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Get your twitter out of my ham radio. E: Ugh, that snipe was so bad I'm gonna leave it
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Jan 28, 2021 23:47
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Motronic posted:Get your twitter out of my ham radio. Gonna immortalize it in case you change your mind
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Jan 29, 2021 00:01
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Walrusmaster posted:
Key up and you might get dinner, too!
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Jan 29, 2021 02:07
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I hear birdies
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Jan 29, 2021 04:54
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A video for this thread -- old Jay Leno bit where he pitted morse code operators vs texting on a 2005 phone (im sure today the morse dudes would get smoked) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRuRE-Bwk1U
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Jan 29, 2021 23:21
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Walrusmaster posted:
Well, that explains that chirp signal.
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Jan 29, 2021 23:36
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Tommah posted:A video for this thread -- old Jay Leno bit where he pitted morse code operators vs texting on a 2005 phone (im sure today the morse dudes would get smoked) thats like 35 wpm or so. Get a career mil keybanger on there that can break 70, 80 wpm and i bet they're still ahead. it'd only be fair if they turned off predictive text on the phone these days. ...now i want a predictive morse keyer. how big a dictionary can an arduino hold
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Jan 30, 2021 06:52
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hey jonny, i remember you made a post on (i think) the ham discord when things sort of popped off around here awhile back you talked about hams sending low res digital qcs card pics around on hf, and how one could easily use an sdr w/ a balun and wire to try and receive those. at the time i thought it was the raddest thing and got the li'l balun thing for $5 or w/e it was (i've been playing with an rtl sdr for awhile), but i seem to have lost the posts you made. would you mind describing how i could try to pick those sorts of things up? also, what sort of setup would one use to send stuff like that? i'm in the dc area and will soon have a backyard to avail myself of if that matters.
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Jan 30, 2021 07:17
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Jonny 290 posted:thats like 35 wpm or so. Get a career mil keybanger on there that can break 70, 80 wpm and i bet they're still ahead. What they should have done instead is introduced q codes to SMS.  qrl (are you busy). qrv (are you ready). I think that morse would easily win for most text message content. "Where are you?" (qth). "Geez you must be really busy you haven't sent anything in a few weeks and usually when I send increasingly stupid memes you at least complain do you hate me now?!" (arl twelve) 
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Jan 30, 2021 16:33
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the milk machine posted:hey jonny, i remember you made a post on (i think) the ham discord when things sort of popped off around here awhile back Yeah sounds like you're talkin about slow scan tv on 20 meters. General steps: get your sdr set up with a wire antenna - the longer the better but at least 15 feet long outside Get a slow scan tv reception program and get it set up to listen to the SDR audio output - often this requires a glue program like VirtualAudioCable tune to 14.230 upper sideband basically any day of the week during daylight hours MMSSTV is PC-only but it's my favorite program. it'll autodetect which of the 38 possible modes they're transmitting with.
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Jan 30, 2021 19:17
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Looks like the ISS gear is broken http://www.arrl.org/news/ariss-and-partners-are-investigating-space-station-ham-radio-failure
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Jan 30, 2021 19:33
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Jonny 290 posted:Yeah sounds like you're talkin about slow scan tv on 20 meters. awesome, thank you. I’ll post results when I can try it out
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Feb 1, 2021 05:13
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Jonny 290 posted:Yeah sounds like you're talkin about slow scan tv on 20 meters. What's at 14.230, just out of curiosity?
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Feb 1, 2021 15:04
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net work error posted:What's at 14.230, just out of curiosity? It's the most popular agreed upon SSTV (slow scan TV) frequency.
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Feb 1, 2021 15:07
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Unsure if there is a solution to my current problem but I wanted to toss this out there I bought a Anytone mobile DMR radio and am using it as my base station at home during the pandemic. One issue thats popped up is its seems like its obviously a SDR based radio. I live less than 50 yards from large apartment building with lots of radio gear on the roof and one of those things is the local analog police repeater. Every time the police transmit it breaks the squelch on my radio for just about all the 70cm freq's I have programmed in. Its seems like its just a flaw in the design and my radios front end is getting overloaded with harmonic's and breaking squelch. If I look over on my SDR waterfall running on a different antenna. I dont see any spurs being picked up in the 70cm band. So its gotta be something happening inside my radio and not spurious RF floating around in the ether from nearby transmitters.  Curious if I could try building/buying some sort of filter to try and knock out the freq the police tx on. More than likely I think the solution is "buy a real radio" and not use one of these newer SDR designs. My old yaseu HT does not have this problem. So I figure I need to go with something that has that type of design. If someone has a 2m/70cm base station they like I can try searching the markets for one.
