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So I stumbled across my Yaesu VX-8 in a box and decided I'd take it for a spin again. I haven't been active for nearly a decade other than for a few months playing around with the VX-8 when I got it (for emergency management purposes, as I was a local EMC at the time). I quickly remembered why I didn't bother - it's pretty tough to get to anything useful with just an HT and rubber ducky near me. So I made this:  MUCH better. It's all still a bit bodged up as far as connectors go, and while I found my old Diamond SX-1000, I don't have enough stuff to even hook it up. I need to order some pieces parts in the next few days and figure out if I'm even close on SWR. APRS seems to be pretty ridiculous (in a "oh, cool - I actually like this rather than being bored talking to the greybeards on the local 2m repeaters"), but I'm having trouble making it to an iGate or anywhere that can get my position tracked. I lucked out last weekend, but that's been about it. I sure can hear a lot of stations though. Now I've got big idea about studying to get better than my Tech license so I can play on 10m. This will be the first time I've been living in a real house with a real yard and nobody to tell me what I can or can't do (no HOA), and that fact just kinda struck me......holy crap, I can actually put up some real antennas. Thus my starter home soldering disaster. Just wanted to stop by and post, as I've been making my way through the thread to get my feet wet again. I really barely remember what I'm doing anymore, yet 15 years ago I was totally into this stuff. I've sold most of it, I think. Still looking around in boxes and finding misc pieces parts. Everything I find is like a new toy. Neither of my power supplies work, so I guess that's going to be my first project before buying anything past my little HT.
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Dec 24, 2011 19:12
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mwdan posted:You can work 10m with a tech license, albeit, just a small portion of phone. I did know about that, but am just assuming I'll find action outside of where I'm allowed and just end up disappointed I didn't study and get it over with. Besides, I think after 15 or so years it's high time for me to upgrade. I'm sure doing so will refresh my memory of a lot of things that I haven't thought about in many years.
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Dec 25, 2011 02:51
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mwdan posted:10m has been working pretty well lately. That's good to know. I heard it was picking up. First step is figuring out why this monstrosity (Astron VS-50M) is blowing fuses when I turn it on so I can figure out if I need a new power supply along with the radio. Edit: Woot! The MOV exploded. Clipped it and put in a new fuse and all is well. I can't find one in my parts box so it's on the list for my next order of junk. Motronic fucked around with this message at 05:38 on Dec 26, 2011 |
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Dec 25, 2011 17:20
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Whoohoo, just passed my General. Now I need to find an HF rig.
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Dec 29, 2011 02:17
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I'm all for playing with stuff like that, but for what reason do you want a low powered cross band repeater? What would you use it for? I could see doing a cross band to something with some grunt like a 55w mobile if for nothing other than ease of filtering as compared to a single band repeater, but the only use I could imagine out of that is if you are out of your vehicle and in need of more than 5 watts to make it to wherever you need to get to. We used to have this type of setup on our command cars in the fire service so we could reach dispatch in tougher areas.
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Jul 3, 2013 20:58
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longview posted:The scenario I was thinking about it mostly for camping, I put the big antenna with the proper ground plane at the best spot to reach the nearest repeater, then I can talk on 70 cm anywhere there's line of sight using the lowest power setting. Kind of like a femtocell is used for mobile phones. OK, now that's a pretty cool idea. I don't know what the usefulness to effort ratio would be, but it sounds like the kind of thing I'd try just to try it.
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Jul 3, 2013 22:51
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Crankit posted:Club callsign is G5RV. Is the THE G5RV of antenna design fame? If so, the UK-derived ZS6BKW revision makes even more sense.
