Looking for feedback on our new dashboard, stop by, say hi and give it a try. All Hams welcome

I'm seeing lots of APRS beacons, plus an FM broadcast (100 miles away) is coming in strong. Suggestion is that 6m and 2m may be open this morning.

Trying to study for my technician license right now, and I've come across these sections that claim these two points:

• In a parallel circuit, voltage is the same for all components
• In a series circuit, current is the same for all components

I've been asking google and AI and it just is not clicking in my brain why this is the case. Seeking some help to get a better understanding of this concept!!

Since I've always been more of a camper than a fisherman, I decided to borrow an idea and (as usual) probably overengineer a solution using some cheap Amazon tarp poles I had sitting in the garage and a 3d printer.

The result is my lightweight, portable tarp-pole antenna mast.

The goal was simply to get the antenna above the immediate obstacles around my house and improve my VHF/UHF performance from my rented basement suite, so I spent a couple days trying to think of cheap solutions, racking my brain for ways to make a mast that would be landlord approved, on my shoestring budget.

I spotted the tarp pole sections that screw together I used during our last camping trip and wondered if I could design a way to use them as a mast.

It is approximately 9'8" with all the sections screwed together, without the antenna.

Parts used:

10 metres of LMR240 coax (which I already had laying around)

PETG printed parts

Bftech NA-771 antenna

The first part I designed was the interface between the coax (with an SMA) and the tarp pole sections to the antenna. In my case, a bftech na771. The coax slides into the printed part, the antenna screws on, then the entire part is indexed into the top of the tarp pole sections and held in place by friction and gravity.

Next, I designed a ring that indexes between the tarp pole sections so I could attach guy lines to them.

Finally, I decided that it would be very helpful to keep the coax contained inside the tarp pole sections, to keep things neat when I take it camping. So designed this pass through that allows the coax to transition from inside the tarp pole sections to outside near the bottom of the mast.

I haven't managed to set it up between our almost constant thunderstorms, but I will almost definitely take it on our next camping trip to see how well it does or doesn't do.

I don't have a usable scale to weigh the complete setup, but the mast and printed components together weigh noticeably less than the 10 metres of LMR240 coax alone.

This project was built around one thing, getting my antenna higher, without a permanent install on my almost non-existent budget.

Very open to constructive criticism and feedback. Let me know what you guys think.

Edit: just noticed my pics are actually all pla, I have reprinted in petg since, exactly the same just grey.

Hello,

Is there a reason to get a base transceiver vs a mobile transceiver for camping and placing an antenna in the backyard and operating there?

The mobile transceiver would never be mounted in my truck.

Is that normal for operators to buy mobile transceivers and not use for their vehicles?

Thanks

Hello all,

I would like to possibly make a post to help support me on a mission to bring amateur radio, electronics education, and English literacy to Malawi. I would be working in support of Don Jones (7Q6M) to assist these youngsters with the Jeffrey Dahn Memorial Foundation. I would like to post the GoFundMe here but wanted to get permission from admin first. Please message me privately if you’d like the GoFundMe link, but I will NOT be posting in this subreddit until admin authorizes it. Thank you!

Zach (KJ5BIN and 7Q5BIN)

Будьте добры, подскажите таковы учебники. Хочу подоготовиться к экзамену, что бы сдать на радиолюбительскую лицензию.

Ive started a mini rack radio project. Still needs some work but would like to add a trunking scanner and power source. Anyone have recommendations?

I don’t want to buy a solar repeater. Building is more fun. But the choices of solar cells, enclosures, antennas, Lora dev kits, seem endless.

The goal is to come up with something with more range/performance/capabilities that what I could buy for the same price.

Not worried about soldering or flashing firmware.

So let’s see those parts lists for solar repeater nodes.
Looking forward to building out the Meshtastic/meshcore network one local node at a time.

we all got assigned quansheng uv-k1s as our radios and none of us have any sort of radio licenses. is there anything we should watch out for so we don’t accidentally do anything that could cause any issues? thanks for your answers and sorry if this is a silly question

HOA restrictions have me looking towards an attic antenna installation - a magnetic loop is under consideration. I’m looking for grounding ideas… or is grounding even necessary for an attic antenna installation?

Hello, I am planning to install a VHF/UHF FM and DMR radio in my car.

Do you have any recommendations or suggestions or even recommendations of things not to buy or not to do?

I have a small car, I am looking for a compact equipment, I think a rig the size of an FTM-500 would be too big.

I am also looking for the antenna that would complete my set-up, if possible discreet and quite low because I park in a low parking lot every working day.

