Whatever Happened to Ham Radio?

[geo_leeman]

Good News -

Since being encouraged to not let my license expire (many thanks to the prodding form members who responded in this thread  ) I had renewed it and bought a cheap Baofeng UV-5R HT to get started again. Well, tomorrow I have a new radio arriving which will give me the needed power and capability to improve my VHF/UHF operating capabilities.

Pics to come ... 

Good news indeed! It's such an ideal playing ground for experimenters and sometimes just a nice way to rag chew on a long drive! 73's KD5WXB

[stempile]

I got a tech no code license back in the 90s. I keep it current because I doubt I could pass the test. I did it while in high school. My brain could retain more things back then. I borrowed gear in the early days. Back then pre cell phone I was set with use of the auto patch. Even joined a local club. Everyone was 40yrs plus older than me. Was still a good time.

I mostly use it for FPV rigs on my RC crafts today. I also the state of California still offers free vanity plates for ham call signs. Problem is now if I tic anyone off in traffic they can just google my license plate and come get me...  Either that is a motivation to limit road rage or I need to change that.   I could get a PO box perhaps.   

[xrunner]

Here it is folks - the magnificent Yaesu FT-8800!

[dr.diesel]

That is the same rig I use as a base in my shack.  I have the main unit in a junction box at the bottom of the tower, then a 350' custom cable ran into the house for the remote head, works great!

[geo_leeman]

I have used Yaesu for my handy-talkies, but I've always had Kenwood or iCom for a mobile/base.  Let us know how the interface is! Sexy looking front panel. 

[Hamster]

I have a 7800R in the truck along with an icom 5061 nxdn rig.
I have a ic-910h in the house along with an icom 6121? nxdn rig.
I have a ic-7000 & kenwood hf-450at i pull out for field day.
i run an fr6000 nxdn repeater with tx/rx cavities at the house on the ww nxdn network.

[xrunner]

Rig is working great!

I did run into some bugs in the free software I use to program it, but that isn't the radio's fault -

http://chirp.danplanet.com/projects/chirp/wiki/Home

I also found out that my Chinese Pistachio tree was blocking the signal from a certain UHF repeater to an amazing degree, nearly cutting off the signal from time to time. I did some tree trimming and it fixed that problem.

[xrunner]

Made a little plexiglass shield cover thingy for my Ham It Up up-converter. Turned out kinda neat.

[GreyWoolfe]

I have been a ham for 14 years and hold an Amateur Extra class license.  I am the member of a very active club that would rather have presentations on ham radio and electronics then a 'who has a bigger dick' contest.  I am the club's VE Liaison and since I have taken over the position almost 3 years ago and having testing every month-which a lot of people said it wouldn't work-  I am proud to say that we have only had 1 test session where we had no candidates.  We offer open testing before our monthly club meeting.  I am part of the repeater team that takes care of our primary repeater and I do my best to be an "Elmer" to new hams to help them grow in the hobby.  I believe the hobby is far from dead.  There is so many different aspects to the hobby from talking on 2 meter repeaters to building equipment to play on 10 GHz and above.  I truly feel that if you can't find something interesting in ham radio, it is you own fault.  I always tell the new hams that now you have a license to learn and to try as many different aspects of the hobby as time and money permit.  When you find your niche, run with it.  My only regret is getting involved so late in life (licensed at 43).

Tom, NW0LF
Daytona Beach Amateur Radio Association
WWW.DBARA.org

[xrunner]

Well I wasn't looking hard at the Yaesu FT-450 as my HF rig, but I ran across a local ham that had one for sale with an included LDG YT-450 ant. tuner all for for $650, and I couldn't pass it up. He just used it as his patio radio and wanted to cut back on equipment. It has a known problem that was common with these rigs, whereas the key jack seems to have been a bad design, and thus the one in the trig is in need of replacing. I called Yeasu parts and they only cost $1.60 ea., so I ordered two and they are on the way as we speak. I'll replace the headphone jack too as it's the same crummy design. 

I've been cleaning it up a bit and I'll need to disassemble the front panel to replace the jacks -

[dr.diesel]

That is a great compact full 100 watt rig, perfect for the lab bench!

[xrunner]

That is a great compact full 100 watt rig, perfect for the lab bench!

And speaking of the bench  here we have the front panel sans the crappy jacks, waiting for the new ones to arrive! 

[xrunner]

Got a new toy today - A Comet CAA-500 Ant. Analyzer.



I cut a test dipole for 52 MHz in the middle of the 6 meter band (9 feet / 4.5 feet/side) and connected it to a center insulator I made. The insulator is made of PVC pipe and has an SO-239 with some wires running internally to the ant. connection terminals. Ideally the dipole should have resonated at 52 MHz. The analyzer showed it resonated at 50.4 MHz.

468 / 50.4 = 9.29 feet.

.29' * 12 = 3.4"

The antenna looked 3.4 " longer than it should have been. The reason was the wires inside the insulator made the difference,  which makes sense. So I'll have to account for those lengths when making the final antenna.

I'm very impressed with this instrument now. 

