Amateur (Ham) Radio BS and Callsign Thread!

My club has had a silent key. During the weekly net a CQ direct call to his sign was made 3 times giving him time to respond. With negative response, then Net control asks for a moment of silence....73 "call sign", and whatever else Net control feels is necessary for a short eulogy. From what I understand, something like that is traditional.

 

When a police officer dies in the line of duty then the dispatcher will call them three times over the radio. With the lack of response the dispatcher will then make an announcement that the officer is no longer on duty. This is normally done at an agreed upon time and all other officers listen to the transmission.

 

I have an aa-55. I liked it so much I bought an aa-600. Thought about selling the aa-55. But I tend to prefer using the aa-55 in the field for HF, and leave the aa-600 on the bench.

They're wonderful to use. I've used the aa-55 to learn much about HF antennas and how to build effective antennas. It was while using this equipment, when I had the epiphany that low SWR does not equal resonance. While they can be related, they're not the same. I suppose I could have learned this by reading books, but I've always learned better by doing things and making mistakes.

I've built quite a few DBJ-1 and DBJ-2 antennas with the aa-600. They're great, and I'd recommend them to anyone.

 

Very good. Thanks for input. I have an 80m ocf, so the next two big buys will be a tuner and a high quality Unun

 

You mean a balun? You wouldn't use an unun on a balanced antenna.

 

Off center fed

 

Yes. It still takes balanced input.

 

Sorry phone is freaking out. Haha. Was trying to type a question.

Ive read the ununs are used commonly with end. But then I see some descriptions as it for being used with an unbalanced antenna to a feedline.

Know any good resources that clearly out line the two so I can do some reading?

 

ARRL antenna book is a good read. You would use an unun with unbalanced feed line (coax) and an unbalanced antenna such as a 1/4 wave vertical. Use a balun between unbalanced feed (coax) and a balanced antenna (dipole). I suppose you could use a balun between balanced feed line (ladder line) and an unbalanced antenna (1/4 wave vertical).

With an OCF, you want to feed it with balanced input. You don't want to hold the counterpoise at zero. You're still trying to make a standing wave with a half wavelength of wire.

 

As an aspiring extra, this is the type of stuff I'm reading up on. Haha. Thank you!

 

I've had good luck running a 4:1 and a 6:1 -- The "Windom" (OCF dipole) was setup/designed to be fed with ladder line (balanced) with a feed point around the ladder-line's impedance. Take a peek at some of the online stuff, if you have time ( W8JI has a good talk through @ https://www.w8ji.com/windom_off_center_fed.htm )

A simplified way to "think" about the balun is as an impedance transformer -- with the feed point of the OCF at or near ~400Ω you'd wanna transform that to be closer to 50Ω -- an 8:1 balun would be nice, but... 8:1s are kinda not so popular to build/buy, so you'll see people going to a 6:1 (66.7Ω to the unbalanced side, or the very easy to find 4:1 for 100Ω --- best SWRs would be ~1.33:1 and ~2:1 respectively) ...

As for why you're hearing about people using UNUNs for these OCF -- one of the more popular UNUN's is a 9:1, and the common trifiliar-winding version of a 9:1 could be used to get ~44.4Ω to your feed line (best SWR in the 1.25:1 range), so they "might" provide a slightly better match to the feed line with all things being equal.

In my experience, you can change the relative feed point of the OCF (kinda more of a 80/20 split in lieu of the more classic 67/33) to get the OCF feed point kinda closer to 200Ω and use a 4:1 balun to get a pretty sweet match.

 

Very good. My plan is to build this ot replace my radiowavz 80m ocf
Warning, pdf

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.balundesigns.com/content/OCF%20Antenna.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwj3gdvcv8nlAhXBl-AKHe_4Ar0QFjAAegQIBhAC&usg=AOvVaw30w-NPz9n0InIZueCzTWPb

 

@m603holden Any reason your running a OCF over a traditional dipole?
I run a 80m dipole fed with ladder line and a antenna trans match. 80m-10m

 

New ham here. Just got my ICOM 5100 installed in my taco. I was curious is anyone has put an HF rig in their taco and what did you get?

 

Ft-891 w/atas-120 antenna

 

Got any pictures of it set up?

 

it's in the works haha. Here's a sweet cup holder mount though. And I'll be mounting the Atas to a prinsu rack

 

That looks slick

 

Here's my actual desk

 

My haul from Hamfest today.



Heil Pro Set 6 with Yeasu adapter and PTT hand switch, 2 coax crimpers, 4 PL-259 connectors and 3 pass through connectors. Then 100’ of RG-8 from Wireman.

And...a SMA to UHF adapter.




Along with a year of QST back issues a guy was giving away. Lol