******** The Official amateur radio thread ********

[Magic_x_uk]

No photos of your actual gear then ?


also, have to ask, why did you decide to mount it directly outside the kitchen window, obscuring the view from that window? was there no where else suitable to mount?

Also I have read on here you need to take exams etc, licenses to use this stuff. Why? is it just so you 'know' how to use it all.

What is stopping me from just buying one, sticking a aerial up and clicking search till I find someone somewhere in the world to talk to, What harm can that do?

Interested that is all.

 

[Narj]

I know from previous threads that we have a few people in the forums with licences, it'd be good for some of them to join in here.

Sadly I let my licence lapse several years ago. I'm sure I know where my RAE certificate is so I suppose it wouldn't be hard to renew if I wanted to get back into it. I was just about to do the morse exam when I got out of it - I was just too damned busy with work and too tired/stressed to be bothered any more so sold up.

I quite miss listening tbh, I had some nice setups while I was into it. Had a Yaesu Summerkamp FT-277ZD for a while which was a lovely piece of kit, then had an iCom ic706 (I think) then tried a few Kenwoods. I had nothing better to spend my money on back then so went through loads of kit, even if it was a bit crazy considering I couldn't transmit on HF!

There's something almost magical about radio that the internet just can't replace IMO.

A lot of amateurs slate CB but I started out on that and still have friends to this very day that I met there (some of who did the RAE are still active on HF). I doubt it's the same these days what with the internet and all but I had some good times on there. It was actually quite a good way of meeting girls (some shockingly hot, believe it or not!)

Also, before I got into AR, I must confess that I really enjoyed the *ahem* SSB side of 11M.

 

[Hank_Marvin]

I have a scanner "Uniden 3500xlt" which I listen to some amatuers every now and again but mainly use it for aviation.

It's quite fun decoding pagers though and quite simple too. i never hear any cb stuff, seems to be dead.

Would quite like a hf receiver but they are quite costly.

 

[Narj]

I have a scanner "Uniden 3500xlt" which I listen to some amatuers every now and again but mainly use it for aviation.

It's quite fun decoding pagers though and quite simple too. i never hear any cb stuff, seems to be dead.

Would quite like a hf receiver but they are quite costly.

I still have a bracket on the back of the house so am tempted to get a scanner actually after reading this thread. Not sure I'm really interested in going the full hog and renewing my licence. How are you doing the pager decodes? Output to a PC with some sort of packet radio decoding software?

Shame the CB is dead really - it was fun when it was popular. Have you checked the EU 11M ranges lately? Are there no more crazy Italians running several kilowatts, calling CQ on 11M these days? (granted, usually in summer)

Oh...

Seems like an utter waste of time and money, why do this when we have the internet.

You'd be amazed what you can learn through radio. Also, there's a real sense of achievement when you first manage to communicate to someone on the other side of the planet using a transciever and a bit of metal attached to a mast or a long bit of wire. There's also the experimenting and electronics side to it which can be fascinating.

 

[Hank_Marvin]

Yeah audio out (scanner) audio in (pc) and some software, you just have to play with levels untill you find a sweet spot and they come flooding in.

3500xlt is a great scanner and the pc interface is excellent, I use bctool and it's pretty feature rich and makes programming the scanner so easy, can even do remote control of the scanner over the web.

 

[GinG]

Different!

Glad you are not my neighbour though!

 

[PermaBanned]

Sadly I let my licence lapse several years ago.

So do you have to "renew" every five years? Is it different for the different tiers?

It does look incredibly interesting, but probably like a few others here it seems like a massive investment. When you search for "what HAM gear for beginners" you always find the things that are recommended are in excess of a grand, and that's not even counting the aerial (or is it antenna?). I'd be up for some scratch building but there's very little i can find on the subject.

Anything you would recommend keeping an eye out for? HAM or CB...

 

[Hank_Marvin]

Antenna can just be the cost of materials and you can make it yourself, so that's a saving.

 

[Narj]

So do you have to "renew" every five years? Is it different for the different tiers?

Can't remember now but I think it was an annual payment. It was the same for everyone but I'm not sure how it works now. Also, I believe I can apply for a new callsign now that would allow me to use HF, as they scrapped the morse exam some time ago (shame, IMO).

 

[PermaBanned]

Some of you might find this interesting:

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/ockxv/we_are_the_hams_of_ramateurrradio_and_when_reddit/

 

[Feek]

How much of it is it realistically possible to make yourself?

It's possible to make everything yourself. It's possible to build entire transceivers, aerials, tuners, power suppies and even the feeder that goes from the radio to the aerial. But it's very unusual for people to have complete 'homebrew' stations. I make my own wire aerials and as I said previously, I'm in the middle of building my own 3.5MHz transceiver.

So do you have to "renew" every five years? Is it different for the different tiers?

Can't remember now but I think it was an annual payment. It was the same for everyone but I'm not sure how it works now. Also, I believe I can apply for a new callsign now that would allow me to use HF, as they scrapped the morse exam some time ago (shame, IMO).

