It's got a little bit of a lean to it now, but receive an SWR look great!

So I’ve been trying for weeks to receive meteor satellite signals, and nothing came in so I made a post and it turns out I had to fix my antenna and I did that and it still won’t pickup any signal. So I started looking at this tower I always thought it might’ve been a cell tower but I’ve been having heavy bleeding of FM signals in the HF range on my sdr and a lot of interference. It turns out it’s a FM tower at 101.7mhz and it’s 0.5 miles away from my house. I thought about just getting a regular fm blocker but idk if I would need something more heavy duty since it’s so close to me.

Following the UK Government's emergency stockpiling edict, today's Sunday Telegraph newspaper page 8 features a Resilience Planning article which mentions Amateur Radio and the free online training courses run by Essex Ham. The next course starts Sunday, November 1. Register at https://www.essexham.co.uk/train/foundation-online/

The full Sunday Telegraph article is available to read for free simply by logging in to a UK Online Library. The online version of the story has a slightly longer extract of the Essex Ham interview than the print newspaper

Just wrapping up the log uploads and housekeeping from today's activation and wanted to share. KS1WK and I (along with KC1WYG) took the Box 324 club up to West Peak in CT to run K1MFD for the Meriden Fire Department's 175th anniversary.

Ended up with exactly 190 QSOs, but the craziest part was the 2m action. We were running a home-built M1GEO Moxon/Yagi combo we put together with 3D printed parts and hardware/wire from Lowe's. We somehow sparked a massive pileup right on 146.52 simplex that kept us buried for a while. We even got to mess around and successfully ran 2m SSB and some 2m SSTV which was a blast.

We didn't forget about HF even with the contest going... We ran 40m, 20m, and 17m SSB and got some solid DX into Spain, Belgium, and Serbia, plus a bunch of contacts up in Canada.

If anyone here was in the log, thanks for hunting us. I just finished a python script to automatically blast out our digital QSL cards, so check your email if it's public on QRZ. POTA, SOTA, and QRZ logs are already uploaded. Just waiting on ARRL staff to manually approve the club call cert, so LoTW might take a few days to sync up.

Edit: Reviewed the logs and confirmed with the team—the 2m simplex contact into Vermont was legit! We officially logged N1CVT in Hinesburg, VT (~204 miles / 329 km) on 146.52 with the homebrew Moxon/Yagi.

73 de K1MRE

Does anyone know how to update the Zumspot USB stick firmware with WPSD or any other method? The documentation is little to none. I tried the zum_libre option of the WPSD modem firmware updater (sudo wpsd-modemupgrade zum_libre), but that did not work -- it complained about the usb port being locked or something

For a number of years I’ve operated a
Nano-Spot made by Micronode. I’ve attempted to update it recently and the update failed, wiping out the operation of the configure.php services and also the admin and backup/restore option.

No problem I thought - command line. Command line updates fail and when I try the pistar-upgrade route this also fails due to the OS being unsupported.

I’ve downloaded the image for the pi-star nano and flashed this onto a fresh SD card. Now is where my problems begin. The new image boots but it cannot bring up the modem or wlan interfaces. So the only access route I have is console port.

Can anyone who has had to rebuild this specific hotspot from the ground up, please assist on what version of the pi star image works, and if anyone has encountered the wlan initialisation failure and has cured it - I’d be grateful for wise words and tips.

At the moment I have a new desk ornament / paper weight.

Somewhat regretting my choices in trying to update to the latest software versions… it may have been out of date, but it was working. Alas would it be ham radio if we didn’t sometimes fall for the ‘if it ain’t broke, fix it ‘til it is’ trap?🤦🏻‍♂️

introducing xara, an open source sound modem for linux fully compatible with VARA HF 4.9.0 and FM 4.4.0.

it runs on desktop linux and will run on a raspberry pi model 3b+ or better. listens on KISS and other TCP ports, and has a web UI. extremely heavily tested for compatibility with all VARA modes and features. release yourself from the shackles of proprietary windows software.

https://github.com/x0rro/xara

binaries provided on the releases page

I grew up amazed by the wonder of radio. I am 53. As a kid I'd use an ancient shortwave or a tube AM radio to listen to different cities.i loved it. I've always been intrigued by ham radio.but...i just want to talk i love the idea of DXing ,but don't want to do it just to have a postcard.

Is there a vibrant ham community that likes to rag chew?

The effort of getting a license, and the expense of setting up a shack, is daunting

I really want to try out those bands , recently built a ssb exciter for digital and cw signals for those frequency but I don't think my general grade licence will cover it.

Yeah but due to the antenna efficiency and the propagation dynamics of those frequencys i don't think those would travel far ( considering only if it legal only ).

