Just letting you know that I just worked Sweden from Olympia WA on CW (Morse code) using a homemade radio from the 90s at 5 big watts to a longwire antenna up 40 feet in a tree.
Bear in mind that at this power level you could run 9 stations like mine off the light socket in your refrigerator. Not the fridge itself. Just the light socket. (That's a 40W bulb.)
In this episode, we take a journey into the world of aviation training with a set of three records from TWA Transportation Training called “Code Course”. These records feature six lessons designed to train airmen in the art of Morse code.
ARDC is making everyone using their address space to renumber into a single /16, presumably so they can continue to sell off chunks of 44 net address space.
Anyways, I'm working to wind down a whole bunch of my #hamradio network services soon.
Per them, my minimum safe distance on my QRP rig is... 9 inches.
The only ones in danger are the Grindr guys self-declaring their sizes trying to get spicy on my erected Buddipole. Shrug (Of course, if they're telling the truth no one is in danger. 😉)
Been trying to figure out why radio is appealing to me. The serotonin bump is nice, yeah, but there has to be more to it.
Ultimately, I can't help but feel that it's a different sort of challenge. No routers to contend with, not nearly as much software to futz with, just throw some metal in the air and go. Probably why QRP operations, particularly mobile, interests me too. Somehow, declaring "Maximum firepower!" Just feels like cheating to me.
Besides, it also circles back to electronics, another interest I'm pushing myself back to.
So I could set the frequency I want and enable VOX using a computer in the shack, then at the portable site, use my iPhone and its OTG cable, with an iOS FT8 app that allows audio I/O over the OTG's audio facilities?
This assumes that iOS OTG audio works only with HID class audio USB devices, and that the QDX adheres to this standard.
So the idea of using my phone as an FT8 transceiver with a QDX might be possible.
"Just" got to write an iOS FT8 app. #HamRadio#FT8
2/2
After dismay at not finding any viable way to send serial data from iOS over USB, I was thinking I'd either have to investigate a Bluetooth converter that might allow this, or buy an Android device (not altogether horrendous, even given I'm a happy Apple user).
However!
After re-watching Hans Summer's video about the design and facilities of the QDX, I see that it has VOX, which is usually disabled, in favour of CAT. #HamRadio#FT8
1/2
Does anyone know of a UK-available multicore / rosin flux leader solder for #hamradio#electronics? The good old stuff, not this hard-to-use lead free type? RS list some but I couldn’t find any in stock.
It works !!
I fixed my portable vertical HF antenna today. Rewound the coil and now it seems to work on all the bands.
Talked to Pedro in Spain and signal was 5 by 7 into Spain.
Now I can go out in the woods out here and have a quiet spot to try to work some long distance stations ! #hamradio
#hamradio#winlink - does anyone else ever feel like it would be great to modernize the ardop implementation? get it into a repo and allow contributions? I hate the idea of having to use vara with wine on my linux machines.
This is the first in a series of posts discussing small #hamradio transmit antennas. I intend to add more as "answers" to this.
A "natural" length for a dipole is roughly 2 x λ/4 for a dipole or λ/4 for a vertical with λ/4 elevated radials.
Shorter than that, a tuner (or a coil or two) are needed.
There's not a clear, distinct boundary, but I think of 2 x λ/8 as border region between "getting by" and "poverty", so to speak. Still shorter I call a "too short antenna".
Are there any #ios developers here who might be able to tell me whether programs for current iOS can interact with external devices that provide serial I/O over USB; such devices would be connected to an iPhone/iPad using Apple's Lightning to USB OTG cable? Or is the MFI programme the only way to do this? #ObjectiveC#Swift#USB#iPhone#iPad#Apple (This is for a #HamRadio project). Thanks in advance!
Having a tendency to stress-buy, a hobby that is not cheap in most iterations (looking at you, HF), and a potentially legitimate need for a piece of hardware (depending on who you ask) is kind of an awful combination.
I might be able to afford it, but 'can' and 'should' are two very different things.
During the third Reich, German radiomen finished their #MorseCode messages with the greeting "hh", abbreviating "Heil Hitler".
After the war, some German #hamradio operators greeted each other with "55”, supposedly meaning "have success". I never use it and cringe when I hear it.
The connection is obvious if you know Morse code: "hh" sounds "didididit didididit" while its successor "55” sounds "dididididit dididididit".
55 was Nazi from the beginning, though many German hams don't know that.
One thing I absolutely hate about #HamRadio culture is the term "XYL" given to a ham's significant other upon marriage.
Really dude? Seems rude, not funny nor cute.
To my ears it sounds like Ex-Wife, not the ham's current wife. So you have to check with your ex-wife before buying that new radio/antenna/tower/whatever?
After many delays, we finally got a long end-fed half-wave antenna wire up into the Very Tall Tree on the edge of our lot. We used a drone to lift fishing line up and over, and a weight to keep it below the prop blades. Then pulled a paracord line, then the antenna wire up. Secured with bungee and counterweights to allow for wind - fingers crossed 🤞on that. (Zoom in on the second photo to see the wire)