Amateur (Ham) Radio BS and Callsign Thread!

Well this is neat. I know there's aps. Im using one to learn now. But if you have a Google phone, it comes with a Morse keyboard in the setting. And it can be used with this Google Morse trainer

https://morse.withgoogle.com/learn/

 

What is the possible radiation exposure from a lip mount with a 1/4 wave antenna? I just passed my tech exam this week and while waiting for my call sign I was planning to do a lip mount NMO connected into my

$40 Baofeng UV-5R Ham Radio Long Range Handheld UV5R Dual Band 3800mAh Rechargeable Two Way Radio Walkie Talkies for Adults with Earpiece,Speaker Mic and Programming Cable Full Kit (Black-1Pack)

Baofeng UV-5R. Only planning on using the baofeng for the time being while I am saving up for a 50w mobile radio. I was only planning a lip mount because I park in a 7' parking garage daily at work and my garage door is about 6'10" so anything roof mount is out of the question. I hate the idea of a mag mount as well, plus I am not going to remove it every time I get home/work before driving into the garages.

 

There is a calculator link in the post quoted below, so you could to run some numbers

INSTALLING AMATEUR AND CB RADIOS IN 2016 TACOMA

I'm no expert so might as well stop reading here, lol... I'm just choosing to avoid potential issues
From what I gathered, using low power, like a from a hand held Baofeng there is no issue. Possible issue excessive exposure starts at high power, like 40- 50 Watts or more. Apparently a lot of people use fender mounts and they don't complain, so...




Now, in FTM-400 manual besides middle of roof, they show recommended antenna placement as rear bumper, trunk lid and hitch receiver.... Not really caring for ground plane. Go figure, eh! (I can't remember if they specify 1/4 or 1/2 wave antenna).

 

Just in time

 

I picked up a used all band transceiver today - Yaesu FT-847, early 2000s vintage, with a table top mic, auto tuner, and off set dipole. Man that thing had a lot of buttons and knobs...

 

is it possible to have one radio but two antennas?

 

Sure. Depends on the radio. Many have multiple inputs for different bands. My new to me all band has 4 different inputs.

 

I'd like to buy used but being new to Amature radio and certainly the HF world, I'm nervous about making an uneducated purchase and picking up something that's handicapped or defective In some way.

And to be honest I just want something that does cw for now so I can commit to code. I know once I start doing voice I'll probably lose some drive.

Was looking at something like this

https://nh.craigslist.org/ele/d/wilder-icom-ic-751a-ham-radio/6766882955.html

 

I was in the same boat but a local ham just purchased a high end unit from a widow of a friend of his and sold me his old unit. I was looking at an ICOM IC-7000 before this one popped up.

 

dont have a radio yet but i will keep that in mind. seems like the shorter antennas like the tram have a wider band that they can receive/transmit

 

I used a diplexer with my FT-8900. With a commodity 2m/70cm antenna on one port and a 1/4 wave whip for 6m on the other port. I never bothered with 10m.

https://www.dxengineering.com/search/product-line/comet-duplexers

Don't just put a "T" on the coax and two antennas though. That will likely cause an impedance bump.

 

cool i have seen those. I was thinking of starting off with a lower end radio (QYT) when i take the test. i have a baofeng with a mag mount currently.

who makes a dedicated nmo UHF antenna? most i see are dual band. i was looking at the

$43 browning br-180 amateur dual-band mobile antenna

browning br-180 but also was looking at having two antennas instead.

 

@bthrel Thanks Brian! I consider myself mechanically inclined and proficient with most electronics. What would you say the difficulty would be to service those areas known to need attention? I don't mind working on things as I enjoy learning about equipment hands on.

I've read that they were regarded for having respectable selectivity. Which I've read over and over to make sure to have big ears.

I'm really looking forward to CW. I actually watched a great video and the gentleman was using a 7300 to show the CW signal compared to the noise floor on the waterfall and compared it to SSB. Was a nice visual. A few gentleman on the local repeater have the 7300 and seem to really like it. It'll be a strong consideration when the time comes. Just a matter of if my first big radio will be a base radio or portable.

 

Awesome! Thanks for the great info. I've been trying to learn at 25wpm with just a slight bigger break between words. So far so good. Also be brushing up on propper formating of messages and memorizing common abbreviations.

My goal is to be participating in SOTA with CW by the end of summer.

 

The bolded advice above was just suggested to me within the last hour by another ham on here. I'm going to look into those.


And regarding hobbies, they all go together so well.

 

So Santa is bringing me a new Yaesu FT-7900R radio fro Christmas. Yes I purchased it and it is in the box under the tree and I can't touch it until Tuesday. It is a new radio but not a new model. I needed some other radio for my Go Box as the one I had just would not do Packet Winlink reliably. This radio has actual Packet settings in its menu so it should have no issues doing Winlink at all. I got off work the whole week next week so that will give me plenty of time to get the old radio out of the Hammo-Can Go Box and get the new radio installed. But first there will be programming and getting familiar with it for a few days.

 

Looking through the products below, I need to ask.

Is there a base station thread on here?

 

I could use a few HF antenna suggestions for my new to me all band unit. I have an offset wire dipole but it's really ment for field day use. It's about 64' long nut only 20ga wire. I'd like something to work 80-10m (30 not required) but only have a 1/3 acre lot. Also getting a wire 40' in the air will be a challenge. I'm leaning towards a vertical dipole but would like to run it by anyone with more experience. How do ground mounted vertical dipoles perform?

 

As far as product reviews ?

 

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