Amateur (Ham) Radio BS and Callsign Thread!

That’s a nice setup you have there.

 

KJ7ELA - just passed my technician and general last weekend.

For now I have a little

$18 Baofeng UV-5R VHF/UHF Dual Band Radio 144-148MHz 420-450MHz Transceiver

Baofeng UV-5R, but I'm hoping to get a Kenwood TM-D710GA in the truck sooner than later. That way the girlfriend won't get freaked out if I head out on my own into the woods.

 

Congrats!

 

There's a video ham thread?!

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/ham-radio-features-video.594890/

 

Whelp, there goes my day.

 

7300 is under $1k....my day is going to be spent exercising restraint

 

I paid about 1200 for mine. I would do it again tomorrow if I had too. Under 1000 is a great price.

 

So I installed a Larsen NMO mount on my truck yesterday. It came with 17’ of coax, and turns out I only need about 15’. Is it going to make any difference if I just cut off the extra 2’ and attach the connector? Or should I route it around instead of cutting it off?

 

Cut if off if you want, otherwise, just stash the cable someplace in case you ever need to reroute the cable. Just be sure not to loop it when you stash the cable.

 

That’s what I thought, just wanted to check with people more knowledgeable than I am. Thanks!

 

How's it been going? Get on the air yet ?

 

I did. I had it all right, guess there was just no one on that first few days I was trying. I have made a couple contacts since. I still need to get on the air more, but at least I know my radio works lol

 

Why not loop it?

 

More an issue with multiple loops than just one. The cable radiates and if it looped, the coils can interact and degrade the signal.

 

Well damn... now I gotta pun my seat and redo it. Wanna say I’ve got 5ish loops laid out over laping the with of the driver seat

 

Every time I see the video of the induction heater to do the PL-259 plugs I always just think to myself how that's the way to go. Talking about a quick solder job .


I've got to do my oddball connector. Cut it. Clean it like a mofo. Trim the cable and re attach. Stupid proprietary cable

 

So I have an issue with my Kenwood TM-D710. Somehow I seem to have disabled the audio output from the A band. B band is normal. There are 2 external speakers and when the radio is switched from mode 1 to mode 2 audio out I then hear B band audio on the other speaker (not a speaker or speaker jack issue). Unplugging both speakers also does not cause the A band audio to come on.

The radio is used but both bands were working as expected before this. As for what has changed I would say that I have updated the radio configuration using rtSystems software, thus my suspicion that this is a setting issue.

The "mute" option has been toggled on and off without impact.

Anyone seen something like this with the D710?

 

Sure you don't have CTCSS enabled? How about APRS? APRS can be configured to mute audio. Check Voice Alert in APRS.

For the external speaker config: put it in mode 1 and only connect one speaker to port 1. Do you hear "beeps" from pushing buttons? If so, then you know the audio PA is good.

 

So when I can installed my antenna, I had too much coax so I coiled it up (about 5 or 6 loops). Is that what you meant? If so, should I shorten the cable? Thanks