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>>3005918

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>another thread later
>still giving money to the antenna jews

>>3005923
When I worked at a railroad I bought a Baofeng and programmed it because I was tired of always lending my work radio out to other people and never getting it back.

>300+ dead, thousands missing from tbe recent deluge. We need supplies badly in N-
>CQ POTA CQ POTA

how viable are solar+battery powered only wifi repeaters and other types? how illegal would it be to construct a tower in the middle of nowhere hill just above the treeline?
i live surrounded by hills from all sides

>>3005923
missing the very first square:
are you a redditor: yes -> look smugly at this chart and chuckle to yourself about how clever and witty it is

>>3005981
Towers are pretty heavily regulated. If it's high enough a plane could crash into it, it needs actual engineering plans on file with the FCC, among other requirements.
>>3005986
Sounds like you should study it a little closer.

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first time into australia on any band
ft8 on 40m
should we expect a signal boost in winter time here in europe for dx and by how much if so?

it must be the antenna height because everything else is pretty much a compromise.
its covered by a roof, its bent, there are plenty of metal objects around, another building on the other side of the wall and in the middle of a city with plenty of qrm.
i've noticed on some bands that i tend to transmit a little bit better than receiving but that really depends on band and noise level. everything is far from ideal but at least the height is about 12 m up.

i'm also getting out on voice up to about 600 km but the signal is weak with only 20w considering all the qrm everyone has it may be wiser to do 100w instead but then i would mess with my neighbors electronics much more. such is life i suppose. can't have everything. but ft8 and js8 is more than enough for pretty reliable comms.

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73's swollen ostrich!

>>3005923
I do what I want.

>>3005981
There is a slow but steady stream of such repeaters being discovered and taken down.

>>3006146
How would you make a fully legally compliant wifi repeater? Is there some sort of automatic power reduction firmware to not interfere with other comms?

>>3006148
First get permission from the land owner fo ruse of the land and the use of a tiny shack. Then get the local /ham/ society into the project for the legal stuff.
Make sure the shack looks uninviting, e.g. make it look agricultural related and spread manure around the place.

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>so many natural disasters and crises
>so many ARES members getting in the way just to make themselves feel relevant

>>3006148
more of a combination of two point-to-point links

>>3006149
A shack? I was thinking just strapping a waterproof 20L box to a tree. On your own property. But I don’t really know how big it would need to be.

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the chad scanner.

>>3006168
It's be funny if this actually worked.

>>3006164
You will need
- a pair of transceivers
- a rather voluminous filter to get the relay to work at all
- cabling, should not be underestimated, along with the tendency to turn into a rat's nest.
- batteries that will withstand a few days without sunshine
- charge controllers / BMS
- solar panels with supports that will survive strong winds
- optionally a small wind turbine
- a computer/controller to monitor and control the system along with sensors (temperature, humidity...)
- fuse box
- optionally a small camera
- attachments for antennas that will survive strong winds

>>3006266
it does work. though I since got proper cabling. but I don't actually use 3 at once.

i'd use some help identifying what seems to be an antenna.
found a roll of wire of unknown length but estimated at around 40 or 60 meter. more like 40.
it has two wires. one looks thicker than the other.
on one end there is an unidentified 5-pin connector.
the pins are laid out like a U.
two of the wires go to one wire and two others opposite to the first two go to the other wire.
the 5th wire in between and offset seems to go nowhere.

at the other end of the wires is a sort of shorting device with a pair of joined pins. one pin is thicker than the other just like the wires.
with these pins inserted into the shorting terminal, they connect the two wires.
the color is darker green, looks like military gear. nice plastic on the roll, hard but with very slight flex if bent but looks like good quality.
i'm thinking its some wire antenna or a part of a bigger antenna setup maybe dipole with one leg missing.

anyways i put it up as a horizontal loop with many parts which sag because i could not fit it otherwise.
its connected to a fan dipole and i seem to get better gain on 40m. however conditions seem to be pretty good right now so i need to test it with worse conditions.

any ideas?

>>3006507
Photos or drawings.

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>buy my first shortwave radio
>start fiddling with knobs and buttons
>morse code
>sermons
>weird sci-fi bullshit noises
>cubans
>conspiracy bent news
>house music
>alternative medicine
>whiskey tango foxtrot
>good ol boys talking about tractors, concrete and their radio specs
>fishing spots
>blues music
>bunch of news from mexico, western africa, turkey, china, romania and spain
>your standard 4 white dude roundtable podcast about nothing in particular

>>3006797
Nice. Out of all that, what's your favourite?

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>>3006834
Good ol boys by a country mile. Just honest casual salt of the earth boomer chit chat. Finding random music broadcasts is also pretty exciting even if it's just muffled fuzz garbage. Might sample some of the sci-fi bullshit at a later date.

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Anyone ever hear of UFO Joe? Dude likes his banjo.

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So is WRMI the go to for regular shows and decent signal strength in North America?

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You will never be a true ham radio operator until you make a dipole that is resonate on the 2200m band.

>>3006848
Always a bonus when you find the right music. Condx are good for me tonight. I've been trying to hear an Aussie LF station but instead I discovered a classic rock station on the AM BCB located in Juneau, Alaska coming in crystal clear. A rare find for me.

>>3006884
Probably. I believe they are the only SW broadcaster on conus.

I wish I could hear Channel-292 where i'm at.

Another R-390 up for sale around here, I am considering pulling the trigger. Anyone here got one or got experience with one?

last week i realized the potential of loops.
namely 2x wavelength loop.

but how would you fit a 2x loop for 40m in your attic? by zig-zaging the wire.
so basically, a 40m antenna with a lower take off angle (due to having more pronounced lobes due to being 2x wavelength) and the zig-zaging does not seem to be much of a problem considering the angle and the otherwise low height for a 1x loop.

so with loops, if you dont have the height, it makes sense to make it twice as much in circumference.
according to nec simu, you would need more wire though. (about 30% more wire)

>>3007470
and the size of this thing is pretty much half the size of a full 80m loop.
size is obviously the main deal-breaker when it comes to antennas and this seems to solve that.

i'm planning to put it at about 12m height inside an attic and the width of any side can not be longer than about 10m.
will test as soon as i get the speaker wire shipment.

