never had any problems getting 4 contacts on 20.
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Jul 7, 2021 21:45
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Hi, radio Goons! I haven't powered up my station in a few years, but I'm thinking of getting back to it. Is SAARS still a thing?
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Jul 9, 2021 06:31
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Curly Shuffle posted:Hi, radio Goons! I haven't powered up my station in a few years, but I'm thinking of getting back to it. Is SAARS still a thing? Yes! Join us on Discord! https://discord.gg/matPmeJE And also there's a website here: http://ag0on.club/
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Jul 9, 2021 09:36
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Last year I decided that I wanted to finally start getting into the RC plane hobby which quickly got me to learning about all FPV cameras and analog transmitters that run on 5.8GHz. To meet compliance, I got my Technician license last July (Callsign KD9PXG) and have been tinkering with my planes and quads but I still am also interested in the Ham hobby at large. A friend, who took the Technician exam with me, got us both Baofeng uv-5r radios to play around with but we're looking to try out equipment with more power and configurability. The intention is for us to both get our General license this winter too. We recently went to the local Ham store in town and I was hoping that the employees would steer us towards a good starter antennas, transmitters and other gear but they weren't all too interested in talking. Like the RC plane/quad hobby, I'm finding that the Ham hobby has quite the learning curve and finding the right resources to start out is a little tough. Does anyone here have some good suggestions on something that can get us started with fiddling with antennas and higher-end radios (compared to the Baofeng)? I'm looking for something more stationary while my friend is looking for something mobile that he could try out while hiking. I'm aware that there is a lot of personal preference in this hobby but I'm happy to hear from people on what has been decent for them.
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Jul 10, 2021 18:22
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Yes. Before we get into the technicals, I'm both sorry and relieved that you got 'the ham experience' so early on. To speak frankly, that's how it is right now. You have a large 'old guard' of kinda curmudgeons and a rapidly growing population of younger hacker types that just honestly live in a different world. It's not insurmountable, but there are definitely 'two ham radio hobbies' right now. And one of them will eventually die off, literally. You are no less legitimate of an operator than some old engineer retiree with a 100 foot tower and a basement full of fancy radios, and don't ever let them make you feel differently. -- Anyways, with Tech licenses you can still do a lot. HF (general and up licenses) is a landowner's game and requires a lot of station for often kind of lukewarm results. VHF and UHF (what you're authorized for) is still an extremely interesting side of the hobby. Traditionally i'd hard recommend a "big 3" radio (from Icom, Yaesu or Kenwood) but honestly there are some decent rigs coming out from companies like TYT and such. The Chinese rigs aren't all awful, just the low end ones. I know big3 the most though and can definitely advise on those. The big decision to be made for both of ya is to decide if you want to get set up on 2 meters only (traditionally our #1 band, very very popular) or go for a dual band setup that also has 70cm. If your license address is accurate, you've got a pretty good number of repeaters within 50 miles on both bands, so I'll say spring for a dual bander. There seems to be a pretty even mix of D-Star (icom's digital voice thing), DMR (a ham application of Motorola's TRBO - supported by some very popular Chinese rigs) and Fusion (Yaesu's digital voice thing), so you have options if you want to get a rig that supports digital voice. All digital-capable radios will work fine on regular analog FM, by the way. The digital voice modes are controversial because 99% of their use is [your radio] <-RF-> [repeater] <-Internet-> [repeater] <-RF-> [their radio]. And if you don't have a nearby repeater running the digital mode you want, you throw $100 at Amazon and get a 'hotspot' which is a 10 milliwatt radio hooked to a Raspberry Pi that gives you your very own personal gateway to several global digital mode networks; voila, your own micro-repeater that has about 100 yards range (or more). Obviously this causes a lot of 82 year olds to yell THATS NOT REAL HAM RADIO IF ITS GOING OVER THE INTERNET, but they can kiss my rear end. I am set up for both DMR and D-star and really enjoy goofing with those, and do not feel any less good about chitchatting with Saul in Long Island just because some internet links are chucking digital voice packets for the boring middle part of the journey. It's eminently fun for hacker types, and once you figure out that you can send the equivalent of SMS from any DMR radio to any other DMR radio anywhere on Earth, or hook cables from your D-star radio to your computer and transmit low speed (about dialup to ISDN) data, it gets pretty fun. So, that being said, we need budget numbers. The market is weirdly inflated right now due to the pandemic and some factory fires in Japan, so we need to shop wisely. I'd normally advise some cheap hamfest/swap meet rigs, but well, those have had an 18 month dry spell and are only now starting to be held again, and prices will be high.