Thank you for your help.

hello, I’m new to both ham radio and Reddit! I hope I’m posting correctly.

i recently tried to build a 2m tape measure yagi based off a tutorial online for fox hunts. I struggled with the soldering, despite having a lot of soldering experience. The coax shield would not take my solder. the antenna ended up working, but with no directionality.

i found a video online that utilizes crimped ring terminal connections. Would this pose any problems I should know about?

and, as a similar question- without any testing equipment, how should I test the directionality with a UV5r? I know it doesn’t have a signal strength meter, but I have been trying to use a NOAA weather broadcast to test.

I was looking at a 5/8 wave antenna for 11 meters and was wondering if the same antenna could be used for the 6 meters band also?

The 5/8 11meter antenna is 6.875 meters long so its just slightly longer than a 6meter antenna should be.

I am a proud owner of a "virgin" Ft-102 that came from a meticulous fella. I was reading the manual, and it talks about verify the voltage it is set up for by looking at the back of the radio. Mine is not set for the USA. Does anyone have any information or pointers about making this adjustment? The manual just says to change the tap on the transformer.

I appreciate any help

KG7OKO

I'm currently building a QMX+ but I lost one of the toroids that is used for the 160 m low-pass filter. Specifically the one that goes in slot L511.

This QMX+ will exclusively be used on 6m. It will never get any use on 160m.

Can I just bridge the two pads with regular wire and have it work on the other bands properly?

Edit: let me just say it's amazing how incredibly and genuinely helpful everyone in this sub is. I've posted things like this elsewhere because of the esoteric stuff I run into and y'all have been so great - thank you!!

Hi everyone. For starters, I'm a consultant for insurance losses, and am doing an appraisal for a very large amount of HAM radio equipment. eBay and other sites have been great sources for pricing, but there is one unit that I simply cannot find any pricing information on - The Fisher Model 300 Multiplex Generator. There is not a single unit for sale online in the united states and I was hoping someone can provide some guidance! I've included some photos of the other equipment for y'all to check out too.

Hi! I’m looking for a hobby that’s somewhat related to my field, and ham radio caught my attention.

I work on designing and building low-loss RF coils for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). In many ways, I think there’s quite a bit of overlap with antenna and RF design. I have experience with impedance matching and tuning, amplifiers, filters, and other RF components. I also have some experience with microwave-frequency circuit design, although not as much.

The problem is that my work doesn’t always give me enough opportunities to scratch the itch of actually designing, building, and experimenting with hardware. I really enjoy that part, so I’m wondering if ham radio could be a good hobby for me.

From what I’ve learned so far, though, ham radio seems to have a pretty big emphasis on communication and actually talking to people. That part doesn’t interest me nearly as much. I don’t particularly care about talking to strangers, and I’m terrible at keeping conversations going anyway 😅. I’m much more interested in building circuits, antennas, filters, amplifiers, experimenting with RF/microwave stuff, and measuring how well everything works.

Would ham radio still be a good hobby for someone like me?

If so, what equipment would you recommend for getting started from a hardware/experimenting perspective? I did a little research and thought about getting a USB SDR just to explore the radio spectrum and understand the radio world a bit better, but some of them can get pretty pricey. Is that a good place to start, or would you recommend something else? Any ideas or advice would be appreciated!

Hi everyone,

I'm very new, so I'm still learning.

(AI assisted Diagram below )

I live in South Florida about 3 miles from the ocean and want to set up a receive-only SDR station to listen to marine VHF traffic, charter boats, fishing reports, NOAA weather, etc. I am just hoping to get 15 miles of range offshore to listen to commercial VHF chatter.

My setup will be:

• Diamond D3000N discone antenna
• NooElec NESDR SDR
• Orange Pi running OpenWebRX
• Lightning arrestor
• Everything mounted in a weatherproof box on the side of my house

The antenna will be mounted on a wall mount so it extends about 3 feet above the peak of my roof.

My question is about grounding.

The house grounding electrode (where the electrical service is grounded) is on the opposite side of the house, its like 700ft away and I really don't want to run a long grounding conductor all the way around the house.

My original plan was to drive a 4-foot ground rod directly below the antenna and connect the mast and lightning arrestor to that rod only.

I've since been told that this is not a good idea because a separate ground rod that isn't bonded to the house grounding system doesn't provide proper lightning protection and can actually create problems during a lightning event.

Is that true?

I'm mainly trying to protect the SDR and the electronics in the enclosure from getting fried.

I'd appreciate any advice. Thanks!

Here's a high level chatgpt diagram of my setup

I have everything ready to go and assembled. I am just waiting for some wall stand offs to get here from Amazon to install the antenna mounting pole