KD3Y

5 hours ago, K3MRI said:

 

As for your listening in, sounds really cool. Just curious why the aircraft was on HF for a local ATC comms... bizarre.

Can't answer that.  All that flyboi stuff is way beyond my pay grade.  I didn't fly them, I just jumped out of them.  🙂

"If your parachute fails to open, immediately after contact with the ground, you will snap to the position of parade rest and give a loud and boisterous AIRBORNE!" 

I was on the 3905 Century Club late net this morning about 2am on 7.188.  We were about 3/4 way through, fixing to go into the third round when some guy broke in with emergency traffic.  He said he was communicating with an airplane that the door fell off and we were splattering all over his emergency.   So we yielded the frequency to emergency traffic.  I sat and listened for a while.  The pilot was pretty shaken up and some guy, I assume ATC, was talking him down to an emergency landing somewhere.

Apparenty there's actually a procedure for when the door falls off your airplane as the pilot was questioning some instruction the ATC gave him and ATC told him to just do it as that was the proceedure.  Maybe tomorrow I'll google it and see if it's in the news. 

Pretty cool to listen in though.  First time I've been snubbed by an actual real emergency.

DON'T FORGET TO CLOSE THE DOOR, JIM!

Anthony,
KD3Y

8 hours ago, K3MRI said:

(Lind loves it when I 'half-agree' with him. Actually so does Anthony. Actually wait, ... 😇)

8 hours ago, K3MRI said:

Wait, I'm a vegan with both Jewish and Muslim heritage and I decided to become a ham!? Never thought of that!!!

Hey don't sweat it Jim.  I was seduced by North Carolina BBQ, so I'm guilty as charged.   And if I didn't like oysters on the halfshell, they'd run me off the Outer Banks.
"I saw temptation coming.  Trouble was, it saw me coming first."

I'm Jewish.  We don't tell HAM jokes!

oy-vey  😁

Your certainly welcome.  And if Jim doesn't mind me self-promoting, you can go to my website here where I have a lot of 40 meter nets listed, and some info about them so you can get a feel for what nets are about and how they work.
Good luck on your exam.

73 de Anthony, KD3Y

We had four candidates yesterday (Saturday), three new guys and one upgrade from Tech to General.  All four passed with a couple acing it, 35 out of 35.

My club holds our license tests immediately after our business meeting each month.  The tests are administered online so the candidate usually has his call sign with a few days.   For our testing, the club owns the laptops (but a candidate can bring his own if he/she wishes).  We have four stations, and the software grades his exam, and passes the data to the ARRL.

 So far i've been able to be the first to shake 15 new hams hand!

On 3/26/2023 at 12:46 PM, Tiff81 said:

Hahaha - thanks for the welcome wagon Jim! Hi everyone- it’s nice to be here! 

I initially thought that GMRS was what I wanted so I obtained a GMRS license. I’M A VERITABLE NEWB here. The prospect of being able to communicate around the world however - is appealing. I have a couple of questions that maybe the group might be able to answer…

1. What is the HAM radio called on the FCC dropdown list and is the FCC who administers the Amateur test? 

2. I’m looking mainly to make sure I have a communications device in my home that allows me to communicate with my kids & family off of traditional devices (incase they’re ever not working). As well as to obtain reliable news from around the world that doesn’t make it to mainstream channels. Is HAM a good way not only to connect with a cool network around the world (and with your own family internally) - but also to stay tuned into events around the world?

3. Why/how did you get involved with HAM radio? What do you love about it?

4. Around how much is the cost for a beginner (but well functioning) system? What should I expect to invest on the front end?

Nice to meet everyone and thanks for sharing your thoughts!

Welcome to the gang Tiffany (thats my sister name by the way).

1) If you speaking of the FCC license search page, a vanity license is abbreviated "VA" and the amateur license if "HA".  But if you just choose "amateur" from the drop down menu, you'll get both as vanity is a sub-category of Amateur.  You have to have an amateur license before you have a vanity callsign.
The license exam is given by many ham radio clubs.  Check with the ham radio club in your town if you have one.  Chances are they offer the testing or know a club than does.  Some clubs even offer remote testing where you can sit at home and use zoom to take the exam.   I'm a VE for my club and we give the exam after each monthly meeting.  We tested 4 yesterday and passed 4.   You can go to the ARRL webpage here and search for a test session in your area  https://www.arrl.org/find-an-amateur-radio-license-exam-session.