[xrunner]

Here's the ham station as it exists currently. At the bottom you see the FT-450 I was working on earlier, and on top of it an LDG ant. tuner. To the right a Yeasu FT-8800 VHF/UHF rig. Above that, the SWR meter and an up-converter for the SDR dongle. On the display you can see the 40m ham band and it's tuned to the same freq. as the radio below. I only have a 6m dipole connected to the FT-450 at the moment. I'm still gathering materials to be able to mount the multi-band dipole ant. I will order later.

[creyc]

Made a little plexiglass shield cover thingy for my Ham It Up up-converter. Turned out kinda neat.

How do you like that upconverter?

I've had one sitting on my bench for longer than I'd like to admit and keep meaning to get it up and running.  I really dig that plexi cover for it too!

[xrunner]

How do you like that upconverter?

I've had one sitting on my bench for longer than I'd like to admit and keep meaning to get it up and running.  I really dig that plexi cover for it too!

It works well. It shifts all frequencies up by 125 MHz. You just enter an offset into your SDR program. I use HDSDR and I set it to input on upconverter. The offset you will use will be something like -124999600 because the crystal is not exactly 125 MHz. 

[xrunner]

Well, I had put up a little 10 m dipole and was just getting into making some contacts on SSB. I had made my first new contact on the band yesterday to a guy in Washington state. OK. But this morning I made a contact with EA8AM - a guy in the Canary Islands. That was quite a surprise. I guess I made a decent antenna.   

He doesn't do electronic QSLing so I need to figure out how to mail a SASE to him, and what type of postage to include. I have no idea about that. If anyone knows please let me know.

[creyc]

How do you like that upconverter?

I've had one sitting on my bench for longer than I'd like to admit and keep meaning to get it up and running.  I really dig that plexi cover for it too!

It works well. It shifts all frequencies up by 125 MHz. You just enter an offset into your SDR program. I use HDSDR and I set it to input on upconverter. The offset you will use will be something like -124999600 because the crystal is not exactly 125 MHz. 

I think I bought this up-converter without first realizing the immense size of antenna needed for these low frequencies!

As I'm renting my current residence, I'm basically limited to desktop-sized antennas only.  One day I hope to get this setup up and running.

[xrunner]

I think I bought this up-converter without first realizing the immense size of antenna needed for these low frequencies!

As I'm renting my current residence, I'm basically limited to desktop-sized antennas only.

Not so fast! If it's a house (or even an apt.) you should be able to get into the attic. Just run a wire ant. up there - that's exactly what my SDR is using. There should be an access panel somewhere so you can get up there. Just punch a small hole in the ceiling in the room you are in and feed it up. Just be careful in the attic so you don't bust the sheetrock! 

[Rory]

I think I bought this up-converter without first realizing the immense size of antenna needed for these low frequencies!

As I'm renting my current residence, I'm basically limited to desktop-sized antennas only.  One day I hope to get this setup up and running.

Search for "active antenna". Basically a short whip E-field antenna with a simple FET impedance converter. Cheap to make. Very small.

[dr.diesel]

I think I bought this up-converter without first realizing the immense size of antenna needed for these low frequencies!

You can also feed a small wire out the window (small enough you can just close the window on it), to a tree, tuck it under the siding etc.

If you have aluminum guttering, clip a wire to it and use it as a receive only.  Depending on your situation might work great, might pick up a shit-ton of noise, but worth a try.

[Tuomas]

Speaking of indoor antennas, I've been working on a magnetic loop antenna for the 10-20 meter ham bands. It also goes all the way down to 40 meters, but the efficiency drops substantially (at least according to calculations).

-Diameter of ~75cm
-20-500pF 7.5kV variable vacuum capacitor (if I recall correctly)
-Gamma matched

If I shut down all the electronic devices nearby the antenna, it works quite well considering it is indoors. I was listening to someone from as far as Australia on the 15m band last sunday and this morning I heard hams from Kuwait and Israel on the 40m band. I did my first QSO from indoors with that thing on sunday as well, to Belgium on 15 meters. Not sure if it's a good idea to be pumping out 50 watts right next to all my lab equipment and computers with that thing, though...

[xrunner]

Did anyone else get in on the 10 meter contest this weekend? I wasn't interested in competing but I did manage to make a lot of contacts to new places.

As well as the smattering of states I got some new countries added to my list - France, Canada, Nicaragua, Poland, Germany, Chile, and Cape Verde. Not bad for a temporary 10 meter dipole which is mounted too low to begin with. 

[vk3yedotcom]

^ ^ ^
Was on from a local pier and heard USA stations on 10m quite well (eg towards the end of the video) but didn't work any. Though some good contacts were made on 20m.



The following morning was spent bouncing VHF signals off planes

[xrunner]

FT-450 screen mod

The FT-450 comes with a whiteish display. In the older models you could get to a menu that would change the color, but you can't do so in the later ones. I don't like the white display, so I ordered some different colored cellophane sheets off Ebay. The color I decided to go with was the amber color, like many other types of display look like. I simply dissassembled the radio and cut pieces to fit over the display. To get it to look right I needed to add two pieces - one on top of the other. The result was very satisfying and very pleasing to look at. You cannot tell at all that the display isn't that way by design.