Amateur (Ham) Radio BS and Callsign Thread!

Loop antenna on a balcony. Small by effective.

 

thats the hard part. i dont have a balcony....

 

A loop will work inside any thing you put up shorter than a 1/4 wave will not be as effective.

 

That guy is so annoying. Guy talks about his extra class ticket like it’s a leerjet full of scantily clad women. He must think he is as popular as a movie star or something.

 

never heard him really talk bout it.

 

That book, then the Q&A. If she practices the Q&A 10 times after reading the book she’ll pass with flying colors. About 20 hours of studying. The General takes about twice that. Good elbow grease. Your lucky if she’ll share the hobby with you.

 

Yes.

An 80m ocf wire is a good choice too

 

So is a 80m dipole fed with 450 ohm twin lead

 

Getting my license in UT soon

 

So after some looking around today and last night, im thinking i may try for the HF rig sooner rather then later and try to pair it with a spiral loop style antenna (link posted below). build one for 20m and 40m atleast. I think it would be a fun project. Esp with trying to re-use a old PC power supply to use for the HF rig and build a go-kit style so i can take the radio with me out to a park or something.

https://www.nonstopsystems.com/radio/frank_radio_antenna_SM0VPO.htm

 

Yup. That’s what I use.

 

Lots of basic questions on HF:

1. what frequencies are better to test on day/night
2. which of my antennas are best to try on which frequencies
3. how much power to transmit on
4. what functions of transmitter do I rtfm about to clean up my output
5. what SWR meter is a good compromise on quality/value or is an antenna analyzer better
6. what frequencies need an external antenna tuner for which most likely antenna

Antennas I think I’m setup for:

• 2M/440 on my vertical - I know this works well.
• 6M on my Discone Diamond D3000N
• I also have two G5RV dipoles (~132’ and ~52’)
  • I think they a natively resonant on 80M (132’) & 30M (52’) as 1/2 waves. How do Icalculate theirharmonics.

 

Yes loops work I was thinking more like a magnetic loop but they are a bit pricey unless you make it yourself. It is a compromise but in an apartment you haven't much choice. Whatever it takes to get on the air. You will need some method of turning it, in a pinch AM, RTTY,Key down and tune for max output power with the variable.

 

Suggestions in quote.

“Take with a grain of salt as I’m probably only a 1/2 of a chapter ahead of you in the book so I might sound like I know but this is the internet...”

 

Thanks. If it’s on the internet it must be true...I have a FTdx3000 (Yaesu). It has a tuner up to 3:1. I think I want an analyzer.

 

When I'm not home I use a screwdriver antenna with radials on a post on the back of the camper gives me a pretty wide range of resonant freq. I drive a stainless ground rod in and it is connected to the rear bumper of the camper and the radials the camper has a aluminum roof that helps to. It is a compromise and a good 2 S units poorer than a dipole but even with the poor band conditions I have work into south America and a good bit of Europe so no matter what you throw up something will happen.

 

You should be pretty good with the internal tuner. There should be a high swr warning if you’re higher than that. An analyzer is fun to play with. I don’t have one but a few fellow hams in my area do. If I need one they come over and tune for me.

 

Thanks for the Elmering. I wish SWR meters were a native feature.

 

An invaluable tool if you can afford it get one that will do graphs if you are building antennas it really makes things a lot easier.

 

I just want something i can use quick and dirty to atleast get on the air till i figure something better out. and im still learning things about antennas. but thats the joy of things in this hobby. experiment and learn!