2) Yes.  In fact, there are many "nets" on HF that you can check in with.  I'm a member of several nets.  One is the "Treasure Coast Net" where hams along the Eastern Seaboard from Maine to Florida check in weekly and exchange news and rag chews.  There are some nets for young ladies only.  You can find nets by going to https://www.k3clr.com.  I will show you all the nets that are curently happening, who is checked into the net, and even who is talking at the time. if you click on the prticular net.  There is normally not charge to check into a net or become a member of a net, but some do charge a modest fee if you want a cool membership certificate with your name on it to hang on the wall.

3) I got involved in ham radio when my nut anti-government buddy gave me a Baofeng so we could talk "when the russians nuked us".  I wasn't interested in getting nuked, but there's a repeater about 6 miles from my house I could listen to, all the cats on the repeater sounded like cool fellas, and I wanted to talk, which required a license.  After that I was hooked and kept on growing and finding more cool things to do with ham radio, such as the ability to use Winlink to send emails with a radio when I don't have Internet.  I live in North Carolina (Hurricane alley) and we often lose the grid for sometimes a week or ten days, so ham radio offers a way to communicate when the grid is down and the cell towers over burdened.   I like getting SL cards from all over the world.  I currently have QSL cards from about 40 states, Europe, and South America.

4)  That's like asking how much it costs to get into golf.  You can buy a $200 set of clubs or you can buy a $5,000 set of clubs.  For me, I started out with  the Baofeng UV-5R.  They cost about thirty bucks but are really only practical if you have a repeater closeby you can reach.  Then I upgraded to a Yaesu mobile that I use for a base station.  The mobile radio was about $300, the antenna was about $125, the power supply about $100, the coax cable about $75.  Keep in mind that will let you talk local if you have a repeater within, say, 20 miles of you.  If you want to talk worldwide, you'll need to invest in an HF radio.  I'd say a decent HF radio would run you about $800 for a basic radio with no "fancy" on it, although there are ones that cost $10,000.  You tend to get what you pay for, and the more expensive radios usually offer more features.  You'll need an HF antenna, and your options there are make you own dipole for about 40 bucks, or buy an HF antenna retail from somewhere like DX Engineering.  They cost from $200 to a few thousand retail depending on what you want to do with it and how fancy you want.   For what it's work, I built my 40 meter dipole for about $30 and I've talked to hams in Italy, U.S., Canada, Jamaica, Germany, the Virgin Islands, and South America on it.  You don't really need any crazy skills to build one, just some novice soldering skills, a tape measure, and some wire snips, screwdriver, and wrench.  but you will need an antenna analyzer to tune it.   That's where joining a local club will come in helpful.  Someone in the club will have an analyzer they might loan you if you don't feel the need to put out $400 - $700 for one, and they'll be able to help you assemble your dipole.

You'll find out, if you haven't already, that there is a lot of different facets of ham radio, it isn't just talking to other people.  Some people enjoy collecting QSL cards, some people like to learn and communicate by CW (Morse code), some people like getting onvolved in emergency communications organizations like ARES, AUXcom, RACES, etc, some people like the tech side of it and like to build their own antennas and radios, some people just like the comaraderie of rag chewing and their local clubs social functions, some people just want to have a back up way to communicate with family and friends or receive news outside the new media channels "if we get nuked".

AND don't forget, once you get your technicians ticket, you can create an account at EchoLink, download the software, and use your PC or iPadto talk to other EchoLink hams all aound the world and you don't even need a radio.  https://echolink.org

Maybe others will chime in and might be able to offer an alternate view, but that's about what I have to offer.


73 de Anthony, KD3Y
Amateur Extra, VE examiner, and VP of Carteret County Amateur Radio Society
www.w4ymi.org
 

13 hours ago, WB4KFO said:

At this moment the other station is on 7203.5, he wants people to transmit to him on 7186.  How is someone supposed to toggle at the fast pace of a contest?

 

Hi Bill,  I'm not sure about your rig, as they are all different, but my Yaesu has a function called "split".  What that does is allow me to save a frequency such as 72035 into memory to receive on, then designate a different frequency such as 7186 to Xmit on.   Once that is done, when I switch from tune mode to memory mode on my Xceiver, and I select that memory button, it all happens magically and requires no action by me to Xmit on 7186 and hear on 72035.

