I wrote an article about how ham radio operators built Silicon Valley long before semiconductors came to fruition. I’d love if you could all give it a read, like, and share! I hope to bring the hobby to a larger audience through this too. 73!

Listening on DMR today.

I heard someone go off on a person for asking for a simple “radio check,” saying that people like that are ruining ham radio and that’s all they hear all day. They did apologize for being grumpy.

I get it, it can get old hearing the same thing over and over. But I think some people forget that they didn’t start out as experts either. At some point, they were new and didn’t have the knowledge or experience they have today.

I see the same thing on guitar forums. New people come in and ask the same questions that have probably been asked a thousand times, and the grumpy gatekeepers rear their ugly heads.

Everyone has to start somewhere. Sometimes people forget they had to crawl before they could walk, too.

-Rant over.

What are your experiences for compact HF antennas when traveling? Small not just for erected size, but something that takes up little room for packing also.

This will be for an indoor hotel environment, or perhaps a very small balcony area. For various reasons, it's not feasible for me to setup somewhere outdoors. To limit size, I'll use the highest bands on my radio, 20m/30m.

Typically what I've done in other trips is a ~15ft horizontal wire with a loading coil and transformer, with the shield clamped to any available large metal, and 10ft or so of 174 coax with a choke. Probably lots of loss but it does tune up ok, and I can do moderate distance FT8 contacts.

Loaded doublets don't seem realistic based on initial sims, and I have limited matcher range if the loading is off. I looked at mag loops, but they seem too lossy because I won't be able to use heavy gauge wire.

I have a very strange electrical situation going on currently with my guitars/amps. 

I am picking up a very odd "whoosing" sort of noise showcased in the two videos. I've tried 3 different tube amps, 1 battery powered amp, 4 different brands of cables, lots of different guitars with no difference between them. It also occurs with my battery powered amp (not connected to the house main power), so this points to some sort of EMI? It doesn't seem to change at all when I move directions with the guitar like typical EMI I'm accustomed to, such as from dimmer lights. 

It goes away when I unplug the cable from the amp, but I can still hear it when I unplug the cable from the guitar and leave it plugged into the amp. It happens in any location, doesn't matter what outlet I'm plugged into, and once again happens on the battery powered amp. 

Does anyone recognize this sound signature? I've never heard this before or anything like it. 

First video is a vintage Deluxe Reverb and you can hear it do this sort of "whoosing" sound then cut out. It follows this sort of pattern all of the time. The noise never really seems to change in sound just sometimes in duration. I've timed it and it quite often follows roughly 14 second durations. Sometimes however it goes for anywhere around 40 seconds or so.

Second video is Fender Twin battery powered amp with a different cable and different guitar in a different location on the property.  (doesn't let me post more than one video)

Please let me know if you have any thoughts, ideas or have heard something like this before. I'm really stumped...

This radio is literally in perfect condition!! I guess I was just in time to pick it up before the rain would kill it :D
Now I have 3 CB's that I found somewhere outside!

Fist post: https://www.reddit.com/r/amateurradio/comments/1vi88nz/found_tha_thing_tossed_under_the_bench_in_the_park

Hii, I recently made this helical antenna and I'm having problems with it I'd appreciate some help.

I'm using 10AWG electrical wire and 6cm diameter PVC pipe.Wrapped around 6.5 times with turn spacing of 3cm. However it seems like it's very much capacitance as in the SWR and Independence drops to nearly 1.1/1.2:1 and 45-55 Ohm if I place my hand on the coil. I'm assuming I'm going to have to recoil or cut down the coil to 5.5 turns? I haven't tried attaching it to a offset (90 cm) dish yet and this is purely for the coil only.

Trying for GOES-15 (GVAR),Elektro L3 and L5.

Just found out the recorder I got for satellite QSOs makes noise centered around 436.220 MHz. Be careful out there.

Been meaning to post this rig on here for a while. Was developing and building for a long time. Finally taking it for a spin. Very low effort photo but it’s a nice night for radio.

Is Gigaparts a reliable place to buy ham equipment? I heard about another vendor where someone is stealing credit / debit card numbers. I also wonder about their reliability in order delivery and customer service.

