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Pennywise the Frown posted:Yay I passed my Technician test! 35 out of 35. I've only done that once on a practice test and that was today. grats, now you just need to find a grandmaster greybeard and become his apprentice, then join a quest guild, slay the Erefi dragon, become king, have your heir propagate your legacy etc. We radio amateurs don't have it easy :/
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Feb 17, 2021 13:34
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That would be a good step. Right now I don't even know where to begin. I'm going to read/watch youtube videos on getting a beginner setup. Maybe setting up an antenna or something.
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Feb 17, 2021 17:57
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just give yaesu like $9k and you're golden.
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Feb 17, 2021 18:33
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Totally Reasonable posted:just give yaesu like $9k and you're golden. Yes, you'll be set up for a lifetime of trying to find your way through lovely menus. (I had Yaesu stockholme syndrome for so many years......)
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Feb 17, 2021 18:53
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Someone mentioned this RTL-SDR Blog V3 R820T2 RTL2832U 1PPM TCXO HF Bias Tee SMA Software Defined Radio with Dipole Antenna Kit I really want to get into having an actual transceiver and everything but I figured since this was recommended it might be a good place to start. Does the antenna require drilling from inside of my house to outside?
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Feb 17, 2021 19:04
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Pennywise the Frown posted:Does the antenna require drilling from inside of my house to outside? For HF a super convenient way to hook up a Random Wire Antenna is to get a little 9:1 unun like this that has the push terminal block connector and stick a piece of wire in the RF port in one of the following lengths (feet): 29 35.5 41 58 71 84 107 119 148 203 347 407 423. I use 41ft (or maybe 35.5?) tossed up into a tree and can pick up 20m from thousands of miles away. EDIT: You can also just stuff that wire into the center of the SMA jack but there's an impedance mismatch so you lose some signal and also it falls out easily. CapnBry fucked around with this message at 14:17 on Feb 18, 2021 |
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Feb 17, 2021 21:02
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Going to assume you can’t transmit through that?
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Feb 17, 2021 21:17
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Yeah that’s a receiver only
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Feb 17, 2021 22:32
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hi thread, i recently got my license and passed the general hope to do a lot of cool radio stuff in the future
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Feb 19, 2021 07:48
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Instead of buying the parts to make an antenna, I went and bought a MMDVM DMR hotspot with pistar. Tested it out with the parrot channel, and some Finn replied, not me. Which was a bit of a surprise as every time I’ve used TG 9990 in the past it’s been me on the other end. Have I misconfigured something? And when is the next net? Will add it to my calendar and try stay awake for it.
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Feb 19, 2021 10:17
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I made a similar mistake with the parrot talk group on DMR and it was a private call vs group call thing. similar to you. some guy in london replied to me testing. then it turned into a full QSO. meanwhile multiple people are “testing” in the background in between our convo. very bizarre
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Feb 19, 2021 14:34
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Tommah posted:hi thread, i recently got my license and passed the general Congrats! People in this thread have been quite helpful when I've had questions, so don't hesitate to ask when you run into something.
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Feb 19, 2021 15:04
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Motronic posted:Yes, you'll be set up for a lifetime of trying to find your way through lovely menus. If you don't like every key have three or more uses and prefer to attack via deeply nested menus instead, then you probably want to look outside the Yaesu product line.
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Feb 19, 2021 15:21
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PhantomOfTheCopier posted:It's very much tied to your learning/communication/organizational style. I've used my Yaesu mobile and handheld for a decade and still love the menus and keyboard designs. Admittedly after a long break on one of them I had to play a tad but didn't need the manual so it was obvious enough. I want to make it clear: I didn't have any problems making my way through the terribly designed menus when I'd been using them regularly. But then I picked up an Icom for a race and couldn't believe that I didn't actually need to fumble around or read a manual for a brand new radio. The menus were just set up that much better. It's very obviously a Yaesu design philosophy. I thought it was fine until I learned better. You've been running Yaesus for 10 years you say. It was 20 for me before I figured this out.
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Feb 19, 2021 15:42
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Got a 3d printer and I'm goin WILD making brackets and learning fusion 360. My setup looks a little less garbage. The bend radius on the inner coax is prolly a little too tight, when I reprint to add 6m or 10m i'll increase radius. Got AREDN cat5e, 2xRG8U. I printed the channels with 1mm overlap at the top so the cables click into the tray with a satisfying snap. 
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Feb 19, 2021 18:06
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horse_ebookmarklet posted:Got a 3d printer and I'm goin WILD making brackets and learning fusion 360. 
