Passed Saturday. They asked if I wanted to take the General, so figured why not? Missed it by three questions, but I’m going back after it, next month!

I’ve been listening on my local 2m and 70cm for over 15 years. I pulled up my one of my original chirp to files from 2015, while programming my new radio. To say I’ve wanted this for a long time is an understatement. It became a bucket list item.

Not sure why I waited so long — but I’ve always told myself that I’d treat myself to a nice HT if I passed the exam. Looking forward to working 3 bands and talking to some of you, and tinkering with digital modes.

Today — the Baofengs became backups. Just waiting on my email and call sign and I’ll make my first CQ!

73

There’s this house a little ways down the road from me and there’s like 4 antenna towers attached to the roof. What are all of these? Is this guy really into radios?

Shaded the front for privacy.

Video demonstrates the issue, any idea what would cause this? TIA

So Im trying to get my ham radio license, about a month ago I was trying to read it all off of Hamstudy(?) and it’s all out of my head already, is there someone who produces YouTube videos that teaches it? I can’t sit down and read, my attention span has been rotten down over the years. I’ve already got my own Baofeng UV5R that I’ve been using to listen to my local Sheriff’s Office, so it’s not completely unfamiliar but I would like to transmit but the learning is murdering me piece by piece.

Recently passed my Technician's, I have a few of the Baofengs, 8W handhelds. I know range questions have been done to death, and details matter a lot, but I thought it was worth asking whether it was worth bothering trying repeaters while hiking. I see people suggesting a roll-up antenna, and the videos I've watched say increasing your own elevation helps a lot, try to get a clear line to the sky, etc. My impression is that you can probably get line of sight b/w 2 handhelds for simplex, and I've listened in on repeater chat at home with a handheld, after having replaced the stock antenna. At home I'm on a hill and there's a fairly close repeater, so it's hard to gauge what range would be in another situation.

If you were in, e.g., Yosemite, is it at all practical to imagine you could hit a repeater with a handheld, and if so, what equipment would you use to do so? My naive impression is that it's unlikely to impossible with a stock handheld and might be possible in best-case situations with the right gear and from peaks, within a modest range from the repeater's physical location. I'm not expecting the handhelds to take the place of a designated rescue call device or to work as walky-talkies, more curious if it would be worth trying and seeing if we could coordinate calls at designated times or similar. I do know both sides of a simplex need a license. Thanks for any advice.

Ham Radio is a difficult, rewarding, fun hobby. Many have said it’s a million hobbies in one, but I think it’s better to say it’s humans communicating, by any means necessary.

How can we, as operators and our many traditions, create new ways to communicate, create, and display our “remarks of a personal character”?

QSL Cards are a very unique, fun, way of stylizing oneself, to put a face or way for an operator to express themselves in modern radio.

As stated before, what are some ideas on how we can we as a hobby/community bring in new hams by expressing ourselves and making the “nerding out” of antenna theory, trying new things, and looking a little suspicious be less taboo. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had people ask me about “how I’m talking to martians” and “what are the aliens saying”.

How does a ham explain there are no aliens, just old guys?

-KO6JGF
(Picture of my tiny QSL collection including my own QSL card)

I was gifted a radio last year. It sat in a box, untouched all this time. I'm heading into surgery tomorrow (Achilles rebuild), so I'm going to be off my feet for a while. I'm going to use my recovery time to study and get certified. There's something about the hobby that's always interested me. My goal is to "walk away" (sorry, I couldn't resist) from this with, at least, my Technician license. I'm looking to learn something new and possibly join a new community.

One more note: while this may not seem like a big deal to some people, I've always had difficulty with certification tests, even the simplest ones. Tests are super difficult for my brain. I can be a subject matter expert at something, but once I have to take a test, my brain scrambles the information and I do not test well.

Found the perfect home logger for me, self hosting wavelog on my own server and interfacing through my phone or home over LAN. What do you guys think of this set up.

