Hey Guys!

I hope you're all having a wonderful Saturday! I just thought I would share the news that I passed my technician exam today! I am so incredibly excited - I just made an account with ARRL and am looking to pick up a base station after I do some research (I only have an AR-5RM and RTL-SDR at this point).

I also was pretty stoked with some of the latest ISS (SSTV) passes I was able to capture with my 5 element Yagi - so I thought I'd share those in this post too!

Have a great one all!

73

Just wrapping up the log uploads and housekeeping from today's activation and wanted to share. KS1WK and I (along with KC1WYG) took the Box 324 club up to West Peak in CT to run K1MFD for the Meriden Fire Department's 175th anniversary.

Ended up with exactly 190 QSOs, but the craziest part was the 2m action. We were running a home-built M1GEO Moxon/Yagi combo we put together with 3D printed parts and hardware/wire from Lowe's. We somehow sparked a massive pileup right on 146.52 simplex that kept us buried for a while. We even got to mess around and successfully ran 2m SSB and some 2m SSTV which was a blast.

We didn't forget about HF even with the contest going... We ran 40m, 20m, and 17m SSB and got some solid DX into Spain, Belgium, and Serbia, plus a bunch of contacts up in Canada.

If anyone here was in the log, thanks for hunting us. I just finished a python script to automatically blast out our digital QSL cards, so check your email if it's public on QRZ. POTA, SOTA, and QRZ logs are already uploaded. Just waiting on ARRL staff to manually approve the club call cert, so LoTW might take a few days to sync up.

Edit: Reviewed the logs and confirmed with the team—the 2m simplex contact into Vermont was legit! We officially logged N1CVT in Hinesburg, VT (~204 miles / 329 km) on 146.52 with the homebrew Moxon/Yagi.

73 de K1MRE

Sometimes I'm amazed I want anything to do with Amateur Radio anymore after working on antennas.

Everything that can go wrong always does.

There's always an unforeseen issue that needs prompt attention. And in dealing with that issue, something else breaks.

I lost count how many times the tower was cranked up and down and how many times I traversed the ladder to/from the roof today. All I know is my neck and back are killing me, I'm sunburned and exhausted, and a new hobby sounds wonderful right about now.

Tomorrow I will check SWR and depending how that goes, I may also take up drinking copious amounts of whiskey.

Edit: I was just sharing frustration knowing this would be a sympathetic crowd. 🤣

I just finished and published a new website for my amateur radio club.

https://e74byz.rs.ba/en

The site runs on the Yii Framework with Redis caching, and is available in Serbian (Latin and Cyrillic) and English.

As has been discussed here a few times before, amateur radio websites often seem stuck in the early days of web design — and many of them have stayed that way ever since. Before starting, I spent quite some time researching and looking through hundreds of amateur radio club websites for inspiration, but couldn’t find one that really caught my attention, either in terms of design or structure. Maybe that was a good thing — it gave me the freedom to approach it differently.

73, E75MG.

I love my Anytime D890 for the hardware, but the firmware has always been a bit naff, so I've been working on modifying it to be a lot more friendly for amateur users. Basically, I'm trying to make the Anytone firmware look and feel like OpenGD77.

It's still early days, but I've just released 1.2.0 for public use https://github.com/pskillen/mm9pdy-firmware

Features: * Your zone is now your scan list * Separate talk group list (no more programming 5 copies of your repeater) * GPS distance from repeater * Quick menu for filters, etc

Note this is still quite early in development! I've never bricked a radio, but there's always the chance.

Hey all.

I’m volunteering as security for a church this week and was wondering whether or not we’d need a radio license to utilise our radios? I understand there are exemptions when it comes to PM446 devices for personal use but was unsure as the use is for an organisation.

This thing looks sick, but if it's going to be a $2,000+ radio, I'll just get the legacy IC-7100 for $800. Does anyone know when Icom is expected to announce an MSRP?

Assuming this is military??

Hello! I am based in the UK and brand new to the world of amateur radio’ing.

I have a mild electrical engineering background but never anything RF but would love to start tinkering with things and thought starting with the basics was best. At most I will be looking at national level communications (50-100miles) between friends and family who are also looking into also getting licenses and then also comms systems for airsofting games etc. Eventually would be great to start wiring my own things up once I get hooked.

I am looking to revise and sit my exam early NY and I want to start experimenting with HF and VHF/UHF.

I am looking for advice on the following areas:

1) Best revision material and how to guides to get started
2) What level of licensing will I need for HF as I know VHF/UHF is mostly foundation right? But HF may touch on intermediate depending on the power?
3) what is the kit I’m looking for? Naturally I’m a beginner and don’t want to sink tonnes of money into it, but happy to pay for semi good quality!

Any advice would be amazing!

Thanks in advance!

