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sporkstand posted:if I use a name and address other than my own, am I running afoul of some federal law? Yes. Best you can do an be compliant is to get a PO box so you address isn't attached to your license. (Pretty sure that's okay with GMRS - it's fine with amateur)
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Oct 22, 2021 21:57
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sporkstand posted:Alrighty then. I'm interested in getting a GMRS license but I'm not super comfortable with my name and address being available in a publicly searchable database. I've noticed that a lot of the people that use GMRS around me are far-right nutjobs that brag about their gun ownership and love of Drumpf. So my question is, if I use a name and address other than my own, am I running afoul of some federal law? Or should I just use whatever I want and not worry about the FCC? It just has to be an address that you can regularly recieve mail at; I know that a lot of hams use a local PO box or such for their license address. As for name, I think that does have to be your own, because the license is issued to you as a person.
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Oct 22, 2021 22:36
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What's a good first HF rig for digital modes? I've been trying to wrap my head around all the SDR options, upconverters, and that sort of thing. Worth trying? Any suggestions? Or do I go with a standard ICOM/Kenwood/whatever.
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Oct 23, 2021 04:16
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Minus Pants posted:What's a good first HF rig for digital modes? I've been trying to wrap my head around all the SDR options, upconverters, and that sort of thing. Worth trying? Any suggestions? Or do I go with a standard ICOM/Kenwood/whatever. Depends on your use case. Are you looking to be mobile for your HF activation? Sit at home with an antenna? The Icom 705 is probably the best portable HF radio for digital modes on the market, but its power is limited (10w if powered by an external power source). Its bluetooth interface means you don't need a nest of wires to link up a computer to do digital stuff. You can also get an amp for it if you're trying to turn it into a quasi base station type radio. There are also the lab 599 which is probably the most weather proof option out there, but its interface option are more limited, you may have to make some of your own cables for their proprietary ports, and interfacing it with a computer is a bit more challenging. Then there's full fledged high power radios, which I'm not much into since I can't run them at my place, so others would be better to chime in.
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Oct 23, 2021 04:27
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Nitrousoxide posted:Depends on your use case. Are you looking to be mobile for your HF activation? Sit at home with an antenna? It'll mainly be at home with an antenna, but I could definitely start with a mobile setup. I only have a couple HTs so this is a big jump. I'll take a look at the 705. Bluetooth does sound nice.
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Oct 23, 2021 04:50
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It’s hard to go wrong with the ic-7300 as a first HF radio.
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Oct 23, 2021 06:17
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eddiewalker posted:It’s hard to go wrong with the ic-7300 as a first HF radio. seconded; it is my first and it is a very very fun radio to learn on
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Oct 23, 2021 11:05
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Thanks for the recommendations! How's the built-in tuner on the 7300? I'm seeing some mixed reviews. An external one isn't a big deal, I just want to order all at once.
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Oct 23, 2021 15:46
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Minus Pants posted:Thanks for the recommendations! How's the built-in tuner on the 7300? I'm seeing some mixed reviews. An external one isn't a big deal, I just want to order all at once. What are your antenna plans? That’s the most important part of the setup and will decide whether you need any tuner at all.
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Oct 23, 2021 16:35
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Minus Pants posted:Thanks for the recommendations! How's the built-in tuner on the 7300? I'm seeing some mixed reviews. An external one isn't a big deal, I just want to order all at once. are you planning to transmit? already licensed for it? if you have no plans to transmit, then you can get a beautiful wideband waterfall display with the sdrplay rspdx with the sdruno software. sounds good too. but it's rx only. some people pair it with a ic7300 to augment it's relatively tiny bandwidth waterfall display, but it's not really necessary. just nice to have https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eTFv5aKhZQM
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Oct 23, 2021 16:48
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 ed: lol whoops, wrong thread - eh, I’ll leave it 
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Oct 23, 2021 17:45
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eddiewalker posted:What are your antenna plans? That’s the most important part of the setup and will decide whether you need any tuner at all. Plain half-wave dipole for now, maybe multiple. I've got plenty of room to string up wire. Helianthus Annuus posted:are you planning to transmit? already licensed for it? Yeah, plan is to transmit too. I'll be taking the general test (and probably trying extra) in the next couple weeks.