>>3007470
sorry i was not clear.

basically instead of struggling with space to put a 80m loop to operate on 40m (double wavelength loop for 40m)
you zig-zag the elements and reduce the sides by about 50%.
the zig-zagging is vertical and i only tested a 90degree angle bends for the zig-zag. (like a bunch of rectangles)
you could probably make the zig-zags like a bunch of triangles but then the loop would need to be bigger but i didn't model this.

double wavelength loops are described on multiple sites as well as zig-zag antennas so this just combines both to make a compact antenna.

>>3007470
I know a couple of guys who use full-wave loops but not doubles. If you experiment with this you gotta report back because i'm curious about the results.

>>3007436
I have a personal rule where I won't buy anything old I can't fix. Because chances are there isn't anyone close who can restore it. Those things are big and heavy thus expensive to ship. I've read how to align it and it's quite an elaborate procedure. The good thing is there is plenty of documentation online so no shortage of info. That said, if the price was right (cheap), and it's in excellent shape... you'd have a classic radio. Now if it was an R-389 i'd be seriously tempted.

>>3006916
Another night of great conditions if you were on the Pacific rim. Spent time between 06:00 - 10:00 UTC checking the LF/VLF bands searching for some elusive stations. Heard beacon "ALJ" loud and clear with S3 signals on 233 kHz. Looked it up assuming it to be a local and was surprised to see this is a 50 watt beacon out of Australia 12,753 km away! The beacon was way louder than the 100 watt & 500 watt beacons in my region by a wide margin. I think this is my best NDB DX catch to date.

>>3007476
still waiting for speaker wire here.
in general, i find 2x (or more) wavelength antennas very interesting because they give you lobes and nulls and the higher in frequency you go on the same antenna, the more dramatic this effect becomes.
also, feels like receive is less noisy at double the fundamental frequency assuming antenna is fit for whatever fundamental frequency that happens to be.
i've put up a few wire antennas and i noticed that i had a lot of noise on antennas on the frequency they were cut for.( say 20m dipole for 20m)
then i read a faceberg post that suggested using 2x wavelength loop to also reduce noise.

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>>3007476
>I have a personal rule where I won't buy anything old I can't fix.
I agree and I have a lot of investment in equipment in front of me.
>Because chances are there isn't anyone close who can restore it.
Also true. This model seems to be in need of some adjustments, the seller is a little vague, so there is a risk.
>Those things are big and heavy thus expensive to ship.
About 40 kg, yes. In this case it is within reasonable driving range.
>I've read how to align it and it's quite an elaborate procedure. The good thing is there is plenty of documentation online so no shortage of info.
In my experience, when people make things seem easy it does not mean what they do is easy, just that they are highly experienced. I have collected a lot of info but the task is demanding. It looks like they let watchmakers in on the project. It is strange they didn't make a R-390B with servo control or stepper motors rather than all that mechanics.
>That said, if the price was right (cheap), and it's in excellent shape... you'd have a classic radio.
It is cheap, but seems to fall short of being in excellent shape.
>Now if it was an R-389 i'd be seriously tempted.
I might not resist that one, or the R-725.

>>3007614
Pure speculation on my part but I wonder if motor-drives were not incorporated into its design because they would emit noise?

>R-725
I had to look this up and i'm surprised i've never heard of it. I like to follow ASA and NSG related history stuff and I don't recall seeing this one mentioned. Interesting.

>>3007622
Motor drives were already part of R-391 and R-391A, and is in any case just needed when re-tuning.

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>>3005993
downvote

>>3006884
>>3006916
and WWCR

>>3006890
That's easy. The hard part is that it needs to be 1/4 wave above the ground at least at the feed point.
I guess drag it into the air with a big ass drone

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My TV antenna mounted on bamboo was pulling jack shit as far as FM radio stations go. So I tilted it around and I can kinda hear some stuff again. It's time for me to get my shit together though. Great SDR + terrible antenna is not the winning move.

>>3005918
I have a ubiquiti J arm that needs to go up, but I read that I need to ground it?? I'm not an electrician. It's only going like 6 feet up from the side of the house for a starlink dish.

>>3007695
Check your regions' electrical code. It could be for lightning reasons, and/or maybe because power is being applied to the dish.

>>3007695
This is because of reasons you don't have to worry about.
Basically up until like 10 years ago, anything someone was mounting to a roof connected to a coax cable going down into the house, so the metal antenna arm and antenna parts and all thst connected directly to the shield of the coax which is exposed metal om each end, and that connected to your TV or something eventually which was not grounded, so now if it gets hit by lightning it would kill your family and burn down your house or something. So grounding was required.

Not a. Thing with starlink or anything ethernet/poe powered.

>>3007787
The starlink documentation states that it is NEC compliant and doesn't need grounding.
I don't know what a building inspector or an insurance adjuster would say though.

if i want to get into SWL for cheap, would it be better to get a standalone chinese portable radio or a USB SDR dongle? and what is the best way of getting a callsign just for listening? i've seen a few sites where they issue one for free but i'm not comfortable providing the personal information they require, so i was wondering if i should get a normal license even if i don't intend to transmit. i'm mainly interested in collecting QSL cards.

