[Spud6]

We got any enthusiasts in the BGR fam?

[Hoot Gibson]

We got any enthusiasts in the BGR fam?

I have a General ticket. I've been licensed for years but only started accumulating equipment over the past couple of years. My main interest right now is FT-8 and HF antennas. I have a Yaesu FT891, a Chameleon P-Loop antenna, a Chameleon EMCOMM III Portable antenna, a Wolf River Silver Bullet Platinum 1000 antennas, a Yaesu HT, a Baeofeng HT, and various other related equipment.

I am currently living in an apartment, which is why I have a collection of portable equipment. At some point, I plan to live where I can raise an antenna farm. I am also planning to upgrade to an Extra class license this year. I allowed my first Technician license expire after 20 years without becoming active, so I took the Technician and General tests last year.

[vector#1]

He means he lives in his mommy's basement

[Hoot Gibson]

He means he lives in his mommy's basement

Leave your insults at the door of the Politics forum, vector. This is not the place for them and I doubt that you know anything about ham radio to contribute to this thread. Thanks in advance.

[Spud6]

That’s awesome Hoot. I randomly got a Baofeng UV/5RA for Christmas and have watched YouTube videos extensively since Christmas on ham radio. Pretty interesting thing to get into and I started studying for my test for my tech license also. But with Covid no where around me doing any types of testing right now so I don’t know when I’ll be able to take it

[Hoot Gibson]

That’s awesome Hoot. I randomly got a Baofeng UV/5RA for Christmas and have watched YouTube videos extensively since Christmas on ham radio. Pretty interesting thing to get into and I started studying for my test for my tech license also. But with Covid no where around me doing any types of testing right now so I don’t know when I’ll be able to take it

That's a tough break getting interested in the hobby at a time that you can't take the license exam. There are many branches of the hobby and there are a lot of activities that you could choose to participate in to learn while you wait to become licensed. Depending on where you live, there may be an active ham radio club in your area that is using Zoom, Skype, etc, for meetings. I belong to the Virginia Wireless Society, which is a pretty large club in northern Virginia. There is a Lake Cumberland club (LCARA) that posts about club activities on Youtube pretty frequently. My guess is that most clubs would welcome you before you get your license because of the COVID situation. There are small local clubs spread throughout the country.

In fact, if you become active in a club, the members may be able to administer the test for you. Testing is done by volunteer organizations that are approved by the FCC. Many clubs include members who are Volunteer Examiners. Most clubs are affiliated with the ARRL, so that would be the first place to check for clubs in your area.

The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) is a great source of information (ARRL) for the hobby.

I will post additional details about the hobby in this thread.

[Spud6]

That’s awesome Hoot. I randomly got a Baofeng UV/5RA for Christmas and have watched YouTube videos extensively since Christmas on ham radio. Pretty interesting thing to get into and I started studying for my test for my tech license also. But with Covid no where around me doing any types of testing right now so I don’t know when I’ll be able to take it

That's a tough break getting interested in the hobby at a time that you can't take the license exam. There are many branches of the hobby and there are a lot of activities that you could choose to participate in to learn while you wait to become licensed. Depending on where you live, there may be an active ham radio club in your area that is using Zoom, Skype, etc, for meetings. I belong to the Virginia Wireless Society, which is a pretty large club in northern Virginia. There is a Lake Cumberland club (LCARA) that posts about club activities on Youtube pretty frequently. My guess is that most clubs would welcome you before you get your license because of the COVID situation. There are small local clubs spread throughout the country.

In fact, if you become active in a club, the members may be able to administer the test for you. Testing is done by volunteer organizations that are approved by the FCC. Many clubs include members who are Volunteer Examiners. Most clubs are affiliated with the ARRL, so that would be the first place to check for clubs in your area.

The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) is a great source of information (ARRL) for the hobby.

I will post additional details about the hobby in this thread.

I’m in Pikeville, KY. Have asked just about everyone I know about a club in my area but haven’t been able to find one in Pikeville or around Pikeville. I’ve currently programmed my Baofeng to monitor a repeater that is near by me but only hear a couple things here and there throughout the day. Doesn’t seem to be too active. But I can’t wait till I get my license so that I can transmit on the airwaves and try building up the community around me.

[Hoot Gibson]

That’s awesome Hoot. I randomly got a Baofeng UV/5RA for Christmas and have watched YouTube videos extensively since Christmas on ham radio. Pretty interesting thing to get into and I started studying for my test for my tech license also. But with Covid no where around me doing any types of testing right now so I don’t know when I’ll be able to take it

That's a tough break getting interested in the hobby at a time that you can't take the license exam. There are many branches of the hobby and there are a lot of activities that you could choose to participate in to learn while you wait to become licensed. Depending on where you live, there may be an active ham radio club in your area that is using Zoom, Skype, etc, for meetings. I belong to the Virginia Wireless Society, which is a pretty large club in northern Virginia. There is a Lake Cumberland club (LCARA) that posts about club activities on Youtube pretty frequently. My guess is that most clubs would welcome you before you get your license because of the COVID situation. There are small local clubs spread throughout the country.

