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Hey fellas, I ordered a Diamond X50-A (2 meter/70cm vertical) and it should be here tomorrow. I'm not familiar with this particular antenna so to save me some frustration, time, and expense, is there anything wrong with using a galvanized mast VS a wooden pole? I guess it's alright to use a conductive mast with whatever hardware comes with it to mount it. Thanks, Anthony

Hey Ham Community, this is an automated post on behalf of our new member: KC3PGU, On behalf of Ham Community, let's give KC3PGU a warm welcome. KC3PGU, we encourage you to browse around and get to know the Community's many sections. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask, as with all things HAM, we all love to give advice 😎 For everyone's information, KC3PGU joined on the 08/02/2021; this is their profile: View Member.

Thank you Jim. Ive been at it for 16 years now. Sure doesn't seem like it. Started out on a POS Fender that I bought for $149.00 in 2004-ish I sold the POS Fender and bought another POS Fender banjo. I figured it must be better since it was $250.00. But it was just a higher-priced POS. I know Les Paul was a master at building electric guitars, but he missed the mark on banjos, IMO. I got frustrated over the years and quit three times, but always came back. My next banjo was a $1500 Deering archtop. It was my first "Not a POS banjo". I liked it so much I bought a $3.200 Deering Deluxe a couple years later. I got it on a deal because the guy who did the inlays at the Deering factory came in one morning and absent-mindedly inlaid the wrong color inlay in the fingerboard. The neck was fine, it just had white pearl inlay where the headstock had golden pearl inlay, so it was a visual mismatch. I got it for $2,500 due to the error. I figured for $700 I could live with mis-matched inlays. Today my banjo is a $5,000 Huber VRB-3 Vntage Truetone made by Steve Huber in Nashville. Our first CD was "Straight out of the Mountains of Coastal Carolina" We thought it was kinda funny since there aren't any mountains in coastal North Carolina. I'm still waiting on North Carolina to legalize marijuanna so that $12 domain/band name will become a $5,000 domain/band name. Then I'll buy me a Yaesu FT-991a 🙂

Went down to the Berryville hamfest and picked up a few neat items, wanted to share. 200' of paracord - for an antenna run I am planning Wattmeter + dummy load - for testing what I suspect is some bad coax Coax jumpers of various sizes - because who doesn't need more coax! Astron power supply - for the FT-991A when I get it TYT 9800 quad-bander rig - for getting on 6m/10m until I get the HF rig (I know it's cheap, that was the point) A miter saw - because you never know what kinds of deals you might find at a hamfest! I got this one for $80, and I've been salivating over the Ryobi one at Home Depot for $200+ so it really was a steal! If you went to Berryville, or even another local hamfest, and want to brag on what you scored, post below!

I have never in my entire ham career encountered anyone being anything other than perfectly pleasant on the air...until I got into digital modes, specifically C4FM. The other day I was on Americalink late at night and I heard two hams using very nasty language (not profanity, but slurs) to describe the current POTUS and the Coronavirus situation. I was very disappointed, because even though it was late, there could be kids listening. I didn't want to hear that crap, so I switched my HT off. I'm guessing the ease by which folks can make long-distance QSOs on the digital modes encourages this kind of behavior. Which is sad. I'm not a confrontational person, so I didn't call them on it. But if it happens again, I just might. There is just no room for that kind of behavior in this hobby, IMO.

I love your graphics. And BTW, I LOVE listening to banjo!!

Hey Ham Community, this is an automated post on behalf of our new member: KJ6FNP, On behalf of Ham Community, let's give KJ6FNP a warm welcome. KJ6FNP, we encourage you to browse around and get to know the Community's many sections. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask, as with all things HAM, we all love to give advice 😎 For everyone's information, KJ6FNP joined on the 08/01/2021; this is their profile: View Member.