>>3007944
>if i want to get into SWL for cheap, would it be better to get a standalone chinese portable radio or a USB SDR dongle?
Get a RTL-SDR, it is super cheap and can also cover a far wider frequency band, can even be used for hobby radio astronomy.
>and what is the best way of getting a callsign just for listening?
You need no callsign or license (in all countries I am familiar with) for listening only. For transmitting you need a license.
>i've seen a few sites where they issue one for free but i'm not comfortable providing the personal information they require, so i was wondering if i should get a normal license even if i don't intend to transmit. i'm mainly interested in collecting QSL cards.
You can get a QSL card without a license, for receiving some of the broadcasting stations.

More info on the FAQ and also
https://swling.com/blog/

I’ve got a TV inside a shop I work at, and the iron roof is blocking reception badly. It’s UHF 520-620MHz, would a magnetic antenna of some sort be likely to give me better reception, like a magloop in your attic? I assume a purely magnetic field receiving antenna only works like this if the wavelength is significantly greater than the size of the obstruction. Also since the electric field is horizontally polarised, the magnetic field will be vertical, which seems like it would be shielded by the iron roof even more effectively than a wavelength-matched antenna like a dipole. Would an electric field antenna work better? Can you even make an electric field antenna that has a large collecting area?

>>3007966
>magloop in your attic?
Simplest and cheapest solution is to draw a coax from the TV to an antenna (like a dipole) placed somewhere above the metal roof. A good antenna inside will be better than nothing but still probably bad.
Metal shielding will attenuate EM waves, both electric and magnetic field, pretty strongly.

thank you, i was under the impression that i needed a callsign to receive QSL cards. are the antennas included in cheap RTL-SDR kits good enough to start? i've read mixed opinions on that

>>3008067
this was meant for this
>>3007946

>>3008068
>are the antennas included in cheap RTL-SDR kits good enough to start?
They are good enough for FM but not for SWL unless the station is close. A 10 m long wire antenna will be fine.

>>3005993
you're dumb

>>3005918
anyone here play around with meshtastic?
im in north jersey,
my id:
!f68e271c
hit me up if your able
and does /diy/ have meshtatic threads of themselves?
i enjoy not needing a "loicense for that"

>>3008197
Last thread there was some discussion, it seems like Meshtastic use is dropping off in favour of Meshcore, possibly Reticulum too. You can look up online maps for these services to see how many nodes are in your area.

>>3008240
Probably because you can actually hold a coherent long-distance conversation over MC unlike MT

>>3008276
you have uhf, vhf and cb for that.
i've used js8 on 11m it works very well.

i read in previous thread that meshtastic was not scaling very well and meshcore was better.
https://hackaday.com/2025/10/09/meshtastic-a-tale-of-two-cities/

however. the real king is 40m nvis links.
i'm sure you and a fren could try out some shit without being licensed on 40m or just below at 6980 khz or just above 7200 khz.
if you are not a total faggot with spurious emissions and if you dont cause any problems, you can be unlicensed.
i know guys who operate on hf here in europe and they are courteous and do not cause trouble, well they have operated for 30 years or more.

Is there a future for shortwave? I love it but it's hard not to blackpill hearing boomers talk about how much there was going on in the 50s-80s compared to now.

>>3008340
use it or lose it.

the hf bands are somewhat threatened by wall street jews who want to trade over it.
dont let them.

>>3008340
also, i'm pretty sure as the internet closes down more and more, hf will become more attractive for young people to experiment with.
it is after all more than 9000 times cooler, 9000 times more autonomous and 9000 times more fun.
also, since it is 9000 times slower than internet it will keep away all the hyperactive adhd retards who need instant gratification thus making it a good place for comms not polluted by crap.

licensing is a good way to gatekeep but if you are careful enough, there are things you can do without a license on the same bands or outside. just dont use someone else's callsign and you should be fine.
usurping someones callsign is a more serious offense than making one up yourself.

in reality, a license is not a bad thing. it keeps out the most retarded guys.
and those who operate without it for any length of time tend to take their own precautions and they try not to step on anyone's toes and they do it intelligently.

>>3008334
>https://hackaday.com/2025/10/09/meshtastic-a-tale-of-two-cities/
Some important updates:
https://hackaday.com/2026/09/17/fcc-ism-rules-may-shatter-lora-mesh-communities/

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>meshtastic
>meshcore

>>3008604
They’re saying that the minimum bandwidth is for the purpose of spreading your transmit energy out more, and so being less able to cause interference. Shouldn’t it instead be a spectral density limit? As in, a maximum amount of watts per kHz of bandwidth? A 500kHz 0dB signal is going to be much worse for interference than a 250kHz -10dB signal, in my estimation. And maybe the duration spent at that frequency matters, in a millisecond a LoRa chirp might look like a narrowband transmission, but across ten seconds it looks like a smooth spread across a wide range of frequencies. So I think the LoRa guys in the USA should rile up a bunch of the American companies that sell and use the technology to demand a clarification from the FCC.

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I found this old 'Transistorized Power Supply'. Based on the address on the label, it appears to have been made by Raytheon. The unit doesn't actually say Raytheon anywhere on it. Probably from the 1960s. I have not opened it. So, CB radio PSU so you can run it off 120 volt AC power? The picture is the top of the unit and the front. It has rubber feed on both the top and bottom and it appears something is supposed to slot into it and use it as a base station. The model number appears to be 7361-5002-G1. That turns up nothing. The cord says 'Low Voltage Computer Cable'. The socket says 'Sato Parts Co. Tokyo'. Anyone know anything about this? Maybe have a catalog or service manual?

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>>3009018
it looks like the plug is compatible with old CB like raytheon Ray-tel TWR-1 TWR-2 :
https://www.qsl.net/k5dh/raytheon/twr2.html

>>3009018
>>3009022
sorry forgot : maybe it doesn't deliver only 12V but also the high voltage for the lamps, so be careful.

