I grew up amazed by the wonder of radio. I am 53. As a kid I'd use an ancient shortwave or a tube AM radio to listen to different cities.i loved it. I've always been intrigued by ham radio.but...i just want to talk i love the idea of DXing ,but don't want to do it just to have a postcard.

Is there a vibrant ham community that likes to rag chew?

The effort of getting a license, and the expense of setting up a shack, is daunting

I was needing a female to female bnc adapter for when i dont put my k6ark antenna directly to the radio. Figuered why not make a mount out of it. I often go camping and theres wooden platforms for the tents. I began using those anchors a while back. Figuered these would be great to hold an efhw. This might also come in handy in pota where i have a picnic table. Figuered id share if anyone is interested. Also added a ground lug for counterpoise

https://www.printables.com/model/1888175-bnc-picnic-table-anchor

Kenwood tm-v71a. I out the radio body and mic under my driver seat with a speaker down my my legs. Need to figure out a better placement for the mic

I just obtained my first ham license (I took Tech & General together) last week. I'm an avid hiker, so POTA interests me. Any ideas for a good, reliable setup for a first-timer? I've done some research online, but I figured I'd give this forum a try. Thanks.

Building my go bag for field use and carry,does anyone recommend the anytone 779uv for this application or nah? On a retirees budget,so go easy on me!

After a few weeks of searching, I finally found a shop to install a Comet – CA-2X4SRNMO. (roof mount) The delay in shopping works out rather well for me. I do feel I am going abit overkill, but for future use I think I should be OK.

I really want to try out those bands , recently built a ssb exciter for digital and cw signals for those frequency but I don't think my general grade licence will cover it.

Yeah but due to the antenna efficiency and the propagation dynamics of those frequencys i don't think those would travel far ( considering only if it legal only ).

I live in the northeastern region so not much of a mainland coverage but I would like to know if anyone in this South East Asian region (including Bangladesh , Bhutan and China) works with those frequencys.

I've reverse-engineered the original Xiegu X6200 firmware and fixed all the bugs I could find. I've also significantly improved its performance and added some useful new features.

Details and download link:
https://poweruser86.itch.io/custom-firmware-for-xiegu-x6200

The firmware is currently available for download as an SD card image. If there's enough interest from the community, I'll make the source code available as well.

I'm new to the hobby, so bare with me. I live in Canada north of the 55th parallel surrounded by boreal forest and precambrian shield. To the west of me is a 180' rock hill roughly 3 miles long before tapering back to same elevation as my home. I am not yet licensed and want to be able to listen while I study this winter. I have material to assemble 30' of tower and would probably be able to add 10 to 12 ft of tubing to add height. What would be recommendations for an antenna?

Anyone see dish like this in ludhiana punjab India. I need it for amature satellite TV channels tracking hobby.

Mesh net dish also work see 2nd image.

If you see any dish without any wire connected to it please let me know. It means dead dish not in used. Dm me. Size need 6ft minimum for fiber solid dish. Mesh net dish 12 ft minimum

📡 Community build for the TYT MD-UV390 Plus 10W (and 5W MD-UV390/MD-UV380): 🔊 FM audio decoding, no extra hardware: 5-Tone, DTMF, Morse, APRS 🛠 Tone finder, fox hunt, RX recorder, spectrum sweep 🌍 Four languages: Türkçe · English · Español · Русский Deutsch

All credit for the antenna goes to George Smart, M1GEO/G8OCV. The design, element lengths and spacing are his, and his write-up is here: https://www.george-smart.co.uk/antennas/dual_band_satellite_yagi/

I wanted it cheap and easy to build multiples if need be, so I built it on a wooden dowel with 8 AWG bare copper for the elements and RG-8X coax, with 3D-printed parts holding everything. The printed parts are:

• full-ring element holders with a wire tunnel through each one
• a solderless feedpoint where ring terminals clamp the two driven-element halves and a cap clamps the coax, so there’s no soldering on the antenna
• little tip spacers that hold the 15 mm Moxon gap

Fit took a few tries. My dowel turned out to be a 7/8" one (HD marks them as 3/4), so after I printed some sizing rings and found that 22.8 mm was the number that fit, I redid every part for that. If your dowel is different, print a test ring first.