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Oct 23, 2021 17:52
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Minus Pants posted:Plain half-wave dipole for now, maybe multiple. I've got plenty of room to string up wire. Resonant antennas don’t need a tuner. The internal tuner in the 7300 will match an swr up to 3:1, which is enough to protect the radio at the band edges of a dipole.
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Oct 23, 2021 18:10
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You want an icom 7300, really. * enormous knowledge base / body of info on it * adequate to great noise reduction and noise blanker * dead easy to jam the usb cable into your computer and get playing digital modes * usable autotuner Put it this way, my 7300 got five QSOs this afternoon and my FT1000MP is powered off (i do baby the latter, though)
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Oct 24, 2021 01:18
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EVERYONE posted:7300, 7300, get the 7300 IC-7300 it is! Just ordered it.
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Oct 24, 2021 05:18
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Minus Pants posted:IC-7300 it is! Just ordered it. I'm late to the discussion, but I would have just the same as everyone else. I love my 7300 so much I ended up getting the 705 and 9700 as well. I would say that both of those are more specialty, and the 7300 should be the start.
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Oct 24, 2021 05:43
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Did anybody suggest the 7300 yet? I'd totally suggest the 7300.
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Oct 24, 2021 06:33
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speaking of trendy touchscreen icoms, i'm shopping around for a GPSDO for the 9700, because my time nerd experiments have proven fruitful and i want a fuckoff accurate clock in the shack, and figure a gpsdo with a serial output hanging off the side as well as 10mhz and PPS is the way to go. Currently in some Best Offer arguments with some shenzhen sellers.
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Oct 24, 2021 18:02
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7q525rjTfK4 Getting some weird glitches when the CPU is also writing to the ethernet sram. I do love chasing fiddly glitches, nothing i'd rather do.... I also am having to interlace frames. Not 60p, but 60i. Really noticeable in the audio scope. Gross but maybe fine? Jonny 290 posted:speaking of trendy touchscreen icoms, i'm shopping around for a GPSDO for the 9700, because my time nerd experiments have proven fruitful and i want a fuckoff accurate clock in the shack, and figure a gpsdo with a serial output hanging off the side as well as 10mhz and PPS is the way to go. Currently in some Best Offer arguments with some shenzhen sellers. One thing I've never groked is how do you distribute the 10mhz around the shack? Hack one of those tv distribution amps? feed a bunch of instruments. and some big rear end gps wall clock would be cool.
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Oct 26, 2021 03:21
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yeah ive seen 1 in 8 out amps for that purpose. it's probably really easy to homebrew
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Oct 27, 2021 00:59
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Hey, so I've possibly mentioned it before I want to build up my own roof mast antenna. I was mostly thinking FM earlier but after seeing a Mr. Carlson video where he renovated an old AM radio, he used an external AM antenna and led it into the radio via a coax cable to avoid all the noise from switching supplies that are in houses. I'd like to do the same. My house already has got coax-outlets for TV and FM but they are not in use. My plan is to get a mast and put up an FM antenna, and an AM antenna (not sure what kind, seems to be two kinds; outdoor loops, or long wire antennas), ideally i'd connect them to the same coax cable and lead them into my houses coax-network. It's kinda fun to tune into these stations, can get stuff from far away, mostly russian. Then I'd use an AM/FM band splitter and send the FM signal to the radio outlet and I was thinking I could send the AM signal to the TV outlet. Since I don't use it anyway for anything. The idea I'd have two radio outlets then to hook up my receiver to (it has ports for FM and AM):  Does this plan make sense?
