Mobile setup

One of the things I noticed early on about 2m is that the majority of the people using it seem to be traveling when they are using it, except for things like nets. After a while, I started to wonder how I could get involved with the same thing. Eventually, I got my set up figured out, and let me explain it here, along with some of my future goals in the matter.

How to listen to the NWS from a Marginal Area

I set up an HF antenna at a scout camp recently, and had one of the camp staff ask me how to improve his NWS system. I didn't have the answers then, but with a bit of work, I was able to come up with the answers (Internet research helps a ton!) I'm going to assume with this that you have the proper cable, and radio, but just can't make it work, and need a bit of help to make it work properly, because that was how their station was set up. All in all, this exercise helped to sell me on the benefits of Yagi antennas, and learn a thing or two about mounting to a roof.

Lesson 9- Setting up your First Amateur Station

So, you have your Amateur Radio License, and are looking to buy your first Amateur Radio to get started. What exactly do you need to get? In addition, what are some upgrades you might be able to get to do more with your station than you otherwise could do? In this lesson, I will discuss what an Amateur Station requires at a minimum, what some common upgrades are, and what some of the less common upgrades are that a person can do with an Amateur Station.

Installation of a Wire Antenna in my Small Attic

As previously mentioned, I've recently built my first wire antenna. In order to really test it, I decided to skip the step of a temporary outdoor deployment, and just go ahead and put it in to it's final location. It was a lot of work, but I've gotten a lot better at things, and I'd say overall it works pretty well. Also, as previously mentioned, my antenna is longer than my attic, so I had do so some creative bending to get it all to fit in there correctly. Overall, I'd say it worked pretty well. The initial deployment only took me 30 minutes, plus a bit of time to feed the antenna line. Much better than the last time, for sure!

Antenna Layout

Building my first Wire Antenna

 For some time, I've been working through what type of antenna I should get. I've finally decided to make the plunge! My antenna of choice is an OCF antenna, as included in ARRL's Wire Antenna Classics, which is a great read for anyone thinking about making their own wire antenna. It has helpful tips, and quite a few great designs.

ARRL Wire Antenna Classics

I've been looking in to antennas for a while, specifically meant to be placed in a small space. A 40m yagi isn't in my domain for sure! However, I still really want to get on HF. What can I do?

Enter ARRL's Wire Antenna Classics. There is maybe 50 or so articles on how to construct wire antennas, ones that serve all kinds of purposes. Many of these don't apply to me, as I'm still limited in space, but there was definitely a couple which I should be able to take advantage of.

Antenna Tuners

I live in a small townhome, with no land to speak of. I would like to be able to talk on 80 m. Ideally, a quarter wavelength antenna is best, put at a quarter wavelength above the ground. That means 20m, or about 70 feet, which is longer than the length of my home! Given all of that, how can I get HF from my home?

One solution that I have is using an antenna tuner. There are some radios, such as the Yaesu FT-450D, which have a built in antenna tuner. While I plan on getting a radio like that some day, I've heard that a dedicated antenna tuner is far superior to a build in one in a radio. Having both should give me a bit more flexibility.

HF antennas

Someday I'm hoping to get an HF rig, to be able to talk across the world. I've been doing a bit of research both into the antenna as well as the transceiver that I might buy. This will talk about a few of the HF antennas that I am looking at.

Mission Accomplished!

As I've mentioned here a few times, I really have wanted to get an antenna up in my attic. This has a few really nice advantages. First of all, it allows me to have a permanent home for my antenna. I've been having to manually position my antenna closer to the window when I need to use it, causing a potential trip hazard. Secondly, it gets it above the aluminum siding of my home. There are all sorts of issues with that, but basically, it really blocks signal badly. Lastly, I wanted to use my new Arrow J-pole, which doesn't require an RF ground, as it is a balanced antenna. That allows me to greatly simplify my set up.

Optimizing equipment

So, as mentioned in my previous blog entry, I have a magnetic mount antenna. I've been trying to figure out how to best use it. I thought I'd share what I figured out.

My first attempts were to just give my call sign. I was able to make contact some of the time, but usually only with a very powerful signal, usually in the 30W range. To make a contact with a repeater less than 10 miles away, that's just too much, especially without any major obstacles in the way...

Finding a Good Indoor Antenna

As previously mentioned, I am currently running a small antenna indoors that is really meant to be a car antenna. It has some serious limitations. People assure me that I should be able to make contact with a good antenna with only a few watts, I find myself having to go up to as much as 30 for what should only take 5 sometimes...

Studying the attic

Amateur Radio has the opportunity to take me places I've never been before. Today, I managed to visit one such of these places. That place was my attic.

I should state before I even begin that this is still very much a work in progress. I've been wanting to put antennas up in my attic for a while, with the goal of improving my range, plus it would seem to be a convenient place to place an HF antenna. I poked my head up there for the first time to see what I had to work with, and I took a few pictures to show to everyone. 

My first radio, and future goals

There are two bands which I have the most interest in talking on. This greatly shaped what equipment I decided to buy. The two bands are 2m, and 75m. For the time being, I'm located only on the 2m, but I have my eye opened for the 75m some day. How did I pick these two? Let me take it one at a time.

Two meter seems to be the single best band to start with. No doubt I'll have people dispute that, but let me explain a bit. First of all, there are a multitude of 2m repeaters out there. Repeaters have a couple of nice effects. First of all, they allow you to talk with people further away than you normally could. If you can make the connection to a repeater, then anyone who can connect to that repeater can talk to you. This tends to allow you to talk to anyone in a metropolitan area. From my brief exposure thus far, I have heard people from as far as 30 miles away, and I'm barely started! The other nice thing about repeaters is they give a single frequency that you can go to and meet people. Put in a few key near-by repeaters, and you'll never lack people to talk to!

75m is a bit harder to explain, but I'll give it a shot. This frequency allows you to talk distance occasionally, but more than that, it allows you to talk well to people who you could actually drive to in a few hours, if you really wanted to. 75/80m seems to be a very common frequency for use in disaster relief, because of this characteristic.

I'm also interested in 20m, and a few others. But I really just don't have a lot of knowledge of high frequency, so I'm starting out slow and working my way into it. Besides, the cost for a HF transceiver is much higher than a 2m rig, and there's really no big hurry.

So, what did I end up getting? Well, I decided to just start out with 2m, with an eye towards the future. I bought a Yeasu FT2900R transceiver, a C*MET M-24M magnetic mount 2m/70cm antenna, and an Alinco DM-330MV power supply. The power supply was somewhat more than I really need now, but it will last me for some time to come. The radio seems to work well for me for now, I've been able to do fine. Having an indoor antenna is definitely causing me some issues, but it seems to work well enough for me for now. I have all the power I will ever really need on the 2m band, so I'm content for the time being. I can recommend this setup, most especially the transceiver, to whomever might be interested in buying their own gear.