Radio Is Fascinating

06-04-2019 6:21am #1

Listening to my SDR the last while and I could hear a New Zealand station but missed his call sign before he went off air.

Listening now to CM8HWY from Cuba, amazing, first time to hear a Cuban on the bands, coming in quite clear with some QSB and I have to use filtering but still a good copy.

Here are some waterfall pics , first one is the Cuban Ham to the right and 2nd one is Hams who over drive their amplifiers , turning mic gain up too high and processing and it sounds all distorted, they sound ridiculous but think that they are sounding great, "big signal " yeah big "non linear" signal due to too much mic gain over driving the amplifier and splattering 10 Khz wide or more interfering with adjacent stations. See the splatter in the bottom pic !

Seriously, these people should be given a warning and made re sit their exam if it continues. One of the things when studying is about too much mic gain and splatter, some people have 0 consideration for others.

I hope to pass the exam in May, it would be great to get some good DX contacts !

06-04-2019 6:34am

Can hear VK2SR from Australia now.

06-04-2019 7:09am

Found the New Zealand station again ZL3CHE, not as clear as the Australian station was.

micko45 · 13-04-2019 8:38am

Good luck with the exam, i did it a few years ago and got it . Been meaning to do the Morse test but not enough time these days. Making a QSO can be very addictive and many ways to get some contacts. One of my favorites is digital modes as it doesn't wake the kids, rag chewing on psk is interesting :cool: Also you have to learn all about mic gain as its critical with digital.

Be prepared to empty your pockets

13-04-2019 9:59am

micko45 wrote: »

Good luck with the exam, i did it a few years ago and got it . Been meaning to do the Morse test but not enough time these days. Making a QSO can be very addictive and many ways to get some contacts. One of my favorites is digital modes as it doesn't wake the kids, rag chewing on psk is interesting :cool: Also you have to learn all about mic gain as its critical with digital.

Be prepared to empty your pockets

Thanks, yeah getting there with the exam, taking mock tests too, using the New Zealand mock test on the mobile getting better, it's a good help that. Of course I have to ignore the irrelevant stuff for the Irish exam. Exam on the 9th May .

I've already spent a lot on SDR's and linear power supplies and good antennas.

I jumped the gun a little and already have my Antenna for the radio, got a My antennas.com 80-10 End fed antenna which got excellent reviews. Good efficient antenna that is resonant on multiple bands and does not need a radial system , only good ground unlike standard end fed with 9:1 Balun, this has 48:1 which seems to make a big difference.

Not sure what I will get as base radio, I got my eye on the FT-891 , good for portable/base use good price and ICOM IC-7300 which is a lot of radio for the money but expensive and I'm not that bothered about waterfall display. Also eyeing up the FT-450D

I bought an Xiegu X5105 because I saw it at a good price 2nd hand and I am very interested in QRP.

The X5105 got great reviews and is a lot of radio for the money with built in tuner and antenna analyzer.

I could get the 100 watt amp for this and be able to use it portable too but the FT-891 could be got cheaper than the amp 2nd hand and is 100 watts and could be ran off a cheap tiny LiPO battery. 10 ah of LiPo could run the radio for 30 mins continuous at 100 watts, 20 ah for an hour and still be much smaller and lighter than lead acid.

So many options, so much money. lol

I'm also interested in Loop antennas for portable use.

One of the MFJ Loop tuners will tune your own wire or whatever you want to make a loop out of, there's even a chap on youtube which used a 26 inch aluminium bicycle wheel and made contacts some distance lol that was funny.

Then eventually I need to get a linear amp and they are very expensive but something I would hope to keep for the rest of my life and leave to my two Sons which I hope to encourage into the hobby.

I believe their isn't enough encouragement for younger folk to get into this hobby, there's more interesting stuff than playing around with raspberry Pi's, sure I do enough of that myself but there is much more interesting stuff out there.

I would also love to do CW and perhaps I will learn it and then take the exam in a few years. That's amazing but the issue with that is that a lot of folk transmit way too fast and don't seem to give newer folk the time of day and even ignore them if they're not up to speed.

PSK31 is about the only digital mode I'd be interested in because I think digital is taking much of the real fun out of the hobby and to me is rather boring. Digital is showing up more and more out of band too which is annoying and needs to be stopped.

13-04-2019 10:01am

Here's Eric from ham radio concepts using the MFJ Tuner to tune the bicycle wheel :-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E56wIlpfZgA

micko45 · 13-04-2019 8:20pm

I have gone through a lot of rigs, with Yaesu FT-950 being my favorite by a mile. I got it working under computer control and hooked up a panadaptor. So HDSDR was fully working with it.

I mostly do psk on 20w but i like jt9 as the distance you can get is unreal, even when conditions are really bad. It was the only mode that i seen a caller from South pole, sadly he couldn't hear me.

Currently looking out for a new radio and was interested in another yaesu, maybe the Ft 891 but that one you listed, X5105, i never heard of it, but it looks interesting. I might pick it up instead, although i tend to buy second hand to keep the costs down, i will take a deeper look at it.

