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Finland actually, house is built in 2013-14 (even a build thread on SA). I decorated the office in a retro style. This big blank wall is where I am planning to build and put up a hifi shelf with my receiver and cassette deck and what else I might get. Current mess of a desktop, minus the receiver I piled on top of the deck to the left, which I piled on top of the printer. Everything is a mess until I build that shelf and I get all the cables and stuff organized.  It's a british lamp though. Both of 'em. EDIT: An actual radio question, I might still have go with my own mast and antenna since I might have to pay for access to the central antenna, we used to get TV from there, but it was 180€ eveyr 6 months and we don't even watch TV... Anyway can you combine an omnidirectional and directional FM antenna? So I can get both reception from anywhere, but also enhance reception in a certain direction? Or will they "fight" each other? His Divine Shadow fucked around with this message at 07:32 on Sep 23, 2021 |
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Sep 23, 2021 06:00
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Oh hello Euros it’s time for me to remind you that we’re having another go at an SA European DMR net. I’ve changed the day from Saturdays to Sundays as that is much better for my schedule. I hope you can make it! It’ll be 6pm U.K./7pm CET  this coming Sunday on BM talkgroup 3163563.
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Sep 23, 2021 17:59
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His Divine Shadow posted:Anyway can you combine an omnidirectional and directional FM antenna? So I can get both reception from anywhere, but also enhance reception in a certain direction? Or will they "fight" each other? You can sooooometimes mess with combining two antennas in different directions - or an omni plus a directional - but really, most of the time it's over-engineering. See, 'directional' antennas aren't really like lasers, more like lanterns with a reflector on one side. Even off the back or side of a yagi or log periodic the signal will be only 10 to 20 db off 'peak'. This is often more than adequate to pick up locals but lets you aim it at the weak signals of interest that need the main lobe. I have a small VHF/UHF tv antenna for OTA, and aim it at the weakest station I want to pick up, and all the local ones come in great even though it's not looking at them at all.
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Sep 23, 2021 20:08
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Jonny 290 posted:You can sooooometimes mess with combining two antennas in different directions - or an omni plus a directional - but really, most of the time it's over-engineering. See, 'directional' antennas aren't really like lasers, more like lanterns with a reflector on one side. Even off the back or side of a yagi or log periodic the signal will be only 10 to 20 db off 'peak'. This is often more than adequate to pick up locals but lets you aim it at the weak signals of interest that need the main lobe. I have a small VHF/UHF tv antenna for OTA, and aim it at the weakest station I want to pick up, and all the local ones come in great even though it's not looking at them at all. I should do that. There's an APRS digipeter I always have trouble hitting but everything else is local and pretty loud.
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Sep 23, 2021 22:32
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Jonny 290 posted:You can sooooometimes mess with combining two antennas in different directions - or an omni plus a directional - but really, most of the time it's over-engineering. See, 'directional' antennas aren't really like lasers, more like lanterns with a reflector on one side. Even off the back or side of a yagi or log periodic the signal will be only 10 to 20 db off 'peak'. This is often more than adequate to pick up locals but lets you aim it at the weak signals of interest that need the main lobe. I have a small VHF/UHF tv antenna for OTA, and aim it at the weakest station I want to pick up, and all the local ones come in great even though it's not looking at them at all. You use that for TV reception then? Or radio too? I think I might start out with an omni anyway. Bought a coax cable and hooked it up to my outlet but it was even worse than the one I got on the wall. I found where the cable goes into my house too (via an underground pipe along with the fibre). But I cannot use that here. I am thinking I'll have to install a mast on my roof, or on the gable end of my house, then pull the wire a long outside and through the wall into my central. Found this 2nd hand but meant for TV only I think (20€) 
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Sep 24, 2021 10:44
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i use the directional one for TV yeah and have one of the FM omnis for fm broadcast. Those antennas like you posted will likely do an okay job at FM broadcast, it's reasonably close to VHF high band which is what hdtv uses for channels 2-13 or whatever now. If you really want to go hard you'll want a dedicated FM yagi antenna but they are getting very rare because nobody cares about broadcast radio any more =/
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Sep 25, 2021 16:13