In fact, if you become active in a club, the members may be able to administer the test for you. Testing is done by volunteer organizations that are approved by the FCC. Many clubs include members who are Volunteer Examiners. Most clubs are affiliated with the ARRL, so that would be the first place to check for clubs in your area.

The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) is a great source of information (ARRL) for the hobby.

I will post additional details about the hobby in this thread.

I’m in Pikeville, KY. Have asked just about everyone I know about a club in my area but haven’t been able to find one in Pikeville or around Pikeville. I’ve currently programmed my Baofeng to monitor a repeater that is near by me but only hear a couple things here and there throughout the day. Doesn’t seem to be too active. But I can’t wait till I get my license so that I can transmit on the airwaves and try building up the community around me.

Most repeaters are not very busy even in areas where there are lots of hams. There is a lot of activity that uses DMR, D-STAR (mostly Icom), and Fusion (Yaesu) digital networks. These systems connect repeaters via the internet. The details of each system are too complex to get into here but the popularity of these systems is probably the main reason that repeaters do not seem to be as busy as they once were. Using them requires more expensive equipment but you can connect to them through a repeater from home or from a vehicle in Kentucky and communicate with people driving in Australia, for example. Of these three systems, DMR is the cheapest but more difficult to configure. Fusion and D-STAR are simpler to configure but the equipment is more expensive.

Repeaters get busier when clubs volunteer to provide communications for special events like marathons.

I believe that the closest clubs to Pikeville are located in Hazard, Paintsville, and Louisa.

You might want to consider buying a relatively inexpensive receiver to get more familiar with the various ham bands and modes. Prices for Software Defined Radios (SDRs) start at under $30 and fairly good quality SDRs can be purchased in the $100 to $200 range. Using an SDR would give you some experience designing and building antennas. A decent SDR will give pretty good results when paired with resonant antennas.

One piece of equipment that forgot to mention in my first post is the antenna analyzer. If you find that you enjoy designing and building antennas, and antenna analyzer is invaluable but they are not cheap. The most popular quality models are made by RigExpert, MFJ, and Comet. They are not a necessity but they are big time savers and provide a great deal of information about the performance of your antennas.

If your ultimate goal is to operate on the HF bands and your budget allows it, you might want to skip the SDR and buy either an HR transceiver or a so-called shack in a box, which covers HF, VHF, and UHF frequencies. You could use the radio as a receiver until you get your license. Deciding on a particular brand and model for your first transceiver will depend on how you plan to use it. If you are interested in portable operation, then you will want a smaller, lighter transceiver. You really can't go wrong with a transceiver from one of the Japanese "big 3," Icom, Yaesu, and Kenwood. They all offer a wide range of radios at comparable price points. There are other quality brands such as Elecraft, FlexRadio, but they are mostly higher end radios. There are also cheaper Chinese brands such as Xiegu but you would probably be more satisfied with a Big 3 radio as a first rig.

[Spud6]

That’s awesome Hoot. I randomly got a Baofeng UV/5RA for Christmas and have watched YouTube videos extensively since Christmas on ham radio. Pretty interesting thing to get into and I started studying for my test for my tech license also. But with Covid no where around me doing any types of testing right now so I don’t know when I’ll be able to take it

That's a tough break getting interested in the hobby at a time that you can't take the license exam. There are many branches of the hobby and there are a lot of activities that you could choose to participate in to learn while you wait to become licensed. Depending on where you live, there may be an active ham radio club in your area that is using Zoom, Skype, etc, for meetings. I belong to the Virginia Wireless Society, which is a pretty large club in northern Virginia. There is a Lake Cumberland club (LCARA) that posts about club activities on Youtube pretty frequently. My guess is that most clubs would welcome you before you get your license because of the COVID situation. There are small local clubs spread throughout the country.

In fact, if you become active in a club, the members may be able to administer the test for you. Testing is done by volunteer organizations that are approved by the FCC. Many clubs include members who are Volunteer Examiners. Most clubs are affiliated with the ARRL, so that would be the first place to check for clubs in your area.

The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) is a great source of information (ARRL) for the hobby.

I will post additional details about the hobby in this thread.

I’m in Pikeville, KY. Have asked just about everyone I know about a club in my area but haven’t been able to find one in Pikeville or around Pikeville. I’ve currently programmed my Baofeng to monitor a repeater that is near by me but only hear a couple things here and there throughout the day. Doesn’t seem to be too active. But I can’t wait till I get my license so that I can transmit on the airwaves and try building up the community around me.