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Oct 27, 2021 08:12
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So I'm trying to figure out a HF setup but I live in the city and have no yard at all. What I do have is a (small) roof, but it's made of metal (colourbond). Do I have any options for a roof mounted HF antenna? I initially thought the roof would make a good ground plane, but from what I've read that's not the case and it will actually mess things up. As far as horizontal space on the roof, I've got maybe 10 metres I could use. I have to be careful to not block solar panels though. The other option I've been looking at is magloops, but it sounds like those would be best avoided if I can find any other option. Picture of roof: https://i.imgur.com/iecZJ0S.jpg yoloer420 fucked around with this message at 12:57 on Oct 27, 2021 |
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Oct 27, 2021 12:54
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Join me for my first ever coil winding expedition! It wasn’t as hard as I expected but the results are not what I expected on the meter. Also, very calming, I can report. https://twitter.com/markpentler/status/1453286730845626369?s=21
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Oct 27, 2021 16:55
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His Divine Shadow posted:Hey, so I've possibly mentioned it before I want to build up my own roof mast antenna. I was mostly thinking FM earlier but after seeing a Mr. Carlson video where he renovated an old AM radio, he used an external AM antenna and led it into the radio via a coax cable to avoid all the noise from switching supplies that are in houses. I'd like to do the same. I would probably get an MLA-30+ loop for the AM side. They're excellent on longwave through about 12, 15 MHz. However they are active antennas and require a power feed up the coax so it may get tricky. Power issues aside, I wouldn't even necessarily mess with frequency-specific splitters, the two signals won't interfere with each other or overload. yoloer420 posted:So I'm trying to figure out a HF setup but I live in the city and have no yard at all. What I do have is a (small) roof, but it's made of metal (colourbond). What? that's a load of hooey. a metal roof with decent bonding between the panels is literally one of the best ground planes one can get for HF barring "120 radials buried in a cornfield"; i'd actually pay a bit of premium for a metal-roof house once I buy in a couple years. Get you a Hustler 4BTV for 40 through 10 meters, have somebody rig up a solid mount for it and maybe use some stainless sheet metal screws to bond any roof joints together well and you'll be throwing a ton of signal.
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Oct 27, 2021 23:38
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Jonny 290 posted:I would probably get an MLA-30+ loop for the AM side. They're excellent on longwave through about 12, 15 MHz. However they are active antennas and require a power feed up the coax so it may get tricky. Power issues aside, I wouldn't even necessarily mess with frequency-specific splitters, the two signals won't interfere with each other or overload. That's good to hear. I've talked to others and it does seem like it can become more complex still though. I have to consider my receiver, and it has a twin lead port for the AM antenna, I think it is 300 ohms, but the coax is 50 ohms, so I'd need an adapter I am told. And if I put up a long wire antenna, I'd need a transformer to make that signal compatible with coax, then I'd need another transformer (believe it's called a balun) to convert it back to a two wire signal before entering my receiver. Active loop antenna pro: Seems to already be compatible with coax, so only one transformer needed con: Need to power it via the coax, not sure how to go about that, and if it could cause issues with other receivers I plug in? Long wire antenna pro: No need to power it con: I need two transformers, one between antenna and coax, another between coax and receiver. I think a 3rd option would be to build or buy a small indoor loop antenna and connect it directly to the coax, then that could / would couple with the internal antenna of my receiver just by placing it nearby? I was planning on building a small stand alone loop antenna as an experiment. EDIT: Also this guy seems to be talking about what I am too, if I where to go with a long wire: http://johnjeanantiqueradio.com/antenna.htm 2nd scenario seems pretty close to what I was looking at, the coax feedline = my existing coax network. His Divine Shadow fucked around with this message at 08:17 on Oct 28, 2021 |
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Oct 28, 2021 07:25
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Jonny 290 posted:What? that's a load of hooey. a metal roof with decent bonding between the panels is literally one of the best ground planes one can get for HF barring "120 radials buried in a cornfield"; i'd actually pay a bit of premium for a metal-roof house once I buy in a couple years. Get you a Hustler 4BTV for 40 through 10 meters, have somebody rig up a solid mount for it and maybe use some stainless sheet metal screws to bond any roof joints together well and you'll be throwing a ton of signal. Excellent! I'll check local government regulations to see how high I can go without needing approval. Thanks for the suggestions!
