Tuesday April 23, 2024 is the next scheduled 23-on-23!
Another great opportunity to activate your 1,296MHz and other uWave home station capabilities.
Operations are typically conducted as follows: Phone/CW
Start time: 10:00z / 8:00pm AEST
QRG: 1,296.100MHz
Digital, 2,400/2,403 and 3.398MHz
Start time: 11:00z / 9:00pm AEST
23cm QRG: 1,296.225MHz (Mode JT65)
13cm QRG: 2,400.100MHz or 2,403.100MHz USB
9cm QRG: 3,398.100MHz
These events are designed to develop the level of activity on 23cm and above amateur bands.
Everyone is very welcome to participate. Please do not hesitate to share with others who you know have capability and see if we can continue to grow the numbers of participating stations, by promoting with your local club, on other forums and FB pages.
Activity is not limited to stations within SE VK4, and the growing contingent from VK2 and even VK5 in the last couple of 23-on-23 activation events.
As is often proven, if the participating stations are unaware of your operation, there is a high likelihood that you won’t be worked. [Quite simple and very logical really!]
Please take a moment to share advice of your participation here, and on the night log into VKSpotter [https://vkspotter.com/] ‘2m and above’ page and chat, so that attention to 'exploiting' the path can be achieved.
Hi guys. I wanted to monitor my audio on my FTDX3000 using headphones and the MON button on my rig.
The manual says: "PHONES Jack: A 1/4-inch, 3-contact jack accepts either monaural or stereo headphones with 2- or 3-contact plugs. When a plug is inserted, the loudspeaker is disabled"
So, I purchased a stereo 6.5mm plug with 3.5mm jack on the back and and with it inserted in the rig and a 3.5mm stereo plug (cable) inserted into it (with 2.5mm plug on the other end of the cable) and the 2.5mm plug, plugged into the the headphones, to my dismay with the audio turned up, there was no audio!
I found that if I pulled the 6.5mm plug half way out of the rig, I would get audio in the headphones, but it was dodgy!
Am I missing something here??? Is the jack on the rig dodgy? Should I go all mono?
Late yesterday afternoon, probably subconsciously prompted by an email from Nick Hacko's DXing.com.au mail list, I decided to cut a wire dipole for 6m and have a play.
I have never used 6m before.
I worked out the starting lengths of the wire and cobbled together a "suck it and see" dipole out of bibs and bobs that were laying around. So far so good.
This morning after cooking breakfast on the BBQ I wandered to the shed and grabbed a ladder, picked a handy eucalypt tree and hoisted up the antenna.
Again, so far so good.
I ran some coax to the bench and started to hook it up.
Then I realised why I haven't done 6m before. I don't have an antenna analyser or VSWR meter that does 50MHz.
I guess I need to order a NanoVNA or something, meanwhile I will investigate how to use the internal SWR meter in the FT-857D.
G'day from a new member. Full disclosure: I'm not a ham, but since a kid I've played around with AM CB (was once the highest base station in the state), was into scanning - mainly airband and police when it was open FM. These days it's mainly UHF CB. I thought I'd ask my question here, as I can't find anything on the internet to help me and I don't know where else to turn.
I'm hoping to get a little help making a motorbike helmet headset for a GME Electrophone UHF CB handheld. I have previously used one of those from Aliexpress (pic attached), which worked well, but is not exactly what I'm after. Firstly, it uses speakers, which I would like to replace with Plugphones, for combined communications and ear protection. Secondly, the connectors used are too robust - I had a little moment that tugged too hard on the connector to the handlebar-mounted PTT button and ripped the cable out of the back of the connector.
The plugphones I can plug straight into the radio, but I would like to construct a flying lead that allows me to connect a helmet-mounted microphone and handlebar-mounted PTT to the MIC input, using standard 2.5mm plug and socket that will simply fail safe via pulling apart in the event I become separated from the motorbike. I can work everything else out apart from the microphone. The headset I used before had no problem with audio volume, but wiring up my own using an electret microphone from Jaycar, or a lapel-style microphone from eBay has almost no volume. What microphone can I use to be compatible with what the radio is looking for? Or is there a passive circuit I need to construct to get the electret to work correctly? The microphone from the Aliexpress unit seems to just be a microphone interrupted by a PTT switch. I thought about reusing this mic, but the wires are tiny, enamelled ones that are so hard and fragile to work with.
When I was first licenced, I was living on the northern outskirts of Sydney.
In those very early days I was blessed with S7 noise due to nearby 132kV power lines and railway overhead wiring.
As time went on the noise floor increased and increased until it was S9+ continuously. So I gave up on phone and moved to digital. Then along came the NBN and even digital was almost impossible.
A couple of years ago we moved to a semi-rural part of the Barossa Valley. Recently I have found the time and the will dig out some gear and start to muck around again.
After a couple of false starts I got FT-8 working with a bodgey install of a multi-tap helical mounted on the chook shed.
I was/am having some rf-in-the-shack so rejigged my earthing system and had a play this afternoon on 20m with FT-8. After getting a few in the log I decided to jump to USB and tune around. At first, I thought my S-meter was configured wrong, but no. Maybe AGC was off. Ahhh. Still nothing was registering. Suddenly, there we voices everywhere! The S-meter was bouncing around in the bottom half.
I had forgotten (or never knew) that radio background noise could be so quiet!
OK I'll bite - why do Steve 3ZAZ's posts keep getting either edited or deleted?
Perhaps this one will too - read it quick, folks.
Another group I was a member of some years back the moderator looked at all posts before they appeared, and if he didn't like or agree with what someone said, the posts would never appear.
I resigned from that group, which I think later gradually died due lack of use ....
There was a bit of chatter on Easter Sunday during the MAD sesh about sending either spkr/mic or camera audio out via ATV-FM. The manual is a bit vague, but I've figured it out and here's a short video of how it works... IC-905 audio settings for ATV-FM mode
Here's a quick 2min tour of the VK3BA/P station at the Barrabool Hills, about 15km west of Geelong at QF21CU41 near the VK3UHF site. Thanks to Chas VK3PY for allowing me to work near their location once again today... VK3BA/P Easter Sunday MAD session