>>3009023
From that schematic it looks like the radio can take AC or DC natively, with its own transformer. If anything it would be better running off 120VAC, because that way you don't have to use the chattering electromechanical DC-to-DC converter. Maybe for some reason it also feeds DC to those filaments, instead of running them off the secondary? Doesn't make sense to me. But neither do those series filaments.

>>3009018
That round 8-pin amphenol connector certainly dates it to the 1960's. That 2-prong AC plug sketches me out though. I thought this might be an external power supply for a Sideband Engineers SB-2LA rf amplifier but that unit has it's own built-in power supply so I dunno...

SBE started as an amateur radio manufacturer for a few years before moving on to making quality CB radios. From 1964 on it moved its manufacturing to Japan so that could explain the "Sato Parts, Japan' socket plug. Sorry, I can't find anything on that power supply. It has a weird shape to it. And that address brought up nothing for me, not sure how you linked it to Raytheon (which btw had some controlling interest in SBE in later years if i've read correctly).

>>3009018
open it up and reverse engineer its schematic
a solid state switcher from before the tl494 sounds real interesting

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I opened the unit up and it is very clean inside. I suspect it didn't see much use. Zero manufacturer markings. It is extremely simple. A transformer, a few large capacitors, and some other bits and pieces. Basically, I just want to know what the thing is rated for. 12 volts at 5 amps? That kind of thing. Having a nice 12 volt power supply that can output a few amps, is user serviceable, and isn't made in China in good.

>>3009091
>That 2-prong AC plug sketches me out though.
Three prong outlets were not common back in the day. They were first required by code in the USA in 1962. Note the address on the unit's dataplate lacks a zip code. They were introduced in 1963. While not everyone immediately put them on everything, they were very popular very quickly. It being missing means it is 1960s or before.

See the little green wire with the paper tag on it? You can see it in the left hole on the right picture here >>3009018. It almost certainly stuck out of that hole originally. Like old power tools and stereo equipment, you were expected to provide your own ground connection. I suspect the previous owner just stuffed it in the unit and ignored it. Safety third.

>not sure how you linked it to Raytheon
I found it in some magazine ads and data sheets for Raytheon products listed between 1966 and 1971. I found ads for the SB-34 four band transceiver (Raytheon Company), a data sheet for a DE-723D Fathometer Depth Recorder (Raytheon Marine Products Operation), a newspaper 'advertorial' about boating in the 'The Daily Calumet' plugging the new Raycom III, and an ad for the Ray 1275 A/B radiotelephone. By 1974 it appears to have been the 'Grand Arena' roller skating rink. A staple of the area until into the 1980s.

What I later found was a listing for Apelco (APplied ELectronics COmpany) of the same address in a 1962 Citizens Band Call Book. It seems Raytheon acquired them in 1958. Further research confirmed that Raytheon CBs were made for them by Apelco in that facility.

Could you put a radio transmitter and solar panels on a tiny blimp, with a microwave link to your house, and some propulsion for it to stay in the same general area? Has this ever been done before, or is this a bad idea? The reason of course being that it would provide a massive altitude.

>>3009178
How would that be cheaper than just buying power from the power company? What is the return on investment on that, 75 years?

>>3009183
>What is the return on investment on that
not relying on the powergrid? priceless

>>3009183
hard to get power from the grid up to the blimp mate

>>3009131
Nice. I spent over 2 hours before posting that reply, looking for info and going through some back issues of CB mags without any success. It turned into a crash-course on SBE and its product history though, and I learned stuff about them that I didn't know. :^) I thought the nixie tubes in their SB-36 kinda neat.

I've seen 2-prong plugs in the past on older equipment. It just alerts me to the potential of a hot chasis and to ensure all is well inside.

> Having a nice 12 volt power supply that can output a few amps, is user serviceable, and isn't made in China in good
Indeed. That came from an era when bean-counters weren't interfering with engineers about the corporate bottomline. Everything in your pic looks surprisingly clean. I guess testing the capacitors and touching up any iffy solder joints would be in order. Fire it up, ideally with a variac (I keep meaning to get one) and measure the output of each pin in that circular connector. Looks like the transformer 2ndary is set for 25.2 volts which hopefully means p-p and not swinging 25 volts + and -. This is where I like oscilloscopes, you can see how clean the output is and determine where issues might be if the output isn't healthy. But at 2 amps it looks like you'll be maxing it out.

>>3009178
>The reason of course being that it would provide a massive altitude
heh! You're accepting the 1/4 wave challenge on 2200M aren't you? Well, the FAA would like to have a word with you. :^)

Our small radio club once sent aloft a dualband HT that has an undocumented cross-band repeat capability, on a tethered wx balloon. It was inspired by US soldiers in Vietnam who paired two PRC-77's the same way to extend the meager 5 to 7 km range on those VHF-lo radios which reportedly reached out nearly 100 km from 600 ft above local terrain.

Have any of you experienced the unsettling clarity of FreeDV? I've been parking on the calling frequencies for this mode, simply because I can't believe how amazing this shit sounds.There's not a lot of people using it yet, but I think this might be the next big thing.
https://freedv.org/

>>3009356
freedv is definitely ground breaking just like ft8/js8 is. it will gain tracktion with time.
the good stuff gets adopted eventually

>>3009418
>the good stuff gets adopted eventually
Does that include Reticulum on HF? Or is that a SHTF meme technology?

>>3009421
if i understand the point of reticulum,
it tries to bridge all tx/rx tech creating a high level network.
this is an absolutely massive undertaking and requires a lot time.
in theory i like it but hf is already autonomous in that you don't need an extra layer to communicate over great distances.
with wifi, bluetooth, uhf, ehf, whatever, you could need it, but you might as well make a massive wifi network which already exists in many places and gear is abundant and the protocol is already built in in all devices so no need for extra layer.
you could bridge wifi and hfbusing it and that may be very interesting.
limiting scope makes it much more accessible and actually doable.
hf is abundant enough and wifi is ubiquitus.