I chuckled when I envisioned in my mind some guy sitting at his desk speaking into his mic on 7186, then frantically trying to spin the tune knob to 72035 to hear a reply, then frantically spinning the tune knob back to 7186 to respond.  Seems like a great way to get caprel tunnel and wear out a tuner knob.   LOL

I'm sure not all Xceivers offer this split function, so you might be "up the crick" as the old guys say around here.  I supose you'll have to dig thru the instruction manual for your rig and see.

Alternatley, you have a fine reason to convince the XYL that you need to buy a new radio so you can Xmit on one and listen on the other.  Opportunity only knocks once.   LOL


73 de Anthony, KD3Y

Thanks Jim,

Very helpful.  No, I wont' ask you to take time to do all the exact calculations.
I do appreciate the point of all radials being equal.  That would've thrown me if I had something in the way, I would've just cut that radial shorter than the rest.   My 2/440 vertical has only 4 radials about 10 inches long (Diamond X50).  So I assume the more radials the more effective the antenna.   I'll have to delve into that book.  So many questions I have.

"Anything we do has so many variables. Whether it be grounding, transmission, lines, or antenna design, it's never as simple as a single variable."
Yeah I'm used to that concept.  Same way with my banjo.  EVERYTHING changes the tone.  The type of wood the neck is made of, the type of wood the resonator is made of, the ambient temperature, the humidity, the brand of strings, the type of head used, the tension of the head, the tension on the truss rod, the material and style of the bridge, the type of metal used for the frets.  No two banjos sound the same and something as simple as changing the type of strings can make it sound like a totally different instrument.   ("There ain't no sound like Bogue Sound"...http://www.boguesoundgrass.com)
I reckon the laws of frequency physics don't change regardless of where they're found.

I'll give it a shot after a little more research and let you now how my HF vertical turns out.

Anthony, KD3Y

Hello Rhett,

Welcome to the group.

Anthony, KD3Y
Newport NC

On 6/1/2019 at 8:04 AM, K3MRI said:

I've always wondered what the secrets to a great ragchew net are. Net control gets on and calls for checkins... so what does it take to have a critical mass of operators and keep the net alive for years. Thoughts?

Well, I can't tell you what makes a great ragchew net.  I can tell you what spoils it for me, is overzealous protocols.
I log on regularly to my clubs weekly net, and several other local 2 meter/440 nets I can reach with my rig.  There's one weekly net nearby that I avoid.  Their protocol is they do a "round robin" sort of thing with three rounds.  The first round you "Tell us what you did today and what you plan to do tomorrow".  The second round you "tell us what you ate today and what you plan on having for breakfast, lunch, and supper tomorrow", and the final round I forget because I only logged on the one time, then ran the other way.   What killed it for me was I don't want to be mandated what to say.   I really honestly don't care what 20 other guys had for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and sitting there for 20 minutes listening to chicken pastry, "nanner" pudding, green beans, collards, grits, fried mullet, and fatback just bores me to the point that I want to stab myself in the eye with a rubber duck antenna.   I mentioned to one of my other buddies and he said the same thing and he avoided that net as well. 

My local club net each guy just talks about what he wants to when it's his turn.  I can bear the old goats complaining about their prostate, complaining about some guy on "their frequency" earlier in the day for a few minutes, but there's always variety and when he's done, he's done.

One of my favorite 40 meters awards net has a sort of untraditional way of going about it.  Usually, NC tells you that you can make one or two calls, depending on how many people are logged on.  But this net, the NC just calls on you and tells you to "take all you want, and let me know when you're done".  Unlike what you might suspect, I've never heard anyone abuse it.  Some make one call and some make 3 or 4, but I've never heard anyone just hog up the whole net, or go on and on to the extent that NC had to shut them down.   


Anthony, KD3Y

Thanks Michael.  And welcome to the group.
I live right beside MCAS Cherry Point and Camp Lejune, so I've never bought any "retail MRE's"...  They seem to find their way to the flea market in sealed cases quite easily somehow.   Thats how I got the mast sections for my mobile vertical antenna.  I got some boys at MARSOC Camp Lejune that lost an OE-254 for me.  🙂

I do need to get some of them bins though for the future.  Thanks!