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Jul 6, 2013 00:54
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Vir posted:The FCC is running a request for rulemaking right now about letting amateurs use encryption for limited emergency drills, just like the exception already written in that allows employees to use amateur radio while on the clock for their employers during weekly drills. Until that latter exception was written in, they were only allowed to use it when the real emergency happened. The new rule change is opposed by the well known open source and privacy advocate Bruce Perens, who also doesn't like D-Star's proprietary voice codec being on the ham bands. Personally, I don't see the point of the new proposed rule as if you can exercise with HTTP and telnet on the air, it becomes a trivial change to use encrypted messages in the real emergency, if the emergency demands it. You may have missed that the PFR was filed by AB1PH, a well known WinLink gateway operator who has been trying to get encryption on the bands for winlink for quite some time. He is building a straw man of HIPAA and emcomm in the petition, none of which matters as there are exceptions written into HIPAA for these very types of circumstances. He then goes on to propose a wording for the rule that would allow me to encrypt everything including my call sign and say "emcom test, suck it" if anyone complained about ANYTHING that I was doing while encrypted if they could even figure out who I am. While I can possibly see some more uses for encryption over the air, this PFR is bad policy, specifically designed to look like something that is needed for emcomm and left so broad as to allow whoever to do whatever with encryption at any time. http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/view?id=7022424684 Also, if you really need encryption for the type of scenario he's talking about, use your part 90 radios. You're already working with a city/county/state emergency management organization, and they already have spectrum, radios and encryption. Motronic fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Jul 7, 2013 |
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Jul 7, 2013 16:05
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Vir posted:In a real emergency, there would be some legitimate need for encryption of certain types of long-haul and medium-haul messages, going between the EOC and local facilities, and from the EOC out to state and federal levels. I'm thinking digital mainly. Stuff like patient lists, medical information, locations of vulnerable assets etc. Stuff like what areas have poor police protection, the full patient list with diagnoses, drug lists and CAVE from a senior care facility that's being evacuated, resupply locations, etc. I still don't understand why part 90 encrypted radios would not be used for this. If it's that necessary to have this as a point to point link that operates on battery power only with no repeated in between for proper operation of an EOC it would be grossly negligent to rely on unpaid amateur volunteers who may or may not show up, may or may not have the equipment and skill to pull it off, and may or may not show up as an asset or a liability. And it's not typically necessary. I'm a former emergency operations coordinator - you move that stuff by vehicle if necessary - and if you can't move it by vehicle nobody's getting in to cause you trouble OR help you so it doesn't matter anyway. The most popular way we've move this stuff to the hospital is by HANDING A BINDER TO THE MEDEVAC PILOT, or simply using the sat phone if it needs to be done NOW. It's not rocket science, but it takes an overall knowledge of how these events work, what resources you have available, and being creative enough to figure out how to use them fully. I can't count how many volunteers, amateur radio or otherwise, that I've had turned away because they have no equipment, certifications and/or no way to shelter and feed themselves in areas where this is already a challenge: if you think you can help that way just stay home. I already have enough victims, I don't need more. So while being an amateur radio operator, I still don't see all that much utility value in someone who has one or more radios and an FCC license. I can hand any doofus a radio. Having an amateur radio license is secondary or tertiary to their usefulness. Like the volunteer search and rescue team that is also trained in high angle and trench rescue that all have their amateur radio licenses, show up as a group with their own supplies and shelter and work as a highly professional team with a leader who knows where he fits in the the incident command system. HELL YES, show up to my scene please. But some gomers with whackermobiles that think I really need them to tell me who's in the red cross shelter across town? Yeah, no.....that's not helpful. Motronic fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Jul 7, 2013 |
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Jul 7, 2013 20:33
