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DrakeriderCa posted:I'm curious about what people think of this idea - I'm sure I'm not the first person to think of it but I haven't seen it discussed here. Well, I'd love to use a quadcopter to lift fishing line and antenna rope up and over my trees in the backyard... I could get some precision placement.
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Mar 22, 2014 03:50
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fordan posted:Finally sat down this past weekend to build the Elecraft KX3 kit that I bought at the ARRL National Convention. I'm missing one standoff that keeps the battery holder in place and the VFO knob won't change frequencies. Elecraft has amazing customer support. Just email support@elecraft.com and they will reply pretty quickly. I built a KX3 a few weeks ago and I love it! I will be going up to canada in a few weeks and will be operating from the great white north as /VE4
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Aug 26, 2014 23:11
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Soooo, I'm up in Canada and I'm ready to operate HF. Except not! It appears that the US/Canada licensing agreement is a mess. http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/smt-gst.nsf/eng/sf01701.html quote:Those who are qualified to send and receive Morse code at a speed of at least 5 w.p.m. may operate in accordance with privileges accorded to holders of the Amateur Radio Operator Certificate with Basic, Morse code and Advanced Qualifications. Here's the current Canadian Band Plan: http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/smt-gst.nsf/eng/sf01226.html#t1 For background, I have an Amateur Extra license, and I was originally licensed as a no-code Technician back in the 90's. A few years ago I upgraded to General and then Extra, well after the code requirement was removed. By this wording, it appears newer hams licensed under existing rules can't operate HF in Canada  I'm having a hard time interpreting the band plan.. does "B and 5" mean Basic *with* 5 wpm morse? Or does it actually also mean "Basic"?
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Sep 16, 2014 00:55
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fordan posted:Canada also does CEPT so that might cover you. It seems the US-Canada Reciprocal Licensing agreement overrides CEPT. It appears that the law is simply flawed.. maybe this will make a good article for QST  I got one reply from a member of the RAC, who said something to the effect of "code isn't a requirement for licensing, so you're good," which seemed like a not very rigorous answer. I also got a reply back from my ARRL division manager, and he seemed to agree with my assessment, and said to bump it up the chain a bit, so I've got an email to a guy at the ARRL that deals with regulatory issues. Meanwhile, I'll see if 6m is open  Edit: I just found this: http://www.openroadsradio.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1113 quote:Due to the recent abolishment of the Morse Code requirement from all American Amateur Radio certificates, the Department will be removing this requirement in the next issue of RBR-4. Which seems good enough for me! manero fucked around with this message at 16:46 on Sep 16, 2014 |
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Sep 16, 2014 16:36
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johnnyonetime posted: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? Moneyhat answer: Elecraft KX3 You might be able to get a deal on a Kenwood TS-2000, I've heard some good things about them. They're an older generation of HF rig, but they'll also do 2m/70cm. They're not super portable, though. If Skywarn is active and I'm at home, I probably won't have my rig turned on and connected to my base station antenna. Most of my Skywarn activity is either in my car, or with my HT. You're probably better off getting a decently priced all-mode HF rig, and a separate mobile rig if you want to do either do high-power VHF/UHF from home, or your car.
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Sep 21, 2014 03:25
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Spaced God posted:I dunno whether or not there's a dedicated SDR thread, so pardon me if babby's first SDR questions don't belong here. I'm looking at getting an RTL-SDR (namely this one) for monitoring 1090 MhZ for ADS-B. What type of connectors do I need for the antenna so I can get a longer one? I used an MCX to SO239 pigtail. Amazon has 'em. Those are for the antenna connections only. The RTLSDR is USB, so you'd just plug it directly into one of your USB ports.
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May 17, 2015 23:13
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Spaced God posted:The only MCX to SO239s I could find are 20cm long. Do they not make them longer? I should have expanded my response.. then buy coax with PL-259's, and plug it all into a better antenna
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May 18, 2015 01:35
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wolrah posted:Speaking of Baofeng... Also note that 2014 Baofeng compliant is mis-aligned, and is actually 10%.