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What's the story on inexpensive hobbyist-level oscilloscopes these days? My $12 HP digital scope finally gave up the ghost; it was always a little inaccurate and finicky, but then one day the relays inside started going nuts and it wouldn't power on properly. I'll probably just give it away on Craigslist rather than try to fix it, since it was pretty massive for my workbench anyway. (Unless there's no decent cheap scopes any more, then I guess I'll take a crack)
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Sep 25, 2021 17:04
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i picked up a DOS1102 on Prime Day for a silly price and it is grrrrrreat. Very impressed with the low end DSOs. https://www.amazon.com/HANMATEK-Bandwidth-Oscilloscope-Channels-Professional/dp/B0833YFNKP e: it's also like 3" deep max, so it solves my main problem of "i love my tek 2235 but it's a foot and a half deep"
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Sep 25, 2021 17:18
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Everyone said that my first PCB design would kill whatever I plugged it into. Took a gamble on my IC7300: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FciYGMVyMk  I'm missing a few least-significant-bits of pixel data as the logic analyzer is saturated. Goal of this is to Learn You Some FPGA and real time capture the IC7300 screen. Would like to do 100% remote without sacrificing anything. Software wise next up is to reverse engineer comms protocol, inject button presses. Also going to start designing FPGA carrier board with I/O buffering and comms injection. USB? HDMI? Ethernet? hmm. The resolution of the IC7300 is 480x288 (incl' front and back porch which are the top and bottom white bars). Booooooo. The display is being fed at 60Hz which is surprising tho. Donno if the LCD actually uses all the frames. Seems to be duplicates...
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Sep 28, 2021 06:42
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if you can get that to the point where somebody can buy a box and get a 7 or 10 inch touchscreen hooked up you would make a mllion dollars even just an HDMI out would be so amazing
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Sep 28, 2021 07:42
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Jonny 290 posted:if you can get that to the point where somebody can buy a box and get a 7 or 10 inch touchscreen hooked up you would make a mllion dollars concur, literally the only thing i dislike about the 7300 is the tiny screen; there’s wfview, but it’s not the same Crusader fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Sep 29, 2021 |
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Sep 28, 2021 13:04
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The thought has crossed my mind to make a kit! I ever do finish the project I was thinking of maybe trying to make a few to get out to people to test. Not get too far ahead of myself. I don't have a good way for getting the data out of the radio. If I remove the ATU port, I can get some stuff in/out. But not HDMI, not RJ45, connectors too bulky to fit through ATU hole. Maybe I do a Cursed Connector. Re-use USB-C for its differential pairs, but if you plug it into a real USB-C compliant device it blows up? Gotta think on that one for a while...
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Sep 28, 2021 22:40
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What about no connectors? Use one of those tiny rear end raspberry pi boards, set up a web server, present an html5 video stream or something and yeet it out via wifi. Even from the inside of the case you could probably get several feet. IM THE IDEAS GUY
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Sep 29, 2021 02:32
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Any tips on finding an affordable-ish mobile VHF/UHF transceiver? I'm torn between trawling for an older name brand unit, or taking a chance on one of the direct-from-China jobbies. I don't know what kind of quality one could expect from something like a TYT. There's also the issue of basically everyone who has something to sell knowing precisely what they have. Well-informed market.
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Sep 29, 2021 04:58
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xiegu is generally well respected. i've never used one though
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Sep 29, 2021 05:02
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I normally poo poo on the Chinese brands but the icom/yaesu/kenwood market is spiked to poo poo right now and if I were to buy one, i'd take the lump and buy new. There is absolutely no justification to charge $189 for a thirty year old dual bander with caps on the verge of exploding. the Xiegus and such are fine.
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Sep 29, 2021 05:04
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I don’t think xiegu makes a uhf/vhf radio. Pretty sure everything they do is HF. TYT, wouxun, anytone, btech are most of the “name brands” of cheap Chinese radios.
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Sep 29, 2021 14:10
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horse_ebookmarklet posted:Maybe I do a Cursed Connector. Re-use USB-C for its differential pairs, but if you plug it into a real USB-C compliant device it blows up? Gotta think on that one for a while...