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Vir posted:I've heard that some place volunteers also getting CERT training, or even dispatch training, or get used for more mundane tasks where radio skills aren't rally required, like clerking or food service. As far as I can tell, those who are serious about volunteering are happy to help out with that stuff too - if that particular emergency didn't take out communications. Exactly. Those are the people you want. Someone with exactly one applicable domain of expertise (operating a radio) is of no use. You need to know what's going on where you are sent, even if they are there for nothing more than communications - to know what is important to communicate requires understanding. If that's food service, awesome. If that's civilian disaster response, great. If that's urban rescue, fantastic. But you need to be more than a radio operator. Like I said, I can hand any dope a radio just the same as I can hand any highly qualified non-radio-type person one and the results are 99.9% of the time the same. Look, I get that a lot of hams think there's gonna be some time when HF is going to save the world. But let's be realistic here: it's unlikely. If I can't get a vehicle to you or talk to you on short distance links with 50-100w radios it's unlikely that anything I have to say to you or anything you have to say to me is of any use, as we can't physically exchange bodies or supplies. Sure, there may be edge cases. But there aren't many, and it's difficult to think of one in an urban or suburban setting. Dispatch? Yeah, I'll need a few local dispatchers if I can't get to county. But there's no way in hell I'm letting someone who hasn't actually BEEN a dispatcher handle that traffic. If I don't have one it's at least going to be a chief officer from an emergency service (or the will very likely and correctly stage a revolt on me). Can HF and long distance comms make people feel better and more connected to the outside wold, knowing loved ones are safe, etc? Sure. But that's so not emcomm in the way that any professional emergency manager is ever going to think of it. That's not the focus of activities, and has negligible value on the best positive outcome of an incident during the critical action stage. That's recovery phase stuff, which usually means it's not necessary as someone has already shown up with a COW and a sat link. I feel bad about what I'm saying here in regards to the hobby that I enjoy so much. But I really, really don't see it's value in the vast majority of the most common type of natural disasters or man made mass events in an area with a functioning government and emergency management organization that's been paying attention to......the last 2 decades. If I'm missing something someone please chime in. Motronic fucked around with this message at 00:29 on Jul 8, 2013 |
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Jul 8, 2013 00:17
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Vir posted:But in case it IS a communications emergency, that's when expertise in the domain of radio operation is needed. In this case the radio operators should be busy establishing and expediting communications, and in my view they shouldn't as a rule be the ones who originate the messages themselves. It's also a question of work sharing - if it takes a lot of work to establish and maintain communications under the conditions, then the rest of the staff can get on with their jobs without having to learn how to keep up with the band conditions, adjust the amps and beams, etc. Can you give me an example of some time this would be required or has been required? I again have to go back to the simple fact that if you aren't prepared for this in house way ahead of time you are being grossly negligent. And when I prepare for these things I'm not going to use amateur equipment or frequencies because we already have a bunch of radios that everyone else carries and it sure would be nice if all of this was compatible so we could talk to each other pretty much like any other time only set to a different channel because the trunking system is down...... I'm not preparing for a "Jericho" type scenario here, and don't know that it's reasonable to. You are tasked by FEMA to prepare for a set of circumstances/eventualities that are likely to occur statistically. These are incorporated into an "all hazards" plan which has very little room for writing in resources that aren't quite well established and necessary. The only moderately labor-heavy communications infrastructure I've needed set up in a hurry in an emergency was a LAN with satellite internet access for FEMA to come in and use to assist residents in filling out paperwork for assistance. And that was well into the recovery phase of the operation. And guess who ended up teaching the electrician how to terminate CAT5 and test it?
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Jul 8, 2013 02:03
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Crankit posted:If I have a fairly big garden and want to operate on all the HF bands, would I be best off by having a seperate antenna for bands that I'm more interested in? Do you have 30 meters you can stretch a dipole across and have a feed line hanging down from the the center? If so you can use a ZS6BKW, which is an optimized version of a G5RV. I can tune mine very acceptable with an external tuner from 80 to 20m. I think it might tune on 10m as well, but I never bother with that. In fact, it does: http://www.nc4fb.org/wordpress/zs6bkw-multi-band-antenna/ And the performance they are showing on 80m is really not at all what I'm experiencing......mine tunes much better than that. It's served me as a good "go to" antenna as I play around with building other types of antennas. Crankit posted:If you have multiple antennae, what's the best way to switch between them? The easiest way by far is to bring them all back to your radio and use a simple coax switch. The antenna tuner I use even has a built in antenna a/b selector, so until I'm using more than 2 regularly I don't even need to worry about that.
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Jul 29, 2013 00:29
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iostream.h posted:If anyone's interested in a stupidly good deal on an FT-1000D let me know and I'll post more details. Is this a deal that's going to make me angry about buying a new FT-450d 2 months ago?