13-04-2019 10:14pm

There was an ft-891 on donedeal for 450 Euro's pity you didn't say that you might be interested, seems to be gone now. Good deal. I'd nearly take that over the X5105 if I could find one at that price but you might need a tuner and battery for 891 where as the X5105 has it all built in except for the 100 watts of course. + tuner and analyzer so it is a good rig too for the money , depends what you want, light and compact portability with lots of kit X5105 is your man, power then has to be ft-891.

You could power the ft-891 from a lithium pack and it would be much smaller and lighter than lead acid and should be able to kick out 20 amps easily especially LiPo which can dish out mega amps from a tiny pack.

The ft-950 is a nice rig , must be a pleasure to use.

Also check out the new Xiegu G90, it's a 20 watt rig , SDR, ATU but no battery.

Have you done much portable ?

What's your base and portable antenna if you operate portable ?

14-04-2019 8:24am

Check this out, cool. Can use SDR uno with the X5105.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFg5aKSodwc

micko45 · 14-04-2019 10:12am

Funny you should say Lipo, my current pocket emptying hobby means i have stacks of 2s, 3s, and 4s lipos :eek:

Only antenna for ham i ever bought was a full length G5RV. Everything else was home brew. Even for satellite I made a funky yagi. If you ask me, one of the best parts of hobby is making/mounting resonant antennas.

I seen that radio on done deal and its what put me in mind of one but the timing for the buy was wrong. The X5105 interests me as i travel a lot for work and its got everything built in and youtube tells me it can be hooked up to a computer (ham radio delux) + antenna analyser, so it ticks all the boxes i am interested in for QRP.
Only other QRP i did was Bitx i got an early version of it and it was interesting to build but something went wrong and didnt work right. Solder skills were not great at the time.

Second hand radio prices are crazy, there is a couple of icom 756 p3 and yeusu ft1000 for sale on donedeal/adverts for a little less than a new icom 7300, you would have to be mad to not buy the 7300 over them.

micko45 · 14-04-2019 10:15am

Deleted User wrote: »

Check this out, cool. Can use SDR uno with the X5105.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFg5aKSodwc

liking this radio more and more.

14-04-2019 10:25am

Yeah it's a good rig for the money if you remember it's only 5 watts but Xiegu make a 100 watt compact amp called the Xiegu XPA125B so you can have the best of both worlds when out and about, if you're finding it hard with 5 watts then use the amp.

By the way what antennas do you use for base and portable ?

Malmsteen · 10-05-2019 8:15am

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Thanks, yeah getting there with the exam, taking mock tests too, using the New Zealand mock test on the mobile getting better, it's a good help that. Of course I have to ignore the irrelevant stuff for the Irish exam. Exam on the 9th May .

How do you think you did Mad_Lad? I'm not confident - lot of the electrical questions caught me and the Fire alarm going of at the start didnt help the nerves.

10-05-2019 8:35am

Malmsteen wrote: »

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Thanks, yeah getting there with the exam, taking mock tests too, using the New Zealand mock test on the mobile getting better, it's a good help that. Of course I have to ignore the irrelevant stuff for the Irish exam. Exam on the 9th May .

How do you think you did Mad_Lad? I'm not confident - lot of the electrical questions caught me and the Fire alarm going of at the start didnt help the nerves.

Were you there yesterday ? , I heard no alarm so you must have been in in the afternoon.

I think I have a good chance but I can't say for certain, I had to guess some and some were unnecessarily difficult such as the beacons, it's really irrelevant stuff for the exam , it just baffles me why they feel the need to include some really complicated stuff.

I was shocked there was not a single resistor question. I worked very hard on resistors and capacitors and conductors because maths is a weakness for me and I spent far too much time on this considering there was no resistor and 1 capacitor question, now I realise the time spent on resistors and capacitors + Inductors was a mistake.

The band plans are far too difficult to remember as it is without including beacons, sure, everyone knows you don't transmit on beacon frequencies that's why people have the band plans printed out and stuck to the wall in the shack.

Anyway I guess we'll find out in the next week or two, I also can't understand why this is not done on computer in this day and age and the results given there and then or at least emailed in a day or two.

At least for those who registered an email address they will send the results in the post.

If I fail I fail , I'll be wiser for November, it's just killing me waiting for the results, waiting until November to re-sit the exam will kill me altogether.

What did you think of it, how did you get on ?

Malmsteen · 10-05-2019 9:52am

I was in the afternoon sitting 2pm just about to open the paper and the Fire alarm went off so out into the lashing rain for 15mins. Not a great start to an Exam turned out it was a Firedrill what a time to have it.........

Exam was particularly hard I felt also and as I said the Electrical side tripped me up on a few questions. I focused more on the rules and regulations in my Studies but your spot on regarding the Band plans thier near impossible to remember but anyway we will find out on the next week or so if I fail I will go for it again in November as hopefully the study will still be fresh in the grey matter ha ha....
Anyway best of Luck Mad_Lad and hope you catch that elusive EI callsign .

10-05-2019 12:03pm

Malmsteen wrote: »

I was in the afternoon sitting 2pm just about to open the paper and the Fire alarm went off so out into the lashing rain for 15mins. Not a great start to an Exam turned out it was a Firedrill what a time to have it.........