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Feb 2, 2021 17:59
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Jonny 290 posted:Yeah sounds like you're talkin about slow scan tv on 20 meters. 
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Feb 2, 2021 19:27
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hahaha PTH is a notorious thirst trap pic sender. My favorite sstv operators are the ones that send pics of their dogs or their woodpile or dasharez0ne style skeletons.
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Feb 2, 2021 20:57
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I've seen Alf on SSTV
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Feb 2, 2021 21:44
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Jonny 290 posted:Yeah sounds like you're talkin about slow scan tv on 20 meters. do you know of any OSX alternatives to MMSSTV? is Multiscan any good? Achmed Jones fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Feb 2, 2021 |
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Feb 2, 2021 22:14
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Getting closer on the mobile. Power has been routed and is working. I need to build a better antenna bracket and run the cable for the remote head. Running the wiring takes forever, getting under things, through grommets, etc. Hoping to succeed before I just break down and grab a buddipole.
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Feb 4, 2021 12:48
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Guess I'll poke my head in here. I was heavily into radio/electronics as a kid, but when computers became popular, I went that route. With the craziness that was 2020, I figured I'd try to collect ALL THE HOBBIES, and finally got my ham radio license. My General class license was issued on September 11th,  with the callsign: KD9QHQI've been spending most of my time messing around with FT8 and dragging my feet on studying for my Extra license, which I really only want because trying to remember what portions of each band I can use is annoying.
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Feb 5, 2021 18:11
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Achmed Jones posted:do you know of any OSX alternatives to MMSSTV? is Multiscan any good? multiscan is the standard for os x slowscan, yeah. Personally i just go ahead and use Bad OS Windows 10 for all my ham stuff; availability of software is way higher on that side. A lot of it runs in VMs/WINE alright too.
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Feb 5, 2021 18:15
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I found out that a lot of noise on 30/15 meter was due to a prolific usb cable being plugged into the same usb hub as my kx3 usb cable. Plugged prolific cable onto usb port on motherboard instead and the noise was gone. wat.
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Feb 6, 2021 09:54
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Hi everyone! I posted a while back about wanting to get my tech license and, as is tradition, I didn't study and never did anything. So the past few days I've been studying correct answers on a Ham Test app and am almost done reading this amazingNo Nonsense Technician Guide. My test scores are getting better and I finally got a passing one. I'm going to take maybe 10 more until they're all passing before I take a test. I'm glad I can take an online test but the requirements are pretty crazy so I think I'll just take it in my bathroom lol. Anyway, I know nothing about radio/electronics besides what I've been reading in that guide so far. I have no idea where to begin once I get my license. I currently have a handheld Baofeng UV-82 that I got a in 2016 that I mostly just looked up local police frequencies and listened to the very few that I was able to get working. Just yesterday I was scanning and found the first ever people talking to each other on it and I was extremely excited. They were from here in Wisconsin for sure (accents, named cities). I think it was a repeater because there was a morse tone sent every once in a while (is that a repeater thing?). Anyway, again, I don't know where to start. I want to get a base station to set up in my living room. I don't know what equipment I need to get a beginner setup going. Transceiver, power supply, antenna, etc. I have no idea how to set up an antenna and don't know how I could possibly connect it outdoors. I have an old huge TV antenna that's maybe 25 feet up on a tower that I hope one day I can use for something. But right now I just want to start small to learn basic stuff.