>>3009421
and for hf, you have the old beast of ax25.
its pretty much abandoned but its there, a massive update to increase the sensitivity would be in order since the tech was made back in the days when the noise floor was lower.
it needs an update for sure, maybe something based on a faster type of js8 modulation to get some extra bauds in.

the main thing about ax25 imo is the error correction by sending the packet multiple times until information is not corrupt anymore, so this has to happen asap.

>>3009421
and ax25 is easy to link with tcp ip using plain linux
the tech is there, the challange is the noise floor and its getting noisy these days

>>3009356
that's kind of neat. listening to that grating audio could get tiresome but the potential to have your computer autorespond and give out contacts is there. no need to man your radio anymore.

>trap dipole element on fan dipole actually covers the data portion and phone portions I care about on 80m with a SWR < 2
Well fuck. I wasn't certainly expecting that to happen without a lot of frustration. Now to wait until night time for signal reports.

>>3009604
Some guys have all the luck. I remember helping the club construct a 40/80/160M trap dipole for FD and we (me!) must've hoisted & lowered it 15x or 20x from it's working height of 80 ft doing adjustments.

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>>3007476
so i put up that loop for about 90m (80m). its compacted using a vertical zig-zag like pattern (not really zig zag and quite irregular at places, the wires mostly just sags between about 40 points.
its about 11 to 12m up on average.

but i dont use it as is, i tried it by itself and it would not work very well on tx compared to previous setup.
then i added to it fan dipole elements for specific bands, i got back some tx gain.
before putting on the main feedline the loop was cut according to swr meter readings and connected with a 4m 50ohm coax.

i still have to tune every element for everything above 80m

seems like conditions are starting to favor 80m and down for regional contacts during the night.
i tried phone and had a short chat with a station about 300km from here. he asked if i was qrp while i sent out 18w.
so it sort of works on 80m now. for everything else i use fan elements and just connect everything at one point.

also its hard to tell if 40m got extended as first was expected since the take off angle is theoretically lowered. since i haven't been on the radio for almost 2 weeks so I dont know how much conditions have changed in that time period. before, there was almost zero 80m activity, now i'm getting a lot more and 40m has become wider geographically, with less short-range activity in the evening with more dx.

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>>3009719
here is 40m overlayed. almost no local spots. only dx.

>>3009719
i should clarify that there is no fan dipole element for 80m so this is the loop antenna on 80m, its the only element which can work there.
its only for some specific bands above that i add fan dipole elements to increase tx gain on those bands.

>>3009604
Signal reports were meh compared to standard dipole. Should have left them as separate fans. It's usable, though. I'm going to go back to separate fans. It was a nice experiment though.

>>3009607
I think that is all that it was: luck. Other ones I've made in the past I had to do a lot of trimming. The first time I made a 80m dipole, I had to trim that thing at least 20 times. At least I learned a lot from that first time, e.g. seeing the SWR go up as I got up the frequency goes up means I need to trim due to it being too long. Also, I learned about being able to fold it back and get the same result as trimming it. As I heard many hams say: everything affects everything when it comes to antennas.

I cannot get mine up very high. It's only approximately 20ft in places and I don't feel like putting up a tower nor some type of power pole to climb. Thankfully, I just use pulleys to easily raise and lower each of the spacers I use for it up in trees.

>>3009719
Thanks for reporting back. Yes I've noticed improving condx on the lower bands lately as well. Winter condx are coming back. Goodbye summer QRN.

>>3009770
>everything affects everything when it comes to antennas.
This. That's what I experienced with that trap 40/80/160 dipole we built years ago. The antenna analyzer was giving way different readings with it on the ground vs up in the air (as would be expected). We did coarse adjustments with 2 of us, 1 on each end, trying to hold this 130 ft long antenna taut enough several feet off the ground while the older guys did the adjustments. That took several tries. Then we hoisted it up and took readings & then lowered it to fine adjust it. Multiple times. IRC we could not get all 3 bands trimmed just right so that it exhibited good SWR in the voice subbands. I think 160M was the difficult one but not so bad a manual tuner couldn't adapt it. 160M is pretty noisy here in the summer so we made the other 2 bands a priority.

I just picked up a used horizontal loop antenna for 50 MHz two weeks ago and got it mounted on a tripod on my balcony. First thing I did was put my MFJ antenna analyzer on it to find it's sweet spot. It exhibits less than 2:1 SWR between 50.200 & 50.825 MHz. A slight adjustment and I got the bandwidth a bit lower as I intend to do mostly SSB around 50.125. My autotuner for 6M can't handle anything above 2:1. Hooked up the radio and wth? now i'm getting a high-SWR indicator on my radio. Analyzer back on, yep SWR is out to lunch at over 3.5. ??? Rechecked connections & tuning stub then start moving the tripod around trying to find a good spot. Move, step away, read. Multiple times. Eventually figured out that as soon as I closed the sliding door on my balcony, the metal frame interacted with it causing the SWR to shoot up.. I also found that the metal railing on my balcony is having an effect as well. I finally got a good spot. I suspect my antenna lobe is pretty funky, though.

It is difficult to triangulate and track a mobile ham radio operator?

>>3009980
With three SDRs spaced out significantly, each with an accurate (GPS) time source, and the right software, it’s probably trivial. Unless the person being tracked is using a very directional antenna, such that their output is below the noise floor for at least one or two of those SDRs.
If the tracker is just a single guy driving around, pointing a yagi out his window, pretty tough unless the guy being tracked is near constantly transmitting, and not moving as fast as the tracker.

Are you trying to track someone? Or avoid being tracked yourself?

>>3009982
>it’s probably trivial.
Definitely trivial. And you can use the KiwiSDR interface for this exact task.
>Unless the person being tracked is using a very directional antenna,
That very rarely happens and in any case there are always unwanted sidelobes.

