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Hey guys, I just took my exams this morning and ending up earning my Technician and General license in one sitting! Now that I've got a couple of weeks before my call sign becomes active I am starting to look into radios. I've got a Baofeng UV-5R with a Nagoya antenna that I have been listening to for the last few weeks, nothing major mainly just NOAA broadcasts. What I am hunting for is a radio I could use at home now that would allow me to take part in SkyWARN, do APRS, have SSB, be able to utilize all the bands I'm licensed for but also something I might load up in a sailboat one day. Does such a magical radio exist? Should I find something more basic and eventually trade/sell it for a marine HF radio when the time comes?
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Sep 21, 2014 00:54
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Motronic posted:Any of the all-in-one mobiles should suffice like the FT-857d. Sweet, thanks for pointing me this direction. I've seen the 857 and 897's mentioned before but it didn't occur to me that they were all-in-one units. I figured they were hiding a huge power supply or something under the desk. After researching it I found a lot of guys drop those Yaesu's into Pelican cases with a 12v battery and they have a mobile rig too. I'm digging this idea, I'll start looking around for a good used 857D. Nothing on Ebay or Craigslist in my area and it looks like you need your callsign to register on QTH.com before I can browse the classified ads. 
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Sep 21, 2014 20:58
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Still rocking my Baofeng UV5R for the moment, but I do have my callsign now - KE0BUI checking in Made my first contact last night while connected to a local repeater! 
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Oct 15, 2014 15:52
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I've never done contesting before but this was an interesting look into the Amateur Radio "Olympics" https://vimeo.com/119947598 I saw several Windows 7 machines as their logging computers but sadly no die-hards rocking Win95
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Mar 5, 2015 05:27
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charliebravo77 posted:The $30-40 Baofeng UV5R is what pushed me over the edge. I had been RX only with scanners for the longest time, but once I learned about a cheap rear end transceiver I couldn't help myself. Dual band... they've already come out with SIX BAND for less than $150 -> https://anytonetech.com/purchase  I can't get over the naming schemes for the radios, how rad will I feel with my trusty OBLTR-8R in hand! And apparently the path to heaven is paved hawking cheap chinese radios to the congregation of customers that is Amazon. Taken from their about page:  "Have you heard the good news? He has risen! 73!"
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Mar 10, 2015 04:44
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finally after - moving again - buying a busted used radio - spent hours loving with signalink to no avail - had busted radio professionally repaired and sold at a loss to another ham - signing up and getting LotW configured - messing with a ladder-line fed dipole with poor results - buying a new radio plus automatic tuner - sorting out antenna probz and getting acceptable SWR - messing with dxkeeper and winwarbler had a great couple of hours of PSK31 and SSB contacts tonight with hams from French Polynesia, Russia, Cuba, Canada and a few others getting to this point took a little bit of my soul but hey new radio was icom 7200 that had the "bad" made in china HM-36 microphone, but by some weird stroke of luck busted used radio was icom 746 and I happened to keep the "good" made in Japan HM-36 microphone from it. johnnyonetime fucked around with this message at 05:50 on Jun 7, 2016 |
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Jun 7, 2016 05:10
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Jonny 290 posted:What went bad in the 746, might I ask? Was it that IC151 that died or whatever? I believe so, it was two expensive components that were replaced that were killing the TX on the unit. Ended up being $400 or so which is crazy since I bought the thing for $700. I actually contacted the guy I bought it from and he agreed to pay for $200 worth of the repairs. Just goes to show there are a lot of good people in the ham community. So a net loss of $200 when it was all said and done, I think I gave the invoice to the next guy to show the 746 had a clean bill of health. but I bought a Icom 7200 to replace it and has made for a great main radio plus perfect to take mobile out in the mountains
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Jun 7, 2016 06:15
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Jonny 290 posted:Right on, yeah probably it. Yeah I'm not crazy about it as I was really looking at the Yaesu FT-991. The Yaesu was stretching my budget thin already without a tuner and the 7200 was like $200 off the day I went into HRO to buy. But it checks off all my boxes and has worked really well. Has the built in USB so I have one cable for digital modes / cat control and two additional cables to the tuner, real easy to pack and go. I powered it off my Jeep battery last weekend camping, threw a wire antenna in the trees and it worked the Alabama QSO party no problem.