Most repeaters are not very busy even in areas where there are lots of hams. There is a lot of activity that uses DMR, D-STAR (mostly Icom), and Fusion (Yaesu) digital networks. These systems connect repeaters via the internet. The details of each system are too complex to get into here but the popularity of these systems is probably the main reason that repeaters do not seem to be as busy as they once were. Using them requires more expensive equipment but you can connect to them through a repeater from home or from a vehicle in Kentucky and communicate with people driving in Australia, for example. Of these three systems, DMR is the cheapest but more difficult to configure. Fusion and D-STAR are simpler to configure but the equipment is more expensive.

Repeaters get busier when clubs volunteer to provide communications for special events like marathons.

I believe that the closest clubs to Pikeville are located in Hazard, Paintsville, and Louisa.

You might want to consider buying a relatively inexpensive receiver to get more familiar with the various ham bands and modes. Prices for Software Defined Radios (SDRs) start at under $30 and fairly good quality SDRs can be purchased in the $100 to $200 range. Using an SDR would give you some experience designing and building antennas. A decent SDR will give pretty good results when paired with resonant antennas.

One piece of equipment that forgot to mention in my first post is the antenna analyzer. If you find that you enjoy designing and building antennas, and antenna analyzer is invaluable but they are not cheap. The most popular quality models are made by RigExpert, MFJ, and Comet. They are not a necessity but they are big time savers and provide a great deal of information about the performance of your antennas.

If your ultimate goal is to operate on the HF bands and your budget allows it, you might want to skip the SDR and buy either an HR transceiver or a so-called shack in a box, which covers HF, VHF, and UHF frequencies. You could use the radio as a receiver until you get your license. Deciding on a particular brand and model for your first transceiver will depend on how you plan to use it. If you are interested in portable operation, then you will want a smaller, lighter transceiver. You really can't go wrong with a transceiver from one of the Japanese "big 3," Icom, Yaesu, and Kenwood. They all offer a wide range of radios at comparable price points. There are other quality brands such as Elecraft, FlexRadio, but they are mostly higher end radios. There are also cheaper Chinese brands such as Xiegu but you would probably be more satisfied with a Big 3 radio as a first rig.

What incredible information Hoot. Thanks! 

My goal is to listen to local fire departments, state highway departments and eventually talk on the airwaves once I can get my license. But I don’t want a difficult setup in my house or start a antenna farm. Just a little side show hobby that would be cool to have if god forbid everything that revolves around the internet and cell phones goes haywire I still have a way of communicating till the fix for those things are completed.

[Hoot Gibson]

That’s awesome Hoot. I randomly got a Baofeng UV/5RA for Christmas and have watched YouTube videos extensively since Christmas on ham radio. Pretty interesting thing to get into and I started studying for my test for my tech license also. But with Covid no where around me doing any types of testing right now so I don’t know when I’ll be able to take it

That's a tough break getting interested in the hobby at a time that you can't take the license exam. There are many branches of the hobby and there are a lot of activities that you could choose to participate in to learn while you wait to become licensed. Depending on where you live, there may be an active ham radio club in your area that is using Zoom, Skype, etc, for meetings. I belong to the Virginia Wireless Society, which is a pretty large club in northern Virginia. There is a Lake Cumberland club (LCARA) that posts about club activities on Youtube pretty frequently. My guess is that most clubs would welcome you before you get your license because of the COVID situation. There are small local clubs spread throughout the country.

In fact, if you become active in a club, the members may be able to administer the test for you. Testing is done by volunteer organizations that are approved by the FCC. Many clubs include members who are Volunteer Examiners. Most clubs are affiliated with the ARRL, so that would be the first place to check for clubs in your area.

The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) is a great source of information (ARRL) for the hobby.

I will post additional details about the hobby in this thread.

I’m in Pikeville, KY. Have asked just about everyone I know about a club in my area but haven’t been able to find one in Pikeville or around Pikeville. I’ve currently programmed my Baofeng to monitor a repeater that is near by me but only hear a couple things here and there throughout the day. Doesn’t seem to be too active. But I can’t wait till I get my license so that I can transmit on the airwaves and try building up the community around me.

Most repeaters are not very busy even in areas where there are lots of hams. There is a lot of activity that uses DMR, D-STAR (mostly Icom), and Fusion (Yaesu) digital networks. These systems connect repeaters via the internet. The details of each system are too complex to get into here but the popularity of these systems is probably the main reason that repeaters do not seem to be as busy as they once were. Using them requires more expensive equipment but you can connect to them through a repeater from home or from a vehicle in Kentucky and communicate with people driving in Australia, for example. Of these three systems, DMR is the cheapest but more difficult to configure. Fusion and D-STAR are simpler to configure but the equipment is more expensive.

Repeaters get busier when clubs volunteer to provide communications for special events like marathons.

I believe that the closest clubs to Pikeville are located in Hazard, Paintsville, and Louisa.

You might want to consider buying a relatively inexpensive receiver to get more familiar with the various ham bands and modes. Prices for Software Defined Radios (SDRs) start at under $30 and fairly good quality SDRs can be purchased in the $100 to $200 range. Using an SDR would give you some experience designing and building antennas. A decent SDR will give pretty good results when paired with resonant antennas.