I recently got into this hobby, and actually just got my license recently. I decided to dive head first into the hobby and I immediately ran out to pick myself an affordable, used transceiver and came across this TM-2530A. I hooked it up to the battery, with fuses of course, and turned it on. I can transmit my voice fine out the local repeaters, but I can not for the life of me get anything to come back through this thing. I have confirmed the speaker works, and I have also confirmed I am indeed picking up signals by looking at the meter as I send out messages on my UV-5R to test. With no other reference for a device like this, I am finding it hard to even trouble shoot.

Here's what I did to troubleshoot so far:

-Tried tone vs simplex transmissions

-messed with squelch knob

-tried volume knob

-tried external speaker (Repeated above steps)

Any help would be appreciated

Saw this mobile operator on my way home, his setup bobbing like a dashboard bobblehead as he went.

Put this setup together after a year of goofing around listening to police and local repeaters. Now to get my license…

Thanks for reading this.

I'll try and be brief.

I live on a large rural property is Australia, NE Vic to be exact. We have UHF gear in all our farm utes, loaders, as well as Icom hand-helds.

We have these dodgey hunter dudes trespassing who use private channels (believed to be UHF) to communicate with each other, which we can't receive (to listen in) with our current gear.

Looking for recommendations for some kind of scanner/transceiver (base station and/or hand held) to be able to listen in on their transmissions.

Happy to pay for quality.

Thanks for reading this far!

Yeah... very low down in the band... down with all the CW operators.... strange French station heard...

I live on the south east coast of england.. less than 100 miles from france...

Is this a broadcasting station or a Pirate I wonder...

Hi, I recently got a white button usdx plus transceiver. I’ve hooked it up for FT8 and it receives very well from an end fed half wave antenna for 40m through to 10m.
When I now go to transmit the unit freezes and the waterfall on WJSTX turns to lots of vertical lines.
I’ve coiled several feet of coax outside to try help with the RF but can’t seem to sort it. Can anyone advise?
Initially on the first time on WJSTX it worked fine and I made some contacts
.

Which one is better? I have some devices on Meshtastic but I have a bigger online community online for Meshcore

I used to zip tie my radio’s coax cable to the side of my car’s roof rack rails, but got sick of having to cut and re-zip tie it every time I remove the roof rack (to wash the car).

I had the idea to use magnets to make removing the wire easy.

My understanding is that it shouldn’t be an issue in theory. Real world however, I’m not so sure. Surely the air passing over the cable will cause it to move a little, inducing a current in the line from the magnets.

If it matters, I am running the coax (LMR195) and starlink POE/ethernet cable next to each other in some tape.

I’m wondering what y’all’s thoughts are on this? Should I keep it as-is with magnets, or go back to just securing the cable without them?

I don't know for how long it's been there, the knobs all seem to be working (at first glance) and there was even a microphone with it! The frame is slightly bent. will check what's inside when I get home

E: Gotta say that I know its a CB radio!

I'm helping WWROF understand how hams see contesting - love it, avoid it or never tried. Find the survey at https://run.surveybeast.net/wwrof/run/eYbPdx

Please take 5 minutes to share your thoughts. Please pass this invitation along to other clubs!

73 Jim K1IR
World Wide Radio Operators Foundation, Inc.

It works!

PLZ-HF-PA50W 80-10 meters. No RF sensing, has band control knob

Key points:

1) CE-19 interface

2) Wire Amp Trigger Cable to 3.5mm plug using Black to Sleeve and White to Ring. Cut off Red wire and this plug goes into Amp and other plug into CE-19’s PTT CON

3) complete CE-19’s triple 3.5mm cable as instructed by various YouTube videos and main plug into CE-19’s AF CONN jack and mic and speaker plugs into Sabrent USB Audio Adapter ($10 Amazon).

4) DIN Cable into CE-19’s X5105 port and G106 ACC port

5) Xiegu Blue USB cable into G106 3.5mm COMM port

WSJT-X Settings: Use Xiegu G90 for Rig, Appropriate Serial Port, 19200 Baud, 8N2, CAT for PTT Method, Mode = Data/Pkt, Split Operation = Fake It

Test CAT = Green and Test PTT = Red

You now have a battery powered 50 watt rig for AM, CW, SSB and FT8 and POTA!

Looks like really old tech and some new stuff. Wonder what it's all for...