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Aug 2, 2013 03:21
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eddiewalker posted:Get one of these in the meantime. If you get a better radio down the road, a cheap throw around is still nice to have. I got one of those a few days ago. The "antenna" it comes with is little more than a dummy load so I've got a replacement on it's way. In the mean time a ring terminal and 19.5" of 18 wire makes it about 100% better.
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Aug 6, 2013 14:44
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That looks pretty drat awesome. I can't wait to see what people come up with doing on this platform. Makes me wish I'd gotten into Arduino hacking sooner.
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Sep 19, 2013 15:17
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Pham Nuwen posted:If we could actually encrypt data, there's this possibility for actual interesting store-and-forward messaging systems, useful IP-over-radio, etc. Exactly what do you need encryption for to create any of those things?
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Sep 27, 2013 14:41
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Pham Nuwen posted:Plaintext authentication sucks. .....and? Why do you need to auth for those things to be created? It sounds like you are interested in turning the amateur radio bands into a personal internet-like system, where the bands are filled with people talking to or through machines asyncronously. I don't see the point, and it appears that most other hams don't either (including the younger ones). The FCC also made it clear they won't be having any of it after their latest denial of the WinLid's encryption petition.
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Sep 27, 2013 16:15
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Pham Nuwen posted:The whole encryption thing stems from my frustration that people don't seem to actually utilize the bands very well. There are enthusiasts doing awesome things with new antenna designs, extremely low-power transmission; there's satellites and moon bounces and whatnot, but once you get your $2000 rig set up and bouncing off the moon to Guam, it's just "Yep howdy, I can hear you. 72." You seem to not have a VFO on your rig or something. Yes, there is plenty of what you describe, but I find it quite easy to tune away from it and find interesting people to talk to.
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Sep 27, 2013 17:17
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Dijkstra posted:If you get an HF rig you may even be able to utilize 30m to send data over long distances... Someone should look into this! Have you heard a bunch of weird noises on 14.070? I was trying to talk about my dialysis appointment and was having trouble understanding what was happening.
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Sep 27, 2013 17:49
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Pham Nuwen posted:All right you smug bastards, I was given some sort of packet device (don't know if it's a TNC or what) with my HF system. If I figure out some way to get it on the HF or 2m rigs, what do you recommend checking out? It looks like I can get winlink and read everyone's emails. The packet BBS stuff looks interesting; now that I'm reading more about it, I see that they're actually capable of the long-distance multiple-hop routing I was talking about earlier. Ham Radio Deluxe DM780 or FLDigi. You don't need the packet modem, just interface to your sound card. CAT control for PTT is a plus. While you can cable directly, I'm using this which also can handle PTT keying via serial port if you need it. I'm also using a cheap USB sound card exclusively for the purpose because it generally makes things easier. WinLink 2000 will use your sound card for WinMail.
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Sep 27, 2013 19:10
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Pham Nuwen posted:I'll check those out, thanks! We'll see what I can do with my current 2m, a Kenwood TM-241a; I can't even remember what it has for audio out. Order an antenna. The one that it comes with is just a plastic dummy load. I've got this. It took about a week and a half to show up. You can find them on eBay for like $15 shipped from the US if you don't want to wait. Also, reception is greatly improved with a rat tail.  Yes, that is just a (about 19" long) piece of 14 wire and a ring terminal large enough to jam the antenna over. These are FAR from "nice" HTs, but they will get the job done nearly as well at a fraction of the cost of a big name unit with comparable sparse features. Scan sucks, and it doesn't have true dual receive (it just scans between A and B) but like I said....they work. Edit: Wait....with all this VHF talk.....are you a tech? Without meaningful HF privileges I can almost understand why you are so pissed off with amateur radio. If that's the case, you need to go get you a general ticket. Motronic fucked around with this message at 22:23 on Sep 27, 2013 |
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Sep 27, 2013 22:02
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Pham Nuwen posted:I'm a tech. Well then, this isn't nice but I have to say it: you have no idea what you're talking about. I went inactive for the better part of 8 years after I moved from a place where all my friends were on repeaters to someplace where the repeaters were more typical: filled with a bunch of bitchy old men and/or superwhackers who live for skywarn and maybe getting the chance to do traffic control for a parade. So I got my general, and everything is good again. HF is a whole world different. Lame pun intended. Pham Nuwen posted:but I live in a house with an absolutely tiny yard in the city While that's a challenge, it's not something that you can't overcome. I know a guy who worked Cuba from his apartment in Texas with his RAIN GUTTER at 10 watts. On SSB. You can run hamsticks out of a window. You can put a dipole inside somewhere (temporary when you want to use the radio or in an attic if you have one). You can work a chain link fence with the right antenna tuner. Many, many people are making that kind of situation work and work well.