One piece of equipment that forgot to mention in my first post is the antenna analyzer. If you find that you enjoy designing and building antennas, and antenna analyzer is invaluable but they are not cheap. The most popular quality models are made by RigExpert, MFJ, and Comet. They are not a necessity but they are big time savers and provide a great deal of information about the performance of your antennas.

If your ultimate goal is to operate on the HF bands and your budget allows it, you might want to skip the SDR and buy either an HR transceiver or a so-called shack in a box, which covers HF, VHF, and UHF frequencies. You could use the radio as a receiver until you get your license. Deciding on a particular brand and model for your first transceiver will depend on how you plan to use it. If you are interested in portable operation, then you will want a smaller, lighter transceiver. You really can't go wrong with a transceiver from one of the Japanese "big 3," Icom, Yaesu, and Kenwood. They all offer a wide range of radios at comparable price points. There are other quality brands such as Elecraft, FlexRadio, but they are mostly higher end radios. There are also cheaper Chinese brands such as Xiegu but you would probably be more satisfied with a Big 3 radio as a first rig.

What incredible information Hoot. Thanks! 

My goal is to listen to local fire departments, state highway departments and eventually talk on the airwaves once I can get my license. But I don’t want a difficult setup in my house or start a antenna farm. Just a little side show hobby that would be cool to have if god forbid everything that revolves around the internet and cell phones goes haywire I still have a way of communicating till the fix for those things are completed.

You're welcome, Spud. I recommend that you consider getting an SDR for the versatility and educational value. I have an older SDRPlay SDR but have not upgraded to the latest software featured in the video below. Something that you need to understand about antennas and SDRs is that because of the wide frequency range of the SDRs, a single antenna will not give optimal results on multiple bands. For example, my Wolf River Coils Silver Bullet 1000 performs well on all of the HF bands of 80 meters through 10 meters but would perform poorly on VHF and UHF bands.

There are some receive-only antennas such as the discone that work on a fairly wide range of higher frequencies. There are other multiband antennas that work on bands having harmonic frequency relationships with each other. It is often said that all antennas are compromise antennas. There is no such thing as a perfect, one size fits all antenna. You could probably use a discone antenna to receive some of the emergency services bands that you mentioned and a multiband HF antenna such as the Silver Bullet 1000 for HF bands. DX Commander makes vertical fan dipole antennas that get excellent reviews and cover multiple HF bands without the need to retune for each band.

I am going to upgrade my software to get the scanner plug-in that is demoed in the following video. The software is free and the SDRPlay SDRs start at $120. The SDRs are available from the following vendors, both of which generally have better prices than Amazon:

Ham Radio Outlet

GigaParts

Here are links to two of the HF antennas that I have mentioned. There are many commercially available antennas but simple wire dipole antennas work well, are fairly easy to build, and relatively cheap.

DX Commander

Wolf River Coils

Below is a great source of ham radio equipment reviews.

eHam.net


[Video: ]

[Spud6]

That's a tough break getting interested in the hobby at a time that you can't take the license exam. There are many branches of the hobby and there are a lot of activities that you could choose to participate in to learn while you wait to become licensed. Depending on where you live, there may be an active ham radio club in your area that is using Zoom, Skype, etc, for meetings. I belong to the Virginia Wireless Society, which is a pretty large club in northern Virginia. There is a Lake Cumberland club (LCARA) that posts about club activities on Youtube pretty frequently. My guess is that most clubs would welcome you before you get your license because of the COVID situation. There are small local clubs spread throughout the country.

In fact, if you become active in a club, the members may be able to administer the test for you. Testing is done by volunteer organizations that are approved by the FCC. Many clubs include members who are Volunteer Examiners. Most clubs are affiliated with the ARRL, so that would be the first place to check for clubs in your area.

The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) is a great source of information (ARRL) for the hobby.

I will post additional details about the hobby in this thread.

I’m in Pikeville, KY. Have asked just about everyone I know about a club in my area but haven’t been able to find one in Pikeville or around Pikeville. I’ve currently programmed my Baofeng to monitor a repeater that is near by me but only hear a couple things here and there throughout the day. Doesn’t seem to be too active. But I can’t wait till I get my license so that I can transmit on the airwaves and try building up the community around me.

Most repeaters are not very busy even in areas where there are lots of hams. There is a lot of activity that uses DMR, D-STAR (mostly Icom), and Fusion (Yaesu) digital networks. These systems connect repeaters via the internet. The details of each system are too complex to get into here but the popularity of these systems is probably the main reason that repeaters do not seem to be as busy as they once were. Using them requires more expensive equipment but you can connect to them through a repeater from home or from a vehicle in Kentucky and communicate with people driving in Australia, for example. Of these three systems, DMR is the cheapest but more difficult to configure. Fusion and D-STAR are simpler to configure but the equipment is more expensive.

