******** The Official amateur radio thread ********
- Thread starter Feek
- Start date
Soldato
Bet the neighbours love that xD it also would pose an issue if you wanted to move?
Few questions:
What cost was there building this kind of setup?
You mentioned talking to people abroad, do you agree to it, like online, or just pick a frequency and see if people respond?
How does the science work? You mention broadcasting can go internationally, well how does your relatively small aerial transmit suh a long distance?
Kd
Few questions:
What cost was there building this kind of setup?
You mentioned talking to people abroad, do you agree to it, like online, or just pick a frequency and see if people respond?
How does the science work? You mention broadcasting can go internationally, well how does your relatively small aerial transmit suh a long distance?
Kd
Nice, but why did you put it right in front of the window?
Your wife must think fluffy things about you every time she looks outside
I've already answered your question about my neighbours, 2bit where I quite clearly said that I've spoken with them. Why do you keep saying I don't care when I obviously do, what's your problem here?
In front of the window was the only place on the back of the property where it could practically go. It was there or nowhere.
It looks more intrusive than it actually is, the majority of the pictures were taken when it was brand spanking new and very shiny, it's already weathered a bit and will be nowhere near as sparkly once the winter is through.
Soldato
- Joined
- 7 Aug 2004
- Posts
- 11,004
I can see why you got hit by lightning 
lol
lol
No issue if I want to move (no plans to btw), the footplate will just get cut off at the base level and I'd take it with me, then build another base at the new house.
The total cost of the mast, aerial, rotator and everything including skip hire, mixer etc was around £1500, I don't know exactly as I've not totalled it up.
As for talking to people, I either call CQ which is a generic call which effectively says "Hey, I'm here, anyone want to reply" or tune around listening for other stations calling CQ and then reply.
As for radio propagation, it's all down to the atmosphere. Depending on the time of day and the frequency involved, signals bounce off the layers in the atmosphere and reflect around the world. The sun plays a huge part in this, there's an eleven year solar cycle which we're just approaching the peak of where radio conditions can be seriously enhanced.
It's a hobby that's can be affected by nature very easily. You could have the biggest aerials around at huge heights and massive amplifiers but if the sun farts, the whole of the radio spectrum can be pretty much closed down and nothing you can do will change it.
No it's not. You're thinking of what the bands are like during contests when all people exchange is a signal report and other info such as a serial number. Outside of contests it's much more than that.
Actually this is a result of having the near strike last year. We pretty much determined that it came in through the phone and mains (overhead power cabled) and didn't go near my aerials in the end. Besides, this mast wasn't up then.I can see why you got hit by lightning
Thanks - I've been meaning to start it for a while.
The only legal limitation for aerials is nothing above 50ft within half a mile of an airport. Of course that doesn't mean that we can do anything, local planning regulations will always come into force. I know people with 60ft masts in their gardens, roughly double the size of mine.
The actual exam is very easy. There's a book with all exam material contained and it's pretty basic stuff. You have to do it through a club though as there are a couple of practical exercises that have to be done and signed off by an instructor so the best thing to do is look for a local club as a lot of them run training and exam sessions on a regular basis.
That is pretty damn impressive, even though I have absolutely no experience of amateur radio it's no shock to see you've got some serious equipment.
Unless I've missed you saying something about it (safety measures) or not but does that antenna not increase the likelihood of you getting another lightening strike? You surely don't want THAT happening again!
Unless I've missed you saying something about it (safety measures) or not but does that antenna not increase the likelihood of you getting another lightening strike? You surely don't want THAT happening again!
Associate
as a ham since i was 18 (30 now) i've been active then not so active but now getting back into it for the past yeah now using digital modes and i guess i am lucky as with a simple wire antenna and living about 30 meters from the sea and being near enough sea level i've had good times lately and i guess my latest good call was Afghanistan 10 watts
oh and then 10 mins later found band died for me lol
Associate
- Joined
- 15 Dec 2008
- Posts
- 647
That's a awesome setup.