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Oct 16, 2015 18:19
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PuTTY riot posted:I guess this hasn't made its way to the forums yet cause I let my local club know first, but there's a $30 rotator on radio shack's website: http://www.radioshack.com/outdoor-antenna-rotator/1501245.html. This thing rebadged as the antennacraft tdp2 sells for $100 on ebay all day. Hmm, if I buy this, then I definitely have to buy the Hexbeam to go with it
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Oct 18, 2015 23:36
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e.pilot posted:Mine is an AcuRite 5-in-1, which you can get really cheap on Amazon, or Costco has them occasionally for even cheaper. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NI57C14/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_hx1twbY4AKENT You can also use a Raspberry Pi with Weewx, as long as there's a USB or serial connection on the receiver unit, and weewx supports your system. I had something that was similar to a meteobridge, but it had some weird licensing things with the OS on it.
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Nov 20, 2015 18:47
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Sniep posted:Not mine! No USB port on mine, which really sucks.. I have to use the bridge thing. How do you get the data off the system, then? Do you have to screenscrape? I really like weewx, because I can push data to wunderground, CWOP, APRS, etc.
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Dec 5, 2015 02:37
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uapyro posted:I think they mean something like this: http://www.amazon.com/AcuRite-09150-AcuLink-Internet-Bridge/dp/B00T5U1JRE Either would work. Weewx will push to APRS-IS, so you just need a passcode to push packets over the internet, and they'll show up on APRS.fi. Changing the subject, did anyone work any of the National Weather Service stations for Skywarn Recognition Day today? I went out to K0MPX in Minnesota and worked a bunch of HF and VHF. It was a blast!
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Dec 6, 2015 04:07
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uapyro posted:Would the APRS-IS method go out to any of the local APRS users, or would it only show up like if someone went to aprs.fi or any of the other similar sites? Mainly curious because I'd prefer people like me who have a radio with APRS to be able to see weather as they are driving, since on my radio it just pops that up on the middle of the screen for a few seconds. Nah, it'll just show up on aprs.fi for the most part. You'd need it all hooked up to a TNC and a radio in that case.
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Dec 6, 2015 16:42
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I just tried my hand at an 80º pass of SO-50, but no luck. Are weekday afternoons more quiet in general? I also don't have a full duplex HT so I couldn't tell if I was even hitting the sat
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Apr 13, 2016 20:10
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I just got my first CW QSO ever out of the way! I'm hooked. I need to finish my lessons on LCWO.net and keep at it!
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Apr 30, 2016 23:46
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The case and keypad on that Kenwood HT are terrible. The display is growing on me!
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May 20, 2016 20:43
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poeticoddity posted:Anyone have any experience with Yaesu mail-in rebates? I just picked up an FTM-100DR to replace my FT-7900. I've already got a D-Star radio, so I've been a Fusion user for about one day now. I like the 100 so far. I like not having to register anywhere, and it mostly "just works." I played with an FTM-400 at HRO Milwaukee a few weeks ago and was surprised to see how long the radio took to respond to screen taps and button presses -- it would take maybe a full second to respond. I also personally thought the 400 was ugly.
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Aug 31, 2017 15:33
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notanarsonist posted:I just got a radio that does D-star and am still wrapping my head around it. Anyone have advice? I like D-Star, but the registration process is awful. Have you registered your callsign yet? Which radio did you get? Scope out this series of videos from Dayton 2012, it helped explain a lot to me when I was first getting into it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iqpgtq7ct8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTUuIQKdkJ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e673BnPwnL8
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Apr 22, 2018 16:31
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Partycat posted:Kenwood seems to be so straight forward with buttons or manuals, they are my preference for UI. Icom is consistent if not a bit annoying with the acronyms and submenus. Yaesu seems to be full blown amateur hour with terrible UI on their newer stuff (FTM-400DR interface is garbage). That reflects in the quality and decisions going into their System Fusion and I don’t buy their equipment at this point anymore because of it. Either their size now is so small that they can’t afford to do things reasonably or they don’t care and can call it “amateur” and get away with it. I gotta rant about this. I've had Kenwood rigs forever, I've got a TH-F6A, a D74, and a TS-590. Every time I use a Yaesu radio, I get upset at how clunky it is. I own a 7900R, and an FTM-100DR as well. I was curious about the FTM-400, and was surprised to see how slow and laggy the touch screen was. Maybe it's years of muscle memory from the Kenwood rigs, but I feel like once you pick up a Kenwood radio, they all tend to operate the same way. The Yaesu menus are organized weird, and I'm only so-so about the FTM-100DR. It's an OK radio, and APRS is nice, but I had to send it back twice for a screwed up VFO encoder knob. Fusion is all the rage here, but every time I listen to it, people's audio is overmodulated more often than not due to Yaesu majorly screwing up mic gain between analog/digital modes. I also wish I could set the backlight color to not "eye-scalding at night white", or at least have My main complaints with the TH-D74 are that it was loving expensive, and the battery life could be better. Each Yaesu radio seems to have some sort of weird design flaw, and they seem to change their industrial design every couple years, when they do manage to be consistent.