Repeaters get busier when clubs volunteer to provide communications for special events like marathons.

I believe that the closest clubs to Pikeville are located in Hazard, Paintsville, and Louisa.

You might want to consider buying a relatively inexpensive receiver to get more familiar with the various ham bands and modes. Prices for Software Defined Radios (SDRs) start at under $30 and fairly good quality SDRs can be purchased in the $100 to $200 range. Using an SDR would give you some experience designing and building antennas. A decent SDR will give pretty good results when paired with resonant antennas.

One piece of equipment that forgot to mention in my first post is the antenna analyzer. If you find that you enjoy designing and building antennas, and antenna analyzer is invaluable but they are not cheap. The most popular quality models are made by RigExpert, MFJ, and Comet. They are not a necessity but they are big time savers and provide a great deal of information about the performance of your antennas.

If your ultimate goal is to operate on the HF bands and your budget allows it, you might want to skip the SDR and buy either an HR transceiver or a so-called shack in a box, which covers HF, VHF, and UHF frequencies. You could use the radio as a receiver until you get your license. Deciding on a particular brand and model for your first transceiver will depend on how you plan to use it. If you are interested in portable operation, then you will want a smaller, lighter transceiver. You really can't go wrong with a transceiver from one of the Japanese "big 3," Icom, Yaesu, and Kenwood. They all offer a wide range of radios at comparable price points. There are other quality brands such as Elecraft, FlexRadio, but they are mostly higher end radios. There are also cheaper Chinese brands such as Xiegu but you would probably be more satisfied with a Big 3 radio as a first rig.

What incredible information Hoot. Thanks! 

My goal is to listen to local fire departments, state highway departments and eventually talk on the airwaves once I can get my license. But I don’t want a difficult setup in my house or start a antenna farm. Just a little side show hobby that would be cool to have if god forbid everything that revolves around the internet and cell phones goes haywire I still have a way of communicating till the fix for those things are completed.

You're welcome, Spud. I recommend that you consider getting an SDR for the versatility and educational value. I have an older SDRPlay SDR but have not upgraded to the latest software featured in the video below. Something that you need to understand about antennas and SDRs is that because of the wide frequency range of the SDRs, a single antenna will not give optimal results on multiple bands. For example, my Wolf River Coils Silver Bullet 1000 performs well on all of the HF bands of 80 meters through 10 meters but would perform poorly on VHF and UHF bands.

There are some receive-only antennas such as the discone that work on a fairly wide range of higher frequencies. There are other multiband antennas that work on bands having harmonic frequency relationships with each other. It is often said that all antennas are compromise antennas. There is no such thing as a perfect, one size fits all antenna. You could probably use a discone antenna to receive some of the emergency services bands that you mentioned and a multiband HF antenna such as the Silver Bullet 1000 for HF bands. DX Commander makes vertical fan dipole antennas that get excellent reviews and cover multiple HF bands without the need to retune for each band.

I am going to upgrade my software to get the scanner plug-in that is demoed in the following video. The software is free and the SDRPlay SDRs start at $120. The SDRs are available from the following vendors, both of which generally have better prices than Amazon:

Ham Radio Outlet

GigaParts

Here are links to two of the HF antennas that I have mentioned. There are many commercially available antennas but simple wire dipole antennas work well, are fairly easy to build, and relatively cheap.

DX Commander

Wolf River Coils

Below is a great source of ham radio equipment reviews.

eHam.net


[Video: ]

That’s something I need to study up on. Like the difference between analog, digital, SDR, d-star, and there’s like so many other names I’ve heard that I have no clue what they are.

[Westside]

I took the test to get my HAM radio licence in a class in high school. I didn't study or really try at all. I had no interest in it. Needless to say I failed the test.

[Spud6]

I took the test to get my HAM radio licence in a class in high school.  I didn't study or really try at all.  I had no interest in it.  Needless to say I failed the test.

Haha I’ve been studying. It’s pretty thorough stuff but it isn’t that hard to memorize.

[Hoot Gibson]

The Technician license test is very easy to pass with just a few hours of study memorizing the questions and answers but it is really worth the extra effort to get the General license. The General test is more difficult because there are more technical questions and some math involved but anybody who is willing to take practice tests until they can consistently score 90 percent or better won't have any problem passing.

The Extra class test contains more questions and much more theory than the General test does.

You can memorize questions and answers for all of the tests but the tests cover a lot of topics that you really need to know to properly operate your equipment, so IMO, it pays to learn the concepts instead of spending more time memorizing everything without actually learning the basic principles.

[Hoot Gibson]

Here is a list of some of the ham radio YouTube channels that I subscribe to. There are many good channels out there but these are some of my favorites.

Ham Radio Crash Course - Lots of product reviews. Josh does an especially good job teaching basic concepts for new hams. His videos include several covering BaeFeng handheld transceivers.