There is no longer any licence fee, that was scrapped a few years ago and the licence is now a free renew every five years. That just consists of logging onto the Ofcom site and clicking renew! If you had a callsign previously you could just get that reissued and you'll have a full licence.

It does look incredibly interesting, but probably like a few others here it seems like a massive investment. When you search for "what HAM gear for beginners" you always find the things that are recommended are in excess of a grand, and that's not even counting the aerial (or is it antenna?). I'd be up for some scratch building but there's very little i can find on the subject.

Anything you would recommend keeping an eye out for? HAM or CB...

You can get a 100m reel of cable that's good for making wire aerials from Rapid for about £25. Even if you were to buy a brand spanking new radio such as an FT-897 or FT-857 you're looking at under £800 or if you go for an FT-817 which is effectively the same radio but just 5 watts output then that's around £520 I think. Second hand prices are much lower.

If you don't want to play HF just yet then you can pick up a simple VHF/UHF handheld from eBay for less than fifty quid! That'll do nicely for talking to locals on FM and through any local repeater.

One thing please - 'Ham' is not an abbreviation or acronym. It should not be capitalised.

 

[Morbius]

I have an M5 callsign, although I've not been active on the bands in several years. Funnily enough I design antennas for a living, although mostly on UHF and microwave frequencies.

 

[PermaBanned]

One thing please - 'Ham' is not an abbreviation or acronym. It should not be capitalized.

So... where does it come from? All i can think of is "hamateur"

Thanks for the advice, i was talking to a few people on Reddit and they mentioned a few "simple" DIY CW kits, namely the Rock-Mite, which comes in a few flavors. Definitely interesting, i'll have to look more into it after exams

 

[stigggeh]

So... where does it come from? All i can think of is "hamateur"

Thanks for the advice, i was talking to a few people on Reddit and they mentioned a few "simple" DIY CW kits, namely the Rock-Mite, which comes in a few flavors. Definitely interesting, i'll have to look more into it after exams

I would listen a while before you jump in and do the exams, it will not only make the practical elements easier but also give you an idea if this hobby is for you.

 

[Feek]

It's not know exactly where the term 'ham' came from although it's conjectured that when people first started messing around with radio the term was used in a derogatory sense by the radio professionals. It stuck.

It's not a term I use myself, nor is it that common in the UK but I don't have anything against it.

Anyway.

Things to do tomorrow.
Check to see if I'm getting power to my SGC 237 Smartuner. If there's power at the end of the cable then check fuses and investigate to see why it's not working. If I've got no power then go in the loft to check the power cable.

Once smartuner is fixed, hang an random length doublet from the mast to the end of the garden. Mount the smartuner onto my mast and use 450 ohm ladder line feeder from the doublet to the tuner. This should allow me to operate on the 80m (3.5MHz) band.

If I can't get the smartuner working then I might replace my off centre fed dipole with a single band 40m dipole instead.

Then I need to lower the 20ft pole with my weather station on and move the rainfall sensor to a much more stable platform, extending the cable between them and installing a good ferrite choke at each end so that no RF gets in the cable and affects the readings.

There's a RTTY contest running from 12:00 on Saturday to 12:00 on Sunday that I might give away a few points in and if I get the smartuner working then there's an 80m contest from 14:00 to 18:00 that I'd also like to have a shout in.

 

[stigggeh]

Things to do tomorrow.

I have a very small plot and unfriendly neighbours so I will be messing with a G3TPW Cobwebb in the garden tomorrow to see if i can ease them in to it

I willl stick some pictures up tomorrow.

 

[PermaBanned]

So apparently there's a Class A IPv4 network reserved for amateur radio usage... that isn't being used for anything.

http://www.ampr.org/

 

[Attu90]

My dads a radio ham and I remember him doing compertitions where we would sit in a tent on a hill with a great big mast with all his raio buddies ...many many years ago
My Dads a G3, bet there arnt many of those left these days.

 

[Feek]

So apparently there's a Class A IPv4 network reserved for amateur radio usage... that isn't being used for anything.

http://www.ampr.org/

I used to have 44.131.2.232 if my memory serves me correctly. That was a long time ago.

My dads a radio ham and I remember him doing compertitions where we would sit in a tent on a hill with a great big mast with all his raio buddies ...many many years ago
My Dads a G3, bet there arnt many of those left these days.

Not too many but if I search my log for the last couple of years I find 186 entries. Surprisingly there are fewer G1s, G6s and G7s about than there are G3s. I guess that's because at the time those callsigns were a stepping stone to the full Class A licence.

Contests like you've described still happen.

 

[PermaBanned]

http://w4ax.com/

Just found this, seems to be a good way to get a rough idea of what you're able to hear if you do get into it. That is, if you can figure out how to use it. Managed to find a few bits of CW, some things i could tell were voices but were so distorted i couldn't make anything out