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I see there are a number emails in the saars inbox... I'll get to them later today. I'm going to setup a forwarding so I don't have to remember to log in! In other news, I've been slightly preoccupied, and haven't been very radioactive except for running a couple nets (I'll be doing one tonight on 147.060/145.130 newtown square/paoli @ 20:30 EST). I do have the materials in my van right now to build two super J poles for 2m. The only material I'm still making a decision on what to buy is the insulator. I need to get off my rear end and measure the ID of the 3/4" copper pipe I have. I hear from locals HF is picking up a bit so I'm going to think about some better antennas... I just found out my neighbor is probably tearing down a tree, so that will make me have to rethink antenna strategy slightly.
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Dec 26, 2010 15:53
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This may be a simple question, but my neighbor is selling his icom id 880, and I do not have a license. Its a really great price, and my grandpa is dying to show me his stuff so it may lead me into this hobby. I've got some xmas cash, but I do have a question...since I cant transmit with it right now, will I be able to scan for local police and emergency signals? It may be a stupid question...and shows I've got alot to learn about radio signals. Thanks.
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Dec 26, 2010 21:38
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Where do you live? A lot of pulic service agencies have moved to trunked radio systems, so you won't be able to listen to them easily on a regular scanner or radio. You can listen to anything that transmits on a single frequency though! Check out the scanner frequencies for your area on radioreference.com.
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Dec 26, 2010 22:07
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DJ BK posted:This may be a simple question, but my neighbor is selling his icom id 880, and I do not have a license. Its a really great price, and my grandpa is dying to show me his stuff so it may lead me into this hobby. I've got some xmas cash, but I do have a question...since I cant transmit with it right now, will I be able to scan for local police and emergency signals? It may be a stupid question...and shows I've got alot to learn about radio signals. Thanks. Here's a link to the radio on Universal Radio with the receive ranges listed.
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Dec 26, 2010 22:12
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My primary residence is in Phelps County Missouri, but my Grandpa's farm is in Denc County, Missouri. After a quick scan of each, neither mentions anything about a "trunked system," and all frequencies end in 3 decimal places. My parents live in St. Louis County, which looks more complicated. My next question is does having a radio that runs on 2m limit my options as far as the likelyhood of reaching another ham? Like are there more hams on certian wave lengths? edit: cleaned up links and can somebody explain a little more about trunked systems? An Apple A Gay fucked around with this message at 02:00 on Dec 27, 2010 |
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Dec 27, 2010 01:43
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DJ BK posted:My next question is does having a radio that runs on 2m limit my options as far as the likelyhood of reaching another ham? Like are there more hams on certian wave lengths? The ID-800 can only transmit on 2M/440 frequencies, so you can talk with other hams on those bands that are in your area via repeaters. If you want to talk to people outside of your city you'll need to delve into HF, which requires a different type of antenna and radio. A trunked systems is essentially a network of frequencies that are pooled together and used for a large number of different channels. It uses one main frequency as a controller, which sends continuous signals out to all of the trunked radios letting them know what frequency is being used by what channel. If you tried listening to the frequencies without having a trunktracker radio you'd hear random conversations because each transmission jumps around to different frequencies. Some of the newer trunking systems can even encrypt/decrypt voices so even with a trunktracker you can't understand what they're saying. 
Radnor fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Dec 27, 2010 |
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Dec 27, 2010 02:23
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DJ BK posted:
Try reading this: http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Trunking_Basics Feel free to post questions here. There are some scanner dweebs here including myself and one of us can probably answer them.
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Dec 27, 2010 02:25
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I got a Wouxun KG-UVD1P for Christmas. Any goons up for a late chat on IRLP? It looks like I can just hit one of the repeaters set up for it. Node is 4316 or I'd be happy to connect to someone else's. EDIT: Does anyone have any experience building Yagi's? I want to get myself a little Christmas present and build myself a homebrew Arrow antenna. I've seen a few assembly pictures, but I have no step-by-step guide. It looks pretty straightforward. List of things I think I'll need: 2m/440 Diplexer (I'll probably build this) Aluminum tubing PVC (for a boom) RG-8 coaxial xergm fucked around with this message at 07:00 on Dec 27, 2010 |
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Dec 27, 2010 06:44
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Having seen people building small yagis out of tape measures that seems like that will do for what you are looking to do, but I haven't done it myself. I'll yack on IRLP but we need a time table. The local club is 4908. I tried setting it up indoors so that I could call out from my office but, lol. It can barely receive over the S7 noise and keying up 50W VHF from in here has some pretty funny results. Given the proximity to a bunch of data equipment I'm going to refrain from doing that further. Can't get the window to open to throw it outside and its like 15 degrees so I'm not trying that right now either.