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Sep 27, 2013 22:42
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Pham Nuwen posted:What about the "wire running a couple loops around your ceiling" antenna? Is that only suitable for RX, or can you TX with it too? You can absolutely use an end fed random wire antenna or many other types of folded dipoles or orthogonal loop antennas. You're just not likely to be able to tune them with the tuner in your rig (if any). I bought an MRJ tuner off of eBay for under $120 that can tune a 100 foot piece of coax (and I know this because I did it by accident when I forgot to hook the antenna back up). Pham Nuwen posted:Like I said, the east and west sides of the house could possibly support a dipole under the eaves, but IIRC that'll be too close to the ground for pretty much any HF band, right? While it's not optimal, you don't have the space for optimal. You can make it work with some experimentation. It may be the best solution for your property, or a different one may be a better solution. What solution you use may even depend on the band or what part of the world you're trying to reach. Pham Nuwen posted:Maybe a hamstick style antenna would work best. Obviously that's a more expensive way to go, but it should work right out of the box. Pham Nuwen posted:Edit: What's the story with slinky antennas? I've heard about using those for space-limited environments. As far as I've seen they are garbage. Nothing like trying to tune an antenna that keeps changing it's length every time the wind blows.
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Sep 28, 2013 03:27
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Pham Nuwen posted:What band would you recommend for starting off on HF? I hear a lot of people talk about 10m and 20m. I'm interested in digital modes but you're right, I haven't spent much time even listening to voice modes on the HF bands so voice is interesting too. 10 is dead right now. 30, 40, and 80 are going to take much larger antennas to be optimal. I'd say 20 is your best bet to start. You'll have plenty of phone, digital and CW.
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Sep 28, 2013 03:52
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SoundMonkey posted:What's the generally-accepted "entry level" 20m transciever, by the way? I don't know that there's a generally accepted one, but you can get a lot of nice stuff in the $500-700 range (used) like an FT-450 (all mode 160-6m). If the budget needs to be lower you can pick up a TS-440s (all mode 160-10m) in the $300-400 range. While you can go lower, it would have to be a hybrid rig and something without CAT control, and it would likely not be stable enough or have 30 meters and the rest of the WARC bands. In my opinion, that's a deal breaker for digital. If you have a gigantic back yard, you can get away with a $100 pre-made ZS6BKW or G5RV wire antenna and be able to cover 80,40,30,20 and kinda 10 with that singe antenna and either of those radios with an external antenna tuner (I picked one up on eBay for $120 or so). Or go even cheaper by making one yourself, although I'm hesitant to suggest that because it's a LOT to try to get together if you're also dealing with a new (especially used) rig, new/used antenna tuner, etc.....it's nice to have SOMETHING that you know should work in the mix. Motronic fucked around with this message at 13:34 on Sep 29, 2013 |
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Sep 29, 2013 13:31
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DrakeriderCa posted:Would you recommend these for someone who's looking to get into ham mostly to keep in touch with family and friends in case of an emergency? I'm thinking something like this would be nice in order to stay in touch since we're out of FRS range. Does the Baofeng work on FRS freq's too? Well, yeah, you can receive and illegally transmit on FRS frequencies with them. But if you're "out of FRS range", just how far out are you? Terrain, etc matters a lot. These are hardly powerful radios. FRS is .5 watt if I recall, these are an optimistic 4.
