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glitch77 posted:My dad (Terry KB5LLI) runs "SWIRA" which covers most of Oklahoma and links spotters to the NWS in severe weather. Is that a Motorola ht220? I've got a box of at least twenty of those, all decommissioned police units with the TX crystals clipped. I need to get my ham ticket. MullardEL34 fucked around with this message at 07:28 on Jan 5, 2009 |
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Jan 5, 2009 07:01
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mwdan posted:I just got an old National NCX-3 20/40/80m HF rig from one of the local hams, who didn't have a need for it, who got it from another ham who got it from some other guy that was cleaning out his garage. I have no idea if it works yet, but it looks cool as hell. It's probably going to need a recap, or at least have the electrolytic caps in the power supply replaced in order to be reliable as a daily use rig.
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Feb 17, 2009 06:15
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My Technician class license was granted by the FCC yesterday. I am KD8LOM. Time to start studying for the general I guess. And grow a beard.
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Jun 28, 2009 00:35
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Grilldos posted:I read your call as "kabloom". This is great. Congrats. Thanks. I never noticed that!
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Jun 28, 2009 01:28
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My used Radio Shack HTX10 came In the mail today (Only 10m rig I could afford at the moment). I strung up a homemade 10M dipole in a tree with clothesline, in an Inverted V pattern, about 25 feet up. I'm currently using an old motorcycle battery as a power source. I'm too broke to afford a real power supply  This evening, I made my first contact ever, with an operator in Lyles, Tennessee, 580 miles away. This is really cool! I can't wait until the conditions on 10m really open up. MullardEL34 fucked around with this message at 06:18 on Jul 7, 2009 |
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Jul 7, 2009 06:11
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 I got my first VHF HT, a Feidaxin FD-160a. $60 shipped from Hong Kong, and it arrived in a week. I've been getting excellent reports on local repeaters, and with a high gain antenna I was able to (barely) hit a repeater 40 miles away. It came with a charging cradle and lapel mic too. For the price I'm really impressed with it. It seems well built, heavy and quite solid for being chinese crap, and actually has a titanium chassis. MullardEL34 fucked around with this message at 18:27 on Jul 9, 2009 |
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Jul 9, 2009 18:17
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Sorry for the doublepost, but If any Cleveland area hamgoons want to talk sometime, I'm usually monitoring the 147.210 repeater in Mentor, CTSS 110.9, offset +.6, also 147.165, offset +.6, no CTSS.
MullardEL34 fucked around with this message at 21:36 on Jul 9, 2009 |
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Jul 9, 2009 21:13
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Kenderama posted:Okay, here's a question that I've spent years trying to figure out how to ask without looking like a Ham Newbie... with a 16 year old license.
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Jul 10, 2009 22:45
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10 Meters has really opened up today. I've made about 12 contacts all over the Midwest, Northeast, and Southeast, with my little 25w mobile rig and tree mounted wire dipole. The 28.400 calling frequency is piling up like crazy. MullardEL34 fucked around with this message at 23:02 on Jul 29, 2009 |
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Jul 29, 2009 23:00
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TNLTRPB posted:I want to bring up a point that seems to have been glossed over in this thread. Due to budget issues, I could only afford an extremely inexpensive Chinese HT to work 2 meters. With a 3db gain magnet mount antenna on the roof of my car, I can reliably hit a couple of powerful local repeaters at distances of 15-20mi on only 5 watts. From the signal report's I've gotten, I don't always come in with full quieting at those distances, but my signal is still perfectly copyable. It really doesn't matter though, because 2m is basically dead in my area when some local club net isn't going on. Even during peak drive time our two biggest area repeaters are basically silent. I guess it's another result of the aging ham population 
MullardEL34 fucked around with this message at 04:21 on Oct 13, 2009 |
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Oct 13, 2009 04:13
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Radnor posted:So many buttons. With the DX-9000 at $10,000 I'm going to guess this rig will cost $5-$6,000. So. much. overkill.