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Jul 10, 2021 19:10
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If you do look into getting into DMR, first don't buy what ever Jonny got for a hot spot  It's a pretty easy route in that to see you are interested, there is an Android app (not sure about iOS) which will allow you to try it out before spending any money. If it is something you dig, it's also pretty cheap getting into it. The Radioddity GD-73A is a nice lil HT that goes on sale from time to time, and is cheap to begin with. While it's kind of clunky to get configured, it's tiny and does a good enough job. I personally prefer getting a certified Pi0W and getting a MMDVM hat instead of going the pre-built route, which installing Pi-star and getting it going takes under an hour. Also I should mention that we run a net on DMR Tues/Fri nights, which more information about that can be found on Discord.
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Jul 10, 2021 20:04
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Jonny 290 posted:HF (general and up licenses) is a landowner's game and requires a lot of station for often kind of lukewarm results. Some people work HF from apartments and condos with compromised antennas, but that comes with its own sets of challenges like noise, interference and nosy HOAs.
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Jul 10, 2021 21:51
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Vir posted:On the other hand, there are parks and forests where you can throw some wires up in a tree and work HF. If conditions are good, you can get out that way. Even though it won't be as good as having a tower with a beam antenna on it, getting out in the woods might improve noise levels. Agreed, the vast majority of my HF operating is done while hiking. Especially if you're willing to try out Morse code (or digital modes), you can get good results with 5w and a simple wire antenna.
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Jul 10, 2021 23:54
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drunk mutt posted:Also I should mention that we run a net on DMR Tues/Fri nights, which more information about that can be found on Discord. I highly recommend this suggestion of joining us on the DMR net and Discord. The Discord is fairly active and we are happy to help with any questions you might have. The DMR is also a good way to practice you radio skills without having to worry about jerks on the air. We are all cool. Well, as cool as a bunch of hams can be.
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Jul 11, 2021 02:38
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drunk mutt posted:If you do look into getting into DMR, first don't buy what ever Jonny got for a hot spot Yeah yeah yeah. I'm live now and i have Goon Group set up as a static, so i'm around!  I cobbled together a proper hotspot antenna using a 70cm Ringo i had floating around doing nothing and the magnet from an old dead Tram. Tuned it up, dead on 1.1 SWR on my HS freq. Gonna see how far 10 mW stretches on my walk tonight
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Jul 11, 2021 02:53
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DevNull posted:Well, as cool as a bunch of hams can be. Quoted for truth. But we all really really want to help new hams, new to voice, new to nets kind of people get comfortable with it. We do not give a poo poo if you start out on your first night reading the script running net control and not doing it right. Just get on mic and do what you're comfortable with, as much or as little of that as you want. The stakes are so, so low. Drunk Mutt gave you the good advice on a baby radio, I've got the bigger (physically and battery) AnyTone 878. There are plenty of other relatively inexpensive DMR radios that will do you just fine depending on your needs/if you have a tower you want to hit. If you're going to go hot spot like Johnny mentioned just get the little low powered thing....it will do fine. Code plugs (programming) to make them work is a whole other thing that any of us would be happy to help you with. But even before that, you need a DMR ID. It takes a day or so, so get it now. You already have your tech so you have all you need to get it. Go to https://www.radioid.net/register#! and register.
