Amateur Radio FAQ

Keystone70 · Feb 28, 2018

vette97 said:
Cool! I caution you to not bury that counterpoise. It's equivalent to 1 radial, coupled to ground, and that will actually hurt your performance. If you must bury, go with multiple wires, different lengths, as radials. But if you're not restricted, some 18AWG poly stealth is practically invisible in trees. Also, stick with wire lengths that won't resonate on any of the HF ham bands. One ham calcuated that the following end fed wire lengths work well: 29' 35.5' 41' 58'

Thanks. I could maybe wrap the counterpoise around the tree and put the UNUN up a little higher.

vette97 · Feb 28, 2018

Keystone70 said:
Thanks. I could maybe wrap the counterpoise around the tree and put the UNUN up a little higher.

Yeah, if you run the counterpoise around the perimeter, along the ends of the branches, that will work. If you wrap the counterpoise around the tree trunk, you'll create a coil, and totally mess with the reactance and impedance of the feedpoint. Don't ask me how I know. :innocent0

Keystone70 · Feb 28, 2018

vette97 said:
Yeah, if you run the counterpoise around the perimeter, along the ends of the branches, that will work. If you wrap the counterpoise around the tree trunk, you'll create a coil, and totally mess with the reactance and impedance of the feedpoint. Don't ask me how I know.

Your giving me an idea. How about multiple counterpoise wires out the lower branches?

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

vette97 · Feb 28, 2018

Keystone70 said:
Your giving me an idea. How about multiple counterpoise wires out the lower branches?

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

That will work as well. Your radiation patterns will change because this is now a ground plane, so your take-off angle towards the ionosphere will be flatter. A ground plane above the ground performs better than one that is buried, so bonus.

Keystone70 · Feb 28, 2018

vette97 said:
That will work as well. Your radiation patterns will change because this is now a ground plane, so your take-off angle towards the ionosphere will be flatter. A ground plane above the ground performs better than one that is buried, so bonus.

Well there you go. If you stop and think about it; eventually the brain kicks in.

Thanks

vette97 · Feb 28, 2018

Keystone70 said:
Well there you go. If you stop and think about it; eventually the brain kicks in.

Thanks

Traveler · Feb 28, 2018

Build your own HF antennas. They will be less expensive, work better, and you will learn a lot in the process.

K31 · Mar 11, 2018

Tri-band HT coming up on Amazon lightning deals at 10:05am today:

BTECH UV-5X3 5 Watt Tri-Band Radio: 130-179.99mhz (VHF), 220-225.99mhz (1.25M), 400-520.99mhz (UHF) Amateur (Ham)

Can't see the price yet.

There' not too much action on 220 even on repeaters that have it in my experience. But if you've always want to know what you were missing, here's your chance to do it cheap. Maybe.

Baccusboy · Mar 11, 2018

vette97 said:
Good work on that loop! It's remarkable how effective they are. I own an AlexLoop and have been amazed how effective it's been on 40-10 using QRP.

I'm playing with an end fed wire and 9:1 Unun. I was able to string up 41' of wire and worked Azores on 17m no problem. I just purchased 250' of poly-stealth and want to shop for a drone to deploy it in an inverted L. Combined with a folded counterpoise, I should be able to work effectively on 160 on up.

Thanks... missed comments on this thread for a while.

I have had some bad luck with my loops. Being that we live in shared apartment/condo buildings here in Seoul, it seems that they easily throw a boatload of RF downward, and get into the cheap computer speakers and boom boxes that are from China. Had this problem with 2 different loops at 2 locations, despite chokes on feedline, etc. It's just a lot of RF power being thrown out in a small space, and gets into stuff. Oddly, I have the same problem with vertical dipoles.

I'm going to go back to homebrew yagis and horiz dipoles.

Winged Pig · Mar 11, 2018

K31 said:
Tri-band HT coming up on Amazon lightning deals at 10:05am today:

Can't see the price yet.

There' not too much action on 220 even on repeaters that have it in my experience. But if you've always want to know what you were missing, here's your chance to do it cheap. Maybe.

I have been staying away from these radios, but for $45 I'll give it a try. I got free shipping too. Thanks for the heads up.

Keystone70 · Mar 11, 2018

Winged Pig said:
I have been staying away from these radios, but for $45 I'll give it a try. I got free shipping too. Thanks for the heads up.

Ya. Not too much going on 1.25m. I'll save my money.

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Boxcab · Mar 11, 2018

K31, thanks for the heads up.

I'm not pulling the trigger for one. Saving up to get something with more power to have in the vehicles.

Thinking of rigging up some sort of battery power supply that charges off a lighter and provides high power for transmitting... trying to aviod over loading the lighter socket, special dedicated wiring, and allows it to be easily transferable between vehicles... including rentals.

So much to do, so little time and funds.

.