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Jun 7, 2016 22:14
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I got a shiny new antenna analyzer today and I was shocked to discover my g5rv actually resonates nicely on 40m with an swr of 1.6. I've been dicking around on 20m lately and the swr there was like 3.2! the antenna is setup as an inverted vee, the top section is 35 feet off the ground in a tree in my backyard and the legs are roughly 45 degree angles tied to my front and back fence in a north to south orientation.  guy about 200 miles south of me said I completely blotted out his waterfall on PSK31 and I was only using 50w ha
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Jun 15, 2016 05:14
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Sniep posted:What antenna tuner are you using on a G5RV that you're getting 3.2 SWR on 20m? It's an LDG AT-100 ProII Autotuner. I might clear the memory out and re-tune it again to see if it gets better SWR  eddiewalker posted:I haven't done digital modes in forever, but I remember waterfall splattering being caused by incorrect audio settings or input gain, not exactly by power. You could kick out 1500 watts cleanly and you signal would still be confined to its proper width. There's a good video from Icom I followed for those digital settings on the 7200 but I'll go over them again. The usb level set on the radio is at 50% and I run digital modes at 50w. I very well could have the gain still set way too high. Sniep posted:Oh, yeah, to that point, I've just been learning all this myself on my first HF digital mode experimenting I have been pumping up the tx the few times I didn't get a response... I'm no better than a cb radio user 
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Jun 16, 2016 04:21
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Jonny 290 posted:quite possible. Depending on levels you might still be 20 db too hot. Put it this way, when I use MMSSTV, which has always-full-bore audio, I have to turn the device level in Windows mixer down to 3% and then I have to turn the windows master volume slider down to 2% to avoid hitting AGC. That's good to know, I lowered the Window mixer considerably from what it was to about 20% so I'll see how that works out. thanks! Sniep posted:That thing should tune a coat hangar. I'd suspect your cabling before a close-to-band antenna getting a 3.2 I read online that since the G5RV was ladder-line fed it needed a balun at the feedline so I just did a 4-wind ugly balun on the coax and loosely zip-tied it in place. Now that I have the analyzer I'll take out the ugly balun and see if that resolves my SWR issue. I'll test the coax cable too and make sure there aren't any shorts Sniep posted:No I mean you can't even touch it, are you using your ALC meter to calibrate? Full power always 100% (100w or otherwise) - all computer poo poo off - and then raise TX till you bump into the ALC scale then back down and you're set and don't touchy anything from there forward. I switched to ALC meter and slowly raised the USB Lvl on the radio until the ALC meter bumped up a notch from minimal and it was at USB Lvl 45. At that point the LDG tuner showed I was outputting between 30-40w. Kept the RF Power to set 100w on the radio itself. Windows mixer is set to 20% currently. Had a quick QSO with a guy in California on 40m, my signal report was 599. He was QRP on 5w and I was copying him over 90% so the Windows mixer is set right for receiving. Might still be too hot but I'm probably way better off than before. thanks!
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Jun 16, 2016 06:03
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Jonny 290 posted:
well I went serious boy scout. I bought the rf chokes from the fellow on ebay and those things are stout. I wound the cable twice, clipped on a choke, wound two more times and went 90 degrees around the coil and clipped on the next choke, etc. Not sure if it makes a difference or if I should do them in a single file line down the coax. The ladder line on the left is staked to the ground so it's as straight down as possible from the apex of the inverted vee in the tree. Still waiting on that 4:1 balun and I'll look into upgrading the rg8x in the future  I haven't had time to measure the impedance using the analyzer just yet but if there's any serious improvements in the readings I'll post.