>>3009980
if he is on the lower bands, he is most probably having nvis propagation if he has the right antenna which would make him less trackable than if he used groundwave emissions.

>>3010000
With high enough frequency he could be using a parabolic dish antenna, which I bet could have less sidelobe emission than a yagi. Though at that point, the concept of being a mobile operator is called into question.

>>3010025
I was wondering about that. I suspect with enough SDR receivers you could probably trace it to within a few hundred km by calculating the number of reflections, but probably not more than that. With a sufficiently directional antenna and nearby obstructions (e.g. being in a valley) you could aim straight-up and get no traceable ground wave at all, I guess? Though I have yet to see a 40m yagi.

I also wonder how traceable LoRa is.

>>3010048
>parabolic dish antenna,
Typically, the dish has to be at least 20 wavelengths across. A 2 m dish is borderline portable so wavelength has to be less than 10 cm, which is 3 GHz, which is practically line of sight in any case.

>>3010048
>I also wonder how traceable LoRa is.
Easy. Just remember, if you emit RF, you're trackable.

>>3010050
>A 2 m dish is borderline portable
That's big! I'm not sure i'd call that portable. I have a 100cm solid dish and it's heavy to set up. All the microwavers I know are using 45cm to 75cm sized dishes for 5 GHz and up.

What do I need to make my own radio

>>3010063
I guess if you can tune into LoRa, you can track it, even if it’s below the noise floor for regular receivers. Though performing chirp spread spectrum on some other band, relying on security via obscurity, you might be able to stay under the radar.
It would be interesting to try searching for covert chirps, I guess you feed chirps of varying df/dt values into your I/Q mixers, and average the values over multiple samples, to see if you see any spikes.

>I have a 100cm solid dish
What about an inflatable dish? Mylar on one side, regular plastic on the other side, you could make a 5m dish pretty lightweight. If you cut each side as simple circles and fuse them around the edges, I’m pretty sure the tension in the envelope would naturally form something approximating a parabola, that’s how some guys make solar reflectors.

>>3010067
What signals do you want to receive? Do you want to transmit too? Could be anything from a foxhole to a TruSDX.

>>3010069
>What about an inflatable dish?
ICould work with the lower microwave frequencies. Just have to keep the reflective surface as smooth as possible and within a certain amount of tolerance in terms of wavelength. I forgot what that is, 1/16th maybe? Otherwise phase errors creep in a all sorts of wild lobe issues.

Inspired by the movie "ET The Extraterrestrial", a jr high school friend and I made a "dish" by lining the inside of an umbrella with tinfoil we stole from his mom (she raised hell) and for want of a radio transmitter we used his dad's old CB radio and a car CB antenna which we held broadside at the assumed focal point. No surprise we heard nothing. Only a few days later my electricity class teacher laughed and told us about wavelengths. A subsequent trip to the library to read up on that showed us the folly of our ways. lol We had the right idea, though. :^)

>>3010067
A germanium diode, wire coil, variable capacitor, and an earphone.

>>3010150
>phase
I don’t see how you wouldn’t get a bunch of phase errors from a normal parabolic dish. Because the dish surface is continuous, there will be a steady continuum of phase offsets coming off the dish at different radii. A fresnel reflector could be made to avoid that, always ensuring an integer wavelength distance from the emitter to the centre of each dish reflector ring.
>A germanium diode
Aren’t those unobtanium these days? Nobody makes them anymore, any sticks of OEM parts seem to be snatched up by scalpers, and majority of eBay listings are fakes. The real ones were selling for $30 each last I checked.

If your grandpa got away with a chunk of galena, you could surely use some sort of silicon or Schottky diode, I hear the BAT41 is pretty good.

>>3010168
Oh wow.. I had no idea germanium diodes are exceptionally rare. I'll have to keep an eye out for those in the scrap bins. And I actually do own a chunk of galena, had it given to me by a guy who once worked at a now-closed silver mine.

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Any VLF listeners here? SAQ Grimeton is scheduled to air on Oct 24th on 17.2 kHz.

Transmission & YouTube Live stream:
12:20 UTC: Live stream on YouTube begins with a technical walk-through of SAQ.
12:30 UTC: Startup and tuning of the Alexanderson alternator.
12:45 UTC SAQ on the air w/ "VVV VVV VVV de SAQ SAQ SAQ" (approx. time)
13:00 UTC: Message transmission from SAQ.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-83S-l9JKD1iuhsXx3XQ3g

I try every time but it's a 7,500 km shot mostly over the arctic.

>>3010195
I might try to listen in, I’ve got a pretty high-Q tank circuit connected to a 2x3m loop, but I’m on the other side of the world from Europe so it’s probably not possible. Last time I was a day late, and I had to solder some extra caps to my op-amp circuit because it was picking up some broadcast radio somehow.

>>3010195
Just a reminder that SAQ can be received using a notmal sound card and a SDR software package:
https://dl1dbc.net/SAQ/

>>3010214
That's a pretty decent sized loop. What frequency range is it optomized for?

>>3010219
I need to look at one of those PA0RDT miniwhips for vlf reception.

>>3010239
>I need to look at one of those PA0RDT miniwhips for vlf reception
The small reception area in those means you might struggle with weak signals. Big single-turn loops coupled into a transformer core seem better for VLF.

Also a built one of those mini whips and I must have fucked up somehow, it doesn’t work for shit. Gotta troubleshoot that I guess. Maybe a USB isolator on the SDR will help.

>>3010242
The serious guys seem to use custom loops. I wonder if adding a long whip, or long wire,
to the mini-whip unit would be beneficial?

