For many years, I've been using the Gizmotchy 4 element 2 meter antenna along with a Discone antenna for 2m/440 TX/RX. With my back against the local mountains, my 2 meter SSB options were limited and I decided a long time ago that operating that 2m ssb at the QTH was a limited affair. Since most of the repeaters I talk on are on 440, I decided it was time to rethink my VHF/UHF situation and upgrade antennas. Down came the HF vertical on top of the roof, and up went the Diamond XD510HDM 2m/440 vertical antenna.



As far as VHF/UHF antennas go, this things is a beast, but it is supported easily on top of the 30 foot push up mast. It's 17 feet tall and is composed of 3-5/8 wave elements on 2m and 8-5/8 wave elements on 440. Gain is advertised at 8.3 and 11.7 db respectively.

My QTH elevation is about 800 feet, which is good elevation above much of Los Angeles and Orange County. The feed point of the antenna is at 42 feet. With this antenna, I can finally work most of...

Late last year, I upgraded by portable station (mostly used while RV'ing) by adding a Raspberry PI 400 and 5V powered portable monitor to the mix.



I found the Nexigo monitor on Amazon - was $150 when I bought it and now I see the price has dropped a bit.

Both the Raspberry Pi 400 and Nexigo monitor run on 5v, so I just plug them into the West Mountain Rigrunner 4004/USB which is also what the KX3 and amp plug into. As you can see in the pic, the Raspberry PI 400 runs digital mode stuff quite well - in this pic, I'm running FT8 with WSJTX but I have also since installed and used JTDX and FLDigi. For the OS, I just stuck with the native OS that comes with the PI. Most of the ham radio apps show up in the PiPackages Add/Remove Software app and others are simple enough to install. One thing to remember is that RPI 400 doesn't have a sound card built in. I just found a...

I got the RV out to a local RV Park in the wilderness and spent the weekend having some fun on 40 meters. The setup is simple but effective for what it is.



I put a portable table next to the RV and ran clamp on power wires from the house batteries into the West Mountain Radio Rig Runner 4004U. I just picked up this little power distribution unit for about $85 at HRO. You get 4 anderson power pole connections with varying current capabilities, plus a couple of USB ports, which is also useful for things like Raspberry PI based ham applications.

The HF Amp is an MX-P50A, capable of 50 watts on 10-80m. I found that the amp had no problem delivering the desired power when working within 2:1 SWR conditions. And of course, the rig is the Elecraft KX3. You can tell I took this pic in the morning because of the coffee cup; that was replaced by beer later in the day .

The antenna used is the Buddipole deluxe kit with the Low Band coil, Triple Ratio Switch balun (I operated at...

Well good afternoon Friends, as you might remember in my last post,I was slowly starting to put together my base station,well there's been a change in radios,went from the Ranger 2950 to the brand New Uniden 980 and the receive is night and day from the Ranger , it's so much better on the Uniden!!

Finally got everything hooked up to the Antron 99 and I checked the Swr on 1 and 40 and they were 1.1 on channel 1 and 40 was 1.3, didn't have to adjust anything!! I spent 2 hours on the roof getting everything ready ( my dad was my spotter just in case) and everything is going well!! I usually hang out on 38 LSB listening and my numbers are 575!!! Hope all of my radio friends have a great day and God Bless you all!!!

Steve
AE # 575

My Base Station set up I just put together. Mounted the Solarcon A99 antenna on the roof yesterday. Look forward to playing around with it. I’m located in Bethlehem, PA which is about an hour north of Philadelphia.

This is the hackrf one with the portapack , pocket size SDR, the portapack plugs right into the hackrf one sdr receiver, its powered by any usb battery pack and is a complete sdr receiver

this is the Chinese clone, but from all the vids I watched , the clones work exactly the same as the original Hackrf one and the clones with the portpack and case are way cheaper

also this one has the Mayhem firmware(could get a person in trouble!!) that is open source with updates and new functions coming out all the time, you can also transmit !!

youtube hackrf mayhem to see all the things it can do

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Just wanted to give an unsolicited shout-out to Heil Sound for some very nice customer service. A couple of weeks ago I ordered a new band for my SM-1 shock mount (they wear out every few years) from an online retailer. The easiest way to replace the band is to take out a few of the outside tiny screws that hold the band clips in place. In the process, I dropped one under my desk never to be found again.

So I emailed Heil asking what size they were so I could either find some or even if I could buy a few. A nice lady emailed me back asking for my address and she mailed a couple to me free of charge. I know the cost of the screws and postage was under a dollar, but the fact that someone took the time to go out of their way and make this very small gesture really impressed me.

Thanks Heil!

As a very small gesture of gratitude, here are some links to the really cool shock mount and Mic setup that I use on my station:

Mount:...

I recently decided to expand my digital capabilities beyond D-Star and decided to purchase the TYT MD-UV390 VHF/UHF dual mode FM/DMR HT with GPS along with a ZumSpot hotspot from Ham Radio Outlet. The Zumspot is based on the Raspberry PI-Zero and MMDVM project. I couldn't be happier with this combination, which will get you on DMR for under $300.



The TYT MD-UV390 dual band radio lists for about $150 and comes with the programming cable / software and additional high-gain antenna. The manual and documentation is a bit rough, but once you understand the programming principles is pretty easy to get going. The ZUMSpot comes pre-loaded with Pi-Star and is a snap to setup if you've already registered for the appropriate digital ID's. There are plenty of guides online on how to setup Pi-Star, but if anyone has questions, I'll be happy to answer them.

Once you...

Icom just released a preview video showcasing the new Icom IC-9700 rig. This thing looks pretty sweet, especially for satellite ops. Icom only has a pre-release brochure out and not all of the features are covered, but I attached it anyway.

Enjoy the video:

Hey guys,
Just a quick update on the shack progress. I had purchased the yellow Robyn 240D a while ago and quickly realized that I didn't have a good place to put it. I am not a fan of stacking radios on top of one another and the Madison on my grandfather's Hammerlund kept bugging me. I wanted to build a shelf that was worthy of being in this station and I wanted it to look like it belonged. Here is a picture of the old station.