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Feb 7, 2021 20:22
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welcome to nerd heaven! very excited for you. A ham station is a pile of infrastructure that you happen to have a radio hooked up to. Your first priority, in my opinion, would be to get a decent outdoor antenna set up and run the coax feedline to where you want to play radio. Hook your handheld in to that and be amazed at how much you can get done with a few watts of power. Then you can upgrade to a more feature-filled and higher power mobile/base radio and repeat the cycle. New antenna, new power supply, nice ground setup, new radio. When I got started in ham radio, I got a 25 watt 2meter radio at a hamfest, but could only afford a 3 amp power supply. This meant that I could never, ever run 25 watts, so kept it on 5 the whole time. Given this handicap, my dad and I built up every _other_ aspect of my station. Ended up with an 11 element yagi on a rotator on the chimney top, fed with good coax. I could talk 130 miles to the Mt. Mitchell repeater out in the NC mountains. Then I got a 50 watt radio and a 15 amp power supply, hooked it into that setup, and was a _fireball_ on 2 meters. This was back in the day before repeaters used PL tones; during a propagation opening I could aim my beam northeast or southeast and key up six repeaters on the same frequency between either Greensboro and Philly, or Greensboro and Savannah. I was mostly a simplex fanboy though so that was really my jam.
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Feb 7, 2021 20:42
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Also a cheap data mode setup for whatever radio you get, hooked into your computer, will provide even more fun! Welcome! I am hoping to do my U.K. intermediate licence this year but I’ve slacked off on the studying lately. I guess this should be motivation and inspiration to carry on.
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Feb 7, 2021 20:58
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I highly recommend build a pi for a cheap portable computer that is specialized to handle ham radio. It’s easy to build and set up. Here’s the forum for it. https://groups.io/g/KM4ACK-Pi/topics
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Feb 7, 2021 23:10
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I know this could be answered by deep diving that group but quick questions: Can you do all the things on a Pi that one would expect out of a cheap old laptop? Like LOTW certs, digital mode software (WSJT, SSTV decodes, winlink mail, etc) or is it not quite there yet?
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Feb 7, 2021 23:13
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You can do pretty much everything you would ever need to do for digital ham radio, as well as contact tracking and even radio control. It’s a headless computer though so you will still need some device to connect connect to it through Wi-Fi in the VNC whether that’s a laptop or a tablet. Though I suppose you can just hook it up using the pi’s usb and HDMI ports to a mouse, keyboard, and monitor. Doing so makes it harder to pickup and take with you. I have mine set to do a scan of the local Wi-Fi networks when it boots and if it’s sees my home network then it just connects to it normally and I can connect to it through a VNC on its IP address. If it doesn’t see my home network when it boots up then it starts its own Wi-Fi broadcast and I can connect my phone or my tablet or my laptop to it and then VNC to that. The nice thing is though that you can use it as your ham radio computer that you can use at home or take in the field. Just wire up the power in the pi to the 5 V input, install a buck converter to convert your 12 V power down to 5 V and you can use it with all your powerpole connectors. Here's a link to the setup process and overview for it https://youtu.be/l4M9VVqGxoc Nitrousoxide fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Feb 7, 2021 |
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Feb 7, 2021 23:24
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Motronic posted:I know this could be answered by deep diving that group but quick questions: Most of that works, but slowly. Winlink is a huge pain on anything but Windows. I put a bunch of time figuring it out but realized that if I’m carrying the Pi, 5v power, a screen, keyboard and mouse, what’s the point? Just use an old PC laptop.
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Feb 8, 2021 01:03
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Thanks, just making sure. I'll continue on with my fleet of old Panasonic Toughbooks.
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Feb 8, 2021 01:32
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The new Pi4 can do anything those Toughbooks can do, the issue is just the software isn't designed for the chipset so you wind up having to emulate for the binary which makes it not stand up to the task. If ham software wasn't notorious for being poorly designed as software, you'd be capable of running any modern application on it. We are using the 4's for our dev clusters with ML applications and while it's not the greatest, it provides an environment the data dev nerds can test their code before they gently caress up production.
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Feb 8, 2021 03:01
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drunk mutt posted:The new Pi4 can do anything those Toughbooks can do, the issue is just the software isn't designed for the chipset so you wind up having to emulate for the binary which makes it not stand up to the task. It's less a problem of x86 vs ARM and more that a lot of the software is just windows only, right? I bet it'd even work on ARM Surfaces, ha.