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Jul 11, 2021 04:48
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Jonny 290 posted:Gonna see how far 10 mW stretches on my walk tonight Results: Rock solid within 1/4 mile, okay out to 1/2 mile, spotty out to 3/4. And that's with the super lovely stock MD380 rubber duck. Not fuckin' bad.
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Jul 11, 2021 06:33
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I really appreciate the input that has been given so far. I've joined the Discord and will be checking it out. The old guard stuff really does make me nervous and I really got that vibe when I was perusing the local store. I'm guessing the local clubs would be filled with older hobbyist with a similar attitude but perhaps I'm wrong on that. Right now I usually listen in on the 146.910MHz & 443.800MHz repeaters with my Baofeng since they seem the most active in the area and I've caught a couple of nets doing their business throughout the week. At one point last year, I somehow picked up somebody who claimed to be from East Yorkshire on 443.950MHz! Jonny, I think my friend and I are definitely looking at something dual band and we're willing to spend some on decent setups (1K-2K USD), although I'm guessing that this wont get you much of a shack setup with the current shortages. The AnyTone 878 looks like a good step up from the Baofeng UV--5R for handheld use so I'll do some more research and see about picking one up. I don't mind handhelds but I'd also like to get a decent stationary rig since I own a home and don't plan on moving anytime soon. The walls at the local Ham store were mostly lined with dizzying array of antennas for specific bands and applications which was a huge intimidation factor for me when I was thinking about a stationary rig. I'll also have to do some research on DMR, which has been suggested, since I only remember hearing about it in passing - thanks for the register link, Motronic! I've heard about DSTAR from various other areas too - is that worth looking into as well? Also, for a newbie like me, I find visual representations like spectrum waterfalls to be helpful when spotting activity - are you only able to do something like that with SDR and is it pretty costly to find equipment that can show information like that?
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Jul 11, 2021 19:20
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poo poo, for $500 you can get set up pretty sweet. Something like the ID-4100A is about 350 for the rig; add another 150 for coax, antenna and a power supply and you're loaded for bear. You don't have to go that deep. A roughly 70/30 split of radio spend to 'shack infrastructure' is good, imo. You'll always be able to take advantage of running nice coax to a well-installed antenna, whether you're on a $100 radio or a $1500 one. Judgemental guide to digital voice VHF modes: DMR: Most popular digital mode but it's based off a commercial system so it's kind of hard to program the radios at first. You get it quickly, though. Does have a pretty 2001-GSM-cell-phone audio quality though. D-star: Sounds best in my opinion. Generally only Icom users (it's an 'open standard' but you can count the non-Icom radios that do D-star on one finger) but it's reliable and enjoyable to use. Yaesu Fusion: They've been pushing Fusion for years even giving deep discounts on the repeaters and it just doesn't seem to really take. It's nearly absent in my area (Denver). I've heard there's more activity elsewhere however. KINEX posted:At one point last year, I somehow picked up somebody who claimed to be from East Yorkshire on 443.950MHz! This repeater probably has Echolink, which is an Internet backbone system that links _analog_ repeaters. It's cool and well-established. There's also Allstar which does the same thing. Jonny 290 fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Jul 11, 2021 |
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Jul 11, 2021 19:29
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For 2k you can get the IC-9700 and have pretty waterfalls...not bias to this radio or nothing =P ICOM should pay me for how much I promote their newer line of radios. But I really do enjoy operating them and always feel like there is more that can be learned with them. However, getting a decent antenna will matter more than the radio. I still use janky DIY'd stuff other than my N9TAX ladder line and "get things done".