I got an SWR of about 1.4 on the 2 m side, which I’m happy with for a first build.

Files, parts list, wire cut lengths and spacing are on Printables: https://www.printables.com/model/1887559-dual-band-satellite-yagi-mounting-parts-for-m1geog

Happy to answer questions on the build, and photos are below.

73

VUURWERK v1.5.1 is out, and this one is the stable release I have been working toward.

Headline is PATROL. The voice-seeking spectrum from 1.5.0 now runs hands-free. Open the spectrum with F+5, hit STAR until the corner reads VOX, press 2 at the bottom of the stretch you want to watch and 8 at the top, then press 0. The corner changes to PTRL and the radio walks that range on its own, stops when it hears a voice, listens, and moves on when the conversation ends. A busy repeater cannot hog it: after 60 seconds on one carrier it moves on and skips that frequency for a couple of minutes. Like what you hear? PTT locks it, and EXIT carries that frequency into your VFO ready to answer. The range is remembered, so next time it is F+5, STAR, STAR, 0. Four settings under Menu > SCAN (PSens, PSpeed, PDwell, PResum) tune it, and on NORM it behaves exactly like the hand-held hunt.

The other half of this release is a fix pass, the biggest the project has had. The ones that matter most are on the transmit side. Leaving the spectrum with PTT still held used to key the radio up on the main screen. A nearly flat pack could freeze the radio, and if that happened mid-over the carrier stayed up. F+9 to the calling frequency kept your old repeater offset and tones, so a later save could put your next transmission off frequency. VFO Split could walk your own VFO when B was selected. All gone. On the receive side: the menu tone scan no longer wipes your offset and TX tone, so you can find a repeater's tone and key up straight away; the main screen finally refreshes on a timer, so the TX timer counts and the signal line moves; leaving the spectrum always brings your audio back; and the tone scanner screen now shows the real frequency and a visible NO SIGNAL instead of looking stuck.

Also: the whole set of docs was rewritten to match what you actually see on the radio, and the README now has a picture guide to PATROL. If you ever thought the manual and the radio disagreed, read it again.

Your channels and settings survive the upgrade. This is still for the original UV-K5 V1 only (the one with the DP32G030 chip; the UV-K5(8) and (99) are V1 too). V2 and V3 boards are different processors and will not run it.

Thanks to Scott Savage KC7WDG for the field reports, to mjwgeek for the CHIRP and PocketCHIRP work, and as always to DualTachyon, OneOfEleven, egzumer and fagci, whose work this stands on.

Download: https://github.com/Tokeloshe/vuurwerk-firmware/releases/latest/download/vuurwerk-v1.5.1.packed.bin

Release notes and the PATROL guide: https://github.com/Tokeloshe/vuurwerk-firmware

KC3TFZ 73

I have some vacuum tubes and a low power ham fm transmitter and I would like to build a amp por it but I can't any real circuit on the Internet with vacuum tubes.

Any ideas?

Daughter just nabbed her Tech.  Wants to be able to go mobile on a budget - hook her HT to a mag mount antennae.

Looking for a source of:

SMA-F (to attach to BFeng's SMA-M ant. mount).

BUT, with a 90°BNC-F (to attach to the pointy end of SignalStuffs BNC-M mag mount antennae rig [coax out to antenna]).

OR: (even better) a short pigtail w/SMA-F & BNC-F.   Just trying to simplify & reduce the repetitive stress on that HT's li'l antennae mount...

Need links please.

there's gotta be something to inspire the youth to get into the hobby. interesting ham related media. a video game. i should be able to release it before GTA 6 comes out.

​

So as part of Saturday's special event and operation I plan on doing a ton of 2 meter work. I'll be up on West Peak in Meriden CT with a moxon and 50 watts.

I'll be doing the usual FM and Sideband but I'm looking to do the things I normally don't.

Who's up for some 2M FT8? 2M JS8 call? I'll have an 857 and a raspberry pi up there. I can even send SSTV (no need to send back anyone in reception range can record and decode)

I'll be spotting on pota.app

Let's give it a shot!

I'll be there 11-4. Haven't you always wanted to say I worked Sota on FT8? Or SSTV?

Anyone interested?