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Dec 27, 2010 20:40
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I'll have to get back to you. I was doing some test connects last night, and the repeater was kinda fuzzy. When I put in the DTMF code, it didn't seem to hear me, but it would key up the station ID. Right now I'm systematically going through the repeaters in my area to see what I can hit. So far there's quite a few, but most are silent and only a select few are connected to the internet.
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Dec 27, 2010 21:52
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You're probably loud enough to open it up but that's about it. Generally given that a repeater has more than 5W out I figure you're on the fringe of it :/
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Dec 28, 2010 22:08
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I wish some of repeaters around here had Echolink or some sort of live stream so I can see what's getting through. I have yet to hear a person on any of them to ask how I sound.
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Dec 28, 2010 23:07
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Later this evening, I'll have the time to sit down and see if there are any IRLP repeaters near me and try them out, I haven't even looked yet. Also, if anyone is on echolink and doesn't get anybody... send me an AIM and I'll hop on if I'm around. AIM name is in my profile. Often, when I'm available, I may not remember to open Echolink, so don't be bashful about sending me an AIM, for whatever reason. Also, also, I hereby declare there will be a net on Echolink every Sunday evening @ 22:00 Hours Eastern Standard Time. This will start January 2nd. I'll be the first net control operator. We can rotate net operator every week. Also, also, also, If we find a better day and time where more members are available, then we can switch. The above time is not written in stone. That is all for now. Edit: Dijkstra, if you could temporarily increase the amount of connections during the net, that would be great. I'm curious how many users we can get before we kill your internet connection. AbsentMindedWelder fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Dec 28, 2010 |
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Dec 28, 2010 23:22
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Come on butts get on i want to do IRLP
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Dec 29, 2010 03:12
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Give me another 2 to 3 hours... I've been deep in phone calls since 5 loving 30. I'll be on IRLP or echolink by then. Edit: I hope 
AbsentMindedWelder fucked around with this message at 03:18 on Dec 29, 2010 |
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Dec 29, 2010 03:16
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I was just on echosuck talking to myself again
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Dec 29, 2010 03:19
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Partycat posted:Come on butts get on i want to do IRLP Did you (KC2Ysomething) just ragequit? e: 
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Dec 29, 2010 03:19
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Skyssx posted:Did you (KC2Ysomething) just ragequit? yeah i mad also i'm playing counterstrike at the same time
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Dec 29, 2010 03:27
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Partycat posted:yeah I'm looking up tire chains and crap, since I blew my snow tires wad on fixing my teeth. e: I have YEARS of practice idling in IRC rooms and Vent channels! e2: It is 2300, I must sleep. I'll be there for the Sunday net, and whenever i'm farting off after work. Skyssx fucked around with this message at 05:13 on Dec 29, 2010 |
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Dec 29, 2010 03:29
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Having problems finding an IRLP node near me that I can access... I'll keep at it. In the mean time I'm presently logged into echolink.
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Dec 29, 2010 05:42
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I built a VHF ground plane antenna yesterday, 1/4l . Seems to work , I guess. Better than the folded dipole anyways, I can hit the repeater about ~10 miles away with .5W which is what I wanted to do.
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Dec 29, 2010 20:21
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So what are my options for a usable apartment based antenna? I want to order one and install it, not sit with a room full of parts and solder. I can't screw things onto the roof and have extremely limited horizontal space outside so things like dipoles won't work. I was thinking something smallish and vertical I could clamp onto the porch railing outside or ....something. Currently back to using my Miracle Whip antenna which means I'm not using my radio anymore because I can't hear anyone and they can't hear me.
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Dec 29, 2010 21:18
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^^^ What bands are you asking for suggestions on?