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Jul 11, 2021 22:00
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hey, my 9700 is a $1699 (RELEASE DAY CREW) radio hooked to $50 of LMR400 into a $39 Tram antenna. People wildly misunderestimate station cost distributions
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Jul 12, 2021 01:28
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Jonny 290 posted:hey, my 9700 is a $1699 (RELEASE DAY CREW) radio hooked to $50 of LMR400 into a $39 Tram antenna. People wildly misunderestimate station cost distributions Yeah I was meaning to lean more into a really good antenna will make a lesser radio perform really well, while a really good radio works some drat voodoo magic and makes antennas you'd never think work, work. While not suggesting the N9TAX's are ones you'd think voodoo is happening, they're good antennas. But dang does the 9700 really give it some juice.
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Jul 12, 2021 02:14
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 The repeaters where I live are a good mix between kindly greybeards who are happy to have someone to talk to about radio, and younger people who got licensed via scouting or the local student amateur radio club. The former tend to use the repeaters more though, except for the most techincally interested of the latter group. The latter group tend to socalize in person and tinker with radio (satellite, digital and DX) rather than socializing over the radio, but I do sometimes hear students talking on the repeater. I was the same when I only had the FT-817 - it's not conducive to carrying for all-day FM scanning.In my vacation location, it seems that FM simplex is quite acive, so I was definitely missing out by not adding all the simplex channels to my scan list. I just had the call channel and emergency channel programmed, assuming that people would call on the call channel, but 145.550 FM is the go-to ragchew/drivetime channel here and is more active than the local repeater. e: V Big Mackson posted:How did you know my norske heart so well? :O Vir fucked around with this message at 17:54 on Jul 12, 2021 |
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Jul 12, 2021 09:32
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Vir posted:The latter group tend to socalize in person and tinker with radio (satellite, digital and DX) rather than socializing How did you know my norske heart so well? :O
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Jul 12, 2021 10:58
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Pham Nuwen posted:Anybody in the SF Bay Area have a CHIRP file for local repeaters? I hate typing all that poo poo in by hand, plus it's hard to tell what's an active repeater vs. just somebody's vanity poo poo that never gets used. I finally dug out my IC-W32A after the move. I haven’t used CHIRP for many years. Will it import from something like RepeaterBook? If not, you can export the repeaters you want from RepeaterBook to a CSV file and import the CSV into CHIRP.
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Jul 14, 2021 06:46
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uli2000 posted:I haven’t used CHIRP for many years. Will it import from something like RepeaterBook? If not, you can export the repeaters you want from RepeaterBook to a CSV file and import the CSV into CHIRP. I guess I never even knew RepeaterBook could export CSV! I'll look into that, thank you.
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Jul 14, 2021 16:12
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The old farts are really heavily divided into 'Haha drat are you using a sub-500 euro rig? Don't even bother' and 'Here is 50kg of my old equipment that i haven't used in years! Have fun with it!' Type 1 will then continue to criticize you for using perfectly functional 40 year old VHF/UHF transceivers. I have vacation now! I might try and set up my AN/GRC-9 in the park with a 12m fibre glass pole supporting a dipole, with my motorcycle as a power source for the stupid inefficient dynamotor power supply  Also, i might - gasp- use my laptop for running CW cause otherwise it's AM with fairly limited range. It's all a ton of work, though.
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Jul 14, 2021 18:36
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the old guys that just have to rotate through every radio confuse me so. Like, i have _severe_ attachment to my 735. ive owned it for uh 20 years now. i cant fathom just going from kenwood 890 to icom 7800 oh now i'm gonna sell that 6 months later and buy everything on the elecraft site. after flips they basically end up spending about 1k-3k a year on losses from selling four month old radios. whyyyy ive had my 7300 for almost two years now and have just now mastered it. the ft1000 still has potential i haven't tapped and that thing's old enough to buy beer
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Jul 14, 2021 19:22
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Jonny 290 posted:after flips they basically end up spending about 1k-3k a year on losses from selling four month old radios. whyyyy So we can have nice things cheaper. I'm equally baffled, but if they want to burn their pension/retirement to supply me with discounted radios I'm all for it.
