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KC7TZC checking in. I haven't done much for a long time, since I have lived in one place after another that is run by anal-retentive HOAs. The old crone next door has already called them on me some 4 or 5 times for incredibly minor things since I moved into my current place, so I can only imagine what will happen if I try to put up any sort of antenna. Now that all the code requirements are gone, I should upgrade from Tech.
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Apr 22, 2008 11:14
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blugu64 posted:I've got one word for you my friend, Ventenna. Hmm. I'd have to install it so no wire showed at all (one of the reasons the HOA got called on me was apparently due to a loose wire hanging over the edge of the roof from a previous tenant's eff'd up satellite dish installation), and I'm not sure if I can manage that, but it's a start. Thanks for the tip, I'd heard of these things but never really gone looking. 
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Apr 23, 2008 00:47
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sklnd posted:This is one more reason to never buy a house that's deed restricted if possible. This HOA business really rubs me the wrong way, as people who have no investment in your property can dictate what you can and cannot do with it. Unfortunately I don't own, I rent, which limits me even further as I technically don't own the property at all. The landlord is totally awesome (he hates this HOA as much as I do), and would almost 100% certainly not give a flying gently caress what I put up as long as it's done safely, but I'm watched on at least two sides by angry old people who apparently live to call the HOA on other people. This Ventenna thing looks pretty sweet, though. On closer examination, I wouldn't be able to do the stealthy install, though. It requires you to drill some holes in the vent tubing for the antenna wires, and since I don't really have an easy way to get at that tube, I'd have to run the wire down the side of the townhouse somehow. What makes this so frustrating is there's a guy not two minutes from me outside the townhouse complex who has a big freaking tower up on his lawn.  Oh and I love that flagpole antenna, McRib, that's plan B since I'd have to put it down in the yard, it's way too big for the roof of this place. I'd rather have my antenna up where the local stray cats can't chew up the wiring or fry themselves on RF.
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Apr 23, 2008 03:36
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nmfree posted:To channel Gunnery Sergeant Highway, improvise, adapt, and overcome. Are you living in a house? Or in half a duplex? If you have access to the attic, you have a place to put antennas. Sure, it's not up as high as one would like to see, but a smaller, lower, less efficient antenna is still better than none at all. It's a townhouse, and I don't appear to have attic access at all, though I'll look around some more soon. I really like the idea of the Ventenna the more I look at it, because it offers me a couple of options for mounting; either on the roof over the vent pipe, or on top of the storage unit next to my parking space (camouflaged as a regular vent). In both cases, the problem then becomes getting the wire in the house, which I may yet be able to pull off by using one of the existing cables that run into the house. (The TV cable appears to emerge from deep in the earth out front and run into our house. Cox Cable apparently outsources to Fraggle Rock or something.)
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Apr 23, 2008 14:04
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nmfree posted:It's not a good idea to use CATV cable because 1)it's a different impedance and will make a bad situation worse and 2) the first time you key up you'll fry every TV, VCR, DVR, etc. on your local circuit. Even if there's a connector at the far end you can tap into, the cable company will probably frown on you "hijacking" their connection. Nono, I meant to use it as a way to run my own antenna cable into the house, not to steal their cable to use for it. I'm not quite silly enough to use a cable TV wire for my radio. Not yet, anyway. I figure I can maybe enlarge the hole a little and just run in alongside the TV cable and save myself a world of trouble, if I put the antenna out near where that cable goes in. Jedi425 fucked around with this message at 02:13 on Apr 24, 2008 |
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Apr 24, 2008 02:10
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ReD_DaWn posted:I'd like to know the age that people here got their licenses at, but I don't want to screw up the thread. I got my tech license when I was 13, am I alone in getting it pretty young? I got mine at 12; right around my birthday in fact. I crammed hard for the test, tried Morse and never did get the hang of it, and decided to go for the no-code. Still have it.
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Oct 18, 2008 15:35
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Thinkin' about what a disaster AZ will be if ol' COVID comes around got me digging out my old Ham stuff. I only ever had an HT, an Icom IC-W32A, but I was delighted to see that replacement batteries are readily available, since the NiCd pack in this thing is dead as disco. Also, holy poo poo, batteries in the '90s suuuuuuuuuucked. The OEM battery for this radio was a 9.6v 650mah pack that weighs a lot. I bought a 7.4v 2000mah replacement for like $30. We'll see if I can find something cool and cheap to keep me on the air for a while this time. Or I'll go back to playing Frostpunk. 