DX Commander - Callum is a unique individual. He is a British ham enthusiast who manufactures and sells the populq4 DX Commander line of vertical multi-band antennas. He a prolific video creator, from goofy, entertaining videos to very detailed technical videos on antenna design. Although he does discuss his business and products, he does a great job explaining general principles of all sorts of antennas. 

KB9VBR Antennas

OH8STN Ham Radio - Julian is a native of the U.S. who lives in Finland. His specialties are QRP (low power) portable operation - especially for emergency communications. He is an expert on operating in extreme environments and he actually tests his setups in Finland during the winter, sometimes near the Arctic Circle.

David Casler - This is a great web site for new and experienced hams. The site includes free license review videos, as well as product reviews and other useful content.

Outdoors On The Air - Tracy is a ham who lives in Ontario. His specialty is portable QRP operation.

Ham Nation - This is a very well done channel that features some big names in the ham radio community. Bob Heil and Gordon West are regulars on the show. Celebrity ham radio operators such as Joe Walsh (rock and roll) make occasional appearances. 

Kevin Loughin

AmateurLogic.TV

K6UDA

Signal Search

[Hoot Gibson]

Spud, if you want to get a feel for SDR receivers, there are SDRs available online. Below is a link to one located in Ottawa, Ontario, that I can confirm is working very well this morning. The SDR is connected to a very long receive-onlyantenna mounted on the ground called a Beveridge antenna.

At this time, the 20 meter band is coming in very well. For a typical day at this time in the 11-year sunspot cycle, the 20 meter band allows the longest contacts during the daytime hours. The 40 meter band has a daytime range in the 300 to 500 mile range. The 80 meter band is also a good daytime band for regional contacts. At night, the 160, 80, and 40 meter bands are the most active bands.

When sunspot activity is higher, the higher frequency bands are "open" for long distance contacts more often. (6, 10, 12, 15, and 17 meter bands) Generally, VHF and UHF bands are line-of-sight bands, which is why repeaters are commonly used for them. However, VHF and UHF are very reliable. If you talk to somebody on those bands on one day, then chances are you will be able to contact them on a regular basis. With the HF bands, you may be able to contact New Zealand today but not be able to contact a station 10 miles away. Some areas get skipped that are located between the range of ground waves and areas that are reachable by skipping signals off of the ionosphere.

Kiwi SDR Ottawa, Ontario

For voice communications on HF bands below 10 Mghz, use AM Lower Sideband (LSB), for higher HF frequencies, use AM Upper Sideband (USB).

I have not used online SDRs much but this is a great way to get familiar with the ham HF bands and to learn about SDRs without spending any money.

[Spud6]

The Technician license test is very easy to pass with just a few hours of study memorizing the questions and answers but it is really worth the extra effort to get the General license. The General test is more difficult because there are more technical questions and some math involved but anybody who is willing to take practice tests until they can consistently score 90 percent or better won't have any problem passing.

The Extra class test contains more questions and much more theory than the General test does.

You can memorize questions and answers for all of the tests but the tests cover a lot of topics that you really need to know to properly operate your equipment, so IMO, it pays to learn the concepts instead of spending more time memorizing everything without actually learning the basic principles.

This is the approach I have taken. I've been trying to learn the material and not so much just memorize it for the sake of passing an exam for equipment I won't know how to use. So that's why I haven't really been in a hurry to get my license.

[Hoot Gibson]

The Technician license test is very easy to pass with just a few hours of study memorizing the questions and answers but it is really worth the extra effort to get the General license. The General test is more difficult because there are more technical questions and some math involved but anybody who is willing to take practice tests until they can consistently score 90 percent or better won't have any problem passing.

The Extra class test contains more questions and much more theory than the General test does.

You can memorize questions and answers for all of the tests but the tests cover a lot of topics that you really need to know to properly operate your equipment, so IMO, it pays to learn the concepts instead of spending more time memorizing everything without actually learning the basic principles.

This is the approach I have taken. I've been trying to learn the material and not so much just memorize it for the sake of passing an exam for equipment I won't know how to use. So that's why I haven't really been in a hurry to get my license.

I think that you will enjoy messing around with an online SDR. I have found that many online SDRs are actually off line but the one that I linked above is the best one that I have found. It covers all of the HF ham bands, AM broadcast band, and shortwave broadcast bands. You will learn a lot about radio signal propagation by listening to the bands at different times of day. It will also make it easier to learn about the bands and frequencies.

There are times when conditions of the ionosphere cause poor signal propagation. On the HF bands, typically there will be some activity on the 40 and 80 meter bands even when conditions are poor. As conditions improve, then the higher frequency bands open up. When conditions are excellent, it is possible to talk around the world with very little power on the 10 meter band. Sunspot activity is the biggest variable in radio propagation on the HF bands. The more sunspot activity, the higher the "Maximum Usable Frequency" is.

