|
To any prospective hams out there, I have a warning and recommendations. Considering that the average age on this board is probably college kids, you will have problems with other hams, especially on HF bands. The assumption is that anyone under the age of 30 is simply using daddy's radio. I have several stories of this happening to me. The end result of this was that I became extremely frustrated and gave up on radio. The only times I operate these days are Sweepstakes. The only ways I found to avoid this? Operate morse - They can't tell from the sound of your voice who you are. You might be a 50-year old, or a 15 year old. The other way is to only operate during sweepstakes. If you are another number on the logbook, they do not care. The ironic thing is that half of the ham community is desperately trying to recruit new members; they fear the decline of amateur radio due to the introduction of cell phones and the internet. The other half is a real good ol' boys club. I'm not trying to threadshit here. If you don't have this problem, power to you. I just wasted a lot of time and money getting General, buying a HF rig, setting antennas (G5RV up ~50ft), learning morse, and learning procedures, only to not find ANYONE willing to talk to me.
|
#
¿
Apr 23, 2008 02:03
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 00:11 |
|
|
SheriffHippo posted:FREE HAM RADIO EQUIPMENT I have a TS-820S that is identical to that one. It's the rig I use contesting (which I honestly really enjoy). Mine is pretty well dying. The 28.5 setting causes the radio to go blank and refuse to transmit, and it usually refuses to work at all for the first hour until it's properly warmed up. The frequency counter just displays all zeros. I have to "help it along" with an incandescent lamp. If you decide to get rid of that stuff please let me know. At the least it's spares for mine, but I might well be able to turn mine into spares for that one. If not, I'd be glad to help you with anything you have questions on. It's a rig with vacuum tube finals, which, while not the simplest to operate, are more durable than transistor based radios. Plus if you gently caress up, you're out two $100 tubes instead of a $700 radio. McRib Sandwich posted:Don't forget, though, that a corollary to some of the ageism in amateur radio means that any of the new or exciting methods and modes like digital voice, microwave experimentation, SDR stuff and exotic packet modes are like kryptonite to the old-timers; you're probably a lot more likely to find younger guys hamming it up with these technologies. That's actually why I suggest meeting and greeting your local college radio clubs too. Honestly I was interested in packet and FSK. The problem is that I have no idea where to start. I need an interface for my radio, but I don't know anyone who makes them for a TS-820S, or the Yaesu 2m mobile I have. Is it even possible to get them running, and if so, who makes the best interfaces? ValhallaSmith posted:No the softrock is still around. Its at version 8.x and is still being developed for. You just have to email the original creator and he will send you a kit. Just sign up for the softrock list at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/softrock40/ . The RXTX version is around 30$ and the lite version (RX only) is about 10. They are available in version from 160m to 15m. This is excellent news. I am really interested in SDR and I was in fact planning to do a capstone for Computer Science in one of the SDR algorithms, before I transferred colleges. But without the college to buy me a nice SDR, I couldn't find any SoftRocks anymore and the only other one I can find is the USRP, which, while it looks very nice, is out of my price range for the moment. Thank you very much for this little tidbit! 
|
|
#
¿
Apr 24, 2008 06:42
|
|
|
gently caress; q!=e
Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Apr 25, 2008 |
|
#
¿
Apr 25, 2008 22:43
|
|
|
I just did it twice. I am a meathead.
Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Apr 25, 2008 |
|
#
¿
Apr 25, 2008 22:46
|
|
|
Dolemite posted:I've been on-and-off reading the technician study guide and it's pretty good. I've been using it to regularly pass several of the QRZ.com practice exams. Be careful with the QRZ exams. On my general I got to the point where I could pass with an 90-95% (I do not know why they expect you to memorize the frequency charts; just print them off) and on the real thing I saw a bunch of questions I hadn't seen on QRZ. I ended up passing at about 80% but it was scary for a bit. Could just be random luck, but make sure you're studying off the questions directly too, occasionally. SheriffHippo posted:FREE HAM RADIO EQUIPMENT Go for it, dude. I can get spares on ebay if I really need them, and if you're into it, keeping the equipment in the family is something I heartily endorse. Tuning up a tube rig takes less than thirty seconds once you're used to it. If you've got any questions on that rig, I may or not be able to help you, but I can try. v:)v McRib Sandwich posted:That said, I love my VX-7R.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 25, 2008 22:53
|
|
|
Question: Would it be plausible to do short-range PSK31 using an (unlicensed, not amateur) carrier-current transmitter system? I looked through the FCC regs and (assuming you're in the AM bands) it looks like you'd have to stay below 1000 mV conducted emissions (carrier-current not intended for standard AM reception) as well as the 15 uV/M at 48000/F(KHz) radiated emissions limit, but I don't see anything forbidding digital modes. http://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Engineering_Technology/Documents/bulletins/oet63/oet63rev.pdf http://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/15.221 It's been too long since I did radio theory stuff, what would be a reasonable guess for the range of something narrowband like PSK31 while staying within those limits? Normal DSB AM reception range is something like 200ft from the power line, I presume PSK31 is farther but I don't have a sense of how much farther. 1000ft? A couple miles? Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 21:47 on Oct 17, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Oct 17, 2014 21:43
|
|
|
I upgraded to my current callsign under the impression I would get one of the old General-style callsigns. Can I get my old callsign back, as a vanity callsign or something? It still shows as allocated to my name but expired.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 17, 2016 05:57
|
|
|
Do any of the brands have a better UI for their mobile or HT radios? I remember that being a pain point 20 years ago, if you didn’t program it regularly you probably needed the manual, or at least a cheat sheet.
|
|
#
¿
May 12, 2022 07:35
|
|
|
Any recommendations for stealth antennas? I used to have a VHF tv antenna so I could probably get away with something similar to that, as long as it’s not like “lol giant antenna” nobody will probably care. I could also probably get away with a vertical antenna (flagpole, vertical helical if that’s a thing, etc). I’m interested in going as low frequency as I can get, 20 meter would be great if possible, 40 meter seems impractical but it would be nice if it could be done. Are there any possibilities for vertical or dipole arrays that could get some longer frequencies and more directionality? Being able to configure a couple different orientations for my directionality would be completely fine too, I don’t care about having a back-lobe really as long as I get forward gain out of it. Finally - and this one is the easiest - any particular recommendations for an attic 2m or even 6m antenna? Just wondering what the inflection points of cost and size are there. Probably would want to go with a vertical-ish thing there too, not a rotor.
|
|
#
¿
May 12, 2022 20:00
|
|
|
Hot Take Zone: is it possible to use a metal chimney pipe as a vertical element or a ground element of an antenna configuration, possibly in addition to a radiative element actually configured as such?
|
|
#
¿
Apr 12, 2023 08:17
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 00:11 |
|
|
Motronic posted:Of course. There was a guy on some forum who lived in Texas and was working Argentina and South Africa on his apartment complex rain gutter. He just had a big tuner. My house is a ranch box that lays at roughly a SSE azimuth on the long side, let’s say heading 150. I’d like more like a heading 210 or 240 azimuth. 180-240 would be great. Any line or pole based or any antenna configurations that would be easy?
|
|
#
¿
Apr 15, 2023 07:05
|
|