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Mar 1, 2020 07:06
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Jonny 290 posted:Nicads kinda suck now that we have cheap nimh cells that can be sorta-basically-trickle-charged the same, just for a longer time. You know what's amazing? Not only is this Li-Ion pack half the weight and twice the talk time, but CHIRP makes about a million times more sense than I remember the goddamn ICOM software making. Luckily, I still have my serial cable! Popped my new battery in, and damned if everything doesn't work perfectly. I forgot how many bands this thing did too, especially after you opened up the expanded frequencies via that hack. I should think about doing that with my dead NiCad pack, I can always dispose of the old battery and keep the case for later.
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Mar 6, 2020 02:05
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rdb posted:And I hooked it up to the TV antenna. Works sooo much better than the desktop ones. Going to need some splitters. One of these?  I have one myself, I'd love to hook an SDR up to it and listen to local scanner stuff, like city services or air channels from the airport nearby. I see some posts around saying I need some kind of additional filter for that? I doubt I could get low enough to hear WWV, but I find that stupid thing soothing. 
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Mar 29, 2020 03:13
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Internet Wizard posted:Not sure about availability in Canada, but the RTL-SDR brand stick gets you a hell of a lot of radio for a pretty small price. I got thrown a link to this one which I think is the same thing except slightly more frequency coverage but lower quality and bandwidth? There's so many SDRs out there now that I'm not confident in my ability to avoid the lovely ones, lol.
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Jan 2, 2021 01:38
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So I'm flush with Trumpland Funbucks, what better to do with them than radios? I've decided to get my General and get into FT8, maybe SSTV later. I think that means I'm looking at 40/20m as the bands where the action is? Antennas will be an issue, since I'm in HOA hell, but what I'm looking for is radio recommendations. I know Mr. 290 probably has every HF radio ICOM sells by this point after all.
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Jan 12, 2021 01:15
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Jonny 290 posted:(I'm assuming you're not dumb enough to go to hamfests in person right now). Hey, you don't know me. (of course not!) I do live near an HRO store, so I could do curbside. That 7300's front panel is soooo pretty. Not having 2m/440 would be a bit of a bummer, but I have a pair of SDR dongles or my trusty IC-W32A I can use to listen to old farts ragchew on, I guess...
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Jan 12, 2021 06:44
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Anyone have any experience with these flagpole antennas? I live in the middle of HOA land and I really do not have the spoons to argue with old people about my antenna giving them the 5g coronavirus or whatever. But my CC&Rs say I'm allowed to put up a flagpole up to 20' tall without any issues.  If there's someone out there making them better or cheaper, please, enlighten me.
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Jun 15, 2022 09:09
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Jonny 290 posted:Will be fine or even good on 40 through 10 meters at the ~20 ft height. Absolutely ignore any and all claims of working on 80 or 160. they're just too short to be effective there. I don't need a counterpoise if I can ground it, right? That's the easiest part; it's going in my back yard, so I can dig whatever I want. It just can't look like an antenna when I'm done.
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Jun 15, 2022 17:56
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Jonny 290 posted:Two types of grounds in play: Yeah I may have to forgo that; I'm not sure I have a 40' radius area in my yard I can set this up without just plunking the antenna down right in the walkway to the carport or something- it's not that big, lol. On the upside, no one can raise my rent, so that's been nice. There's a lot more out there on this topic than I expected; apparently the olds in the Villages have to beat their HOA too, so they made a guide to stealth antennas. It looks like some hams have made their own flagpole antennas, so I might consider doing that.
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Jun 15, 2022 19:48
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blugu64 posted:Do some research on the company, I’ve heard some iffy things on one of those flagpole antenna vendors, but can’t remember who. It's this one. Don't do business with the guys I linked, they have an F with the BBB, which I've never seen before.On diving into the CC&Rs at my HOA some more, it just says that antennas require 'approval', so I may try my luck. Or I found a few hams who rolled their own flagpole antennas, I may try one of their guides.
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Jun 16, 2022 04:36
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