On a side note, last night I was listening around VLF and hearing nothing interesting I went up into the AM broadcast band and it was wall-to-wall signals, many with overlapping stations. About an hour in i'm experiencing a lot of co-channel interference and mixing issues. I heard numerous stations not on the usual N American 10 kHz spacing. I was picking up reasonably good signals coming from Japan and S Korea! Spent 3 hours logging them before I forced myself into bed at 4am. Ran some distance checks, the S Korea one on 972 kHz was the farthest at ~7,200 km. Surprisingly, nothing heard from the russian far east.

>>3010267
The mini whip is designed as an unbalanced electric field antenna, it isn't obvious to me how you'd add a loop to it.
Just making it longer should help, though I wonder if using a thin length of wire would be significantly different to using a wider conductor with the same length could be better. I know collecting area is important for magnetic field antennas like loops, but I suspect it also matters for electric field antennas too.

Electronics Unmessed on YouTube has some pretty good videos on the topic of ELF loops.

>>3009982
>>3010000
>>3010025
I just thought it would be funny to troll sad ham boomers from my car while driving. No continues transmissions just short snippy burts while mobile

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>>3010286
Sure. Sure.

>>3010286
>I thought it would be funny
You have some growing up to do.

>>3007687
does it have a preamp? they usually have band cut filters for anything that isnt tv stuff

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>be me
>just got generals license
>really excited to just listen to 20m since it's so active in my area and mayhaps say hello
>start buying gear
>suddenly antennas
>don't know which to buy
>buy the DXEngineering Nomad telescoping mast alongside with the EFHW Feather 60ft antenna so I don't have to tune my antenna
>gear comes in, finally set up in my backyard
>antenna is long as hell, made do with the space I had
>SWR was off the charts kek because my antenna was touching the ground and forgot that the ground absorbs rf
>set up again the next day, untangling my antenna by hand and undoing any kinks I made the first set up, this time setting up the antenna dangling across a garden trellis
>finally, SWR is at 1:5:1
>having fun listening to all kinds of random conversations
>decide that the set up is too jank, since the telescope mast is just weighted in a backpack and is not practical for SOTA or POTA which was something I anticipated doing also
>buys the HF 010 from Radioddity
>comes in the mail, set up time
>one of the extension rods has a messed up thread, I was super gentle with trying to screw it on too
>give up temporarily on HF because money contraints

mfw antennas are the biggest hurdle for me

>>3010286
Touch grass?

>>3010332
Often the VHF preamp includes the 100MHz broadcast FM radio band. If it's a UHF-only antenna though yes you'd be right.

>>3010333
Gotta make your own. Join the wizards.

>>3010333
What >>3010334 said. It's cheaper, you learn more, and many times, the results can be interesting and sometimes surprising.

>>3010333
its funny there are really two kinds of people, people who get license and then start to figure things out and those who figure things out, throw together antennas, put them down, make mistakes, even start transmitting before the license and then one day, they finally get licensed.

I bought a pack of 'feng mini 5s (seemingly a new revision of the uv-5r mini) and I'm pretty impressed
spurious emissions are well within legal limits, and it doesn't seem like it gets overloaded nearly as bad as my previous baofeng (purchased in 2018)
perhaps I just got a lucky batch

>>3010268
Thanks for that link, he has some interesting stuff on there and a couple of unknowns he's captured in the VLF band which have piqued my interest. I just had one tonight on 35 kHz very briefly. Will be watching for this one.

I went on the AM broadcast band right after I posted that message (No.3010267) last night. Again, LOTS of asian stations but this time they seemed to be clustered above 1000 kHz. I heard 31 stations, several loud and clear but many just 1 or 2 kHz from a NA station so it was challenging to pick pick them out. I think this is when a loop would come in handy to null out the locals. A total of 48 stations in a 48 hr period. Tonight I only heard a few very weak carriers of 3 stations.

Anyone know where beacon "SGX" on 346 kHz is located? I find no listing for it.

>>3010371
sgx sounds like singapore but i don't know

>>3010371
>Anyone know where beacon "SGX" on 346 kHz is located? I find no listing for it.
Sure that was not YXL in Sioux Lookout, Ontario, Canada? That matches the frequency.

>>3010408
Yes i'm pretty sure. I've got a recoding of it, I had it on a narrow filter and then switched to a wider 500 Hz one at the 17s mark:

https://litter.catbox.moe/y2sgsj.wav

>Oct 4-2026 07.38Z 346 kHz CWN + CWW

Ok maybe my mini-whip wasn't showing any difference with/without power because I was testing it on 100MHz FM, and the thing supposedly has a bandwidth of 30MHz. An SDR that only goes down to 25MHz isn't very useful for HF, I should get me a dongle with an upconverter. Also the MKT film caps are apparently bad for these frequencies, not sure if they're worse than Y5U or X5R ceramics (nonlinearity could create harmonics), but I'll see if I can track some NP0s. No clue why it uses 100nF caps when even 10nF would work fine to receive 520kHz broadcast AM. People actually make NP0 10nF MLCCs, which is nice.

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Huh. I wonder what's on 8101 khz?

>>3010794
If the signal is at 8101 KHz, why did you end the diagram at 8050 KHz?

ya know those ufl to sma 'splitters' for use with dual antennas->1 receiver? Can I just make my own by just soldering 2 sma cables together and running it into a ufl ,mmcx, or other connector?

>>3010797
Aww.. dammit. I meant 8010 khz.

>>3010800
You could, but I think that changes the nominal impedance the radio "sees". Also technically it's a splitter so you're cutting the recv'd signal in half. I'm looking into an active combiner myself so I can share a single antenna with some receivers.

>>3010800
Are they antennas of different frequencies? If so, I’d want to make a diplexer. The ones that use tuned lengths of coax are simple looking, though I think they’re intrinsically resonant so they’re narrowband compared to LC diplexers.