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Sep 29, 2021 14:49
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solarNativity posted:Any tips on finding an affordable-ish mobile VHF/UHF transceiver? I'm torn between trawling for an older name brand unit, or taking a chance on one of the direct-from-China jobbies. I don't know what kind of quality one could expect from something like a TYT. There's also the issue of basically everyone who has something to sell knowing precisely what they have. Well-informed market. Is this affordable enough? https://www.radioddity.com/products/radioddity-db25d
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Sep 29, 2021 15:11
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wolrah posted:Please don't do this. Using standard connectors for non-standard reasons is bad enough, but if it might damage either end that's really bad. Especially if this is something you'd be looking to sell/distribute to others. Don't create a failure waiting to happen.  (thanks to cursedcables twitter). I like the wifi idea jonny. But will OMs buy a wifi emitter and put it INTO their radio? Could probably use a esp32 or something cheap... worth a try to see if I can get a signal out, easy enough.
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Sep 29, 2021 23:04
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I'm still occasionally salty about the fact that my VR headset uses not one but TWO cursed cables with USB-A male connectors on each end. Would it be feasible to just run UTP or STP out through whatever opening you have available and terminate it to a surface mount jack on the outside? Also what exactly is the opening you're trying to fit through? I'm not familiar with a 7300 and their rear panel photo on the web site is at VGA resolution.
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Sep 29, 2021 23:44
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mycomancy posted:Is this affordable enough? Oooh, I like that a lot. That's about what the TYT/AnyTones top out at, so yeah.
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Sep 29, 2021 23:50
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solarNativity posted:Oooh, I like that a lot. That's about what the TYT/AnyTones top out at, so yeah. Just FYI this isn't an endorsement, I know nothing about this rig.
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Sep 30, 2021 01:04
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horse_ebookmarklet posted:maybe i can bring this to market This is a really strange design for an antenna.
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Sep 30, 2021 01:27
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cruft posted:This is a really strange design for an antenna. your rx chain is diode protected right??? may b fine. wolrah posted:I'm still occasionally salty about the fact that my VR headset uses not one but TWO cursed cables with USB-A male connectors on each end. The opening all the other IC7300 mods go through is the white molex looking top and center port. A pic. here is my worst option. The serial port and audio on the IC7300 are actually two different chips, connected through an internal USB hub. Its a 4 port hub. 1 port is not connected to anything. the two lil test points at the terminus of the arrows are actually an unused USB port! Maybe I could connect to that. Two downsides. One, I'd have to use a terrible FTDI chip, or a cypress chip (better but driver is harder). Two, I am certain people like irreversible mods involving hand solder dense smd 
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Sep 30, 2021 01:59
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Gigabit Ethernet over fiber, just drill a 0.9 mm hole and pull the fiber through. Then use a fusion splicer to put a connector on the inside of the radio, job done with no SMD soldering! People who can't solder SMD will love working with fiber optics right?
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Sep 30, 2021 09:20
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horse_ebookmarklet posted:I would love to do STP but the RJ45 connector can't fit out. I could maybe do RJ45 on one side, then some weird small connector (JST SH?) on the other. But this might not meet gigabit spec and I am unsure how termination of the shield would work. Why does the RJ45 need to fit out? They're trivial to install, that's why I was saying just pass the cable through and install the plug or socket as you prefer once the cable is outside.
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Sep 30, 2021 14:15
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You could probably find a suitable LEMO connector if budget is not an issue.
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Sep 30, 2021 18:08
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new sats: https://mailman.amsat.org/hyperkitty/list/amsat-bb@amsat.org/thread/UYTSWHRNVO3OREOQMUI62N7T2N3AWAKJ/quote:JAXA announced four CubeSats deploy from ISS at 6th Oct with J-SSOD.
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Oct 6, 2021 02:37
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I have a Nooelec NESDR Smart v4 that I've been really happy with, so last time I was wasting money on AliExpress I grabbed a couple of the dirt cheap rtl-sdrs to play with. Of course I goofed and grabbed ones that use the FC0012 tuner and therefore only go to ~950MHz but that's not a huge deal. I mostly wanted to be able to drop a monitor on the emergency channels and still be able to listen to FM or weather band or whatever and they work just fine for that. I was messing with the antenna because I can remove it off the base and the various other antennas that came with my Smart V4 can screw on in its place. Problem is they don't seem to have any effect at all. Also it still receives basically just as strong a signal with no antenna at all on the base which seemed strange (I'm looking at the FM band for these crude tests). Unplugged the whole antenna and that does make it completely lose signal, so I guess the wire to the base is unshielded and basically is the real antenna here with the rest being mostly for show? The antenna it comes with is like 10cm long so I imagine it effectively just makes the wire 10cm longer and looks like a "real" antenna for marketing. None of this is a huge problem for my purpose, although it would have been nice to swap out another antenna since I have some. Just a bit curious I thought.
