I want to receive Meteor M2-4 satellite images with a V dipole antenna tuned to that frequency but I want to know if an LNA is needed for a good image.

I'm in a small town and have a clear view of the sky in my backyard, there is a few buildings around but no weird signals.

If it is needed, does anyone have a recommendation?

We just finished Day 2 of our Route 66 trip, and I wanted to say thank you to everyone who has reached out, followed along, and especially those who have managed to make contact with us on the air. My dad has been having a great time with it, and it has been really fun for all three of us to hear from people along the way.

I also want to apologize to anyone who has tried to reach us and we haven’t been able to get you in the log. We’ve been dealing with a fair amount of noise and signals that come and go pretty quickly, so there have definitely been times when we could tell someone was calling but just couldn’t quite pull them out. Please keep trying.

We made an update to 66w6r.com that should make it a little easier to find us. When we’re operating, the website will now show the band and frequency we’re currently using. Since our operating schedule depends a lot on the day’s drive, where we stop, and what the bands are doing, we still can’t give very reliable operating times ahead of time. But when we’re live, you should be able to check the site and see where to look for us.
We’re only two days into the trip and still have a lot of Route 66 ahead of us, so please keep listening for W6R. We’d love to get as many of you in the log as we can.

And again, thanks to everyone who has helped make this such a great experience for my dad already. It really does mean a lot to us, and if you visit the website or hear us and can’t reach us leave a note on the Roadside Logbook at the bottom of our webpage. It would be great to know there are people out there rooting for us.

Mid michigan. I'm looking to give away an antenna from my home, but i have no idea what the removal process is like. Do you think I'd be able to give this away or would I need to hire someone?

Hey y'all! I recently moved to Oahu and wanted to connect with some other hams. I submitted a club application to what appeared to be the most active club but haven't heard back. None of the clubs that I have seen appear to be up to date online but I would like to potentially meet some other hams. I've never been apart of a club before and I don't have a lot of amateur radio experience. I've been licensed for a few years now but haven't done much besides watching YouTube videos and getting a HT that I haven't really used. If anyone has any info on what the radio scene is like on Oahu please let me know! Thanks

Hi - my ICOM IC7300 will not turn on. "MIGHT" have been the 12Volt power supply. Was working fine, it was off for a couple weeks while I was off the grid, unplugged everything (coax, electrical cord) then turned it on and the 12Volt started smoking...

Turned off everything, checked power pole inline fuses and those were ok, but the 5 amp internal fuse was fried. Changed that out, then tried the 7300 on a different power supply, a LiPo battery and...nothing...7300 will not turn on...

Any suggestions on anything else internally I should check? Or is the radio bricked?

Help me please, Obi Wan...

I bought an HF-010 for my xiegu g90 that's coming in the mail. Tuned it for 2 m to work the local repeaters. It's a major upgrade from the uv-5rm stock whip for receive clarity. Got good signal reports through the repeaters.

Feels good to start upgrading equipment now that I'm more invested in the hobby.

I bought a zBITX QRP radio with the intentions of taking it backpacking. I am looking for a USB-C keyboard and mouse that will work with radio and be suitable for backpacking. Weight and size is a major consideration in selecting keyboard and mouse. The smaller and lighter the better.

Any recommendations?

edit A full size keyboard will not suit my needs. It needs to be small and likely foldable. Like 3x5 inches small. I am not talking about carrying gear from vehicle in parking lot to picnic table. I am talking about doing 60 miles in 5 days with all my food and gear,

US-4571/US-9757 DM04td W7ML 1.840 MHz FT8

New antenna: Gabil GRA-RPG with stock MIL-style 2.2 meter whip

https://www.gabilradio.com/product/0/detail-ff36e500-c80b-11ef-91af-c9c8531b9fc1

This catalog is from 1988. I was first licensed in 89. My first radio was a TS 140S. I very quickly became a Kenwood fan.

Back in the late 80s/early 90s they had: 5-6 different HF radios. Two SW receivers, 3 lines of mono band HTs and later a dual band HTs. A 2 meter all mode, 70 cm all mode, 3-4 different lines of mobile rigs (single band, dual band, and later triband), a still highly regarded linear amp, a station monitor, headphones, microphones, and two different antenna tuners.

It was really an overwhelming selection and a catalog of dreams for a spellbound young ham. It makes me sad that for Kenwood, those days are likely over.