Also, on most bands, there are radio contests held almost every weekend. Clubs and individuals compete for points awarded according to the rules for each contest. For example, there might be a contest to make contact with as many counties of the thirteen original colonies as possible over a weekend. I've never been interested in contesting but it is a very popular ham activity.

[Spud6]

The Technician license test is very easy to pass with just a few hours of study memorizing the questions and answers but it is really worth the extra effort to get the General license. The General test is more difficult because there are more technical questions and some math involved but anybody who is willing to take practice tests until they can consistently score 90 percent or better won't have any problem passing.

The Extra class test contains more questions and much more theory than the General test does.

You can memorize questions and answers for all of the tests but the tests cover a lot of topics that you really need to know to properly operate your equipment, so IMO, it pays to learn the concepts instead of spending more time memorizing everything without actually learning the basic principles.

This is the approach I have taken. I've been trying to learn the material and not so much just memorize it for the sake of passing an exam for equipment I won't know how to use. So that's why I haven't really been in a hurry to get my license.

I think that you will enjoy messing around with an online SDR. I have found that many online SDRs are actually off line but the one that I linked above is the best one that I have found. It covers all of the HF ham bands, AM broadcast band, and shortwave broadcast bands. You will learn a lot about radio signal propagation by listening to the bands at different times of day. It will also make it easier to learn about the bands and frequencies.

There are times when conditions of the ionosphere cause poor signal propagation. On the HF bands, typically there will be some activity on the 40 and 80 meter bands even when conditions are poor. As conditions improve, then the higher frequency bands open up. When conditions are excellent, it is possible to talk around the world with very little power on the 10 meter band. Sunspot activity is the biggest variable in radio propagation on the HF bands. The more sunspot activity, the higher the "Maximum Usable Frequency" is.

Also, on most bands, there are radio contests held almost every weekend. Clubs and individuals compete for points awarded according to the rules for each contest. For example, there might be a contest to make contact with as many counties of the thirteen original colonies as possible over a weekend. I've never been interested in contesting but it is a very popular ham activity.

Man, you are speaking Spanish to me Hoot and sounds like something that’ll take more than my UV-5RA to do lol. 

I have to find a group near me that can help with this information in person because I don’t retain stuff we’ll just by reading it

[Hoot Gibson]

The Technician license test is very easy to pass with just a few hours of study memorizing the questions and answers but it is really worth the extra effort to get the General license. The General test is more difficult because there are more technical questions and some math involved but anybody who is willing to take practice tests until they can consistently score 90 percent or better won't have any problem passing.

The Extra class test contains more questions and much more theory than the General test does.

You can memorize questions and answers for all of the tests but the tests cover a lot of topics that you really need to know to properly operate your equipment, so IMO, it pays to learn the concepts instead of spending more time memorizing everything without actually learning the basic principles.

This is the approach I have taken. I've been trying to learn the material and not so much just memorize it for the sake of passing an exam for equipment I won't know how to use. So that's why I haven't really been in a hurry to get my license.

I think that you will enjoy messing around with an online SDR. I have found that many online SDRs are actually off line but the one that I linked above is the best one that I have found. It covers all of the HF ham bands, AM broadcast band, and shortwave broadcast bands. You will learn a lot about radio signal propagation by listening to the bands at different times of day. It will also make it easier to learn about the bands and frequencies.

There are times when conditions of the ionosphere cause poor signal propagation. On the HF bands, typically there will be some activity on the 40 and 80 meter bands even when conditions are poor. As conditions improve, then the higher frequency bands open up. When conditions are excellent, it is possible to talk around the world with very little power on the 10 meter band. Sunspot activity is the biggest variable in radio propagation on the HF bands. The more sunspot activity, the higher the "Maximum Usable Frequency" is.

Also, on most bands, there are radio contests held almost every weekend. Clubs and individuals compete for points awarded according to the rules for each contest. For example, there might be a contest to make contact with as many counties of the thirteen original colonies as possible over a weekend. I've never been interested in contesting but it is a very popular ham activity.

Man, you are speaking Spanish to me Hoot and sounds like something that’ll take more than my UV-5RA to do lol. 

I have to find a group near me that can help with this information in person because I don’t retain stuff we’ll just by reading it

Just don't get discouraged with your UV-5RA. I expected the repeaters in this area to be very busy because of the large number of hams in this area. My experience has been that there is a little bit of activity during my commutes back and forth to work and a few scheduled "nets" but most of the time, the repeaters are very quiet.

There are a lot of great YouTube channels that explain the hobby much better than I can. There is a lot of jargon to learn about any technical hobby but most of the concepts are not as complicated as the jargon makes them sound. I think that understanding the basics of matching an antenna to your transceiver is probably the most important thing to learn when you are getting started with the hobby.

If you stick to using commercial antennas and a standing wave ratio (SWR) meter, you can get by without too much effort. But becoming knowledgeable about antennas and matching them to your radio can save a lot of money and give you much better radio performance and better bang for the buck.