Radios: ICOM 706MKIIG W/ PSU

ICOM 2100-H 2M ONLY (NOT PICTURED)

YAESU VX-6

AUX EQUIPMENT:

MFJ-557 MORSE KEY

MFJ-945E MOBILE ANTENNATUNER

SAMLEX SEC1235 PSU

DIGIRIG

ANTENNA:

40M EFHW (40-10) UP TO 1KW

SOFWARE:

WAVELOG (LOGGER)

WINLINK EXPRESS

VARAHF

HAMRS PRO

JT SYNC

WSJTX

GRID TRACKER

Hi friends! I made the first of three operational practices to get my license, operating the beautiful ICOM 737 🙌🏻🤩

They can be as simple or as advanced as you want, and features you’ve added to a DIY build or just some feature you really love in a radio you purchased.

Just a quick follow-up to my previous post about Antenna Studio. I've now got the browser-based version up and running on my website!

You can try it here: https://summitradiodesigns.com

As mentioned previously, it's still fairly basic, and I plan to add more antenna types and functionality as I go.

To clarify its intended purpose, Antenna Studio isn't really meant to help you physically build an antenna or replace more sophisticated modeling software like MMANA. It's more about visualizing how different deployment configurations can affect an antenna's characteristics.

In my eyes, it's just another way for someone to digest information that's otherwise available through more complex programs, but in a way that's a little quicker and more approachable. For example, modeling a dipole at 10 different angles in MMANA would be fairly tedious for me, whereas here I can quickly adjust a few parameters and see how things change.

There's also some basic ground selection (dry/average/wet) to demonstrate the general effects of different ground conditions, but nothing remotely as comprehensive as dedicated modeling software. It's not intended to be a definitive scientific tool.

And to address the AI question thats already been asked in the last one:

Yes, I used AI to help develop it. No, I don't particularly care if that bothers someone.

I've coded both with and without AI for a handful of years. I started with a basic program and used AI to expand upon it, flesh out the design, build the UI, and implement features based on my direction, reviewing the backend code afterward.

Could I have spent days doing all of that manually? Absolutely. But I have a job, volunteer, and have a family with kids. If I can accomplish something in a fraction of the time and spend those extra hours with my family or actually enjoying my hobbies, I'm going to.

I'd rather make something useful and get back outside playing radio than spend days in front of my computer just to proudly announce that I didn't use the big bad AI.

Anyway, it's available now for anyone who wants to mess around with it. Still very much a work in progress, so feedback, suggestions, and ideas for additional antenna configurations are welcome!

73!

I'm really struggling to locate the source of this trash on the spectrum.

I'm currently using a powered loop antenna about 30 feet off the ground 10 feet from the peak of my roof. It's new. Ive been using the same loop antenna for months. Within the past month its gotten worse. I even replaced the whole rig. From the antenna right up to the SDR. Still getting this. I live on a farm away from any major source of noises that I can think of.

If I back off the gain it improves but never goes away. I've switched to Q-Branch still the same thing. I realize what I said there...anyhoo.... I also up-converted and still getting the same thing. It appears across the whole spectrum. I have 3 seperate SDR's and all 3 are producing this so it can't be them as far as I can tell.

I also tried my RADDY RF919 using the built in loop antenna, the external loop antenna as well as pluging in the powered loop antenna and all produce similar results.

I wont lie, I'm no expert, and I certainly don't pretend to be. I know a few things. Enough to get 7.200.00 in for the late light laughs. I would absolutely love to know if anyone has similar issues or ideas of how to get rid of this. It's not a show stopper but when I do have to up the power it becomes overwhelming to the front end of the receiver.

This is the spectrum from about 4-5 months ago:

And that's the band now.

I passed my Technician today, and I’m pretty happy about it. Although, I’m a little nervous about forgetting things and doing something wrong… I’m still excited though

Hi,

I’ve been experimenting with a web-based DX Cluster for amateur radio and would really appreciate some feedback from people who regularly use DX clusters.