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Dec 29, 2010 22:31
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Catastrophe posted:So what are my options for a usable apartment based antenna? I want to order one and install it, not sit with a room full of parts and solder. I can't screw things onto the roof and have extremely limited horizontal space outside so things like dipoles won't work. I was thinking something smallish and vertical I could clamp onto the porch railing outside or ....something. Currently back to using my Miracle Whip antenna which means I'm not using my radio anymore because I can't hear anyone and they can't hear me. Two Hamsticks with a dipole adapter will work OK. MFJ has their own knockoffs (search "HF stick") that are reasonably priced. Search "Loop" on this page for MFJ's selection of magnetic loop antennas. There are other companies that also sell compact loops, but those won't be so cheap. ...or here's MFJ's "apartment antenna".
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Dec 29, 2010 22:37
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Oh doy! Bands would help, yeah. In order of importance: 10m, 20m, 40m.
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Dec 29, 2010 22:48
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Think "portable" verticals with loading coils. The hamsticks will work given a good ground, but you can also make these, especially if you can get an analyzer. For 10m, you can start working a vertical dipole made with wire and rope. Edit: A C-Pole may also be an option. I haven't tried these yet as I just recently learned bout them. Edit2: Indoor dipole in the very apex of the roof in the attic. AbsentMindedWelder fucked around with this message at 23:19 on Dec 29, 2010 |
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Dec 29, 2010 23:06
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Yeah that, but I hear the mag loops are rather popular. I saw one made for the 500KC project and it wasn't any bigger than a boat wheel. Also I just destroyed my Alpine CDA-9886 via ham radio. I'm not sure exactly how this was caused but, over the last few days if I transmitted VHF it would occasionally stop playing from the USB and say "Device Error". I'd been moving the feedline and the radio around a bit in the car. Today I forgot my BNC adapter so I just plugged into that ground plane on the way home, it was laying on the back seat and it worked okay. However, after talking for about 3 minutes I began to smell burned electronic components and noticed that my radio was no longer operating. It still sort of works with no display but I pulled the fuse until I can figure out how to get it out of the dash and get it repaired. Dang. Of course, my fault, since I didn't learn my lesson when this UHF commercial unit I was testing caused my microwave on the other side of the room to arc and it blew a GFCI. Keep your antennas located away from stuff guys.
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Dec 30, 2010 00:03
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Could someone explain to me what I'm seeing on the video below: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK55dL4Q0Ak&feature=related I know this is a visualization of radio waves, but how can such a wide spectrum be seen at once if a receiver can only be tuned to a single frequency? It looks like you can see activity from 14.195 all the way up to 14.230 khz. How is it possible to see activity on such a wide range of frequencies at one time?
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Dec 30, 2010 03:28
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Hummer Driving human being posted:Could someone explain to me what I'm seeing on the video below: Because it's an SDR real-time visualization of the entire IF before detection on a specific frequency. Sort-of like "half-way" processed signal, it hasnt been fully tuned down and carries the spectrum of signal after the mixer.
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Dec 30, 2010 03:46
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What's that word i'm looking for? Neising Threshold? Wrong, but something N. Digital Signal Processors can receive whole bands at once. You can make a radio that can receive and record the an entire spectrum (HF, VHF, UHF) or two at once and have it the size of a hard cover novel. They cost as much as a car, but they're out there in use.
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Dec 30, 2010 04:19
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Hummer Driving human being posted:Could someone explain to me what I'm seeing on the video below: That's a PC-based SDR, specifically this kit. It basically converts a chunk of the incoming RF signal from the chosen frequency down to audio frequency, which is then fed in to a computer sound card. The chunk of RF spectrum you get to look at then is roughly half as wide as your sound card's sampling rate (typically 48, 96, or 192 kHz). Feed this in to a SDR app and the sky's the limit. There's also a model with transmit capabilities which basically does the same in reverse. e: Looks like one end should be around 14.185 MHz, the other at around 14.235, which is 50kHz of spectrum, so I'd guess this particular video shows e2: I looked it up in more detail and due to the Nyquist limit as noted below the usable bandwidth is 1/2 the sample rate, so the video actually shows 96kHz sampling. I mistakenly assumed the use of both channels of stereo input was to use some trickery to effectively double the sample rate, but in fact on one line a signal 5kHz above and one 5kHz below the oscillator frequency would look the same, so the second channel is 90 degrees out of phase to allow this to be sorted. wolrah fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Dec 30, 2010 |
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Dec 30, 2010 05:01
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Okay, so the sound card is just sampling those frequencies many, many times a second to the point that it's almost the same as being able to monitor a large group of frequencies at one time?wolrah posted:There's also a model with transmit capabilities which basically does the same in reverse. Would that mean being able to transmit on a really wide spectrum? Would there be any advantage to this using voice besides clarity? I could understad a wide band for data, but would there be any reason to transmit voice on such a large number of frequencies?
