I’ve been a licenced radio amateur since 1981 but with some big gaps in my activity. I was last active (on HF) in 2006/7 but then I moved to a non-antenna friendly location. I’ve just put up my first antenna since then and I’m nearly ready to have my first on-air conversation in 18 years-ish.
The antenna is a 2m/70cm vertical (a C30 antenna which is a marine radio equivalent of the Diamond X30). I’ve got a handheld (Yaesu FT5D) connected to it and can hear the local repeater (GB3FC) talking to itself every 30 minutes. There’s little activity on it though.
I’ve also set up a Pi Star hotspot which gives me local, i.e. within my house, 70cm access to various digital networks. It’s like having an Internet connected repeater in the house and it’s amazing what a little Raspberry Pi Zero W (with an RF hat) can do! This is RF to the hotspot and then Internet from there to other gateways. So not much radio involved in this, but there is at least a little bit of radio!
I’ve got a Mobilinkd TNC4 to get myself back onto the AX25 digital mode. I’ve had that connected up to the handheld but not heard any activity yet. There’s supposed to be a node/BBS about 2 miles away so I thought I’d have heard that but there hasn’t been any activity on that frequency yet. I’ve not had the TBC connected up with the new antenna connected yet though so I’ll try that later.
I’ve also set up my weather station to send APRS weather data. This is actually via APRS-IS - the Internet based APRS system, but once I’ve got things better connected/figured out I’ll look to see how I can get that transmitted as well as published over the Internet. If you look at the aprs.fi map you’ll find me on it.
No HF yet - that requires more planning, especially how to get a semi-decent antenna up. Suburban UK living doesn’t fit well with HF antennas so there’s no easy solution. Another big issue is likely to be how to avoid the awful RF noise levels in this area. I’ve done some listening but it’s not easy when there’s all sort of digital hash contaminating the frequencies.
I suspect my initial HF work will be using FT8. I think it’s safest to start with low power because I’m not sure if I’ll affect neighbours and with a limited garden size I need to be careful about the exposure of neighbours to EMF from the antenna. If I remember the calculations correctly staying below 10w means you don’t need to do anything special in protection terms.
I don’t know about your regulations over there, but the ARRL has an RF exposure calculator here, perhaps that will help you. I do a fair bit of FT8 and FT4. I prefer the JTDX program over WSJT-X as i prefer its user interface, but both do the job. According to our regulations, i can run 1500 watts with no problems, but then i don’t have neighbors
Its pretty easy to work the world on low power with FT8! Enjoy!
73
The regulations are probably pretty similar. With a small garden the only way to get a reasonable amount of wire in the sky is to have the ends at the corner of the garden. That means it’s close to neighbours. It’s a while since I did the calculations, but I think to even get near to 100w I’d need to have 4m poles in the corners. I could also only use an inverted V. An inverted L would need an even taller pole to allow the drop.
A vertical could be another solution but I don’t think I’d get permission from the powers that be for a post plus vertical in the middle of the garden LOL
I’ve built 2*Pi 3B+ with USB soundcards, Direwolf and LinBPQ. I can connect to LinBPQ on one Pi from my laptop and then connect across the audio interface into the other Pi to access Chat/BBS. It’s fun going back to 1200 baud connection speeds again
I’m also talking to the guy who runs the (currently off air) local packet BBS and he’s working to get it back on air. I’m going to donate one of the Pi’s to act as an additional node on another band to expand the frequency availability of the BBS. Maybe I’ll be able to send messages to some of you by packet when that’s all up and running?
I’ve recovered my Icom IC-7400 from deep storage so I’ll be looking at getting that on HF ASAP using FT8 and possibly other digital modes. The biggest outstanding item is an antenna. I’m going to have to make a decision soon about whether to go for a less visible to the neighbours wire antenna or a vertical. Both are compromises…I don’t really have space for a decent length wire antenna and verticals usually need radials which won’t be popular with the Head Gardener!
Once I’m properly back on air I’ll be able to transmit weather data by APRS, although i’ll keep the APRS-IS link going because I don’t know how far my RF APRS transmissions will reach.
Feel free to join my XLX867 DMR/C4fm/DSTAR module C LOts of weather hams and walmart drivers on the road. Based in NH in the USA.Hope to hear you on Welcome back to radio
You might find an end-fed long wire fed with ladder line offers both invisibility and the ability to tune many bands. But, of course you’ll need an appropriate tuner. Good luck and 73.
Jim, W4UCK
In my dreams, but I don’t have a typical 10,000 square mile American garden
EFLW should be at least 65ft/20m long and our garden is only about 19m diagonal corner to corner. Any longer would need to involve the roof and an extra mast which makes it far more visible from the road at the front of the house. The other problem with using the corners of the garden is it definitely restricts my operating power to <10w because of potential RF exposure to our neighbours. I can probably push to more than 10w, but I’d need to do the calculations and figure out distances and heights more exactly.
Hey! 1500 watts isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Wolfman Jack ran 1,000,000 watts. As to the neighbors, are they old? Had kids already? They’ll never even notice…
Yes Chris, you would need to use your PI with PI-STAR the or the newer replacement WPSD project. Fairly easy to setup. Maybe someday we will see you on. Could always make a flagpole and hide a OCF in it. My OCF does all bands, does need a tuner and I am up 60 feet. But always had great reports.
Inverted L - I think the vertical part of that needs to be as long as possible, e.g. 30-40ft? That would be way above the rooftops so very visible. UK has strict rules about masts without planning permission and I’m already pushing the limits with my anemometer mast at about 27ft.
Inverted V - possibly, although the shape of the garden and existing trees/buildings make it tricky to fit in. I’m still trying to figure out if I could fit one in though.
Flagpole - that’s going to stand out like a sore thumb here! We’re not big on flags and flagpoles on houses in the UK. I can’t think of anyone else with a flagpole within a couple of miles of me.
Power regulations (UK) changed a few years ago and if you’re using more than about 10w then you need to do EMF exposure calculations for anyone outside your property boundary (even if they are older childless people LOL).
Some brief calculations I did suggested that to even run 50w on HF I’d need to keep antenna parts 3.5m above ground level. Unfortunately in the corner of the garden best suited to terminating a long-ish wire the neighbour has a building that they use pretty regularly which would mean I’d need to get the end of the antenna up to say least 5.5m above ground which might be doable, but I think that the feeder at the other end would also be a problem with proximity to other neighbours.
This is why I’m thinking a vertical in the centre of the garden is probably the best option. That just needs planning permission from the Head Gardener but I might be able to bribe her with a trip to the garden centre to buy some new plants
Pi-star - I’d not heard of WPSD so I’ll need to investigate. My Pi-Star has a Pi Zero so it looks like I’d need to upgrade it to a Zero 2W first. I need to spend some time with it anyway. I didn’t understand most of the options when I set it up so I haven’t a clue what I’ve enabled or left disabled, and even some that I’ve enabled I’m not sure whether I’ve chosen sensible sub-options. I hear some stuff through it but that’s as far as I’ve got so far.
The world has changed so dramatically in many respects since I was last on air that it’s taking some time to understand the new acronyms and what their impact is on what I’d like to do!
I suspect my Pi-Star can probably connect but I’d need to figure out how to do that.
