Amateur Radio FAQ

NY Transplant · Mar 7, 2016

I wouldn't rule out the dipole, they work very well considering it's simplicity. Obviously, the higher the better. Below is what I use on HF, a homebrew trap dipole in my attic which is 30 feet above ground and a Yaesu FT-847 running 100 Watts. The top element covers 10. 15, 20, 40 and 80 meters. The bottom element covers 12, 17 and 30 meters. I also have a separate dipole for 40 meters. On 40 meters, I have worked South Africa, Argentina and Chile. I even heard Western Australia but not strong enough to compete with the big guns. Would I rather have a beam for 20 meters and above? Sure and it's in the works for this Fall but in the mean time I wanted to get on the air last Fall before winter set in and so far this setup has worked very well to the point that I'll keep it as my backup/emergency/NVIS antenna.

73,

K2AR

K31 · Mar 7, 2016

Sometimes it's more fun to see how much you can get out of what you've got then try to keep up with the Jones.

E.Shell · Mar 7, 2016

K31 said:
Sometimes it's more fun to see how much you can get out of what you've got then try to keep up with the Jones.

Agreed, I felt dirty first time I used an amp. Up until then, everything in my log read "100 watts" and for 100 watts, I had some long shots...

Baccusboy · Mar 7, 2016

Raising my dipole another 10 feet has helped me gain gobs more contacts. It's really been fun. I built this rotatable, on my rooftop in Seoul, for 15m a few weeks ago, and reached 22 states in the contest last weekend:

fightinbluhen51 · Mar 8, 2016

Damn I really need to finish the move, upgrade, and get onto HF.

fightinbluhen51 · Mar 8, 2016

tourrider said:
Bands were open today.

My 100watts and a windom wire performing nicely. I made 47 contacts in 13 countries, although they were fast and furious for the DX QSO contest.

I've been trying to catch some NPOTA activators, without much luck.

Then I had to hang up and work on a couple of honey-do items.

Sun has been somewhat active the last week or so. A couple of weak geomagnetic storm alerts hit my mailbox mid week last week. I'm guessing they left the ionosphere rather charged.

Also, what receiver/software are you running.

Weak_Hand_Only · Mar 8, 2016

fightinbluhen51 said:
Sun has been somewhat active the last week or so. A couple of weak geomagnetic storm alerts hit my mailbox mid week last week. I'm guessing they left the ionosphere rather charged.

Also, what receiver/software are you running.

Just did a search using just the image as my reference and it looks like it's this: http://www.hdsdr.de/index.html

I have been looking for something myself that was cheaper than Ham Radio Deluxe

fightinbluhen51 · Mar 8, 2016

Weak_Hand_Only said:
Just did a search using just the image as my reference and it looks like it's this: http://www.hdsdr.de/index.html

I have been looking for something myself that was cheaper than Ham Radio Deluxe

Have you looked at GNU radio project?

I wish I understood all of the ins and outs of SDR as there is SOOOOOO much one can do with it.

http://hackaday.com/2016/03/07/triple-threat-rtl-sdr-system-reads-trunked-radio/

Baccusboy · Mar 11, 2016

Hey, just wanted to mention that we have an Echolink here in Seoul, and are looking for people to call-in on it sometime. It's listed under Seoul, Korea, and is named HL0HQ-R, K.A.R.L.

If anyone gets bored, and wants to give a call in on it, maybe you'll catch an English speaker on there. You might try calling a couple of times here and there. I try to listen, when I'm home.

fightinbluhen51 · Apr 6, 2016

BUmping for people studying for the exams.

Free resource for electrical engineering and corresponding circuit ID & design.

https://www.khanacademy.org/science/electrical-engineering

Full disclaimer, I have not yet taken one of these modules.

tourrider · Apr 6, 2016

fightinbluhen51 said:
Have you looked at GNU radio project?

I wish I understood all of the ins and outs of SDR as there is SOOOOOO much one can do with it.

http://hackaday.com/2016/03/07/triple-threat-rtl-sdr-system-reads-trunked-radio/

Weak_Hand_Only said:
Just did a search using just the image as my reference and it looks like it's this: http://www.hdsdr.de/index.html

I have been looking for something myself that was cheaper than Ham Radio Deluxe

Correct. That was HDSDR. I have it running on my laptop. For this, I had an rtl-panadapter connected to a tap on the 1st IF of my FT 897D.

I also had SDR sharp working on a Raspberry PI, but scrubbed it.

Now looking at GNU radio.

sorry for my delay is responding !