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Dec 25, 2009 08:10
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BigHustle posted:As requested in IRC chat... Oh God, I heard this guy on 10m last night, babbling on 28.400. I thought he was just some freebanding Cb'er with a made-up or stolen callsign. Sorry for quoting an old post by the way. MullardEL34 fucked around with this message at 07:43 on Aug 8, 2010 |
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Aug 8, 2010 07:39
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BigHustle posted:Kinda makes me wanna check in on the old repeater system using EchoLink to see if I can catch dear old Ralphie again. I picked him up here in northeast Ohio with my really lovely ten meter rig, which consists of a Radio Shack HTX 10, a dipole strung about 15 feet up in a tree, and a motorcycle battery "Power Supply." Moved up to 28.410 and made a few contacts along the eastern seaboard. I love sporadic E season. Makes my 10 watt transceiver and less than ideal antenna system not matter so much.
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Aug 9, 2010 07:16
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It's been awhile since I posted here, but has anyone else noticed the massive opening on 10m lately? I turned on my little 20 watt Radio Shack htx-10 for the first time since May, and from here in northeast Ohio, I was able to work Saskatoon, Guadalajara, Argentina, Miami, Atlanta, and St. Croix. Considering my antenna is a folded dipole hung 15 feet up in a tree with clothesline, I'm sort of dumbfounded. MullardEL34 fucked around with this message at 08:04 on Oct 31, 2011 |
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Oct 31, 2011 07:49
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Jonny 290 posted:We got a new band! Well, WRC approved, anyways. As someone who has built an AM broadcast antenna for a small college radio station on 640KHZ, the transmitters may be simple, but the antennas are not. You're talking radiating elements in the hundreds of feet and lots of ground radials. I ended up building a vertical that had a massive hand wound loading coil and used the steel frame of the building as a ground radial. Works pretty well, actually. Actually, speaking of college radio, there are tons of surplus, crystal controlled 30-150 watt MW broadcast transmitters floating around that used to be used in campus carrier current broadcast systems. They could probably be tuned down to 600 meters, and modified for AM Phone or CW use, without much effort. Look for units made by LPB Inc. and Radio Systems Inc. They pop up on ebay and craigslist once in a while. I'm a senior at a small rural liberal arts college in Northeast Ohio. I discovered the remnants of such a system when I was a freshman. They started out with small, homebrew 10 watt tube transmitters in the 1940's, which were installed in every dorm and campus building, the 50 ohm antenna output capacitor-coupled to the main 120V service. In the 70's, the homebrew transmitters were replaced with LPB Units. Each Transmitter was fed audio from the studio over the campus telephone network, one twisted pair in each building reserved for the purpose, tied in to a main distribution panel near the studio. Line level audio from the studio's mixer was sent to an ancient Tube-based Western Electric telephone line amplifier that fed the distribution panel. Crude, but it worked. I grabbed six of these 25 watt transmitters when they ripped them out in 2009, unfortunately, all but one had fried final transistors, due to the 60 year old paper capacitors in the homebrew antenna coupling networks shorting and putting 120VAC across the antenna terminals. 
MullardEL34 fucked around with this message at 09:44 on Mar 8, 2012 |
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Mar 8, 2012 08:57
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Jonny 290 posted:Yeah, I dabbled in 136 KHz a little bit a couple years ago. Unless you have a hundred acre farm and a few miles of copper, the antennas are just unworkable, heh. Fun to build gear for though, low frequencies are pretty forgiving. Basically, I made a crude copy of this antenna: http://www.radiosystems.com/PDF/atinstructions.pdf The college purchased an AT series antenna in the early 90's, but it was destroyed when a tree limb fell on it 2006. This marked the end of our station until I got involved in 2010. I made a crude approximation of it from the schematic in the manual, using copper tubing as the vertical and a 200-something foot loading coil of 18 gauge solid copper wire. The three story steel-framed brick building acts as a ground radial. 15-20 watts covers our 2 square mile campus without issue. We're technically an unlicensed FCC approved "free radiate" station, Free Radiate being that we can use an open antenna system only if it covers our campus and nothing more. Usually this is the case, but once in a great while, at night, when the conditions are just right, we can be heard by listeners located 30-60 miles away. It has something to do with our antenna being mounted on a building that sits at the very top of one of the tallest hills in the county, on top of the fact that the foundation of the building actually sits below the water table. We have the QSL emails to prove it. It always seems to happen during the 2-4AM indie rock/pop on vinyl show. MullardEL34 fucked around with this message at 09:21 on Jun 19, 2019 |