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Oct 7, 2013 04:37
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SoundMonkey posted:EDIT: Also bear in mind said cable was adapted to BNC about four feet from the antenna, taped up to poo poo and back with electrical tape, then run via 75-ohm cable to the magmount antenna, so at the very least we now have an actual broadcast FM antenna (albeit a $30 sleeved dipole), and the feedline actually runs directly to the antenna (via one adapter). Well, poo poo.....where in this mess were you measuring SWR? That would seem to make a huge difference.
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Oct 8, 2013 02:01
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SoundMonkey posted:Between the transmitter and the feedline, because I'll be hosed if I'm climbing the mast. So you measured SWR across a bunch of hack jobs and now there is.... SoundMonkey posted:just transmitter -> hundred feet of coax -> antenna. Note the continuing lack of "lightning protection of any kind" in that setup. Your previous measurement is pretty much meaningless. Sure, you very well may still have an issue, but no one has any idea if you do or how bad it is at this point. Lightning protection (properly installed) has nothing to do with this. Obviously it SHOULD be there, but if it makes any significant difference in SWR it's been done wrong.
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Oct 8, 2013 03:22
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SoundMonkey posted:My basic question is "should I just go with whatever power output the SWR meter tells me and ignore the retarded transmitter." Well, that comes down to what you trust more. If this is a high dollar transmitter that should have a proper SWR meter built in and you are using some POS in line 30 year old MFJ.....yeah, probably believe the transmitter. But really....you can get a new antenna analyzer for less than $300. And likely find someone who owns one to run it for you for free. There is no reason to guess.
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Oct 8, 2013 03:37
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SoundMonkey posted:The thing is that our feedline doesn't really HAVE an 'entry point' - it's just run straight from the transmitter, taped to the wall, out an open window and up through the middle of the mast directly to the antenna. So how is your lovely installation somehow relevant to the examples of a proper installation he showed you. It should have been a big hint that you need to do a better job to make this work, not deride his advice because you are dealing with a sub par hack job. SoundMonkey posted:There's no proper grounding to speak of (we don't even have access to the electrical panel to make sure the transmitter is on the same ground as the mixer, much less actually have some fancy poo poo like a grounding rod). 1.) You don't ground the coax to the building electrical ground (you obviously didn't read the materials provided) 2.) A grounding rod is not "fancy". They cost about $12. (you obviously didn't read the materials provided) If you are asking for advice the absolute least you can do (if you aren't willing to take the advice given) is to not poo poo on the person giving you very good, correct and thorough advice. poo poo man, you have a mod star. You should know this. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Oct 11, 2013 01:50
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Pham Nuwen posted:I was wondering about this the other day, can you get away with just a chunk of rebar pounded into the dirt? It springs instantly to mind because I spent a good chunk of my childhood putting rebar in the ground for electric fences... Don't do that. Seriously...there is no reason to do that. A proper ground rod is nothing more than a piece of smooth rebar that's been plated in copper and it's cheap. Get one of those and borrow/rent a hammer drill. 8 or 10 feet (whatever you buy) will disappear into the ground in 10 seconds and within a couple of days will make for a proper grounding system. When it's that cheap there is literally no excuse to do it wrong. A proper clamp to attach your grounding wire to it should be less than $2. And yes, I talking about for electric fences too. Sometimes old farmer cheapness/wisdom isn't so good because they don't keep up with modern materials (ground rods used to be all copper and expensive.....not so much these days and for the last several decades). Motronic fucked around with this message at 02:29 on Oct 11, 2013 |
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Oct 11, 2013 02:27
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Pham Nuwen posted:As for electric fences... they always worked fine. We used rebar as fence posts because it was cheap and fast to drive in, and the insulators mounted on it just fine. The sheep didn't stay in one place for long so being able to move the fence easily, without losing a bunch of money every time you bent a post, was important. The edit is the important part.......because what you're saying is that you used rebar as a non-electrical support component because it was cheaper than (or they didn't know about) fiberglass fence rods which have been used for the same purpose for decades and require no insulators.
