My Week in Radio
- upgraded my meshtastic nodes: faster bluetooth communication
- new 3rd party firmware on the Radtel RT-880G
- nice scanning, HF receive, spectrum analyzer
- APRS beacon
- used the spectrum analyzer to observe which of my car remotes were working and which needed a battery
- flagpole with my yagi snapped in the wind
- have a cool video of it whipping around in the wind and breaking
- digital until I repair that
- i have a military surplus mast I may try next
- Playing a little 1W FT8, turned it up to 4W to get to Chile
Others
- WA3VEE, Ron:
- Computers in place for logging on Winter Field Day
- KC3SCY, Luke:
- AWA Bruce Kelley QSO Party
using 1929 and before gear
- using a Type 10
- made 21 contacts in this first weekend
- using Drake R4A as receiver
- building another 1929 transmitter
- AWA Bruce Kelley QSO Party
using 1929 and before gear
- NA3CW, Chuck:
- antenna survey at the field day site
- 2 80m antennas on the same axis
- 2 40m antennas on the same axis
- each for CW and phone.
- no more patch panel needed
- antennas will run up and down with halyards
- antenna survey at the field day site
- KC3OOK, Bill:
- South control for Simplex Net on Saturday
- learning to use a beam for the net
- South control for Simplex Net on Saturday
- AF3Z, Jim:
- 10M CW at 1pm in the afternoon
- chatted with Colorado and Marshall Islands
- vertical dipole
- 10M CW at 1pm in the afternoon
- KA3GLI, David:
- measured outside for a wire antenna and run of coax
- setting up a listening station
- need to build an unun for the new antenna
- KD3BWL, Frank:
- using new rig to work repeaters in Chester County
- W3DIB, Greg:
- Good to hear about computers for Field Day
Questions
- KC3OOK, Bill:
- He has new test equipment from Ron, but needs BNC cables for it. What cable/connectors should he get?
- WA3VEE, Ron:
- You want 50 ohm cables for radio work.
- TV would be 75 ohms
- 6ft BNC-BNC plus some adapters
- NA3CW, Chuck:
- Avoid cheap cables: poorly shielded/crimped
- Only trusted the cables he made
- RG58 is fine for anything 100W or below.
- WA3KFT, John:
- SO-239 with adapter to BNC works fine
- stranded center conductor will be nice and flexible
- KC3OOK, Bill:
- will make some of his own cables
- AA3LH, Leon:
- Likes dipoles, center-fed with ladder line. Should there be a couple twists in the ladder line?
- NA3CW, Chuck:
- twists are recommended to keep it from catching much RFI in receive. it exposes both conductors to the noise, so it balances.
- good signals on balanced lines are differential
- AF3Z, Jim:
- twists also help with wind
- he has a twist ever 2-3 feet.
- NA3CW, Chuck:
- be careful to not cause crossovers
- AA3LH, Leon:
- has 25 feet and about 4 twists.
- it flops in the wind some
- AF3Z, Jim:
- at field day site, each set of antennas are “coaxial”, so in a line, end-to-end, to give them the same direction, but minimal interaction.
- W3GMS, Joe:
- antennas will be orthogonal (perpendicular)
- 80M will run east-west to transmit north/south
- 40M will run north-south to transmit east-west
- antennas will be orthogonal (perpendicular)