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Feb 8, 2021 04:35
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If you don't have ANY ham computer and want to pick up a little side CPU I cannot talk enough good poo poo about the Raspberry Pi 400 (the one in a keyboard case). I use mine mostly for emulators which it does perfectly, but it's also pretty choice for ham radio poo poo. At least then you have a bunch of wires plugged into the back of a keyboard, versus plugged into this tiny circuit board computer hanging in midair by the HDMI cable because it's not heavy enough to lay flat on a desk. It has USBC power too, and since the delivery voltage is higher, you avoid a lot of the "my wall wart isn't good enough and my Pi reboots at 100% CPU" bullshit of the 5v USB power input models.
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Feb 8, 2021 05:09
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IMO One of the really nice things about using a raspberry pi three or four and connecting that to your radios and then VNCing into the raspberry pie is that you are no longer tethered to the radio. If you are at your home you can be sitting on your couch and doing digital modes while you watch TV. Or if you’re out in the field you don’t have to find a nice flat place to set up your laptop or tablet right next to your transmitter. Also, if you’re doing any sort of work with your radio that involves bad weather whether that’s winter field day or practicing for hurricanes or something like that then it lets you use your radio from the comfort of your shelter. Nitrousoxide fucked around with this message at 05:21 on Feb 8, 2021 |
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Feb 8, 2021 05:15
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Do you guys have any recommendations for a beginner setup? I don't even know all of the equipment I need. Is it possible to have an antenna indoors by a window or something? I don't quite want to drill a hole through my house yet. I really have no idea what I'm doing. Are there any site, forums, or books out there for learning about all of this stuff? From an idiot's perspective? I have the AARL tech handbook. That's about it. Pennywise the Frown fucked around with this message at 18:34 on Feb 8, 2021 |
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Feb 8, 2021 18:32
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Pennywise the Frown posted:Do you guys have any recommendations for a beginner setup? I don't even know all of the equipment I need. Is it possible to have an antenna indoors by a window or something? I don't quite want to drill a hole through my house yet. What do you want to do and what license do you hold? It’s a broad hobby.
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Feb 8, 2021 18:36
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Pennywise the Frown posted:Do you guys have any recommendations for a beginner setup? I don't even know all of the equipment I need. Is it possible to have an antenna indoors by a window or something? I don't quite want to drill a hole through my house yet. Start studying for your tech ticket, then buy an HT and screw around on 2m and 70 cm bands to get used to how people communicate. Once you get there, start studying for the general and learning the really cool poo poo, like digital modes, HF, EME, or whatever strikes your fancy.
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Feb 8, 2021 18:47
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eddiewalker posted:What do you want to do and what license do you hold? It’s a broad hobby. Nothing yet. I'm studying for my tech and if I keep this up maybe I can have it by next week. I'm not sure what I want to or what I'm able to do. I want to be able to pick up transmissions from a distance. Mostly listen in on other people's conversations. Be able to find weird poo poo. Bounce stuff off the moon or communicate with a satellite. I mostly like the technology and doing weird stuff as opposed to talking to people. Which is strange because I'd imagine talking is probably a very important aspect of.... radio. mycomancy posted:Start studying for your tech ticket, then buy an HT and screw around on 2m and 70 cm bands to get used to how people communicate. Once you get there, start studying for the general and learning the really cool poo poo, like digital modes, HF, EME, or whatever strikes your fancy. What's an HT (read: im an idiot). I have a Baofeng UV-82 with a 15.8in rubber duckie. I can't really get much on it sitting inside my living room. It was only yesterday, after 4 years, that I picked up a regular conversation and not just pieces of police radio. I don't really understand bands yet either. As far as I know 70cm and 2m are popular. I think that's what my Baofeng picks up. Do you need a certain antenna or type of transceiver to pick up different bands? Pennywise the Frown fucked around with this message at 19:05 on Feb 8, 2021 |
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Feb 8, 2021 19:02
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Sounds like you need an SDR to play with. I've been having a ton of fun with mine that I was lucky enough to get for free. My current interest is seeing how far I can track aircraft ADS-B signals for using antennas made from parts in my scrap and recycling bin. My current record is 416km with a soft drink antenna.
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