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Dec 30, 2010 05:26
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Skyssx posted:What's that word i'm looking for? Neising Threshold? Wrong, but something N.
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Dec 30, 2010 06:33
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dv6speed posted:
Catastrophe posted:So what are my options for a usable apartment based antenna? I want to order one and install it, not sit with a room full of parts and solder. I can't screw things onto the roof and have extremely limited horizontal space outside so things like dipoles won't work. I was thinking something smallish and vertical I could clamp onto the porch railing outside or ....something. Currently back to using my Miracle Whip antenna which means I'm not using my radio anymore because I can't hear anyone and they can't hear me. And as long as the siding of your building is something like vinyl, wood (or even brick) you will get out half-decent with an indoor dipole. I probably worked 30 countries with dipoles inside various apartments I had over the years. I worked DXCC and WAS with an antenna in my attic after I moved to a house. Mostly it depends on what material your building is made of.
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Dec 30, 2010 14:35
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Catastrophe posted:So what are my options for a usable apartment based antenna? I want to order one and install it, not sit with a room full of parts and solder. I can't screw things onto the roof and have extremely limited horizontal space outside so things like dipoles won't work. I was thinking something smallish and vertical I could clamp onto the porch railing outside or ....something. Currently back to using my Miracle Whip antenna which means I'm not using my radio anymore because I can't hear anyone and they can't hear me. I think this may be the droid you're looking for.
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Dec 30, 2010 15:39
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Hummer Driving human being posted:Would that mean being able to transmit on a really wide spectrum? Would there be any advantage to this using voice besides clarity? I could understad a wide band for data, but would there be any reason to transmit voice on such a large number of frequencies? Basically the main advantage both on the transmit and receive sides is the simplicity of the actual radio hardware itself. The idea is to take advantage of the processing power most of us already have to spare around the house rather than filling a radio with DSPs. You're right in that for plain voice there probably wouldn't be much of an advantage outside of possibly helping pick up distant signals, but it means that any digital modes or voice encoding schemes become a software driver rather than requiring hardware support. If you have a 192kHz sampling sound card and this style of SDR you can possibly have features to rival standalone radios costing thousands, depending on the software. Looking this stuff up has me really interested in this kit, previously the SDRs I had seen were much more expensive. Probably the RX-only model for now, since it's quad band versus single band and IIRC my Tech license only allows for CW in a miniscule chunk of the spectrum the RXTX model can be built for. wolrah fucked around with this message at 17:59 on Dec 30, 2010 |
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Dec 30, 2010 17:51
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So at the cutting edge of SDR you've got government agencies. You take a few full racks of something like these and hook them into a Very Big Computer. It's just like that video except for HF. All of it. At once.
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Dec 31, 2010 00:19
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Don't forget... SAARS net is TONIGHT @ 22:00 EST (That's 10 PM east coast time) on the AG0ON echolink node.
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Jan 2, 2011 16:57
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dv6speed posted:Don't forget... SAARS net is TONIGHT @ 22:00 EST (That's 10 PM east coast time) on the AG0ON echolink node. I have to run net control tonight at 8 CST for the local club, so I may be late or not make an appearance if things run long or my net connection goes down again. My new HTC EVO is supposed to show up tomorrow, so I may check in on the node via the EchoLink app once I get it installed.
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Jan 2, 2011 17:08
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Hummer Driving human being posted:Okay, so the sound card is just sampling those frequencies many, many times a second to the point that it's almost the same as being able to monitor a large group of frequencies at one time? You can use it just like any other radio, your transmit bandwidth isn't any wider than it needs to be. The RX side is the biggest thing, you can click right on the signal that you want to listen to and tune to it instantly. Plus your filter is entirely defined in software, so no more blowing hundreds of dollars on filters. I have a RXTX ensemble that I'm slowly working on. I can build it for anywhere on HF but once I do, it's stuck on the bands I pick. I'm building mine for 40m/30m/20m and it'll be a max of 1W out on those bands. It is QRP but I might build an amp later. There are those who build a Softrock Lite II receiver to attach to a IF on a radio so they can view the spectrum but use a radio they like for the transmit. I'm working on repairing a TS-520S, I may add something like that to it one day too.
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Jan 3, 2011 01:18
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