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I've been interested in getting my Ham license for a while. My uncle has an old, semi-retarded Yaesu rig he's willing to give me (got hit by lightning, and now ti doesn't remember any pre-sets), I'm just not sure how I'd set up an antenna rig in my apartment. I live on the first floor of a 3 story apartment building about a mile from Downtown. There's no way for me to get an antenna above building-level without violating a lot of lease terms. There are a few nearby tress I could try to run an antenna up, but they aren't particularly tall trees. What are my options?
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Apr 19, 2008 18:33
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TetsuoTW posted:God I'm so jealous of you people. Taiwan's ham rules require Class 3 (tech, essentially) hams to have at least one year's operating experience before they can test for Class 2. Plus the Class 2 test still has a compulsory code section. It seems like that would be a very interesting part of the world to be a HAM right now. Anything interesting out of North Korea or Burma?
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May 23, 2008 12:44
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Irish Thunder posted:I'll be honest, I had no idea about any of this stuff, but I'm going to school for Electrical Engineering. My professor told us earlier this week that the EE department is holding free classes over the next few weeks for amateur radio certification. He's mainly looking to boost membership for the Amateur Radio Club, but when would I realistically use these skills? Speaking as a fellow EE student: If you want to specialize in wireless systems, communications, or even DSP, you can use amateur radio as an excellent conduit to learn and practice these skills. That said, it isn't a very good resume booster in 90% of all instances. Take the class because you're interested, not because you're just going to toss it on your CV, or make token appearances at the local club. If you end up taking the course, the class section would probably be a waste of time. As a second year EE, I was almost able to pass the test without ever cracking open a study book. You'll have absolutely no problems with self-study.
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Aug 28, 2008 13:29
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KJ4WTI checking in. My Uncle's been a ham for the better part of 40 years now, and I finally got around to getting my license on a whim. As a congratulations, my Uncle gave me an old military surplus Harris Transceiver from the last decade of the cold war, and a multiband vertical antenna. Unfortunately, the self-test reports a stuck relay, so I've got some work to do before I get on the air (nevermind the weird mil-spec mic plug). I have a feeling I'll be wanting to upgrade before too long, since this boat anchor can't do any scanning to speak of, and holding down the frequency control buttons scans at a rapid 10hz/s. What are the ultra cheap options in HF radios? I am not at all opposed to used equipment. What are good choices for cheap VHF/UHF radios as well? My girlfriend got talked into studying for her tech license by one of the old VEs while I was taking my test, so I might end up buying two VHF/UHF HTs.
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Aug 17, 2010 01:20
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I'm currently studying up for my Extra class. If I want to take the test, I have to take it tomorrow, an hour away, or 3 weeks from now, 2 hours away.  I have no real need for the extra privileges, except as bragging rights, and to get it out of the way. I still haven't had a chance to get on any HF bands, due to lack of funds. My Milsurp Harris Transceiver still isn't quite working. I did get a Wouxun KG-UV2D for Christmas, though, and I'm excited to actually be on the air, even if all the repeaters in the area are boring and filled with old guys talking about the government taking away their guns and radios. To that effect, though, I've drummed up some interest in starting a radio club at the local hackerspace. One of the guys has previous experience setting up repeaters, so with any luck, Louisville will soon have a 70cm repeater that isn't all greybeards and ailments. I've still got delusions of fixing the Harris radio, which will cover 160m through most of 10m, but I'm still missing something to cover 10m and 6m. Are there any cheap entry points into these bands? Mostly interested in voice and digital modes for these bands.
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Jan 7, 2011 21:35
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BigHustle posted:Burn through a handful of the tests at HamExam or QRZ and see how you do. Since you're going to have to make a fairly decent haul either way, it would be best to make sure you're up to pass on the first shot or two. Yep, I've been using HamExam to study up. Unfortunately, by the time I went to be last night, I was still failing the test (granted, by 1 or 2 questions) about 50% of the time, so I decided it probably wasn't worth the drive.
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Jan 8, 2011 18:36
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Hey guys, We're going to be launching a long-distance balloon at 0000z, 3/25 pumping out 1W at 7.102MHz. Should be interesting listening on the east coast, and in Europe. The balloon will be in the air for between 36 and 72 hours, transiting from Columbus, IN to somewhere in North Africa, riding the jetstream. We expect to be over the continental US from 0000z to 0500z. The HF radio will be transmitting RTTY, DominoEX16, and some truncated reports in CW and Hellschreiber. Primary telemetry will be via Satellite downlink. Callsign will be wb8elk2. If you run our decoding client, DL-FLDIGI, decoding become a snap, and it will automatically uplink telemetry to our tracking page. http://spacenear.us will display HF and Satellite Telemetry http://track.whitestarballoon.com/ will show only Satellite Telemetry More info on the transmitter, and the decoder client can be found here: http://wiki.whitestarballoon.com/doku.php?id=hardware:radio:hf:wb8elkwhitestarn17 More info about our Transatlantic Balloon project can be found here: http://whitestarballoon.com/ And for the whole mission, we'll be hanging out in #highaltitude on irc.freenode.net
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Mar 24, 2011 14:30
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Thought you guys might like this: It's a quad helix antenna for 149 MHz. It weighs 80g, and is for our transatlantic balloon's satellite transmitter. Zuph fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Apr 29, 2011 |
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Apr 29, 2011 00:58
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Vir posted:Your picture isn't showing - I think you may have hotlinked Twitpic. Fixed
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Apr 29, 2011 18:55
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Blackhawk posted:I have a question for the antenna gurus amongst us, it's about antennas for rockets! A lot of high altitude balloons in the UK use 10mW transmitters, and can receive fine at 100,000 ft., so you probably don't need extra power at all. Cylindrical patch antennas are the way to go if you can manage. Unfortunately, I don't know anyone who's made one successfully without using very expensive commercial antenna design software.
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May 8, 2011 17:32
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eddiewalker posted:Kind of depends on your area and what you're looking to do. Yep, really depends. I haven't had any problems with my HT in a big metro area. $10 mag mount easily doubled my range, though. Who's going to Dayton this year? I might be giving a talk on high-altitude ballooning. Our particular program isn't too interesting (to hams) any more, though, since we've switched to commercial satellite radios for telemetry. angrytech posted:Is there a way that I can like unscrew the handheld antenna and plug it into an external or something? That would rock. Almost any radio can do this. Buy a $100 Chinese to start out, they're great.
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Apr 3, 2012 23:34
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longview posted:Directional coupler + rectifier and filter, probably some scaling resistors or something. The Bird 43 user manual is pretty comprehensive. Interestingly enough, the slugs are perfectly usable outside their rated power and frequency range, they're just non-linear. My uncle sells a movement replacement that adds a USB interface, and extends the power/frequency range: http://www.ebay.com/itm/LED-digital-meter-replacement-for-Bird-43-RF-Power-Meters-/201220052874?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2ed9a6578a
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Jan 1, 2015 15:54
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