Amateur (Ham) Radio BS and Callsign Thread!

Thats the best! Ive had to learn 98% myself. I have many ARRL books.

 

You guys have a recommendation on an e expensive home antenna I have been looking at a diamond X50 but I am like 20 days new to this Ham thing going for the general in a week.. but wanted to get a not crazy expensive antenna for the house..
Thanks in advance

 

how inexpensive? Just 2/70? @Kronk21

 

I made the setup in the second pic; that's my truck's roof in the pic. Just for some input straight from the horse's mouth:

A buddy of mine has a mag mount that went between the bars of his prinsu with the same antenna as mine which is hard mounted as seen in pic 2. We use ours both for supporting an offroad race series over decent distances (20-50mi from race control over varying terrain), and they have said they can't tell a difference between us two signal wise because we asked them to keep a mental note just out of curiosity.

As far as mounting in all 4 corners goes, that'd prob work better, albeit marginally imho. I have had no issue with flex driving at 80mph with a head wind on out highways since the mounting plate is quite thick steel. Its the arb single backer plate painted black, I worked with what I had laying around and they both use 1/4x20 hardware so the holes were perfect. That antenna/mount also took a direct bird strike off a sparrow sized bird at 80mph and is solid.

 

Hoping under $200 ‍ But open to ideas if the value is worth the added cost..

 

Build one! I built a 2m j-pole from 1/2" copper tubing; it's mounted to a t-post and I use it daily. Also just built a 2m bazooka from some RG-58U coax for portable use. Both were simple and super cheap. I can send you some plans if you are interested.
Also made a 2m/70cm Yagi-Uda Moxon beam for satellite work and operates fine mounted on a pole to hit a repeater far away over the hill. Just used some PVC and 1/8" copper pipe.

Having antenna building knowledge/practice is super valuable especially if you are moving to general and playing with HF.

 

Yea I love building things!!! Sounds awesome! And pics lol thank you!!!!

 

Here's the bazooka I built: https://www.hamuniverse.com/vertbazooka.html
I can't find the exact plans I used for my j-pole but they are all the same. I've attached some reasonable examples.
Here's a j-pole that claims to be resonant on 2m and 70cm. https://www.eham.net/article/2418
Some ideas on higher gain j-poles: https://www.hamradio.me/antennas/j-antenna-variations-thereof.html
Here's the beam I built: http://sa555.blogspot.com/2013/08/baofeng-uv5-r-with-so50-satellite.html

Grab some connectors https://www.amazon.com/BCP-Female-S...&qid=1649374237&sprefix=so-239,aps,110&sr=8-5
Some coax and pl-259 (I prefer the crimp variety)
and get to soldering!

 

That is one valuable wealth of information. I am one of the techs for our club (30+ years as a ham) we have several talented members with veering degrees of of experience barely a week goes by that I don't learn some thing often from new hams that have picked up things that I have missed. I'm glad we have some new energetic hams that are excited about the hobby and eager to learn.

 

Yep, I operate on 220 quite often and it's hard to find 220 gear my water pipe 220 been on the tower for a good 10 years now. By design it is a half wave so it does have some gain.

 

Just making some contacts from our property. Enjoying this little cheap set up.

 

Finally got a setup to work and programmed these radios. DosBox on an old HP laptop. $46 each. Now what do I do with them? All UHF 25W.



@Kronk21 You have an antenna plan yet?

 

Not yet I loooked at those pages you sent and am stocked on the idea of building one! I have been crazy busy the last weeks or so so haven’t been able to go any further than reading the pages.. thanks again for those links..

 

Mobile repeater?

 

Cans or a hell of a split!

 

I don't own a single 220 radio. Too bad too, I bet that band is super dead. Also have access to a NX-5200 (no keypad). P25 Conventional. Don't know what I would do with it though.

That's the truth on the split. No need for another repeater around here. I'm thinking packet link. No cans needed.

 

It is a very quiet band. Mostly old timers but we do have several repeaters in a tri state area one club semi locally has 220, 6 meters, 440 and 2 meters! I don't use it because they are all linked what a zoo! Another option is DMR.

 

DMR. Wave of the future!

Never been a fan of FM VHF/UHF but DMR has grown on me.

 

We, (W1MWV ARC) have a VHF,UHF and a DMR UHF repeater on top of Mt Cranmore in NH. I do use the DMR repeaters it's kind a neat talking to the world with a hand held but have never warmed up to radio via computers. Yeah I'm and old ham I'm the same way with digital HF.