Well, since it's not ham related, and "it ain't radio", I suppose here's the best place to post my radio station. https://zeno.fm/kt4obx/

I agree. There is no way that Apple is forecasting an impact on their supply chain and others, much smaller, would not. Heck, GM is delivering trucks with the understanding that they will have to retrofit some chips. I heard a rumor, though they won't admit it, that Elecraft's K4 is delayed for that same reason. Again, unconfirmed but a rather reliable source.

Welcome Ken. Glad to have you aboard.

Berryville hamfest is this weekend. They might just have what you are looking for.

Had a short chat with one of the sales reps at Ham Radio Outlet VA today about the Yaesu FT-991A. He said they are currently backordered ***60 UNITS***!! Also said they are receiving a shipment soon but it will just barely be able to cover demand, I imagine they will sell out nearly instantly once the backorders are filled. Apparently the bottleneck is the containers they ship them in, however that got me thinking and I asked him about the "chip shortage" that has been in the news lately and asked him if he thought that would continue to affect availability going forward. He said it might, but that he had heard that Yaesu and other mfr's were yanking (working) chips from older/defective units and putting them in new ones (again, only the working ones, I'm sure they're not recycling bad parts into new rigs). Still, it makes one wonder if it will be hard to source transceivers for a while until the supply chain balances out. I was hoping to buy an HF rig new, however it looks like I may have to wait or hope to get lucky at a Hamfest. I don't wanna pay much over sticker for a 991-A because they're already not cheap. Thoughts?

Hey Ham Community, this is an automated post on behalf of our new member: KD4DGL, On behalf of Ham Community, let's give KD4DGL a warm welcome. KD4DGL, we encourage you to browse around and get to know the Community's many sections. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask, as with all things HAM, we all love to give advice 😎 For everyone's information, KD4DGL joined on the 07/30/2021; this is their profile: View Member.

Welcome to the Community Ron.

Hi Mark. First, welcome to our small (but growing) community. Second, good points you make about vhf/uhf. It’s true that my initial thinking was about HF where, unfortunately, there seems to be ‘anger creep’. And maybe worse than anger, there is also ‘entitlement creep’ whereby many old-timers, my age group, assume that they have an inherited right to certain frequencies or times of day. As for the LA VHF/UHF example. Interesting, I had not thought of that when creating the post, but it makes sense. I admit that in my region, our repeaters are always civil. Our worst problem is the lack of protocol, as in people cutting each other off or people rambling for well over the accepted three minute rule. I’ll get my first taste of big city repeaters soon though. I’ll be traveling to NYC… I’ll report back. Again, welcome.

I don't do much HF work, so my comment is based on local chatter both simplex and on repeaters, but in my area the conversation is general good natured and friendly. Being human disagreements can and do occur, but those are few and far between in my area (Salem Oregon). Once you get to know a group you can also learn who the "know it all's" are, or someone who might be easily triggered, and take steps to not push their buttons. Now that said I did have an opportunity to listen to a repeater in LA a couple times, and that was a totally experience, and not one I would want top have to live with. It seemed there were a lot of people on the repeater who felt it was their sole purpose to insult and offend as many as they could with little regard for operating standards. So I guess my feeling is the level if civility depends a great deal on where you're located and the group of hams in that area, at least for the UHF/VHF bands. Mark AG7HH

Hey Ham Community, this is an automated post on behalf of our new member: n4aaf, On behalf of Ham Community, let's give n4aaf a warm welcome. n4aaf, we encourage you to browse around and get to know the Community's many sections. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask, as with all things HAM, we all love to give advice 😎 For everyone's information, n4aaf joined on the 07/29/2021; this is their profile: View Member.

By the way, both @KW4TO and @W4DOI have 7100's. They're actually quite expert at it. So if you have any questions about it, feel free to start a thread in the transceiver forum. Good choice. Nice all around radio.