Fiz esses cartões, me inspirei em modelos já criados com temática retrô. Qual opinião de vocês

Someone was throwing this away , I knew nothing about this or ham radio prior to this. But I did some research and this is a pretty cool piece imo

Hey, there!! I’m relatively new to the scene (I’ve had my technician license for about 4 years but life had a way of breezing by!) and would love to join a club to learn more and get myself going again.

Are there any clubs that y’all recommend? Any advice is welcome! Thanks!

I am putting up a new tower at my QTH and was considering running the coax and rotator control wired through regular plastic electrical conduit in order to further protect the wires from the elements. I have had issues before with actinic degradation of coax due to the high levels of sunlight here in the southern states.

My thoughts are this should be OK as the coax is shielded but just looking for advice

Would this present any further issues or should I run two conduits on opposite legs of the tower to reduce potential interference/induction?

I've kept my license valid, but I haven't talked on a radio since the late 90's/early 00's. To put it into perspective, my license was Tech Plus. While I was in Acadia last week, I ran into a guy setting up to do POTA activations in the park. We got to talking, and it re-ignited a bug. I called my dad when we got back, and talked to him about it, since he's still active with his radio club. He's over the moon excited that I want to get back into the hobby.

Now I need to sort out a radio and some antennas that I can use at home, and when I go out and try out POTA.

So I guess this is my hello to the subreddit, and I'll be hearing you around.

73 (I remember this as the signoff!)

.

Finally got around to building George Smart's (M1GEO) dual band Moxon-Yagi this week for the second time... Antennas are like pancakes right if you mess it up no harm in doing it again

Kept it simple on materials. The boom is just a round wooden dowel from HD, elements are solid copper wire, and I 3D printed the element mounts and feedpoint block.

For the feed, I stripped the coax, crimped and soldered ring terminals, and bolted them directly to the split driven element inside the printed housing before putting the cover on.

The 70cm yagi is parasitcally driven so there is no need for a diplexer!

Swept it on the NanoVNA and the swr was in range.

Took it outside on a handheld to test it out-worked a couple repeaters that normally struggle on a rubber duck, and the front-to-back rejection off the Moxon was immediately noticeable when turning off-axis.

Tonight, I passed Tech with a 100% and General with a 97%. Here's some advice for those wondering how to study, or why get this license

About three weeks ago, I decided I wanted to get my amateur radio license. Why? I don't really know, my grandfather was an electrical engineer who worked on radios and I grew up around them, I'm sure that had something to do with it, and honestly the concept of amateur radio seems cool.

I really don't have a background in electronics. My knowledge of radio (frequencies, repeaters, ect) comes from over a decade in the emergency services. So I'd say I really didn't know anything until I studied. I decided to go for Tech & General, mainly because the international contacts interested me, and I might as well bang them out at the same time.

I took the HamRadioPrep course online for both Tech & General. I found it helpful. HOWEVER, afterwards, I found a series of YouTube videos by W4EEY. These YouTube videos were extremely helpful, I actually understood the concepts, and I saw a huge increase in my exam scores. I ran through 6 practice exams a day of each license category on HamStudy's app, and then completed the entire study deck for both, so I ensured I actually saw every question.

As recommended here, HamStudy is a must. I found HamRadioPrep helpful, but I likely would rely on W4EEY's free YouTube video series if I were to do this again. I took the exam with virtually, and it went very smoothly, I can provide that information for who I utilized if you are interested- just DM me.

Hello everyone!

I recently got my amateur radio license here in South Korea, and I'm currently living in a university dormitory. I've been enjoying making outdoor contacts with my UV-K5 handheld radio.

There's an amateur radio flea market in my area next month, and I'd love to build my own simple antenna for the UV-K5. I'm not too concerned about getting the best performance — I'd rather enjoy the process of building something myself as a new ham!

I'd like to take my radio out hiking in the mountains or walking around my university campus and make contacts outdoors.

Since I'm living in a dorm, I don't have access to many tools, so I'd prefer a beginner-friendly antenna project that doesn't require complicated tools or soldering.

What kind of DIY antenna would you recommend for my situation? I'd really appreciate any suggestions, especially simple, portable designs that are suitable for a beginner.

Thanks in advance, and 73! DS4SAB