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Jun 21, 2016 18:07
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So at my work we have this 35-40 foot tower begging for some type of antenna. <insert mast joke here> I got permission from my boss to put up an antenna and operate nights and weekends. The only reason we have the tower is for a site to site backup wireless link. I've only operated HF with wire antennas strung from trees. I'm paralyzed by the amount of choice when it comes to HF antenna options. What do you guys suggest would work well on this tower that wouldn't break the bank? I looked at the Cushcraft A-3S but I'm not sure I'm ready to drop $600 for an HF antenna. Then I start thinking I would need a rotator, then I get overwhelmed and shelve the project for a couple of months. Is a vertical HF antenna advisable from that high up? I can start with one band or multi-band, really price is my main concern. I am capable of following instructions and constructing an HF antenna, again there's just too many howto's online and my eyes glass over. Can you guys offer some suggestions? I've got power, internet and an air-conditioned room I can operate from if I can get just settle on a antenna to get me started. johnnyonetime fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Aug 3, 2017 |
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Aug 3, 2017 22:11
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xergm posted:If you just want to mess around on HF cheaply, an inverted-V would probably work fine hanging off of that just to get started. Cool thanks! I've got a G5RV coiled up in my drawer that I'll run up on a pulley and some para-cord. I guess that's my answer for now since I'm not willing to shell out the bucks
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Aug 4, 2017 22:18
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xergm posted:Of note: with a G5RV, or anything fed with ladder line, you're going to need to make sure that the ladder line is kept away from the metal tower structure. So if I mounted a piece of unistrut on the tower to hold the ladder line away and parallel to the tower would that be enough separation? code:
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Aug 6, 2017 17:40
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Progressive JPEG posted:If you haven't done this already, this guy sells a 3' tower arm for $60, pulleys incl: http://www.kf7p.com/KF7P/Antenna_Standoff_Arm.html  That would be perfect and you can't beat the price. I think just a pulley and carabiner for me was $25 off Amazon.I took the pulley/carabiner and climbed the tower, attaching it to a standoff 30 feet up or so. We had some bricks lying around so I tied paracord to two bricks and stretched out the inverted V going North/South over the flat roof of our building. Man what a difference when you can get the antenna high enough. Also I bought some solid core electrical copper wire and ran it from my radio to the tower grounding rod. I feel like I am receiving quite a bit better than my old QTH. I discovered the Reverse Beacon Network which is awesome to see how the antenna performed. I was suprised to hit Spain right out of the box with 100w!  I'm a no-code loser so I used the Winkeyer built into N1MM+ to send out the CQ TEST
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Aug 16, 2017 04:07
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I have a dumb power question. I've got a Maxtrac 300 that I want to use as a ARPS receiving radio in a chase vehicle for a high altitude balloon launch. I've got an Astron SS-25 bench power supply that is rated at 13.8vdc. When I plug in the Maxtrac and power on nothing happens. However when I take it to my vehicle and plug it into 12vdc it powers right up. It's got a 16 pin expansion port on the back and I have pins 7&9 bridged as well as pins 15&16. I wanted to power it on the bench, program it and test it before sticking it in the vehicle. Really I just want to understand why it works in the car and not on the bench.. Good news is I'm almost finished building the trackuino I'm going to use in the balloon! 
johnnyonetime fucked around with this message at 03:52 on Aug 24, 2018 |
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Aug 24, 2018 03:44
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Motronic posted:So you have a cable with a cig lighter plug for the vehicle and exactly what for your bench? A cig outlet attached to the supply? If so, that's bad. If you're swapping cables on the tracker for the bench supply, that cable is bad. This is assuming you've tested the output of the supply. Car: The 2 pin Motorola power connector goes through the car firewall directly to ring terminals on the car battery. Bench: Wires directly screwed into the output of the power supply to a 2 pin Motorola power connector. I've got a multimeter at work that I'll use to check the cabling when I get home
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Aug 24, 2018 17:44
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Well the problem seemed to have sorted itself out. I tested the bench power supply cable and it checked out okay, it was reading 14.06vdc actually. However I had another 2 pin Motorola power connector I found with 10 gauge wire. Swapped in the new cable, read the same voltage 14.06vdc but for whatever reason the radio turned right on. Who knows?? Ran the Maxtrac programming software through DOSBox and programmed 144.390 into channel 1. The Maxtrac took the programming, restarted and I heard a *bleep bloop* of aprs packets every few minutes squawk out of the speaker. Received my Byonics TinyTrak4 TNC in the mail today and my interface cable I ordered from eBay should be here on Monday. I've got a laptop ready with this slick Pinpoint APRS software (http://www.pinpointaprs.com/). I'll post finished pictures of the trackuino when I get the Radiometrix HX1 transmitter soldered to the board. Then I've got to grab a couple of cheap Canon cameras off eBay and load CHDK on them for still photos and video recording. I think I might need additional battery power to run them the entire flight.
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Aug 25, 2018 05:21
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Partycat posted:One of our clubs has two repeaters up on Brandmeister. I have a MD380 and I’ve made a few interesting contacts . Been mulling my next radio purchase too, the bfdx? The anyone? The cs-800d? All the MOTOTRBO stuff from Motorola works over DMR right? A quick glance on eBay and all those radios are pretty pricey. I like my CDM1250 because it's built like a tank but I'm not ready to fork over that kind of cash for DMR. Plus the software to program the radio.
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Sep 4, 2018 17:28
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^ Some good DMR info, thanks! That Hytera MD785 is solid, looks as nice as the Motorola radios and no fuss with the software. I finished soldering the Trackuino, programmed the Arduino and it's working well. I've been running it in my car driving to/from work and it's cool seeing the trail on aprs.fi  Now it's time to build the foam enclosure for my balloon payload. I've got a 1.3ghz video transmitter and a quadcopter camera I'm going to load in there with two Canon cameras running CHDK. I think I'm going to power the whole thing with a LiPo battery and some buck convertors for the various electronics.