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Mar 8, 2012 09:53
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If anyone is looking for a super-compact mobile that can be hidden or mounted pretty much anywhere in a modern car, take a look at the Leixen VV-808. It's a small, 10 Watt single band VHF or UHF mobile that has a bunch of features, and is fully computer programmable. Best of all, It can be had for as little as $100.75 if you shop around on AliExpress. I was able to install it in the little storage area above the stereo in my 2005 Subaru Outback. It comes with a mic that has a DTMF keypad and up/down channel buttons. Here's a pic of my VV-808 with a Quarter for size reference:  I've used it for about a week, and have gotten numerous compliments from other local hams about the sound quality of this little Transceiver. I'll post pics of it installed in my Subaru when I get a chance. I love cheap Chinese ham poo poo.  I currently own two Baofeng UV3R+ HT's, a Baofeng UV5R+ HT, A couple of Feidaxen FD160a's, and now this Leixen mobile. I can't wait until the PRC starts making cheap HF gear that eclipses the shoddy looking QRP rigs that are just starting to surface online. MullardEL34 fucked around with this message at 09:34 on Apr 12, 2014 |
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Apr 12, 2014 09:08
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PuTTY riot posted:I love the Chinese poo poo too. I went and decided to buy a house a couple of weeks after getting my ticket so my budget for hobby poo poo is basically nonexistent right now. All I've got is a uv-5r and a couple SDR dongles. I'd love to get into HF on the cheap. Maybe I should get a hamitup or something instead of a full blown transceiver. Get the Leixen. You won't be disappointed. I've been running it in my car for about a month and have no trouble hitting repeaters from 25+ miles away on 10w.
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Apr 28, 2014 05:25
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Crossposting from the Shortwave Thread... I've also added a BFO to it... I picked up this interesting little Zenith Portable tube radio a couple of weeks ago. The 1953 L507 Meridian was basically the Poor man's version of the H500 Transoceanic. The Meridian sold for $89 while the Transoceanic H500 sold for around $150. It didn't sell well and as a result is quite rare today. The L507 Meridian covers the AM broadcast band along with two bands covering 1-6MHZ and 6-18MHZ shortwave. Unlike the H500, the Meridian didn't have a complex pushbutton band selection coil stack, but rather a basic rotary bandswitch. Despite being Zenith's low end shortwave portable in the US market, the Meridian was apparently exported to Cuba, Central and South America, North Africa, and The Mideast.  After a Recap, restringing the dial cord, and building a battery pack for it, it plays great. The original Electrolytic capacitor can tested like new on all sections on my ESR tester, and the radio played with no AC hum after the paper capacitors were replaced, so it will stay for the time being.  The 1L6 tube was weak, so I replaced it with one of the solid state versions available on eBay. The SS 1l6 provides better sensitivity and selectivity on the upper Shortwave bands. Also the power cord is twisted all to heck, but the insulation is still pliable, and since I tend I run my old tube portables almost exclusively on NIMH rechargeable batteries, It'll get replaced later. Radio runs on 6 cheap rear end Dollar Tree carbon zinc D cells for the filament supply and 10 NIMH 9v's in series for the Plate supply. The filament draw is so low that the D cells last for almost a month of regular listening. My next move is to use a 12V Sealed Lead Acid battery from an emergency lighting system with a 9V regulator or a diode dropper to take the place of the D Cells. Now I can bring Radio Havana Cuba, Brother Stair, and Alex Jones with me wherever I go! MullardEL34 fucked around with this message at 09:42 on Aug 14, 2016 |
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Aug 14, 2016 09:19
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Hamgoons, I was wondering what kind of line you guys use to suspend wire dipoles and such. I've used plain old paracord since I got my ticket in 2009 but UV and weather wreaks havoc on it and I end up having to replace it every year. Is there another type of line that is readily available that holds up to weather better? I use a 100ft maple tree in the corner of my yard to hoist most of my wire antennas. I just purchased a multiband end fed dipole and I'd like to hang it in some kind of semi-permanent manner. PS, If you ever need to use a tree to hoist an antenna, go to walmart, buy a slingshot, a cheap fishing reel, and some large lead sinkers. Duct tape the reel to the handle of the sling shot, tie a large sinker to the end of the line, and I'm guessing you all know the rest.