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Feb 19, 2021 18:21
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NICE! I'm at a basic "make a profile and extrude/sweep" level right now. The caps sound like a fun idea, I wonder if I can model a thread into them...
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Feb 19, 2021 18:32
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Motronic posted:I want to make it clear: I didn't have any problems making my way through the terribly designed menus when I'd been using them regularly. But then I picked up an Icom for a race and couldn't believe that I didn't actually need to fumble around or read a manual for a brand new radio. My goal isn't to avoid reading a user manual once for something that has 250+features; my memory works just fine. It is to be able to proceed through a linear list in some cases because my attention can only be diverted for 20ms. It's a Yes/No proposition, versus remembering if I "need to now press 3 versus to at this menu level". Meanwhile, I had no issues learning that Red+Shift+Function2 long hold takes me directly to the scanner, and that Blue+Function3 goes directly to the filter pack. And I can do these things while wearing gloves, can find the main dials by feel, etc. The design is actually quite obvious and powerful. It probably more closely represents what early iPod users encountered. That's not ideal for all uses. For example my handheld Yaesu does lose a bit of efficiency because of the flat menu, and I've had more cases where I incorrectly shift-press instead of long-pressing. People should read the user manual Before buying a radio. They are known to pack a lot of of features, options, and odd restrictions in a small interface, small display, and finding the right fit drastically improves the fun of the hobby.
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Feb 20, 2021 15:13
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PhantomOfTheCopier posted:I'll be equally blunt. I read all about these complaints before getting my 857d. While I'm very 3+ dimensional when it comes to organizing data, and would be happy for a base station with a robust, complex menuing system, I agree with Yaesu's approach while mobile. When I first got the radio, it took minutes to recognize why people complained, but only minutes more to be fully operational, and probably only minutes more to know 90% of what would ever be needed while mobile. I wasn't being blunt, I was being specific. But I'll be blunt now: this is the most neckbeardy thing I've read all week, and it's Saturday. It's okay to have a preference. Explaining why your preference akshually is superior due to your above average reasoning and spatial orientation skills and then saying it's user error if you bought one like this without those skills is next level. So congrats. This is the first or second step into the gatekeeping we see in this hobby. Motronic fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Feb 20, 2021 |
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Feb 20, 2021 16:47
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i have owned a yaesu ft60r for over a decade and the most that i can do with the menu system is switch into memory mode and scan my pre programed frequencies. but maybe i am turbo dumb idk. its also one of the things you figure out once and then three months later after not touching it you can’t remember how to get to X i bought a big radio with a million knobs and like it very much. one day ill try on of the new icoms for comparison.
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Feb 20, 2021 18:51
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I also have an FT60 and the fact that I need to relearn the interface from first principles every time I want to use it isn't great. So I end up not using it very much, which in turn makes that relearning process worse.
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Feb 20, 2021 19:33
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I owned only two Yaesu radios, an FT-7900R, and then an FTM-100DR that I sold the 7900 for. The 7900 was decently usable, and I kind of miss having it around, but the 100 pissed me off to no end. Navigating menus was OK, but anything involving text input, or trying to figure out how to set a memory channel to skip during scan was impossible to figure out. Then the VFO encoder on the 100 started acting up, so I got it repaired and then sold it... Kenwood 4 Lyfe
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Feb 20, 2021 22:31
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my ft1000 has one tiny menu for reaaaaaallly rarely used stuff but other than that, it's one knob or button, one function. i've run radios with great UIs and terrible UIs from all 3 big companies
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Feb 20, 2021 22:43
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Tommah posted:hi thread, i recently got my license and passed the general Congrats. I have my technician exam scheduled for next weekend. I've been using HAM Study and pretty pleased with it.
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Feb 20, 2021 23:24
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Turmoil posted:Congrats. I have my technician exam scheduled for next weekend. hamstudy is very good. i used it for tech and general. i never really got started using it for extra - basically i read the book but got busy/lazy after only a few hamstudy sessions of the material. but it seemed great for that, too
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Feb 21, 2021 00:29
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I used hamstudy.org for tech+general and then later extra and it was great for all three e: got 100% on tech, missed one question on general, 100% on extra
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Feb 21, 2021 02:00
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Turmoil posted:Congrats. I have my technician exam scheduled for next weekend. i was passing the tech and general exams on hamstudy every day for a couple weeks before i took the test worked GREAT
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Feb 21, 2021 02:30
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The FT-60R is reknown (or infamous?) for having way too much crammed into way too confusing spots on the keypad, and basically requiring full serial menu scrolling to do simple rear end poo poo with. That's why I just CHIRP it full of everything i want it to do and rarely ever touch any of the on-device programming other than to just manually tap at hte VFO. That said, it's a helluva machine tho. Always get out with it great, and I can't say that about much more expensive HTs that I also own. Just reliable AF
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Feb 21, 2021 03:17
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The 3DR has the advantage of the touch screen, but it's not the best even then. The manual is great, but sometimes poo poo just slips my mind, and "AUTO AF DUAL" isn't something that really sticks in your mind. That said, everything else about using it is wicked good.