It currently includes:

• live DX spots
• filtering by band and mode
• DX map with distance and bearing from your QTH
• listening through nearby public SDR receivers
• propagation indicators by band
• contest information
• callsign history and statistics
• mobile-friendly interface and an installable PWA

It’s completely free and doesn’t require registration.

I’m mainly interested in hearing what experienced operators think is useful, unnecessary, or missing.

https://s59dap.com/dx/

What would you improve or add?

73

Passed my General exam today and pretty excited about it. Passed Technician in August and have been casually studying via the HamStudy app - can’t say enough good things about that. Over the last 72 hours I watched the entirety of the W4EEY General Class series on YouTube. Passed with a 33/35. I took a swing on the Extra exam too - didn’t pass, but realized how much Dave and Gary (in the videos) dropped some Extra info in the General series. Shout out to W4EEY and KE4EA for their knowledge and presentation (I gelled more with Dave’s style but appreciated the 2 different formats), and to the folks at HamStudy for such an easy to use learning tool.

Anyway - Catch ya on 20m!

PS - Do you prefer ‘Stroke’ AG, ‘Slant’ AG, or ‘Slash’ AG?

I have a BF-F8HP Pro and it will not transmit or receive on any frequency I try but it works on FM Radio and I’ve tried installing new firmware and factory resetting but it still just doesn’t work

Hi all, I've made something that I was missing as ham radio operater, so please check if that works for you, would appreciate comments and suggestions.

You upload your adi log, and it tells you a story, also you can add pictures and save it as pdf, everything stays in your browser, nothing is uploaded.

I think it can be valuable for HAM community

Free, no ads.

www.yt3md.com

73 de YT3MD

Duca

No Laptop Needed! IU1WXY's Incredible Xiegu X6100 Firmware
https://youtu.be/-0jZGT5VcyA

To start off, this isn't an antenna modeling program. Rather, it's a tool I'm developing to help visualize and better understand how different variables affect an antenna's radiation pattern.

For example, in the animation above, you can see how the radiation pattern changes as a V-dipole is progressively raised above the ground.

Personally, being able to watch the lobes stretch, shift, and eventually split into additional lobes as the antenna moves beyond its ideal height makes the concept much easier to grasp. It's one thing to compare static radiation plots at two or three different heights, but actually seeing the pattern evolve in real time gives you a much better understanding of what's happening.

The goal is to make antenna behavior a little more intuitive, especially for those of us who learn better by seeing things in action rather than staring at charts and numbers.

Anyway, I'd love to hear what you all think! I'm still working on adding a few features before releasing it, but I wanted to share a preview and get some feedback from the community. I dont want to start entering the realms of antenna modeling but if theres some specific antennas youd like to see amd specific changes in those antennas please let me know!

73, SummitRadio

Health issues got me back in the hobby again. Just trying to figure out where I am in the solar cycle. Seems like if you hear something on 10 m we're doing okay

OK, this is super niche, but couldn't figure where else to write about it.

If you're a member of any ARES or RACES organization, there's a chance you have a copy of a fillable PDF file of the ICS 309 form. But if you actually try to use it, you'll find that anything entered in the second line gets auto-copied all the way down the form. I've found copies of this form in multiple ARES/RACES organizations, so I'm guessing it's pretty widely used, but I guess nobody is actually filling it in electronically.

A little searching found a good form at https://w0eca.org/ics-forms/ if you're looking to update.

My son (10) wanted to mount his ht on the wall near his bed so I gave it to him as a project. He drew then modeled it in TinkerCAD before slicing and sending it to the printer. He’s had his tech license for about 4 months and is so excited to put his 3D printer to work for his amateur radio hobby. This was his first time designing his own part and he knows it’s basic but he knows it serves the purpose. Not too shabby for a 10 year old!

(I’m posting this here so he can see the comments.)