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Sep 3, 2016 07:31
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Sniep posted:Well, I mean, teeeeeccchhhhnically you're still above the allotted ERP even if you do 500mw your HT, since your antenna has positive gain most likely and the restrictions include having an irremovable antenna yadda yadda - you are a bit better shot RX/TX wise both vs. the type-approved devices. However I think it's such a minute, harmless differentiation that literally nobody ever has given a gently caress unless you're like on a mobile pushing 45 watts on FRS 1 talking poo poo. What about ditching frs/gmrs for MURS frequencies and setting those presets to low power? I'm sure its not technically kosher because the hts are not type accepted but murs has a power limit of 2 watts and the low power setting on most hts would fall within that limit. I used to use murs with some friends here in town but lately the migrant workers a town over have been running pirate Norteno music stations on the freqs. I poo poo you not. MullardEL34 fucked around with this message at 08:48 on Sep 17, 2016 |
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Sep 17, 2016 08:43
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So, I'm going for an upgrade to General soon. I picked up a WRL Galaxy V transceiver on ebay for $40  And a Heathkit HP-23A power supply that I got locally for $20 to run it. The Galaxy still needs one more 12VDC rail at 1A to make it work. I can do that... The PSU and Transceiver will need a full electronic restoration. I'll post my progress here. MullardEL34 fucked around with this message at 10:46 on Sep 24, 2016 |
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Sep 24, 2016 10:41
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Jonny 290 posted:jesus christ livin up to your name lol A neighbor William Nick, had one that he used until he passed in 2004. Hanging out at his house gave me the itch. Got me into vintage Color TV...  Regular Maintenance for a 1967 Zenith color TV... 
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Sep 24, 2016 11:39
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I made some progress on the Galaxy 5 Transceiver. I found a seller on ebay that offered a kit to make a new 6ft interconnect cable for the Heathkit HP-23 Power Supply. I happened to have the correct female cinch-jones plug to mate with the Galaxy. Soldered up the the cable and replaced one dried out electrolytic cap in the power supply and this is the result: https://youtu.be/yrOkI1rcOmM  Galaxy 5 Is Alive! I'm not out of the woods yet. The 10 meter band is dead, from what I can tell it's looking like a dirty or corroded bandswitch. The S meter works during final tuneup but is non-responsive on receive. The radio has some paper and small electrolytic caps in the solid state audio output stage that definitely need to go before I can put it into everyday use. The tuning vernier is full of dried grease and stiffer than it should be, but all in all, I consider this to be pretty good progress for one evening. Edit: I forgot one thing. The 12VDC rail needed to operate the RX/TX relay and transistor audio amplifier for the speaker is being fed by a wall wort from a long dead linksys router. The Heathkit doesn't have a 12vdc rail but there is an unused 6.3V 5A filament winding on the power transformer that I will eventually use to drive a rectifier and voltage doubler to get the 12V 1A I need rather than the janky Linksys hackjob. MullardEL34 fucked around with this message at 09:43 on Oct 10, 2016 |
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Oct 10, 2016 06:43
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Sorry for the double post but here's a couple shots of the vacuum bulbs. Its amazingly compact for a tube rig. These were very popular as HF mobile rigs in the 60s. This one came with a massive under dash mounting bracket that I will never ever use. 
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Oct 10, 2016 21:20
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Working CW with an Intel Compute Stick and a Heathkit HW-100.  The Galaxy V has been sidelined for the time being because the bandswitch has a cracked wafer. I'll have to keep digging through "surprise bins" at Electronic Surplus International until I come up with something suitable. http://www.electronicsurplus.com/ 
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Oct 23, 2016 08:28
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10 Meters has been pretty active around here lately. The Heathkit HW100 works great. It was totally worth the time invested on an electronic restoration.  poeticoddity posted:Is there a secret to soldering the braid on coax? I just built my first antenna (a full-wave helical broadcast FM receive antenna I attached to a $10 clock radio just to try it out) out of some solid core wire and coax and everything soldered fine but even with my iron cranked up, supplemental flux, and years of regular soldering experience the stuff just beads right off the shielding. Sorry for replying to an old post, but soldering coax braid to UHF and other connectors becomes much easier when you have one of these:  https://www.amazon.com/Weller-WEL8200PK-120-Volt-Universal-Soldering/dp/B00002N7S0 Weller guns were basically the Repairman's standard back in the era of point to point wired tube gear, when you often had to solder terminal strips and component grounds to a steel chassis, but they still have uses today, and soldering Coax is one of them. Sometimes you need lots of heat, and you need it now. In that case, a Weller gun will NEVER fail you. MullardEL34 fucked around with this message at 08:05 on Mar 16, 2017 |
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Mar 16, 2017 07:26
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Welp, the recent snows caused a huge tree limb to fall and take out my 150ft End-Fed Half Wave dipole. It happened once last year but I was able to fix it with a Lineman's splice soldered with a cigar torch and heatshrinked. Of course, the splice held up fine. I'd fix it now but it's about 8 degrees F outside and most of it is lost under two feet of snow. I really should have went for the heavier gauge radiator, or ran the antenna out of the drop zone of my lovely Tulip Poplar that loses limbs like an untreated leper every time the wind blows. Doing so wasn't really practical because the tree is like 130ft tall and towers over my entire yard. Oh well.