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May 9, 2018 21:23
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notanarsonist posted:I can't help with the price, but i do have some advice for battery life. Oh, definitely not. I love this thing, regardless. I bought a 2nd battery and the drop-in quick charger, so I feel like I'm good with power. I thought the built-in DC charger was only time-based, so running the HT off of DC while it charged wasn't optimal, since you wouldn't actually be giving it a full charge. Now Kenwood just needs to make a 50W mobile version 
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May 10, 2018 01:46
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Michael Jackson posted:i am using usb signalink for winlink use. But it is only mono sound output and i want IQ data for HDSDR, so i am going to buy a regular usb sound card that complies with USB 2.0 FULL SPEED so i can put it on a galvanic isolator for USB 2.0 FULL SPEED. Instead of isolating the USB, maybe isolate the audio ports? You can get cheapo stereo isolators for like $5 on amazon. I use a pair of them taped together for audio stuff with my KX3. Also make sure your sound card can do stereo input, and can support the full bandwidth for the IQ signals coming out of the KX3. I picked up a Xonar U7, and it works pretty well with the KX3's IQ out
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Oct 1, 2018 23:31
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Yep. And er, I meant "Sampling rate" -- if you get a sound card that can do 192 kHz and is relatively flat across the whole width, you'll be able to visualize just about all of what the KX3 puts out on the I/Q port.
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Oct 3, 2018 16:33
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Oh yeahhh, let me rant about Yaesu for a bit here My first mobile rig was a 7900R, and it was decent, a bit minimalist, but it was at least usable in the car. Rock solid no-frills analog dual band. Last year I thought I'd upgrade to an FTM-100DR, because there's a decent amount of Fusion traffic in my area, and it supported APRS, so why not. Yaesu really hosed up with Fusion. They nailed it with not having to register your callsign anywhere, but beyond that they really messed up. They screwed up the mic gain on analog vs. digital in their radios, so the whole value proposition of mixed-mode operation goes down the toilet if your mic is too hot only on FM or digital. Every time I listen to local Fusion repeaters, there are always dudes with their mic gain turned up way too high, and it sounds like utter garbage. I feel like D-Star handles audio way better. The FTM-100 is OK, but I hate the white backlight, which is either too blinding bright at night, or not bright enough. The radio audio strangely mutes when you go into the top-level menu, but not sub-menus, so I'm not quite sure what's going on there. Setting the channel to skip during a scan, or trying to properly write a name to the channel is confusing, and having to press a button to change squelch sucks when you're mobile as well. I eventually got sick of using the FTM-100 in my car, since it was impossible to change stuff without getting super deep into a confusing menu, moved it to my shack, and sold off the 7900 for cash and put it towards a TM-D710G. And boy let me tell you, that Kenwood is a dream to use. Everything's easily accessible, and makes sense. I'm hoping they come out with a mobile version of the D74.
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Dec 19, 2018 18:32
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PhantomOfTheCopier posted:
The thing I like about Kenwoods is that if you've used one, you've pretty much used them all. Lots of very similar design language and UX setup. Yaesu's industrial design and UX is all over the place. A while back I saw a picture of the FTM-350, and it looks like they more or less stole the design from the TM-D710. Eventually the 400 came out, which looks vaguely similar, but doesn't scream "SUE US" as much.