Anthony, KD3Y

Elmers,

I was considering making a 40 meter vertical portable antenna (using my tripod I got at Habitat for Humanity last year) for upcoming hurricane drill so I was reading up on HF verticals.  I understand from my research that the radials should be the same length as the radiating vertical part of the antenna.  Thats fine for something store-bought where all the parts are already pre-measured and cut to specs.  But, I'm starting from scratch.

See, I expect my antenna to be about 16 feet tall (give or take) and I wanted to make a slide-up-and-down section for tuning it.  That worked great for my mobile antenna on my truck where it was grounded to the frame and I could just loosen the allen screw and slide the little tuning section up and down to lengthen or shorten it and get the SWR down. 

But on this particular antenna, if what I'm told is true, that would mean I'd have to assemble it to see the SWR, make an up or down adjustment to the vertical, then trim all the radials, then test it again, repeat, repeat, repeat.   Seems to me that would be a lot of work to trim 30 radials each time I tested it.  Then what if I need to lengthen it a tad?  I have to go add wire to 30 radials?

So my question is does the length of the radials matter that much or do they need to be the same length as the vertical, as I've read, sort of like a dipole needs to have both legs the same length for a good SWR?   Why I question is that the 2 meter/440 mobile vertical antenna on my truck uses the truck body as the ground plane.  But my truck is a lot wider/longer than the 4 foot or so vertical mobile antenna.  So the "radial" for that antenna isn't the same legth as the antenna height.

Thanks for you responses.  I'm new to vertical HF antennas.

73 de Anthony, KD3Y
 

14 minutes ago, K3MRI said:

Super duper classy!! I would have expected nothing less from you. Well done!!!!

This begs the question though, how did you do it? Are they stick ons? Painted?...

Totally unplanned, Jim.  I was in AutoZone the other day getting a wiper blade for the XYL's car and saw a display rack full of numbers and letters.  They appear to be chrome plated plastic with 3M adhesive on the back.  Didn't have a plan for them when I bought them but I knew they had a place somewhere. 

I had considered the customized license plate or the decal on the rear window of the vehicle, but I think that attracts the road rage wierdos.
 

I was building my new dipole for 40 meters and cut the "legs" to about 36 feet to allow room for tuning.  I was aiming for 7.185-ish.
The SWR was maxed all the way in the red at 7.185 and I couldn't remember if I was supposed to shorten it or lengthen it. 
Chopped off another 10" and this is what I got.
I was afraid I was going to accidentally cut it short and I don't like to splice dipole wire for the moisture to get into the strands.
Glad it worked out, 12 gauge copper is about as expensive as gold nowadays.

1.2 SWR.  I can live with that!

I guess Im going to have to write that on the back of my analyzer.  Old minds forget fast.   LOL
 

"Increase frequency, decrease wire."
Fixing to tape that to my analyzer.  Old minds forget.  Did I say that already?  I forgot.   🙂

I recently added a script to my website for Morse code practice.
Free to use for anyone wanting to practice their morse code.
Kind of fun to play around with, I think.  Let me know if you find it useful.
www.kd3y.com/KeyPractice.html
 

I also like to use the Morse chatroom....a good earning tool as you can only converse in code.
https://morse.halb.it

2 hours ago, KN4YCK said:

Great write up. I’m pretty proud of the work our club is doing with ecoms. Being sorta new to this I now see the amount of work it takes to make it happen. Thanks for all you do for the community and the club. 
 

It's the membership that makes it all possible, Brother, not I.  Without our dedicated club members and our outstanding eComs committee, we'd all just be some more hams complaining over our radios about the weather.
 

I'm headed up to the town park next week probably and do some POTA on the 40-meter dipole.  I gotta stop in at PD and let the Chief know whats going on so when they get the "man in the park with a rifle" call, they won't send out the SWAT team.  That could turn sticky.   LOL

I think launching the line over a limb with the speargun is better than the PVC air cannon.  It'll get 40 feet up.  I am going to get me a tennis ball and bolt it to the shaft end and fill the tennis ball with that expaning foam stuff so it'll be safer.   Right now it just has a nut on the end where the spearpoint screws onto the shaft.

https://rumble.com/v2dh5yy-shooting-40-meter-dipole.html

Hello Van!  welcome to the group.

NOTE TO SELF:

Next time store all the MRE's in a hard container with a secure lid.
I just found out while I was in the shed a few days ago that the local squirrels have decended upon my SHTF supplies, chewed thru the cardboard boxes, and eaten all my MRE's.
They think they're smart but when the SHTF, and resources are scarce, guess what's going on the grill for supper.