One of the things my local group do is very low power propagation testing using Morse code sent very slowly.
Imagine Morse code sent so slowly that one simple ‘dit’ takes six seconds to send and a ‘dah’ takes eighteen seconds. Imagine that’s sent using Frequency Shift Keying with just 5Hz differentiating the two tones and that's what we use. If you listen to it with the naked ear, you can barely hear the tones change.
When it's fed into a computer though, you can plot those two tones on a display and read the Morse.
This is a capture from a listening station in New Zealand taken just a couple of days ago.
The Morse at the bottom is our station. The transmitter is a little kit which cost a tenner to buy and took an hour or so to build. The output power is around 100mW which is less than half the output of your mobile phone!
The aerial it's connected to is a simple half wave dipole, so there's a coaxial feeder cable like the stuff you use on your telly connected to the transmitter and attached to the far end of that coax there are two pieces of wire just over 7m long each stretched out horizontally.
It's amazing what can be done with simple kit.
The hobby is not just about talking to your mates, it's a technical and experimental hobby. I still love it even after all these years.
Imagine Morse code sent so slowly that one simple ‘dit’ takes six seconds to send and a ‘dah’ takes eighteen seconds. Imagine that’s sent using Frequency Shift Keying with just 5Hz differentiating the two tones and that's what we use. If you listen to it with the naked ear, you can barely hear the tones change.
When it's fed into a computer though, you can plot those two tones on a display and read the Morse.
This is a capture from a listening station in New Zealand taken just a couple of days ago.
The Morse at the bottom is our station. The transmitter is a little kit which cost a tenner to buy and took an hour or so to build. The output power is around 100mW which is less than half the output of your mobile phone!
The aerial it's connected to is a simple half wave dipole, so there's a coaxial feeder cable like the stuff you use on your telly connected to the transmitter and attached to the far end of that coax there are two pieces of wire just over 7m long each stretched out horizontally.
It's amazing what can be done with simple kit.
The hobby is not just about talking to your mates, it's a technical and experimental hobby. I still love it even after all these years.
Here's one of the little Morse transmitters mentioned above. It's not the one we're using but it's exactly the same (this is my one). To give you an idea of scale, that connector bottom right is a phono (RCA) socket.
Soldato
How much of your gear have you built? From kits/plans/scratch or whatever as opposed to just plucked off the shelf. I was looking at some glowbugs a while ago and some of them are absolutely gorgeous...
I hesitate to say it will never happen again but precautions have been taken. I really don't believe it came in through the aerials last time and I don't think it will happen through this mast.
Soldato
A local club isn't a problem for me Feek, it's only about a 1 mile from me.
Just had a googled for 'Foundation licence', found a old test paper, those questions are so easy.
Just had a googled for 'Foundation licence', found a old test paper, those questions are so easy.
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Not as much as I'd like. Years ago I used to build more but didn't really play much radio for a while. Now I've got back in to it again I'm constructing more. I've built three or four of those Morse transmitters and I'm partway through an 80m (3.5MHz) transceiver.
I put together a dummy load earlier this year. That's a 50 ohm non inductive load for transmitter testing.
I took 30 x 1k5 ohm resistors.
Soldered them between two pieces of breadboard - The more solder the better as these are going to have a lot of power up them.
Then they got mounted to a socket fixed to the lid of a paint tin.
And submerged in oil.
90 watts up, nothing back.
Just the resistors in air are rated at 100w, soaked in oil I should be able to run up to 400 watts for a few seconds without any problem.
Building stuff is fun
I know some Unis are struggling with radio clubs but it's worth asking around. If you're going to be anywhere near Cambridge, get yourself involved with Camb-Hams, they're a great bunch of guys, I know some of them very well.
Thanks, I think so too
Excellent - I wonder which club it is?A local club isn't a problem for me Feek, it's only about a 1 mile from me.