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Dec 20, 2018 17:16
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They must have been designed by mathematician/physicist/hacker because they make sense to me. I admit it's nowhere convenient to have to scroll through an alphabetical list of menu options, but it kinda is when you're driving down the highway.
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Nice radio, Jonny! I'm running a TS-590S, and I get jealous of everybody with band scopes or IQ outputs on their radios. I'm tempted to sell it and put the money towards an amp for my KX3. The 9700 looks awesome as hell, I don't do nearly enough VHF/UHF SSB or satellites to justify it.
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Apr 8, 2019 15:20
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Here's the PDF from Tokyo Ham Fair: https://icomuk.co.uk/files/icom/PDF/newsFile/IC-705_Tokyo_Hamfair.pdf And a translated page from Hamlife.jp: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hamlife.jp%2F2019%2F08%2F31%2Ficom-ic705-release%2F
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Aug 31, 2019 04:11
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Time to dumpster my kx3 without a waterfall lol
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Sep 3, 2019 15:29
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Big Mackson posted:why dont you have IQ out and into a 192 khz usb soundcard and set it up in whatever software you use? I do, I'm mainly makin' jokes. But lugging around all that junk and a laptop to a park kinda stinks.
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Sep 3, 2019 16:11
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Big Mackson posted:i was tempted to buy waterfall panadapter to kx3 but thatte price + import fees Honestly I'd love to have the PX3 and the amp, but oh man that price. I could sell off my TS-590S and get the amp pretty easily, but there are a few things I wish the KX3 had, like manually-adjustable notch filter in SSB mode.
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Sep 3, 2019 16:40
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Big Mackson posted:ugh, i tried bpsk31 on field day with horrid conditions and 70% of RXs was CALLSIGN TESTING TESTING and they WOULD.NOT.STOP. Were they calling CQ TEST? Because that's how you call CQ during a contest
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Sep 12, 2019 18:40
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Sep 24, 2019 21:39
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Oh man, I've never wanted a 3d printer really but printing custom enclosures for projects & baluns, and various antenna wire insulators might be my killer app for it.
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Sep 27, 2019 03:18
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Jonny 290 posted:Content: WW0WWV (god i'm sick of whiskey and victor right now - all talked out) special event station! NICE. I heard them on 40m yesterday morning, but had some other stuff going on, and didn't get a chance to make a contact.
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Sep 30, 2019 16:48
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I've never heard about strain relief, but I've heard it referred to as a "drip loop" and it's mainly to give water a place to run that isn't into your antenna or all the way down your coax into the other end.
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Oct 2, 2019 03:32
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Jim Silly-Balls posted:A drip loop generally won’t have cable below it, that defeats the purpose and transforms it into just a general loop Oh yeah, derp. Ignore me, I'm a lid
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Oct 3, 2019 00:26
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Oh man, very cool... I miss wardriving!
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Oct 30, 2019 16:08
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If you're gonna go big, save up for a K4 Otherwise, the 7300 at $899 is a drat steal
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Dec 5, 2019 00:30
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I have a 40m QCX coming soon!! I need to keep going on LCWO. I will do more portable qrp CW this spring/summer/fall.
manero fucked around with this message at 05:13 on Jan 3, 2020 |
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Jan 3, 2020 04:58
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My white whale, at least when I was a kid, was the TH-78a. That poo poo had DTMF paging  You could also slide a cover over the keypad. Other stuff I’ve got going on: I picked up an IC-7300 and did the IF tap mod and have an RSP1a attached to it for a pan adapter, so that’s pretty slick. Nice radio. Still working through LCWO lessons and I’m closing in on the end. I built a 40m QCX this winter and it worked right off the bat:  Very fun project and cool little radio
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Feb 21, 2020 23:34
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COOL CORN posted:Oh gently caress where'd you get the case, I thought they stopped selling them BaMaTech out of Germany: https://www.bamatech.net/geraetegehaeuse/qcx-gehaeusebausatz.html Took a few weeks but it was worth it!
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Feb 22, 2020 14:29
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