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Jul 14, 2021 19:25
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Today I heard an ice-cream van playing The Lincolnshire Poacher.
hazza fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Jul 15, 2021 |
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Jul 15, 2021 17:11
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LimaBiker posted:I might try and set up my AN/GRC-9 in the park Sup, green radio buddy! Operating Angry Nine portable really requires some dedication, you should totally go for it! I have PRC-320 (or rather, export version, the RT320L), and compared to AN/GRC-9, it's ultra-portable, but still can be a pain to lug around. I absolutely love it, though, army radios are another world altogether.
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Jul 15, 2021 17:36
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Hi hamgoons. I am in a unique situation and I wanted to see if any of you had any cool ideas I could use for an upcoming project. I will be starting a new position in the Knoxville, TN area that will be paying me well. VERY well. The house that my wife and I just purchased has about half an acre, so between my salary and the home we found I will have the opportunity to build myself a custom radio shack from scratch. It will also double as my brewing space and as a hangout away from the kids, but it can be sizeable. So, those of you with spaces like this, what do you wish you would've built or had available if you had to do it all over again? Any suggestions for non-obvious features in the shack structure itself? Id love to hear all of your ideas.
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Jul 15, 2021 18:22
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My number one dream with this is: False wall setup. do not pass go, do not collect $200, first thing i'm doing when i build a dedicated shack. I saw a really nice video of one once, but can't find it.  Lets you run as much ventilation as you want, throw up cable channels for managing the wires, etc. Really brilliant imo.
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Jul 15, 2021 23:32
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Jonny 290 posted:My number one dream with this is: False wall setup. do not pass go, do not collect $200, first thing i'm doing when i build a dedicated shack. Hell yeah that's an awesome idea! I don't think I'd do something with the entire building or even half of it, but putting up a false wall on the side that faces my antenna would be doable.
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Jul 16, 2021 00:15
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Yeah, the setup in the video I came across had like a full 4 wall setup, but even doing one is super classy and much more feasible.
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Jul 16, 2021 00:19
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i was listening to a local-ish net on websdr and it was really pleasant. they were talking about microwave stuff and how it's cheap and not their thing, but pretty cool. then the operator thanked people for not getting too political and tried to wrap up. then some shitbird decided to complain about the NFL playing lift every voice and sing, and then they started haw-hawing about "old people matter." just boom outta nowhere, let's have some lovely racism. thanks for that, really made my morning better.
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Jul 16, 2021 16:58
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ok i found a different one and this time homeboy's talkin about his tomato plants and bein worried about wildfires, i can get behind this 
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Jul 16, 2021 17:00
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the best night i had on the radio in years was when i heard a sunday night net where the net control was running a very simple CYOA/tabletop game and all the other hams brought their little kids in and put them on the air to play "you're a squirrel in a locked room" "you see the key on top of a shelf but you can't get to it" "in the room there is a broom, some old books and a piece of string" <squeaky 7 year old voice> "i use the string to pull the key off the shelf!" it was so pure and tbqh a round robin net is a really good communication medium for that i think a more sophisticated game would be doable too, DM could roll and whatnot
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Jul 16, 2021 19:17
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Is that even legal? Genuinely don’t know!
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Jul 16, 2021 19:38
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Sure, why not? The unlicensed kids part? It’s fine as long as there’s a licensed operator supervising. My kids had a hoot talking to Santa on 80m last year.
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Jul 16, 2021 19:42
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Yeah third party operation is absolutely fine (in the US at least). "This is <callsign> with third party traffic - handing the mic over to <kid name>" and let them go. They can even do your 10 minute IDs if they want. You need to maintain control of the station at all times, which practically speaking means you are listening and can reach the power switch. Technically speaking all the operators at a big club Field Day station using the club call are running 3rd party
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Jul 16, 2021 19:47
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