MullardEL34 fucked around with this message at 08:18 on Jan 23, 2019 |
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Jan 23, 2019 07:51
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Michael Jackson posted:That reminds me of my radio mast that i bought 2 years ago. It was the cheapest one i could find and now the screws are rusty and the plastic rings holding the telescopic elements are degrading fast. It collapse slowly. I should have bought a more sturdy mast considering i live in northern norway. A couple of local hams I know and have gone on field day with have used US military surplus Camo Net Poles/antenna masts in the past. They're all over ebay here in the US, I'm not so sure if something similar is available in Norway though. They are usually aluminum, so you would need to isolate the antenna electrically, but the US army does make a longwire insulator for them as well.  
MullardEL34 fucked around with this message at 09:23 on Jan 25, 2019 |
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Jan 25, 2019 09:15
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So, I spent the last week doing practice tests on Hamstudy.org for an hour or so a night. I took one of the online VE Exams over Zoom on Sunday and PASSED my General upgrade, 34/35. It cost $15 and was pretty darn easy to set up. All I had to do was go on Zoom with 3 VE's, pan my laptop over the room to show my test area was clean, and take the test on exam.tools while they watched me on cam. 30 minutes later and they emailed me my CSCE form as a PDF. I'm pumped! I'm probably going to upgrade to Extra soon.
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Dec 13, 2023 11:33
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Walrusmaster posted:Congrats on passing! Time to get some HF contacts Christmas came a few days late. I bought an Icom IC-730 off of a seller in Japan for $180 shipped. It arrived the day after Christmas in perfect Condition..  I've been having tons of fun Hunting POTA stations on 20 and 40M during the day, and rag-chewing with old dudes on 80 meters at night...  Also has anyone here here played around with RM Noise? It's an AI filter for ssb and CW. It works insanely well here in my suburban QTH https://ournetplace.com/rm-noise/
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Jan 10, 2024 10:29
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The Muffinlord posted:Anyone have experience using one of those ninety-dollar mag loops off Amazon? I got a new Xiegu X6100 to play with and it hates my old 817's Miracle Whip, at least as far as reception's concerned. I'm not quite ready to put together the whole-rear end PowerPoint I would need to sell the wife on letting me plunk $600 on a name-brand loop, and believe me when I say it's safer I do not try to manufacture one myself. No trees suitable for a wire and nowhere to mount a vertical that's not going to look comically out of place in our neighborhood, either. I've seen a few reviews on these since they first popped up on AliExpress a year of so ago. The 20 watt rating is VERY optimistic, mainly because the two variable caps in the tuning network are the same types that have been used in pocket transistor radios since the mid 60's.  These caps aren't meant to handle ANY kind of RF load. 5 Watts PEP is probably even pushing it. It's absolutely a QRP only Antenna as delivered, if that. If someone could come up with a replacement tuning network using a readily available, higher rated Air-Variable cap It might be a great starting point for a cheap DIY portable loop. I just wouldn't trust it with your brand new $600 Transceiver. This guy is a CB'er but his review series might help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7rsHpa35EM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDDguyHlSOI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31ZrkYN0VSs BTW: There are great plans for stealth antennas out there (as long as you have a tuner) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y473hOmif-E MullardEL34 fucked around with this message at 10:26 on Jan 29, 2024 |
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Jan 29, 2024 09:43
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