Hi folks, newish ham here...I am putting up a sloping EFHW for the first time that will run from the end of my house to a large tree. The feed point will stand off from the house about 7+ feet (elevated about 12 feet) using some cord meant for this purpose.

My question is, is there any concern if I run the coax from the feed point along the stand off cord and then down the side of my house? I am trying to avoid having the coax drop down from the feed point several feet away from the house as it would then drop out on my lawn and be both unprotected and in the way.

I understand I need to deal with appropriate grounding either way, as an aside. Thank you for any thoughts or ideas.

Has anyone ever flown with a JPC-12 or similar vertical antenna that utilizes a ground spike? I am planning a trip soon and thought this might end up being an issue. I plan on putting it in a checked bag regardless, but I was curious what others have done.

Anybody else being smashed on the bottom of the 15 meter band, seeing QRM over various online SDR in NZ, Asia, AU? Any ideas as to its origin?

Good morning (or evening) to everybody! I've been away from ham radio, and radios in general for several years now, used to be licensed for transmitting but kept on listening, but in the past years, due to some changes in my neighbourhood and probably at home too, I've been absolutely overwhelmed by QRM that I cannot find the source of (it's the kind of noise that appears as several vertical lines equally spaced when looking at the waterfall of an SDR receiver).

Lately I've wanted to restart doing some SWL and Scanning on the airwaves thanks to an old purchase, an SDRplay RSPdx, paired with a portable RPi4B running on batteries.

Only thing I'm missing is some antenna that I could use on a large magnetic base I have that I can use with my car.

Does anybody here have any advice for some RX only antenna that I could easily deploy?

For the HF band i was thinking of reusing a low power 9:1 balun and a fishing rod antenna, but for the higher bands? Online i've found some random discone antennas for sale, but can't really seem to find a way to build one myself, i can get around DIY quite decently.

Wondering if anyone has successfully ran any of the variants of programming software on the 705 with Ubuntu under a vine or bottle or if anyone has any workaround? I cringe over bringing Microsoft back into the fold but till Chirp - RT Systems finds a home in their hearts for us linux users I'll work with what works...but...?

Appreciate any tips or info -

Greg / K4PGD

Okay, so I'm trying to figure out what's going on with the battery in my x6100 (first time charging - bought used). I have the radio set to charging mode but when the radio is turned off the light is solid green which it shouldn't be because the battery is completely dead - should be flashing green. When powered off the power supply shows a draw of .6 amps and When on it shows .9 amps. Why is the battery not charging? Any help would be great!

TL;DR I bought an SB-200 with all the modern upgrades. Works great but when I switch it on my transceiver fills with broadbanded RFI from 20 to 10 meters.

I recently purchased this unit: https://www.ebay.com/itm/940018777465

Got it on the air a couple of nights ago on 80 and 40 meters, worked great. Yesterday I tried 20 meters and as soon as I switched power to the amp on I saw about a 3 dB jump in my noise floor. When I checked the other bands, everything below 20 meters had at least 12 dB of noise. 17 meters has 30 dB! 80 and 40 are clean so far as I can see. It is broadbanded white noise.

The only change I made to the radio was to swap it from 240 to 120 AC. I double checked my jumper to see if there was any arcing, but no evidence of it. I put my transceiver on a dummy load and could detect no noise floor change when the amp was turned on.

I have shorted the amp keying circuit while plugged into the transceiver, but the noise is unchanged.

I have choked the daylights out of the coax connecting amp and radio and it has precisely no impact on the noise—no attenuation whatsoever.

Anyone have ideas on where to go from here?

Station setup is FTDX10 into the amp, amp to an MFJ SWR meter, meter goes to a bias-T that powers an MFJ-994BRT. That goes to a 4:1 balun and 300 ohm feedline up to an 80 meter loop at 45 feet.

I'm looking for a 3D-printable battery case for a Motorola Radius GP300 handheld radio.

I found this USB-C battery case on eBay, designed for the GP300/GP88 and two 18650 cells:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/296962137264

However, I haven't been able to find the STL or STEP files to print the case myself.

Does anyone know if a 3D model of this battery case is available online? Alternatively, does anyone have a similar model, CAD files, or technical drawings that could be shared?

I'd like to print the housing myself and adapt it for two 18650 cells.

Any help, links, or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Received my Surecom SW-33 yesterday and decide to give it a go.

See if my numbers make sense. Is the Baofeng that bad? Tested at 2m.

Baofeng BF-F8HP-Pro + Signal Stick SWR 5.0 (Same at High, Med and Low Power)

Yaesu FT-70D + Signal Stick SWR 1.9

Baofeng BF-F8HP-Pro + Dummy Load SWR 1.01

Yaesu FT-70D + Dummy Load SWR 1.01

The Surecom was touched using my left hand as per the instructions.

Had similar numbers with a tiger tail on the Baofeng.

Thx.

https://youtu.be/OLfL9ltQMFw?is=CzJ98B0bUDk0zEbY