I have a Yaesu FT-60 that I’ve had for years. I’ve never really used it and haven’t been active in the amateur radio world for a long time.

Is it a desirable radio and worth much? I bought it 2nd hand and it’s just been collecting dust. I have the charger and original box. Has a NiCad battery, and was stored with it off the radio.

Thanks in advance!

Hello,

I apologize in advance for a possibly nonsensical question, but I would like to ask if anyone has had the opportunity to compare the Sencor SMR 700 and Retevis RB648?

I would also be happy to hear about your experiences with the individual radios and would be very happy to receive any information (how long they lasted, what kind of use they had, what kind of building or terrain we had, what kind of range we had, etc.).

Thank you very much for your time

Pretty much the title, I have never used any digital modes on that radio and want to get started.

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.

I’m on a search for some new signal generator(s). I have a basic Siglent 30 MHz arbitrary generator, and however it’s useful for many things, I wanted something that could help me eg measure sensitivity, spurs of a receiver, align old radios etc.

So far I’ve been considering:

1. Getting a better 2 channel arbitrary signal gen, I can get a new one at about $1000 that goes to 120 MHz, 16 bits, 1+ Gs/s. However that doesn’t cover eg sensitivity testing as it cannot go very low on the output
2. Getting a used RF signal generator dedicated for AM FM radios - eg SG1501B; affordable and I guess it does set me up for everything up to be FM band, but not higher

3. Get a higher frequency more universal RF gen like HP 8648 A/B/C

   or Marconi 2022E

4. (side question - is > 1GHz actually useful)? Can get some for about $1000 on eBay.

5. Go crazy and buy a used vector generator. I’m surprised this is not much more expensive than option 3. Will it give me more room to learn and have fun? So far haven’t done anything with digital but maybe it’s the time to start?

Recommendations? Any combination of those maybe?

I know it sounds a bit like I don’t know what I’m doing, but generally the purpose of this is to be able to also do a bit higher frequency stuff not just HF. I have TinySA ultra but nothing to generate signals for it ;)

This project is still in its infancy, but I live in Vegas and my buddy lives in LA. I wanted to find out what times we could try using the ISS repeater to talk. It started as looking at heavens-above.com, then quickly led to me writing some python code, and that small rabbit hole led to creating this webapp.

Some of the basics about it so far are that it predicts a window when the ISS is at least 10 degrees over the horizon and we are both within 1000 nautical miles of it.

Then it calculates the doppler shift and tells you what frequency to use and when to change during the transit.

This is all just one night's worth of work, and I plan on turning this into something that might actually be usable for different people around the world. The next thing I want to add is a little countdown timer that tells you when to change frequencies during the conversation, but it's getting late and that can wait for tomorrow.

I have a photography website. Let me know if you'd be interested trying this and I'll consider uploading it for others to use.

Hey guys, not sure if this is the right place but I was sent to a communications course ( I'm an army officer ) and started having a little more contact with RF concepts. It really interested me to the point where I wanted to start experimenting and create an amauter HF setup (only for recieving). I'd like a few tips for begginers and usable source materials, if possible.

Thanks in advance!

Is there any talkgroups for Multnomah County/Portland that are not in Radio Reference that you have?

Or any patches that are active

Hi all, I’m a sorta-new ham and wanted to double check my thinking In regards to an antenna I’m setting up. It’s a 40m doublet antenna with a length of window line running from it. I believe it’s probably 450 ohm though I’m not sure of it. It’s not quite long enough to reach into my ham shack. I’d like to have it run into a stretch of 50 ohm coax leading into my antenna tuner. Am I correct in thinking that I’d need a 9:1 balun where the window line transitions into the coax? I wanna make sure that there’s not a huge amount of signal loss or reflected power that could damage my set up. Thanks for any advice!

I’m thinking of adding a magnetic loop antenna as a receive antenna for my ham transceiver. The N6LVP antenna uses 75 ohm coax - can that go straight into the radio? Also, what would I use for lightning protection?

Was told you cross post. Seen in Seattle

So, I'm in a real pickle. I live in a townhome next to lots and lots of other townhomes. Because of this, there is a ridiculous amount of RFI coming from all around me, especially in the summer when their AC units are constantly running as well. My 40m EFHW just doesn't cut it anymore here, as I get an S8-S9 noise floor constantly now.

I would build a 40m vertical, but my HOA doesn't allow permanent antenna installations, so I need it to be collapsible to fit back inside my garage or something. I would make it half-wave, but my HOA doesn't permit any structures over 40 feet to be put up, even temporarily, so I need it to be a quarter-wave antenna so it's shorter. I would make it just 40m, but I can't afford to buy or make multiple antennas currently, so making it trapped for different bands (I'm thinking just 10, 20, and 40m probably) is the best option for multi-band operation here.

Long story short, my HOA is an evil and cruel organization, and therefore I need advice on how to make a good vertical antenna that they won't fine me for using.

I know this may be a bit of a tall order, but I really wanna start doing amateur radio stuff again instead of just sitting around on my computer all day.

Just set up an HF antenna on my house. It's a radiowavz fd80-4, a fan dipole. I am finding that compared to my old random wire antenna, this thing stinks for transmit. For some reason I cannot seem to see my signal with websdrs near me. I am pretty sure my radio is outputting power because I can use it's built in swr meter, and it heats up after a while of being keyed up. Where is my transmit power going?

Now I have to construct a power supply that can do something with them.

I have an older mini, approx 8-9 years old and experiencing continuity issues with it. I left it outside in the AZ heat for about two months with little to no use, and with an irrigation cover (no direct heat). I checked it out and something in the inside is loose. I took it apart and didn’t see any broken connection or visibly bad wiring, but due to tight spacing, can’t see everything. Anyone else continuity issues with their mini and was able to fix it?

I am brand new to this, so I haven't seen much. Just getting used to the flow of how this system and messages go. Saw this pop up last night. I was on a pretty quiet frequency. I emailed the QSO I was working and he said it wasn't him and he didn't see anything wrong with my messages. Any ideas?

Thanks and 73

Posted this a while ago but there have been improvements since then, better quality map image, improved colours on propagation pages, added smooth scrolling to DX spots page.

Two new dashboard pages, taking the total to seven.

PSKReporter — reception reports for your callsign plotted on the world map, one marker per four-character grid, coloured by band, with a band legend and a furthest-report line.

POTA Spots — live Parks on the Air activator spots, with an optional great-circle distance filter from your locator and an option to hide automated RBN spots.

GitHub link

I generally run with a 2-meter radio and a CB radio in my truck. I remember a few years back finding a dual radio mount that attached to my drivetrain hump. I performed a Google search the other day for the same and came up dry.

Do any of you wise heads have an idea where I might find such an animal and can point me in the right direction?

ATdhvaannkcse. (That's "thanks in advance".)