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Oct 11, 2013 02:56
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SoundMonkey posted:Except I wasn't deriding his advice, just questioning my ability to follow it? OK, well....that's not the way I read it. So if that's not how it was intended that's my bad. So to continue on from here: what exactly can't you follow? This can be as simple as getting a coax lightning arrestor that you attach to the outside of the building, connect the existing line to the feed point of that, connect the arrester ground to a grounding rod, and use a jumper to go from the arrester to the device, preferably by drilling through the wall and properly sealing the hole. You would also geed a ground line through this hole and ground the chassis of the equipment to the grounding rod.
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Oct 11, 2013 22:15
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SoundMonkey posted:I realize the reply may be slightly delayed, but... It's not really going to be a big deal to have another 15 feet of cable. At least it shouldn't be. But if you're handy with terminations, you may as well just lop it off in a convenient location and run it though a hole you've drilled in the wall or through the window frame (be careful to say clear of any mechanicals/weighs/etc in the window if you choose to go through the frame). This way you can make a SMALL hole that will pass only the cable and terminate it after you've run it through. But yeah, bottom line you really need to rework the entrance. Sure, you could just keep it going through the window after the lightning arrestor, but now seems like a good chance to clean that up. What frequencies are you running? I can probably suggest a decent arrestor that won't cost $200, but that depends on what frequencies you are trying to pass. And how much power (if it's sub-300 you don't have to get into big bucks).
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Oct 12, 2013 23:49
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So keep digging through his post history until you can tell me whether he's using PL259's, Ns, or something else to the gear  If it's N, use this (an Aplha Delta ATT3G50U) or the Morgan M-302N which I can only find online here. There are cheaper alternatives, but with these at about $50 it's hard to justify going any lower. Add a $15 8 to 10 foot copper clad ground rod, appropriate cable clip for whatever diameter rod you get, and some thing to use as a ground wire. Solid core 8 wire (or larger) would be fine, 1/2" tinned copper braid is even better. Borrow/rent a rotary hammer to run the ground rod in (unless you live somewhere with sandy/easy to get through soil - then just use a sledge hammer). Your total job cost is under $100.
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Oct 13, 2013 14:02
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SoundMonkey posted:99.1, and I was looking at this: I can't speak to that quality of that one in particular, but other Diamond stuff I've owned is usually somewhere between acceptable and "meh, good enough." You'll probably be just fine with that. Make sure you use butyl tape or other appropriate sealant around the connectors if this is going to live completely outside where it can get wet. Or add a bit to the project and throw it in a box (like an outdoor outlet box with a cover). Somebody fucked around with this message at 07:30 on Jun 25, 2017 |
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Oct 13, 2013 21:20
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Totally Reasonable posted:How about a Softrock Ensemble SDR? Those are pretty cool if you're into digital or CW. They have very little power, so it's pretty tough to make use of without some manner of amp. This is definitely in the "you can buy something used for this money" price range, but the Genesis G11s look pretty awesome to me. They put out 10W, so it at least gives you a fighting chance and some more power to drive an amp with.
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Oct 14, 2013 16:11
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Crankit posted:I like both your ideas, but I have to build some of it in front of a guy, and then I think demonstrate it working, I'll check whether they're happy with an SDR. Are there other options like an SWR meter or antenna analyzer that I could make? Oh yeah, there's lots of kits for stuff like that out there. Take a look around http://www.foxdelta.com/ and http://www.youkits.com/
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Oct 14, 2013 19:54
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Beccara posted:So my first HF rig turned up today, Yaesu FT-450AT only 4 years old. Went out and got a generic 13.8v PSU for it since where I live doesn't have anything decent and hopefully tonight i'll be able to jump on 80m That's a good solid rig. What do you have for an antenna?
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Oct 16, 2013 13:56
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 16:57 |
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Wow.....uhm.....that's a $115 G5RV Jr. Welp, at least you're on the air.
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Oct 18, 2013 00:59
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