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Oct 28, 2021 09:19
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Opened up my electrical cabinet to see what my coax setup is like It was hidden away behind a panel  So the coax comes into the house from underground, that's the cable companys coax, which is not active. My idea is to run in my own coax and connect it to that and leave the cable company coax dangling.  Then there is this distribution amp then, which says it's 5mhz - 1ghz, so I should be able to get FM radio on that, but not AM. I guess if I want AM too I need to replace this with one that goes down into the kilohertz range. Would that be a common piece of equipment, or are we talking specialty stuff? 
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Oct 29, 2021 06:38
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His Divine Shadow posted:Opened up my electrical cabinet to see what my coax setup is like What the gently caress, where on earth do you live where this is an electrical panel?
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Oct 29, 2021 12:05
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It's just the network part of the panel. And I live in Finland. Edit, rest of the panel:  Looks pretty normal to me? Bunch of breakers and the wiring is covered up. It's actually a sub panel I guess? The main panel is located outside in my freestanding garage. His Divine Shadow fucked around with this message at 13:05 on Oct 29, 2021 |
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Oct 29, 2021 12:37
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His Divine Shadow posted:It's just the network part of the panel. And I live in Finland. Doesn't look normal to me, it's way too clean and doesn't look particularly dangerous. But I bet the lack of freedom is physically painful? I'm not sure you need a distribution amp for AM, I think AM tends to be much stronger than an FM signal, particularly with a big antenna picking it up. Curious to hear from someone who actually knows about things though Edit: I guess maybe you're splitting the signal, I was thinking just a line driver for a long run of cabling. If you do need an amp for AM it should be relatively straightforward to make one yourself I'd think due to the fairly low frequency. I do think it's more sensitive to linearity though (FM can use more efficient but non-linear biasing e.g. class C), but being relatively slow I think you could just do a class A common emitter amplifier with pretty good results. Forseti fucked around with this message at 14:19 on Oct 29, 2021 |
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Oct 29, 2021 14:16
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Well I've found a splitter and an amp that works down to 500khz: https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/dxe-mbs-4 This one looks a bit... I dunno, doesn't inspire confidence, but it's cheap and it does a frequency range that covers all I might possibly need. With an enclosure for it it might even look professional. https://www.amazon.com/HiLetgo-0-1-2000MHz-WideBand-Amplifier-Noise/dp/B01N2NJSGV EDIT: I've talked to other people and they tell me I ideally need an amplifier for my FM or I won't see any gain from installing a mast and antenna. Still I think it's important everything along the line works with all frequency bands. I bet there are better amps too than the amazon one. His Divine Shadow fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Oct 29, 2021 |
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Oct 29, 2021 15:30
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How do i choose a vacuum variable capacitor? This would be for a magnetic loop antenna. I think I want the biggest one I can afford, i.e., with the highest capacitance rating. Im sure there are more subtle considerations though, like how easy it would be to mount on the antenna. I've read that it's smart to figure out the capacitor before determining the other parameters of the mag loop. Would love to do SSB on 80m if i can get enough copper tubing and capacitance, but 40m or 20m is probably more realistic. I've read that the efficiency on the lower frequencies is abysmal, unless your loop is the size of a barn.
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Oct 30, 2021 20:38
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That's generally correct. I built a square loop with 3/4" copper tubing and with an absolutely chonk boi of an air variable (think it went up to like 800 pf or so, rated at 5 kV) i could get it down to 2.6 MHz or so but efficiency and bandwidth was bad. You're on to the right idea by looking for the cap first. the 'terminals' on these are big copper rings on the unit, and you're going to need to fab or find the clamps to connect it to the loop; that will inform your build for the loop itself. Keep in mind that you can buy fixed vacuum capacitors _very_ cheaply. It's a valid approach to build a single band loop with a small vacuum variable that goes like 3-20 pF or something like that to tune across the band, and add a fixed vacuum cap in parallel with it so you're going from, say, 103-120 pF. All the performance of vacuum caps and you aren't spending $120 and two months getting one of the Ukranian surplus ones.