Sent from Foxtrot-Mike 19

fightinbluhen51 · Apr 6, 2016

tourrider said:
Correct. That was HDSDR. I have it running on my laptop. For this, I had an rtl-panadapter connected to a tap on the 1st IF of my FT 897D.

I also had SDR sharp working on a Raspberry PI, but scrubbed it.

Now looking at GNU radio.

sorry for my delay is responding !

Sent from Foxtrot-Mike 19

No worries.

I'm interested in setting up an RPi SDR as a cheap means of having a receiver. I'd like to do two (one for HAM bands, and a second using the 3 RTL dongles for trunking bands.

I'm hoping the back half of this year, after the move has calmed down to finally upgrade to general & get a real shack up and running.

ETA: Just realized that GNU is the parent basis of HDSDR.

tourrider · Apr 6, 2016

fightinbluhen51 said:
No worries.

I'm interested in setting up an RPi SDR as a cheap means of having a receiver. I'd like to do two (one for HAM bands, and a second using the 3 RTL dongles for trunking bands.

I'm hoping the back half of this year, after the move has calmed down to finally upgrade to general & get a real shack up and running.

ETA: Just realized that GNU is the parent basis of HDSDR.

Cool! I wasn't aware GNU was used for HDSDR, but it wouldn't surprise me. It offers Hugh extensibility for signal processing.

You probably know from your own research, but most RTL adapters start in the 25 to 50mhz range. To get down into to longer HF bands, you'll need an up-converter such as the "Ham It Up" module.

And for the record, the new Pi3 is smoking fast compared to its previous version.

My next PI thing is to build an SDR network head that lets me control the sdr in my shack from my mobile devices.

73 K3DCX

Sent from Foxtrot-Mike 19

POP57 · Apr 6, 2016

NY Transplant said:
I wouldn't rule out the dipole, they work very well considering it's simplicity. Obviously, the higher the better. Below is what I use on HF, a homebrew trap dipole in my attic which is 30 feet above ground and a Yaesu FT-847 running 100 Watts. The top element covers 10. 15, 20, 40 and 80 meters. The bottom element covers 12, 17 and 30 meters. I also have a separate dipole for 40 meters. On 40 meters, I have worked South Africa, Argentina and Chile. I even heard Western Australia but not strong enough to compete with the big guns. Would I rather have a beam for 20 meters and above? Sure and it's in the works for this Fall but in the mean time I wanted to get on the air last Fall before winter set in and so far this setup has worked very well to the point that I'll keep it as my backup/emergency/NVIS antenna.

73,

K2AR

Nice AAF (Attic Antenna Farm) I actually had a rotatable horizontal 2 meter beam for SSB in an attic at one time.

BigCity · Apr 6, 2016

Rather than going through 62 pages for an answer, I will just pose the question here.

I was going to set up a Windom OCF antenna, but the wife objects to that. Now I have to go stealth. Any suggestions from the group that have done it that way?

I live in a Cape Cod on a half acre lot and don't want to get the 30 foot flagpole hidden antenna. I would like to get 10-80 meters if possible.

fightinbluhen51 · Apr 7, 2016

tourrider said:
Cool! I wasn't aware GNU was used for HDSDR, but it wouldn't surprise me. It offers Hugh extensibility for signal processing.

You probably know from your own research, but most RTL adapters start in the 25 to 50mhz range. To get down into to longer HF bands, you'll need an up-converter such as the "Ham It Up" module.

And for the record, the new Pi3 is smoking fast compared to its previous version.

My next PI thing is to build an SDR network head that lets me control the sdr in my shack from my mobile devices.

73 K3DCX

Sent from Foxtrot-Mike 19

I think there are a few MDS'ers that are Hams / Pi folk. I think we need a Hack-a-day style meetup to work on some of these projects...(I'm a total n00b for both hobbies).

Yes, I've read the Pi3 stats & it seems much better suited to potential SDR projects. I've also read about the bandwidth issues on the RTL dongles. I've seen a project where someone hack'd 3 together to assist in solving the bandwidth & processing overload that accompanies the issues associated with that lack.

I'll have to check the "Ham It Up" module. I hadn't heard of that (yet).

BigCity said:
Rather than going through 62 pages for an answer, I will just pose the question here.

I was going to set up a Windom OCF antenna, but the wife objects to that. Now I have to go stealth. Any suggestions from the group that have done it that way?

I live in a Cape Cod on a half acre lot and don't want to get the 30 foot flagpole hidden antenna. I would like to get 10-80 meters if possible.