I’m looking to get a somewhat cheap RX-only SDR to upgrade my TV dongle, in order to listen to signals below 25MHz. I’m looking at either an RTL-SDR Blog V4L, or maybe an RX-888, but I’m open to other options. The 16 bit reception of the 888 looks nice, and it still goes up to 1.7GHz with the 74CBT3253 acting as a quadrature mixer. Though having just an HF-only direct sampling SDR with a 30-64MHz bandwidth and no mixer seems like it should be cheaper, if anyone sells such a thing. Though I’d still probably want something to upgrade my TV dongle above 25MHz eventually.

A bit of a browse suggests the Chinese clones aren’t worth chancing, they often use fake chips and have worse manufacturing tolerances, but if there any reputable off-brands I’m keeping an open mind.

>>3010854
Take the RSP1B pill

>>3010854
>or maybe an RX-888, but I’m open to other options
There is also the Web-888.

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Let it be known that I have had a very enjoyable first summer of HF with an indoor 20m EFHW antenna strung around my tiny Manhattan apartment

It is possible

>>3010881
Maybe? Compared to the 888, it’s only 10MHz bandwidth, and only 14-bit. The switchable filters look nice, but manually making and swapping filters would be a lot cheaper. It goes down to 1kHz instead of 10kHz, doesn’t seem too useful.
Will that extra 2 bits of resolution on the 888 be useful?

Either are still kinda expensive, does nobody make a single ADC channel direct-sampling-only SDR for HF?

>>3010900
The Web-888 is like 3 times the price, I’m not exactly looking for a web SDR.

>net control, this is j1zz, the hurricane has made landfall here. We're seeing maj-
>CQ POTA CQ POTA

i live in a dense city, all buildings around me are at least 3 stories high.
has anyone used drones to put up horizontal antennas over rooftops?

Can someone help me make a radio with just a wooden board, resistors and a couple of usb cables? I don't have a spool of copper wire.

>>3011042
Wires sitting on top of rooftops don’t make good antennas. They need to be at least a decent fraction of a wavelength off anything that isn’t a good insulator.
Set up a magnetic loop antenna of some sort.

>>3011043
What are you trying to pick up? If you want to make a crude AM radio, the easiest types are simple diode detector types. But they all require quite a few turns of fine (magnet) wire, and some sort of diode detector. Maybe you’ve got a dodgy speaker or pair of headphones to disassemble, but you’re not going to pull it off without being able to wind an inductor or two. You can also make a dodgy diode from a rusty razor blade, like the POW camp foxhole radio.

>>3011046
well, i figured using two chimneys as supports for a guide lines, the actual antenna wire would not be directly on the roof, there'd be like a meter between the roof and the antenna elements.
i'm more thinking about the weight, would a drone handle pulling a heavy speaker wire?

>>3011042
No, because drones are impractical to use. Don't overthink it. If you managed to get a drone strong enough to lift a wire up, or a leader string, how do you plan on fastening the antenna to the chimneys?

1 metre above the roofline is not ideal, as >>3011046 says, especially if you are thinking of transmitting. If for recv only and it's the best you can do then go fo for it, it's certainly better than nothing, right?

>>3011046
I have 1N4004 diodes laying around

>>3011056
it would just go around the chimney and come back with the guide wire. the antenna wire would be fastened to the guide wire and would stop before reaching the chimney,
the drone would go around it and bring back guide wire.
one leg of a dipole could go to one chimney and the other leg to another chimney, i have a bunch of chimneys, the houses are 100+ years old made of bricks.

, anyways, i dont have money for a drone that strong anyway. thats the main problem really.

for now, my attic is fine, i'm doing qsos with a 40m around my country (about 500-700 km radius.) mostly via nvis propagation.

>>3011042
please see >>3010901

I literally am in the worst possible situation and can make it work with an indoor EFHW

>>3011089
good for you.
i already have antennas in the attic at a height of about 11 to 12 metres. a linear loaded 80m (linear loaded L-shaped horizontal) and a 40m (L-shaped horizontal
but i love radio so much that i'm ready to try some crazy shit.

i also tried loops 1x wavelength on 80m and ran it on a bunch of bands with the g90 but keep coming back to dipole variations.

if everyone was happy and settled for what was possible, we wouldn't be trying the impossible shit. yeah sounds cliche but its true.

>>3010816
>you're cutting the recv'd signal in half
I figured as much, but it's more about redundancy so 'some' signal is better than no signal considering I can mitigate the loss with higher gain antennas no?
>>3010819
no they are the same freq but I found an ebay seller who makes nice mmcx to dual sma connectors anyway.

>>3011098
if i'm not mistaken the noise is also cut in half, you're basically getting the same signal to noise ratio as before but everything is just weaker (including the noise) so you'd have to use a pre-amp on each receiver to amplify the signals again. or you could put a pre amp before the splitter, so as to amplify the signal before it gets cut in half.

>>3011059
Reverse recovery time of 1.5us, 20pF junction capacitance, they're too slow for any radio use I say.

>just got yet another piece of junk mail from ARRL
>still asking "pls join us again, we need monies to pay us to do nothing"
>after being an operator for 7 years
FFS, get the damn hint. I do not want to join.

Man, turns out RF capacitor selection is a real pain. X7R ceramics are fine for bypass capacitors, but for filters it seems like a requirement to use C0G ceramics, or silver-mica capacitors. And these C0Gs still have self resonance, 100nF caps seem to be normally down below 10MHz, for HF use you may well have to stack a bunch in parallel. Higher capacitances make for lower self resonance frequencies, and so do larger packages, but I don’t want to try manhattan soldering 0402s. Multi-layer is apparently better than single-layer, but THT options above 100pF are slim pickings. Silver-mica caps are just expensive.

So I think I’m going to do an LCSC order of a few different sizes of 0805 C0G caps, 100pF to 100nF. Nice Murata ones. Any other ideas for RF caps? Any magnetic cores I should be buying too?