This makes things a bit more interesting! This whole time I thought I would find a picnic bench and string up a dipole. LOL. I never would have guessed that would be an issue but I can see how it may be frowned upon. I have taken a look at the buddy poles in the past. I will look at them again. That my be the better way to go. I guess originally I was thinking the Chameleon MPAS backpack with the ground spike and the wire antenna that comes with it. The radio I would be using for this is the Icom 7100. I figured it is small and would work well for POTA. Thank you for all of your help gentlemen. AC3EO,

David, I'll add my two cents worth. I've done a lot of operating in National and State parks and have found that there is no universal rule. You'd think there was, but there is not. So I have always operated with the 'most likely acceptable' approach. I'm like Glenn, I like mobile operating in a park. And if I do decide to operate on foot, which does happen, then I use the same approach as Glenn does on SOTA, super light, end fed, thin wire, QRP, cut to the band. This said, over the years I have also experimented with helium balloons, and even kites. They're fun, but lots of work and have their own down sides. As far as what antenna I use when mobile operating in a park. I have three go-to setups. Alpha Antennas FMJ mounted on my roof with a counterpoise for NVIS and a ground (when I have permission to put a ground stake (not 6-foot rod)). I usually ask first. My favorite setup is an 80m doublet (so basically 138 feet tip to tip), strung from the tip of a SotaBeams 23-foot pole, that I mount onto the car hitch with a metal contraption I built to support it. (Next time I set up, maybe this weekend) I'll take detailed photos. Then comes the clincher. Usually I set up two more 23-foot poles at either end and set it up as a flat top. The problem is that those poles get staked into the ground. Now, because I said I like going for the safer route, recently I've developed a new approach. I set the doublet up as an inverted-V and use sandbags to hold the tips in place. Recently, a ranger came up to me and congratulated me on my no damage approach because, as mentioned, the center mast is off the ground (on my hitch) and the sand bags (the standard small striped kind) are inoffensive. I have also developed a vertical approach on my 65-foot spider beam mast which also goes into my hitch. In this case, I use a 57-foot vertical wire and, if there is space, a full wave counterpoise that I roll out as needed based on the band. Again, photos needed. I'll try to oblige. Hope this was helpful. Jim

David, My recent conversations with POTA activators show mobile (from car or truck) operations are very common. Many parks (Espies. National parks) have restrictions about any wires touching trees, or even spikes in the ground. For this reason many operators are operating mobile HF stations, or semi-mobile. For example One setup I use is a Buddi-stick vertical whip which can be set in 5 minutes after parking a car, attached with a HF mag mount to the roof. This way you can quickly break-down when ready to leave and remove the antenna. Look into how crowded the park will be you have in mind, and the potential to use radials, wires in trees, etc. Crowds and regulations in a particular park can have a big impact on what antennas are possible. Personally I like the convenience for POTA of HF mobile. For SOTA, I like light weight end fed wave wave wire antennas, ideally cut for the band of use. In the woods, after a deep hike there is usually enough space and lack of crowds to throw a wire in the trees near the summit. 73 Glenn KW4TO

Hi Jamison. Yeah, the post surprises, but it's our way of engaging you. Speaking of engagement, don't be surprised if the community is a little calm. We are slowly growing our membership but the engagement is not quite there yet. This said, being the obstinate hams that we are, we have a couple of tricks up our sleeve to hopefully, someday soon, this place will be hopping. That said, those of us who do hang around here try to be as engaging and friendly as possible. Again, my warmest welcome.

That's funny, I didn't know it would post automatically for me! 😄 I'm glad to be here. My pal, AC3EO from the local radio club, told me about this website and I rushed to join because it looks very cool. I currently operate with a Yaesu FT-7900 on 2m/70cm and a Yaesu FT-70D on C4FM. I also have a Yaesu FT-60 for mobility on VHF/UHF. I have an Arrow Antennas 140/440 Open-Stub J-Pole (OSJ) antenna mounted in my attic, that I've been having some performance problems with. I will probably post about that in another thread. I am looking into obtaining a Chameleon EMCOMM III end-fed wire antenna so that I can get on the HF bands, and I'm saving up for a Yaesu FT-991A as my "dream rig" all-mode all-bands transceiver. I enjoy participating in emcomm, event support, and contesting, as well as ragchewing on the local repeaters and on Americalink and other System Fusion rooms. 73s for now, W3ESX