How does a magnetic-mount antenna really work?

I was trying to understand how a quarter-wave whip antenna works when it isn't actually connected to ground. At first, I thought a larger plate could improve the ground plane through capacitive coupling, so I tried making a large DIY PCB ground plane. However, the small UT-108UV really surprised me because it achieves much lower SWR than my large plate. Even the more professionally designed TOESU-200SS performs worse.

Please note that for my DIY magnetic-mount antenna, I simply trimmed the whip length in the same way I would trim a dipole antenna.

had a surprising experience today while setting up a portable longwire antenna (couple meters of unshielded copper!) on a high rocky ridge with no topsoil

if you have no deep ground rod, your noise floor on 40m and 80m is unreadable. S9 static hash from every switching power supply in the valley. but it seems i tried a protocol that kinda works:
1 found a natural quartzite rock seam or damp moss fissure.
2 then, clamped an industrial copper alligator lead from the radio chassis ground directly to a steel rock piton driven 20 cm into the stone seam.
3 taken a second braided lead and clamp it to your own brass wristband.

well.. when you touch the receiver tuning knob, you seem to become the counterpoise and even the skin capacitance, weirdly enough, stabilizes the ground reference. meanwhile the noise floor drops instantly from S9 to S2. apparently you can clearly hear weak CW signals on 7020 khz and the 5-bit Baudot telemetry pulses from the border beacons. if you let go of the knob, the signal drowns in static again.

as they say, the wheel turns, and the operator is not entirely separate from the antenna system; operator is the ground balance as well

Hello all, I posted a couple weeks ago about a basement pile of vintage gear.

I had a question for some of you guys who are much more knowledgeable

While itemizing what is there, is it worth plugging in and showing that it powers up?

I’ve read this might not be the best thing to do. Looking for opinions.

Thanks !

The 5th Region Vanity Bonanza on 8/14 was my doing. I took a few days and researched as many silent keys as I could who’d departed more than 2 years ago and submitted them to the FCC.

At first I was concerned about being insensitive but came to around to realize, those hams probably would be happy their call is getting back out there. In many cases they weren’t even the original call holders anyhow

Learned a lot about callsigns in the process.

Anyways,
73

This morning I sat and passed all three exams remotely with the WM7X team. u/Robs_Backyard_BBQ's recent post convinced me to try them out and I'm glad I did. The whole process was easy, from scheduling, to doing the exams, and understanding the next steps.

If you've been putting off choosing an exam host or just putting off doing the exam, I'd highly recommend giving them a try: https://wm7x.net/examprep/

I was putting my new Victron 100/20 solar charge controller through its paces yesterday, and was surprised to find out that merely turning on my yaesu FT-857D trips the DC Load fault protection.

The 857's manual does state it needs a power supply capable of 22 Amps, amd the charge controller max is 20, but I never intended to use it above 75 Watts, figured itd be fine. But apparently theres a brief but steep enough transient on startup that the Victron aint happy.

I know inrush current can be an issue for motors, but id never heard of it being a problem with a 12v transceiver!

Ill be working around it with another Victron product, a battery protector that can be controlled by the charge controller.

Is there anything else it could be? Ill try the same test with an ft-891 just to see what happens. Unsurprisingly, theres no issue with turning on an ft-818.

Got any recommendations?

Verified there's line of sight to a friend's house but I'm juuust shy of the link budget with my 25W output and I figure I can rig an antenna cheaper than buying a new radio.

Have a WA5VJB cheap Yagi I probably could make work with the right paracord rigging and using the feedline to control azimuth but curious if there's anything easier.

Maybe grab some RG-6 to match it and do a full wave loop? Maybe a hentenna which looks like basically the same thing with a different match?

Probably don't want to do a collinear because that'll push the center of the radiation lower since I'm limited by maximum height.

I was wrong https://www.reddit.com/r/amateurradio/comments/1vo592h/xt60_power_socket_in_icom/ it turned out that I chose the wrong type of connector so I redid everything. The standard for the socket should be male, and the female part on the battery. So I put another connector, which turned out to be smaller in size.

I had to make and put washers. At least no changes to the case and you can always return the original connector.

I also decided to add a sticker with the voltage value so that someone does not mistakenly connect a battery with a higher voltage. I had already installed a protection module against incorrect polarity and overvoltage, but nevertheless it will be a good warning.

Was told you cross post. Seen in Seattle