These are always fun!  I'll either be stationed at the Middle School (designated area Hurricane Shelter), the Town Hall, or the Fire Department.   Last hurricane, the Fire Department was the hub of activity.  The major highway (Highway 70) was flooded both to the east and west so we were cut off.  USCG flew patients to the hospital since the ambulances couldn't pass the flooded roads until they were grounded due to the storm.  After that, they set up a temporary medical station in the fire department until the ground was lifted and helicopters could fly.  Many local residents were sleeping in the fire department due to flooded homes, and some were living in the Fire Department parking lot in their cars.

The county treats us good though.  My Club is incorporated into the County Emergency Plan as "communications support" for the county.  The club is included in the county budget and receives several thousand dollars per year to be ready with functioning equipment when they call.

A simulated EOC Activation and Hurricane Drill will be held at the Carteret County EOC. The drill will be conducted on April 18, 2023 from 3:30-7:00PM with a backup date of April 25th with the same times. This later time gives volunteer and remote agencies the opportunity to participate. There is no expectation that everyone must stay until 7:00PM.

Carteret County Amateur Radio Society will be participating in the excercise by:

1) Activating the club ARES/CERT Emergency Coms trailer and using it as a remote transmitting station.
2) Using Winlink HF, VHF, UHF, DMR and Simplex comms between the EOC and remote locations to demonstrate capability.
3) Involve the clubs regular Tuesday nite net as part of the drill and submit post-drill to the County.
4) Incorporate additional locations from municipalities such as Emerald Isle Fire Department, that have amateur equipment on-site as backup communications.
5) Incorporate training using the appropriate forms - ICS 202, 205, 213, 214, 309 and Sharing 'Field Situation Report' with the County as part of our capability demonstration.

Space is limited in the EOC. Please contact Keith Stroud if you wish to participate.

I'll check with Ed at the NOAA site and see when would be a good day when I won't be in their way, Jim.

On 2/17/2023 at 5:16 PM, K3MRI said:

Beware of runaway birthday helium balloons, you might see an F-22 locking target 🚀

LOL Jim,

I was going to see my ham pal the other day and passed the NOAA site and the National Weather Service.  The guy was getting ready to launch the balloon for that evening so I turned around and pulled in and talked with him. 

The balloon was about 3 feet diameter but he said once it gets to altitude (it's made of a latex material that expands easily) it expands to several times it's size at sea level.  The one they use carries a tail on it about 8 feet long that has a parachute and the sensor gear tied to it.    Eventually the balloon bursts and the little parachute deplys and the computer falls back to earth.  The balloon is tracked by GPS and they map the wind currents and the temperatures, humidity, and some other data sent to the NWS.  The computers are disposable, they don't reuse them.   I asked the guy if they ever had any issues with aircraft and he said no.   He said they don't issue a NOTAM becuase all the pilots at MCAS Cherry Point and Camp LeJune and the pilots at Marine Corps ALF Bogue are all aware of their daily balloon activity.

Our club uses the center for our SkyWarn program.  We had a meeting the other week and that place is impressive.  They have a "safe room" and the floors and walls are made of 6 feet of reinforced concrete so they can stay there through hurricanes or tornadoes, etc.  They also put in showers and a kitchen last year so they would be able to remain on site during storms and not have to travel back and forth during storms.  Basically the NWS employees are present there through every storm.  Inside the "war room" they have a large room with about 100 TV's on the walls and they monitor weather from all over the U.S.  It's impressive to see all those screens on the wall with real-time radar on the screens.  I wanted to snap a few pics the other week when we had our meeting but I didn't know if they's appreciate me taking photos of what is actually a federal Gov't building.

What our club does at the NOAA center is, we have a station there with HF, 2 meter, 444, and Marine VHF radios.  During times of storms (usually hurricanes for our area), our volunteer mans those radios and he can communicate with a volunteer ham at the EOC, volunteer hams at the town halls & VFD's, to pass along weather information if the TV and cell towers are down.   We use HF and digital to communicate with other NWS centers, mainly the one in Miami.  For some reason the Miami NOAA center is important to the NOAA center here in my town.

That might be a good video presentation for HC?  Interview the guy who launches the balloons twice per day.  Here at the NWS in Newport they launch two per day, 0600 & 1800 hrs. 


73 de Anthony, KD3Y