Sent using the user limitations inherent of mobile devices.

vette97 · Mar 11, 2018

vette97 said:
I'm playing with an end fed wire and 9:1 Unun. I was able to string up 41' of wire and worked Azores on 17m no problem. I just purchased 250' of poly-stealth and want to shop for a drone to deploy it in an inverted L. Combined with a folded counterpoise, I should be able to work effectively on 160 on up.

I got 124.5' of wire up over a tree top using my drone. And along with the Balun Designs 9:1 balun mounted to my shed, and 31' of counterpoise strung in a small tree, I've been doing well on all bands, 160 on up. My most recent confirmed contacts that are typically places I cannot QSO with on 20m and 17m on FT8 have been to Turkey, Kosovo, Israel, Sri Lanka, Serbia, Estonia, and Macedonia using 90w. I'm pleasantly surprised.

PSKReporter.info allows you to see who is hearing you, if they are using WSJT-X / FT8 and reporting your signal to PSKReporter.info:

Aventus · Mar 11, 2018

vette97 said:
I got 124.5' of wire up over a tree top using my drone. And along with the Balun Designs 9:1 balun mounted to my shed, and 31' of counterpoise strung in a small tree, I've been doing well on all bands, 160 on up. My most recent confirmed contacts that are typically places I cannot QSO with on 20m and 17m on FT8 have been to Turkey, Kosovo, Israel, Sri Lanka, Serbia, Estonia, and Macedonia using 90w. I'm pleasantly surprised.

Amateur Radio has always fascinated me but I never took the leap. Question however, if you are reaching Turkey, Kosovo, Serbia, etc. etc. etc. doesn't language differences become a big issue?

vette97 · Mar 11, 2018

Aventus said:
Amateur Radio has always fascinated me but I never took the leap. Question however, if you are reaching Turkey, Kosovo, Serbia, etc. etc. etc. doesn't language differences become a big issue?

Usually, when working stations overseas, minimal information is exchanged. Location, name, signal report, and that's about it - so we all default to English. Typically there are dozens, if not more, people in the US trying to reach them all at the same time in order to win an award for working so many foreign contacts. So, the foreign station likes to work as many as possible. They can get awards for states, counties, grid squares, etc, by working as many US folks as possible. The mode I was using is digital, so the computer generates tones, that I transmit with my radio, by connecting the sound card to the microphone jack. All the data is passed back and forth digitally and decoded on the computer, which is pretty neat. It takes a lot more work to use voice or morse code. But, all those modes are super fun!

Aventus · Mar 11, 2018

vette97 said:
Usually, when working stations overseas, minimal information is exchanged. Location, name, signal report, and that's about it - so we all default to English. Typically there are dozens, if not more, people in the US trying to reach them all at the same time in order to win an award for working so many foreign contacts. So, the foreign station likes to work as many as possible. They can get awards for states, counties, grid squares, etc, by working as many US folks as possible. The mode I was using is digital, so the computer generates tones, that I transmit with my radio, by connecting the sound card to the microphone jack. All the data is passed back and forth digitally and decoded on the computer, which is pretty neat. It takes a lot more work to use voice or morse code. But, all those modes are super fun!

Wow, now you really lost me! I always thought Ham was mostly communicating via voice. Never heard of an award system or what would even be enticing about that. Talking and getting to know someone in Israel, Poland or some other foreign country.....now that sounds like fun.

Obviously I don't have a clue about Amateur radio. Any suggestions where to become educated so I can figure out if it's for me?

JPG · Mar 11, 2018

Aventus said:
Wow, now you really lost me! I always thought Ham was mostly communicating via voice. Never heard of an award system or what would even be enticing about that. Talking and getting to know someone in Israel, Poland or some other foreign country.....now that sounds like fun.

Obviously I don't have a clue about Amateur radio. Any suggestions where to become educated so I can figure out if it's for me?

Local clubs usually have training (free) followed by testing (free) to get FCC license.

Start here:http://www.arrl.org/licensing-education-training

Engine4 · Mar 11, 2018

I built this dipole antenna following instructions I found on the web. Haven't tested it out yet, but it does receive.

vette97 · Mar 11, 2018

Engine4 said:
I built this dipole antenna following instructions I found on the web. Haven't tested it out yet, but it does receive.

Very nice!!!

K31 · Mar 11, 2018

Boxcab said:
K31, thanks for the heads up.

I'm not pulling the trigger for one. Saving up to get something with more power to have in the vehicles.

Thinking of rigging up some sort of battery power supply that charges off a lighter and provides high power for transmitting... trying to aviod over loading the lighter socket, special dedicated wiring, and allows it to be easily transferable between vehicles... including rentals.

So much to do, so little time and funds.

.

Sent using the user limitations inherent of mobile devices.

I think that a would still run wire directly from the car batteries with inline ATO type fuses and terminate the wires in Andersen Power Poles. Terminate the pig tail from the radio in Power Poles as well. That way you can move the radio from car to car easily and have a connection rated at 15A at least. A good battery is going to cost more, I think, and then you are going to want a battery saver device to keep the second battery from draining the car battery down to where the car won't start.

You can start on one car and then add it to the other at a later time.

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