21 Tech Net: 2025-11-16

Portable Doublet

I built a doublet experiment at a park today.

  • split 6.25M of speaker wire to be a 12.5M-long, center-fed, non-resonant dipole, like my portable EFRW I usually carry.
  • the rest is balanced feed line
  • right to the radio
  • tuned 20M and barely tuned 40M on my X6100
  • 2W FT8 heard in africa and europe
  • next try it with a 4:1 or 9:1 balun to match better

My Weeks in Radio

  • feel lucky to be in this area with lots of repeaters and traffic
  • flagpole with YAGI snapped in the wind a week or 2 ago.
  • strung the slim jim in the tree a little higher
  • playing with nicsure firmware on the RadTel RT-880G.
  • saw a great youtube video on APRS bots:
    • MPAD being very versatile for: weather, callsign lookup, location report to email
    • ISS bot that tells you the next pass
  • listened to a couple sweepstakes contacts: to lazy to try to communicate that much exchange QRP SSB

Others

  • WB3LNY, George:
    • Tried La Grange repeater in KY, but no one answered.
    • Keep as active as we can.
    • Use it or lose it: they’ll take it away
    • linking repeaters may help generate more traffic
  • VE3HOH, Pete:
    • working on some Yaesu FT-100’s
      • predecessor to FT-857.
  • KA3TKW, Tom:
    • lunch Thursday this week
      • everyone share a radio gadget
      • lots of mini demonstrations
    • ISS scrubbed the SSTV after first couple days
    • ISS ham repeater is still good though
      • high pass monday, 4:45pm
    • Russian satellites doing SSTV
      • 435.890 ARCTICSAT-1: 2 good passes Monday morning
      • 5 minute cycle, so don’t be discouraged
  • KK4KKW, Steve:
    • many times can’t make contacts while traveling: 2M or 10M
    • hearing people on HF, but not making contacts
  • N7JMS, John:
    • digipi doing SSTV to get ARCTICSAT-1 images
  • K3DMM, Denny:
    • doing some of the sweepstakes
      • got Hawaii
    • definitely trying morning pass of arcticsat-1
    • trying for ISS pass as well
  • KD3BOV, John:
    • rain gutter antenna
    • getting started with the ICOM 2730

Swap and Shop

  • WB3LNY, george:
    • new bird dummy loads
  • VE3HOH, Pete:
    • rohn 25 tower sections:
    • guy wire and anti-sway section for the rohn 25
    • 432MHz yagis
    • 2M yagis for weak signal
    • 950ft of philly strand on a roll
  • KA3TKW, Tom:
    • shortware receivers
    • moto 25W transceivers
    • 24ft camper for sale: $1500
doublet  dipole  park  21  tech  net  ka3tkw 

See also