Amateur (Ham) Radio BS and Callsign Thread!

CQWW phone? The A index was in the high 20s, so it had to have been pretty brutal.....

 

I had my best luck on 40. But common areas in the UK I normally hit were a huge struggle. I was able to get Venezuela and the African coast fairly well though.

 

Just a FYI...if you are a fan of the inexpensive Baofeng radios this is an interesting read. At the end of this month they can no longer be sold if they are capable of transmitting on the FRS/GMRS frequencies. They will have to limit them to HAM bands or stop selling.

https://survivalblog.com/baofeng-sa...HLYXQ3L5zOmcyOXJ_JNierQ_B_tsIGMvsjoADOTeGbluQ

 

Hopefully everyone stays away from these radios as they're generally not legal to operate and are causing lots of problems.

 

Well, 9/30 was a month ago, and they are still for sale on Amazon with advertised frequency range up to 520mhz.....

Those radios are dirty splatter boxes. If your "survival" depends on a junk $23 Chinese handheld, you probably won't last very long.

 

They’re good radios for the price. I used one out on a hunting trip to keep track of friends and it worked great and when I lost it at some point going through some thick nasty stuff I wasn’t out much money.

 

Lotta folks use them here in UT for trail duties and race support since they can operate on both bands. Not great radios by any means, but in the open spaces, they actually do pretty well. Better than nothing if you really needed help.

 

Anyone have strong opinions on antenna analyzers? Was looking at a Rig expert Aa-55 for coverage down to 6m. But then I realized I'd be paying an extra $60 just for 6m...

Also, I have hookups with rigs that do go that low and I'm sure they'd be kind enough to lend a hand if I build an antenna in that range.

Cough : @foy1der : cough.

 

The AA-55 looks nice. I have not kept up with analyzer technology, and have managed to get along just fine with my old MFJ-269 for a long time. It has been up and down many towers, in the US and foreign countries. My main use is on HF, tuning yagi driven elements prior to install, homebrew verticals, etc.

The 10 AA batteries it requires really sucks, so a while back I converted it to run on 4x 18650 LiPos. According to the instruction manual, it's capable of operating at anything less than 18v. The Li batteries run the analyzer for days, and it now weighs half as much.

 

All it costs is a beer. WAY less than the cost

 

Haha done.


I think I might battle 93 tomorrow to get to the candy store...

 

My antenna broke



Made it through about 1k miles of spirited off roading. And 5k miles of freeway winds.

Anyone know of a full-height dual band antenna with NMO and a spring base? This one was about 38" tall.

 

I had the browning 180 or something like that for two years. Not bad for about 18 bucks. After the coils took a dump, I went with the SBB-1NMO

 

@foy1der playing any radio tonight?

 

Question. Let’s say I know someone who was really into ham, and they passed away. I have my license. Is there some sort of ceremony type thing to honor them? Like a permanent sign off, or something along those lines.

 

If they have loved ones, you could ask folks that were close to them to bring qsl cards to a wake.

 

Also, @EatSleepTacos, sorry for your loss

 

I appreciate that, but I didn’t know them at all (not to sound insensitive). Someone who did reached out to me asking about doing a permanent sign off, and explained it. I hadn’t heard of it and couldn’t find anything on google so I was curious if others had heard of such a thing.

 

You can report a silent key to QST magazine and they will publish it.
http://www.arrl.org/silent-key-submission-guidelines

 

Perfect, thank you.