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Sep 6, 2018 03:47
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I'm taking the plunge and learning CW, doing it in a 3 pronged approach: - Downloaded the "Morse Toad" app on iPhone to teach me letters - Signed up with the Long Island CW Club for small group teachings over video conferencing (https://longislandcwclub.org) - Signed up for the May CW Ops Academy (https://cwops.org) A couple of guys in my area are pretty big in SOTA and after watching them get after it on the paddles I wanted in. It will be exciting to dust off the log book and hear more than what's buzzing on the local repeaters.
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Feb 8, 2019 16:09
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There's an old mom and pop electronics store in my hood that has a mountain of old, good stuff and I stumbled across a Heathkit HW-16 yesterday. I've never had a vintage radio but I'm (still) learning CW and this radio intrigued me. It was $39 and I'm trying to decide if I have enough experience to get it back online. That same electronics store actually has a ton of vaccum tubes, all types of capacitors and resistors so I'm sure I could find replacement parts there. I built a QCX and I planned on that being my QRP rig. This could be more of a home station. I found a recap kit made by Hayseed Hamfest that looks like a good upgrade: https://hayseedhamfest.com/collections/heathkit/products/hw-16-re-cap-kit dumb question: From what I read online it appears that a power supply is inside the unit? That can't be right can it? If it does have a busted power supply can I just use my Aston-35 power supply to power it?
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Mar 1, 2019 16:45
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Pimblor posted:It most likely does have a ps. Remember tube gear has voltages that are ridiculously high by todays standards. 700v and higher for grid or plate (I forget which) is common so be careful and make sure all the caps are discharged before you fool with it. Partycat posted:Mr. Carlson’s Lab on YouTube does a good job reminding you about the HV stuff in tube gear. That being said he also covers what some of it does and what you’re looking at - confidence can be a killer here but it helps to know what you’re dealing with. Thanks guys, that might be too much of a project for me right now. I probably should focus on learning CW for now and worry about gear after I'm comfortable with the code.
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Mar 7, 2019 16:51
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Jonny 290 posted:lets get on that motherfucking satellite! Sweet! Is that tv antenna rotator attaching the antenna to the mast? Also do you use the pan/tilt controls in Orbitron? I was interested in building a SATNOGS v3 [https://satnogs.org] and using that to track satellites.
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Mar 18, 2019 15:54
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mycomancy posted:What am I even looking at here? I believe you are looking at Icom's answer to the Elecraft KX3 transciever, a portable powerhouse of an HF radio https://elecraft.com/products/kx3-all-mode-160-6-m-transceiver 
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Aug 31, 2019 03:16
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Has anyone built an antenna rotator for tracking satellites and talking to the ISS? I don't have any HF gear at the moment but I do have a few VHF and UHF radios and wanted to do something with them. I've looked at SatNOGS https://satnogs.org/ a few times and wondered if this would be the best way to build a antenna rotator that would work over RS232? I start to look at the build sheet and get overwhelmed and shelf the project for another year. I think if I had a rotator I could use it for sats, ISS and eventually a trackuino balloon launch that I've been working on for a few years as well. Or am I making this way too hard and I just need to get one of those arrow handheld antennas and point it by hand? johnnyonetime fucked around with this message at 17:46 on Mar 5, 2020 |
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Mar 5, 2020 16:15
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Jonny 290 posted:Yeah i built one. https://github.com/k3ng/k3ng_rotator_controller, a 24v AC transformer and some relays and switches. Thanks for the info! Well in a strange turn of events I came across https://www.work-sat.com and K6LCS mentioned that the IC-W32a is a full duplex HT that is a good choice for working satellites. After reading the praise of the W32a up in the thread it was a no brainer. Coincidentally there was a cherry W32a that was just listed on ebay that I purchased for $144. So I'll pick up an arrow antenna at HMO this weekend and get chirp fired up and see if I can contact the ISS. So instead of agonizing over antenna rotator builds for hours then doing nothing I'll just get outside and actually use the radio, neat! Edit: She's a beaut, like opening a time capsule 
johnnyonetime fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Mar 10, 2020 |
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Mar 6, 2020 17:25
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copen posted:I will buy it for sure. I am Denver too so I can probably just meet you somewhere. I am already 2/3's of the way to filling one up  Denver Motorola Goons?! 
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Jun 16, 2020 19:44
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