Amateur (Ham) Radio BS and Callsign Thread!

Usually about 6-8 business days. The big variable is when your VE sends stuff to the ARRL. Once the ARRL receives, it's usually the next day.

 

Congrats!

Yes. More details somewhere in this thread, but in short, the antenna is mounted to a 1/2" bolt hole on a BajaRack roof rack.

Two or three years now. I love it. A.R.E. MX. Holding up terrific. I load it up 150 lbs on roof, and it does really well, on and off road.

 

Thanks Crom!

I might have to install a Yakima Cargo Rack to come close to your setup...All I need is the rack...

 

Thanks! Should be any day now I guess.

 

Sweet, I have it. Been active since 24 OCT just never showed up on the FCC site through a name search but found it through ARRL and then searched FCC with my call sign.


KM4FFU

 

Ground Plane is not a myth... I have seen it!

...It's the other side of your dipole you're constructing

When I was screwdrivering, I had a 102" whip I threw on there when stationary, really did a great job on 80. Had a couple clip on wires about 30' long to do 160. Kinda made a sideways half-square.

 

Kudos man. Hmmm... I seem to remember needing to use a date frame with either name/FRN in the absence of callsign when searching ULS -- and just name not working. Maybe, or something. Something to keep in mind when you go for your General.

 

kk6pov, just popped my repeater cherry this morning on the way to work

 

You're welcome. Have fun with it.

I think Tim was being a little facetious. I got a chuckle out of what he wrote.

Congrats Travis. What radio you running? Which repeater you key up on?

 

Howdy Y'all from just outside Austin, Texas.

de W9ZEB

 

A vehicle is more of a capacitor than a ground plane the ground losses due to the vehicle height are high on any of the HF bands. A portion of the return path flows through a very lossey ground under the vehicle making things even worse. The bottom line even at a 100 watts an HF rig in a vehicle has an ERP of a QRP rig with a ¼ wave dipole. The only way around this would be an elevated antenna and radials not real practical for mobile use. Many screw driver antenna whips are cut for use on 6-80 meters so by increasing the length you stand a pretty good risk of losing your higher frequency bands such as 6 and 10 meters. In my case I don’t care because I don’t usually use those bands my whip is 56” it is over twice the length of the stock supplied whip. A vertical multi band trap antenna will not work worth a hoot at ground level even with counter poise radials it needs to be razed above the lossey ground the same holds true for low frequency wire dipoles they need to be above the lossey ground by a ¼ wave or better.

 

http://www.k0bg.com/ground.html

 

www.k0bg.com

the bible when it comes to mobile ham

 

I Got all kinds yesterday between work and the gym I sat out on ballast point with a just a handheld. I hit monument peak KA6DAC as well as the w6ss which is in el cajon. I'm hooked! looking for a mobile unit, probably going to end up with the Yaesu ft7900r

 

Cool, have fun with it! The Lyon's peak repeater is a busy one. Good community usage. The .240 ECRA machine is linked. You can talk into and all over Western Arizona with it. Excellent coverage. I monitor those and many more.

 

I got out this last weekend in the high-desert of So Cal and hiked up to a government repeater site at about 4,600'.



Wide area repeater site for the County of Riverside, appears to be a microwave link to Chuckwalla mountain radio site 39 miles away. Very unusual to have a large tower with only two antennas, probably a symbol that it's government and not a commercial site.




Right next door was this FAA facility


Antennas on this tower were tuned to the following frequencies:

• 128.15
• 285.6
• 133.2
• 282.3
• 121.5
• 243.0

I also found some seismic monitoring equipment part of the Earth Scope project.






From this location, I could use my HT to access amateur repeater sites 40 miles away high above palm springs.

 

Inside of one of the ray domes is one of our ham antennas. They tried an antenna once that was just outside on the tower it lasted one week broke in half right in the middle. It's 6288' with the worst weather in the world! With a HT I have made contacts in NY,CT,NH ME,VT and Canada simplex. http://blog.nhstateparks.org/mount-washington-state-park-blog-post-friday-january-13th-2012/

 

Holy sh** you're not kidding! Just read the link. Elevation + bad weather = very hostile conditions.

The building, and antennas encased in ice!

 

Recommendations for a 2M base station antenna that I can mount on the garage roof?

 

A zillion options to choose from. Aesthetics was a big factor for me. I settled on NMO mobile antenna with base station adapter. Almost invisible.

I hit everything with 4 watts in a 40 mile radius at my QTH.