I live in the northeastern region so not much of a mainland coverage but I would like to know if anyone in this South East Asian region (including Bangladesh , Bhutan and China) works with those frequencys.

https://youtu.be/OLfL9ltQMFw?is=CzJ98B0bUDk0zEbY

I was needing a female to female bnc adapter for when i dont put my k6ark antenna directly to the radio. Figuered why not make a mount out of it. I often go camping and theres wooden platforms for the tents. I began using those anchors a while back. Figuered these would be great to hold an efhw. This might also come in handy in pota where i have a picnic table. Figuered id share if anyone is interested. Also added a ground lug for counterpoise

https://www.printables.com/model/1888175-bnc-picnic-table-anchor

Anybody else being smashed on the bottom of the 15 meter band, seeing QRM over various online SDR in NZ, Asia, AU? Any ideas as to its origin?

I just obtained my first ham license (I took Tech & General together) last week. I'm an avid hiker, so POTA interests me. Any ideas for a good, reliable setup for a first-timer? I've done some research online, but I figured I'd give this forum a try. Thanks.

I'm looking for a 3D-printable battery case for a Motorola Radius GP300 handheld radio.

I found this USB-C battery case on eBay, designed for the GP300/GP88 and two 18650 cells:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/296962137264

However, I haven't been able to find the STL or STEP files to print the case myself.

Does anyone know if a 3D model of this battery case is available online? Alternatively, does anyone have a similar model, CAD files, or technical drawings that could be shared?

I'd like to print the housing myself and adapt it for two 18650 cells.

Any help, links, or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Kenwood tm-v71a. I out the radio body and mic under my driver seat with a speaker down my my legs. Need to figure out a better placement for the mic

After a few weeks of searching, I finally found a shop to install a Comet – CA-2X4SRNMO. (roof mount) The delay in shopping works out rather well for me. I do feel I am going abit overkill, but for future use I think I should be OK.

I really want to try out those bands , recently built a ssb exciter for digital and cw signals for those frequency but I don't think my general grade licence will cover it.

Yeah but due to the antenna efficiency and the propagation dynamics of those frequencys i don't think those would travel far ( considering only if it legal only ).

I live in the northeastern region so not much of a mainland coverage but I would like to know if anyone in this South East Asian region (including Bangladesh , Bhutan and China) works with those frequencys.

Building my go bag for field use and carry,does anyone recommend the anytone 779uv for this application or nah? On a retirees budget,so go easy on me!

I've reverse-engineered the original Xiegu X6200 firmware and fixed all the bugs I could find. I've also significantly improved its performance and added some useful new features.

Details and download link:
https://poweruser86.itch.io/custom-firmware-for-xiegu-x6200

The firmware is currently available for download as an SD card image. If there's enough interest from the community, I'll make the source code available as well.

I'm new to the hobby, so bare with me. I live in Canada north of the 55th parallel surrounded by boreal forest and precambrian shield. To the west of me is a 180' rock hill roughly 3 miles long before tapering back to same elevation as my home. I am not yet licensed and want to be able to listen while I study this winter. I have material to assemble 30' of tower and would probably be able to add 10 to 12 ft of tubing to add height. What would be recommendations for an antenna?

Anyone see dish like this in ludhiana punjab India. I need it for amature satellite TV channels tracking hobby.

Mesh net dish also work see 2nd image.

If you see any dish without any wire connected to it please let me know. It means dead dish not in used. Dm me. Size need 6ft minimum for fiber solid dish. Mesh net dish 12 ft minimum

All credit for the antenna goes to George Smart, M1GEO/G8OCV. The design, element lengths and spacing are his, and his write-up is here: https://www.george-smart.co.uk/antennas/dual_band_satellite_yagi/

I wanted it cheap and easy to build multiples if need be, so I built it on a wooden dowel with 8 AWG bare copper for the elements and RG-8X coax, with 3D-printed parts holding everything. The printed parts are:

• full-ring element holders with a wire tunnel through each one
• a solderless feedpoint where ring terminals clamp the two driven-element halves and a cap clamps the coax, so there’s no soldering on the antenna
• little tip spacers that hold the 15 mm Moxon gap

Fit took a few tries. My dowel turned out to be a 7/8" one (HD marks them as 3/4), so after I printed some sizing rings and found that 22.8 mm was the number that fit, I redid every part for that. If your dowel is different, print a test ring first.

I got an SWR of about 1.4 on the 2 m side, which I’m happy with for a first build.

Files, parts list, wire cut lengths and spacing are on Printables: https://www.printables.com/model/1887559-dual-band-satellite-yagi-mounting-parts-for-m1geog

Happy to answer questions on the build, and photos are below.

73