I haven't even broached the subject with the spousal unit as far as a tower & some kind of beam (hex or log). I don't have the money for that at the moment anyways.

One of the groups I follow through yahoo just posted about this http://myantennas.com/wp/product/efhw-8010/#prettyPhoto

@ 130' in length, it's a bit hard to hide inside a house. Cap code presents a bit of an issue as I guess you do not have much "attic" space.

I've been considering an attic antenna farm myself. The problem is, my new place is mostly a rectangle, and thus running running two sets of dipoles (one oriented north/south, the other east/west) with an antenna switch box might be a bit of a challenge to get the right length. I've read about this method somewhere in this thread as well as from my yahoo group and people get excellent results doing this running 100w. Is it as good as a big tower beam? Nope, but it does good enough to do what good operators need (practice).

The antenna I linked to, the recommendation is 2 of those, oriented 90° to one another, and you should get really good coverage & transmit.

While on the subject of antennas; I've been looking at general base station designs for V/UHF. Best gain antenna to make? Ground plane, J-pole, or Slim Jim? & Yes, I do want to use both bands. Also, best if put on the outside of the house (like, attached to a chimney) or acceptable to get inside the attic? Also, I'd be planning a 1/2 wave.

gamer_jim · Apr 7, 2016

fightinbluhen51 said:
I think there are a few MDS'ers that are Hams / Pi folk. I think we need a Hack-a-day style meetup to work on some of these projects...(I'm a total n00b for both hobbies).

Just say the word.

I keep meaning to hook my SignaLink USB to my Pi. I found instructions just never got around to it.

A Saturday morning would work better for me. I don't really have the space here at my house unless we do it outside, which isn't great for electronics.

I can bring homebrew too.

fightinbluhen51 · Apr 7, 2016

gamer_jim said:
Just say the word.

I keep meaning to hook my SignaLink USB to my Pi. I found instructions just never got around to it.

A Saturday morning would work better for me. I don't really have the space here at my house unless we do it outside, which isn't great for electronics.

I can bring homebrew too.

I seriously have NO problems hosting (as we get closer to the summer). Still trying to finish our renovations & get everything unboxed. Saturdays are good times for me as well.

Hell, when's field day? http://www.arrl.org/field-day June 25-26.

Maybe I could setup my propane gen that I've had for a while, and we can run a small op. I'm game to even pitch the tent in the back yard. Might have the fire pit ready by then, but someone has to bring the HF equipment (shack in a box) else, we won't be operating anything.

K31 · Apr 7, 2016

BigCity said:
Rather than going through 62 pages for an answer, I will just pose the question here.

I was going to set up a Windom OCF antenna, but the wife objects to that.

Dump her.

Now I have to go stealth. Any suggestions from the group that have done it that way?

I live in a Cape Cod on a half acre lot and don't want to get the 30 foot flagpole hidden antenna. I would like to get 10-80 meters if possible.

If you have tree or can raise the center section the requisite amount of feet with a pole on the roof, a wire antenna is a pretty stealthy external antenna option. If you're also going to exclude verticals, that doesn't leave much.

A loop doesn't take much real estate if you stick to the short wavelengths. The down side of them is that unless you pay some more bucks, the power limits are low. Also, they are limited in bandwidth so unless you have a remote tuning method of some type you'll have to go outside to adjust it for different bands.

You can also use buddipole types of antennas although these and the loop are IMHO going to be more obvious than a wire antenna like the OCF.

There's a link to the ARRL page for stealth antennas in the FAQ if you're willing to do the one click to take you sixty-whatever pages back.

NY Transplant · Apr 7, 2016

BigCity said:
Rather than going through 62 pages for an answer, I will just pose the question here.

I was going to set up a Windom OCF antenna, but the wife objects to that. Now I have to go stealth. Any suggestions from the group that have done it that way?

I live in a Cape Cod on a half acre lot and don't want to get the 30 foot flagpole hidden antenna. I would like to get 10-80 meters if possible.

I don't know how much horizontal space you have to work with but this is the design I used to make my attic antennas;

http://degood.org/coaxtrap/

I had to go with a two leg fan dipole configuration because it is not feasible to cover 40M, 30M, 20M, 17M, 15M, 12M and 10M traps on a single leg. There are trap dipole designs that use one trap to cover all bands but as you change bands, the radiation pattern changes as well just like an OCF dipole. With a trap for each band, it pretty much maintains the pattern of a dipole for each band. I you go this route, make sure you weatherproof the traps. Mine are only wrapped in electrical tape since it is an indoor antenna.

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