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Feb 21, 2021 03:32
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horse_ebookmarklet posted:NICE! I'm at a basic "make a profile and extrude/sweep" level right now. Bonus Achievement: Emboss the text of which antenna they are in the cap. I have VHF and HF wires that look identical so I just look at the cap instead of staring up at the sky trying to figure out which gray coax is which.
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Feb 21, 2021 16:12
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Tommah posted:i was passing the tech and general exams on hamstudy every day for a couple weeks before i took the test General is next for me and it will probably follow how I did tech. I started doing random flash cards with tech until I got through the whole question pool and then went through each section until I was at 99% aptitude in each. I've been doing daily tests and passing those with ease so I'm not worried about the real thing.
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Feb 21, 2021 17:14
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hastily setup fldigi last night and played some rtty. I’m still newish to the hf bands and had only been using ft8 and js8 call for digi modes. This rtty thing is really fun. found a few people on 40 meters and did some free form keyboard to keyboard chat js8 call kinda empty these days and rtty is too unless its a contest. but once i got someone who wasent just shouting macros at me then it was a blast.
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Feb 21, 2021 18:28
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psk31 is still reasonably popular with ragchewers and you have some sciencelords that do a lot of contacts on wideband slow modes like Olivia and Contestia. There's also Hellschreiber, which is a pile of fun based around a pre-ww2 data mode that's basically a very narrow fax machine printing one line of text at a time.
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Feb 21, 2021 18:33
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I haven't been able to hear PSK31 here in ages. Or JT65 or RTTY or whatever. And I'm stuck on 10m because I only have my technician license and that band appears to be toast now. I mean I guess I could just get on 2m and listen to guys driving home complaining about their joint pain.
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Feb 21, 2021 19:24
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Hey, you can listen to anything, at least. throw out a long wire and check out 20/40m during the day and evening, respectively
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Feb 21, 2021 19:25
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Motronic posted:I want to make it clear: I didn't have any problems making my way through the terribly designed menus when I'd been using them regularly. But then I picked up an Icom for a race and couldn't believe that I didn't actually need to fumble around or read a manual for a brand new radio. The menus were just set up that much better. It me, the dumb goon that despite reading the manual, put a led battery gauge on a lithium converted 80s Yaesu FT-727 HT even though it has a lcd readout buried somewhere in its menus. Figured that part out a few months after the mod. S'ok, I broke the interface tang off a month or so back, I'm gonna redesign it for usb-c instead of some awful 1970s barrel jack.
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Feb 21, 2021 19:28
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Motronic posted:I want to make it clear: I didn't have any problems making my way through the terribly designed menus when I'd been using them regularly. But then I picked up an Icom for a race and couldn't believe that I didn't actually need to fumble around or read a manual for a brand new radio. The menus were just set up that much better. Both of my radios are Yaesu and I understand this fully even without having used other ones. I was considering selling them and getting an upgrade but, apparently in the time since I first got into ham radio and 2020 appearing, radios quadrupled in price and then I lost my job. Soooo nah
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Feb 21, 2021 19:56
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I rolled my ft897d into an ic-7300 for $300. The masochist I sold the Yaesu to was elated 🤷♂️
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Feb 21, 2021 19:59
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The only Yaesu I have no intention of rolling into something else is my FT-450d because that's the one radio that I rarely touch. I use it the most, but I just never touch it. Everything is CAT control so IDGAF what the menus look like. Well, My fT-101e can stay too. That doesn't have any menu.
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Feb 21, 2021 20:14
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I took my roll up Slim Jim out into the rare Edinburgh sunshine today, hung it up from a tree branch, and had a great chat /P through a repeater 25 miles away to a station 25 miles beyond that. 5 watts both of us. Pretty neat. It’s so frustrating how low down my home QTH is and how not-far I have to walk to make it better. I’ve no chance of improving it but at least I’m set for a summer of SOTA after lockdown eases. Also did some DMR *simplex* tests today. Really! I just wanted to share, it’s been a good day.  Edit: the radio itself stretches the Slim Jim out which is *essential* for proper reception and SWR. On a VNA the curve really dips once you provide a little tension downwards. thehustler fucked around with this message at 23:01 on Feb 21, 2021 |
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Feb 21, 2021 20:39
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