Ham radio is a little like home stereo. You can buy a great stereo receiver but if you pair it with low end speakers, then the system won't sound very good. A modest radio connected to a quality homemade antenna using high quality coax cable will always outperform a high end radio connected to a poor antenna. with a high loss cable.

[Spud6]

The Technician license test is very easy to pass with just a few hours of study memorizing the questions and answers but it is really worth the extra effort to get the General license. The General test is more difficult because there are more technical questions and some math involved but anybody who is willing to take practice tests until they can consistently score 90 percent or better won't have any problem passing.

The Extra class test contains more questions and much more theory than the General test does.

You can memorize questions and answers for all of the tests but the tests cover a lot of topics that you really need to know to properly operate your equipment, so IMO, it pays to learn the concepts instead of spending more time memorizing everything without actually learning the basic principles.

This is the approach I have taken. I've been trying to learn the material and not so much just memorize it for the sake of passing an exam for equipment I won't know how to use. So that's why I haven't really been in a hurry to get my license.

I think that you will enjoy messing around with an online SDR. I have found that many online SDRs are actually off line but the one that I linked above is the best one that I have found. It covers all of the HF ham bands, AM broadcast band, and shortwave broadcast bands. You will learn a lot about radio signal propagation by listening to the bands at different times of day. It will also make it easier to learn about the bands and frequencies.

There are times when conditions of the ionosphere cause poor signal propagation. On the HF bands, typically there will be some activity on the 40 and 80 meter bands even when conditions are poor. As conditions improve, then the higher frequency bands open up. When conditions are excellent, it is possible to talk around the world with very little power on the 10 meter band. Sunspot activity is the biggest variable in radio propagation on the HF bands. The more sunspot activity, the higher the "Maximum Usable Frequency" is.

Also, on most bands, there are radio contests held almost every weekend. Clubs and individuals compete for points awarded according to the rules for each contest. For example, there might be a contest to make contact with as many counties of the thirteen original colonies as possible over a weekend. I've never been interested in contesting but it is a very popular ham activity.

Man, you are speaking Spanish to me Hoot and sounds like something that’ll take more than my UV-5RA to do lol. 

I have to find a group near me that can help with this information in person because I don’t retain stuff we’ll just by reading it

Just don't get discouraged with your UV-5RA. I expected the repeaters in this area to be very busy because of the large number of hams in this area. My experience has been that there is a little bit of activity during my commutes back and forth to work and a few scheduled "nets" but most of the time, the repeaters are very quiet.

There are a lot of great YouTube channels that explain the hobby much better than I can. There is a lot of jargon to learn about any technical hobby but most of the concepts are not as complicated as the jargon makes them sound. I think that understanding the basics of matching an antenna to your transceiver is probably the most important thing to learn when you are getting started with the hobby.

If you stick to using commercial antennas and a standing wave ratio (SWR) meter, you can get by without too much effort. But becoming knowledgeable about antennas and matching them to your radio can save a lot of money and give you much better radio performance and better bang for the buck.

Ham radio is a little like home stereo. You can buy a great stereo receiver but if you pair it with low end speakers, then the system won't sound very good. A modest radio connected to a quality homemade antenna using high quality coax cable will always outperform a high end radio connected to a poor antenna. with a high loss cable.

The repeater I can hit on top of our property(strip job) is about 8 miles away and you’ll randomly hear a guy say this is call sing monitoring on the name of the repeater and that’s all I’ve heard in about 5 hours of listening to it while rabbit hunting

[Hoot Gibson]

Here are couple more ham radio links that some of you may be interested in.

QRZ.com - Global call sign lookups, used equipment for sale, forums, etc. Next to the ARRL website, this may be the most popular and most useful ham radio website.

Paintsville Amateur Radio Community Services (A.R.C.S.) - This is a link to the Paintsville ham radio club. If you study for your exam and are willing to join, they have members who could administer the exam. Frank Wells is listed as the President of the club. I am not sure, but he was probably my high school chemistry teacher. Their meetings are currently being held online through ZOOM. (I also found a listing for a club in South Williamson but their website has not been updated since 2015, so they may no longer be active.)

[Spud6]

Here are couple more ham radio links that some of you may be interested in.

QRZ.com - Global call sign lookups, used equipment for sale, forums, etc. Next to the ARRL website, this may be the most popular and most useful ham radio website.

Paintsville Amateur Radio Community Services (A.R.C.S.) - This is a link to the Paintsville ham radio club. If you study for your exam and are willing to join, they have members who could administer the exam. Frank Wells is listed as the President of the club. I am not sure, but he was probably my high school chemistry teacher. Their meetings are currently being held online through ZOOM. (I also found a listing for a club in South Williamson but their website has not been updated since 2015, so they may no longer be active.)

I work in Paintsville so this is so awesome to see!