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Oct 8, 2021 03:46
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Anyone tried using the ADALM-PLUTO over Ethernet? Seems like a decent SDR for high frequency operation (obviously a good choice for geosat operations), but seems it can be hooked up to a USB OTG Ethernet adapter and used as a networked receiver as well.
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Oct 8, 2021 09:24
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longview posted:Anyone tried using the ADALM-PLUTO over Ethernet? I think you're asking about direct from the PLUTO itself, but there is a Soapy module for it (https://github.com/pothosware/SoapyPlutoSDR), so if nothing else you should be able to pair it with a Pi and use SoapyRemote to put it on the network. Direct from the PLUTO seems feasible since IIRC it uses a Zynq SoC and probably runs linux or something, but I don't know for sure.
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Oct 10, 2021 18:04
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Looks like I am buying two walkie talkies, 5 channels 27mhz. Probably gonna need some new antennas, maybe recapping and I am thinking of replacing the batteries with lithium cells.  No modern VHF or UHF here, good ole 27mhz band. Since so many people have switched over to higher bands this means the 27mhz band is quie a lot less cluttered. Which is good because I was planning on giving these to my boys, figure they'll make decent toys. They got some lovely wrist band communicators as birthday presents, utter crap build quality so they're broken aready. Which is why I am looking at something less destructible. His Divine Shadow fucked around with this message at 06:16 on Oct 11, 2021 |
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Oct 11, 2021 06:14
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There was a lot of wind and my HF wire antenna fell down and one of the radials on my diamond vhf antenna screw itself loose. GLOBAL WARMING IS REAL :O
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Oct 11, 2021 06:33
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most terrifying antenna related incident i've had was the 80 mph "blizzard with hurricane winds" couple years back. I had a full size 40 meter vertical bolted to the fence with one u-bolt and the top rail sections that made up the element were bent over like 45 degrees. I was praying the whole time that the u-bolt would hold Well, okay, the actual most terrifying antenna related incident was when I was attempting to yeet a tennis ball trailing 550 cord over a tree limb and a freak gust of wind took it over the 15 kV power line. Fortunately it was a typical sunny 7% humidity Denver day, so i grabbed the driest 8 foot pine 1x2 I had and managed to hook the free end and pull it loose.
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Oct 11, 2021 06:40
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Jonny 290 posted:most terrifying antenna related incident i've had was the 80 mph "blizzard with hurricane winds" couple years back. I had a full size 40 meter vertical bolted to the fence with one u-bolt and the top rail sections that made up the element were bent over like 45 degrees. I was praying the whole time that the u-bolt would hold the first one was like :| but the second one was 
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Oct 11, 2021 06:50
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yeah thats when i bought a drone with a remote operated release hook.
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Oct 13, 2021 01:12
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  Proof of concept success! Got my first reasonable frame capture from the IC7300 slung across 1 gig ethernet. Took so much longer than I thought. Using an FGPA SOM, capture RGB565 pixel data, storing it in a SDRAM (166Mhz lol) and then a softcore RISC-V slinging UDP. The Zephyr RTOS kernel drivers are quite broken, but after some hacking I got it sorta shambling along. Networking doesn't seem super reliable so more hacking required. For some reason the Wishbone bus is stalling and I drop pixels (this is the corruption in the audio scope)... Going to try and get a DRAM writer port directly rather than going through the enormous crossbar and interconnect that the CPU shares. Or maybe jam a FIFO in front of the Wishbone bus? Hm.
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Oct 13, 2021 18:57
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That's awesome, great job! What FPGA are you using that's powerful enough for a RISC V core and gigabit ethernet but also has ridiculous slow DRAM though? Stretch goal could be to put all the UDP stuff in the FPGA, I know it can be done but possibly a lot of extra work? The VHDL guys at work did an adequate network stack in FPGAs for some test stuff, not sure that was less work than doing it in the ARM hard-core built in to the same chip, but then FPGA guys gonna FPGA. longview fucked around with this message at 22:52 on Oct 13, 2021 |
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Oct 13, 2021 22:49
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longview posted:That's awesome, great job! I recognize it, it's the Colorlight i5 and it's awesome: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001686186007.html
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Oct 14, 2021 00:28
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