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Oct 30, 2021 20:56
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thanks! i didn't think about using fixed vacuum caps. I was thinking about it some more and i thought of another question: Is there a point of diminishing returns with adding capacitance to a magnetic loop? I imagine it depends on the diameter of the loop. Like, I imagine you never crank your capacitor all the way up to 800 pF -- I imagine there's some amount of capacitance far below that limit, which you would have no reason to exceed. it seems like no matter how big i make this loop, 500 pF is plenty of variability. And i could cram some fixed vacuum caps in there if I really needed even more reactance than that.
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Oct 30, 2021 22:21
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Anyone else virtually attend the AMSAT conference today? Interesting stuff, got me thinking about dipping my feet into F'.
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Oct 30, 2021 23:32
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Helianthus Annuus posted:thanks! i didn't think about using fixed vacuum caps. Yeah, as you work the loop harder and harder (lower frequency) there's a point at which the currents and voltages get to be enough that they represent a significant engineering challenge as far as needing low-resistance connections for everything. Also, even if you do have .005 ohms of resistance total in the loop, your bandwidth is going to shrink as you go lower in frequency; if you want to work SSB, this puts an effective floor on how small the loop can be. Generally I believe the guideline is to try to have it at least 0.1 wavelength circumference at the lowest frequency of operation, though 1/8 wave gets you a lot more efficiency. After it's 1/4 wave circumference it stops acting like a small transmitting loop and the behavior gets weird. This basically means that they're most useful over a 1 octave range (two conventional ham bands) though some manufacturers claim 40-10m on one loop. Not a fan of that setup. A 40m loop is good for 40-30-20, and a 20m loop gets you 20, 17, 15, 12 and 10. 75 loop would get you 75, 60 and 40, but it's gonna be a chunky boy.
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Oct 31, 2021 00:34
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Don’t forget, there’s a net today as well, and I know I say this every time but if you’re a Euro goon with access to DMR it’d be great to hear you! We’ll be on Brandmeister TG 3163563 from 7pm U.K. time. Our clocks changed this weekend so I have no earthly idea what time that is elsewhere right now. The clocks change next weekend in North America, right?
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Oct 31, 2021 15:02
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Jonny 290 posted:Yeah, as you work the loop harder and harder (lower frequency) there's a point at which the currents and voltages get to be enough that they represent a significant engineering challenge as far as needing low-resistance connections for everything. Also, even if you do have .005 ohms of resistance total in the loop, your bandwidth is going to shrink as you go lower in frequency; if you want to work SSB, this puts an effective floor on how small the loop can be. Generally I believe the guideline is to try to have it at least 0.1 wavelength circumference at the lowest frequency of operation, though 1/8 wave gets you a lot more efficiency. After it's 1/4 wave circumference it stops acting like a small transmitting loop and the behavior gets weird. This basically means that they're most useful over a 1 octave range (two conventional ham bands) though some manufacturers claim 40-10m on one loop. Not a fan of that setup. A 40m loop is good for 40-30-20, and a 20m loop gets you 20, 17, 15, 12 and 10. 75 loop would get you 75, 60 and 40, but it's gonna be a chunky boy. On the subject of magnetic loops, am I crazy in wanting to put one together for backpacking? I've been trying to find resources on loop size and what to make it out of that could be a little more portable but it's not as clear as I'd like, and I'd rather not spend hundreds on an alexloop or chameleon. I'm just mostly wanting something I could rig up to stick on the end of a trekking pole shoved into the ground so I'm not spending a while getting an end fed half wave or random wire up in a tree when I just want to be able to hop onto digital modes with a pi.
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Oct 31, 2021 18:36
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Finding an element that'll meet the needs will be the big challenge. You could do what a lot of the portable loops do, and just use a loop of LMR400 Ultraflex, or perhaps hunt around for some sort of flexible stainless or copper strap that you could uncoil and screw on to some wing nuts maybe?
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Oct 31, 2021 18:45
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I want to fool around with APRS using my IC-W32A. How standard are the speaker/mic ports across radio manufacturers and, more importantly, how uniform is the spacing between those two? It seems like I should be able to get something which joins the speaker & mic ports into a single TRRS 1/8" connector I can plug into my laptop, but it's hard to figure out what to get when I'm just looking at stuff on the Internet.
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Nov 2, 2021 00:16
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