Exam was particularly hard I felt also and as I said the Electrical side tripped me up on a few questions. I focused more on the rules and regulations in my Studies but your spot on regarding the Band plans thier near impossible to remember but anyway we will find out on the next week or so if I fail I will go for it again in November as hopefully the study will still be fresh in the grey matter ha ha....
Anyway best of Luck Mad_Lad and hope you catch that elusive EI callsign .

Cheers, same to you, good luck and hopefully get the O'l EI, fingers crossed.

pixbyjohn · 10-05-2019 11:43pm

Hope you both passed exam Malsteem and Mad Lad

11-05-2019 8:20am

pixbyjohn wrote: »

Hope you both passed exam Malsteem and Mad Lad

Won't know for a week or 2 they said.

We get an email from COMREG to register for their site and then eventually they will post the results there , for those that registered an email address for the exam for the rest they will be posted.

I am amazed that it can't be done on computer and the results given in a day or at the end of the exam, that's the only issue I have with a written exam other than that I don't care if it's on computer or paper.

Did you sit the exam yourself or intend to ?

micko45 · 11-05-2019 8:29pm

Best of luck to both of you. For the whole time i was waiting for results I was sure i failed, but when the results arrive in, i passed.

11-05-2019 9:54pm

Thanks micko45.

How long had you to wait for the results ? They told us up to 2 weeks which I think is mad.

11-05-2019 10:36pm

How did everyone get on in the exam ?
I heard that it was particularly difficult this time ?

12-05-2019 8:48am

65535 wrote: »

How did everyone get on in the exam ?
I heard that it was particularly difficult this time ?

I sat the exam on Thursday morning , they told us that it would be 1 - 2 weeks before we got the results.

Yes I thought is was hard enough, there were some unnecessarily hard questions I wasn't prepared for, there were two on antennas which was in my opinion really unnecessarily hard, I couldn't even recall them now.

I spent too much time on the maths end of it and there were only 1 question on capacitors 0 on resistors which I thought particularly strange.

My big weakness is maths and these formulas so I spent far too much time learning this and practicing for nothing and I am very disappointed with that.

I got caught on the beacons, this was ridiculous, they should keep it to the band start and end frequencies and leave it at that. This was just madness and uncalled for

They should be encouraging people to the hobby not trying to deliberately trick them, they should keep it to the rules and regulations, antennas, safety, band limits which are all important and relevant to the hobby after all most people sitting the exam are new and perhaps not that familiar with all of the areas in scope for the exam so questions should be kept basic and relevant.

I know the exam in the U.K is much worse, if memory recalls, you have to sit 3 written exams and one practical, that in my opinion is going to just put a lot of people off where it's gaining people's interest in the hobby they should be concentrating on.

In the end , at least for us is a horrific 6 month wait for a new exam + up to 2 weeks waiting for results if we fail, where they should be doing everything in their power to ensure the exam is easy enough and kept relevant to the important parts, yeah sure, in their opinion it's easy, amateurs who are in the hobby 40 odd years or more and probably with much more technical backgrounds.

They need to think that a fail for someone might put them off ever bothering again and that is very very sad.

martinedwards · 12-05-2019 9:13am

Deleted User wrote: »

I know the exam in the U.K is much worse, if memory recalls, you have to sit 3 written exams and one practical, that in my opinion is going to just put a lot of people off where it's gaining people's interest in the hobby they should be concentrating on.

Weeeellllll, nearly.

in the UK it's tiered.

a basic exam is very easy. kids under 10 have passed it. get it and you are limited to low power, so you can't do much damage!

then there's intermediate, and higher which is the equivalent of the one tier EI exam.

I got mine back in the olden days when there was one exam, which got you VHF access, and you had to pass the morse test to be allowed on HF.

I didn't do the morse test at the time, but now I'm pretty sure I HAVE a mic for my HF set...... but it's burried pretty deep!

12-05-2019 9:26am

Yeah I suppose a very basic is a good idea and even 5-10 watts can get you out over a considerable distance if conditions are right. It will get people on the air at least.

Probably our exam would seem very easy to U.K hams lol I don't know then.

Taking morse out was a good idea, someone can learn it at a later date and take another test, this is a good idea, there have been some positive changes.

Certainly with out exam there were 2 questions on antennas that were far too difficult for people only learning and the beacons was not , in my opinion of course, very fair.

They did say that in past exams people were able to answer the maths questions correctly and were less familiar with rules, regulations and safety , band plans etc so I think this years exam was an attempt to introduce more questions people found easy in the past.

Anyway I may pass yet, fingers crossed.

Malmsteen · 15-05-2019 10:10pm

Thanks for the Best Wishes lads still waiting anxiously, not confident but heres hoping....

15-05-2019 10:12pm

Malmsteen wrote: »

Thanks for the Best Wishes lads still waiting anxiously, not confident but heres hoping....

I'm not confident either lol.

I can't understand why it takes so long ? haven't even got the registration email from COMREG yet did you ?

Shyboy · 16-05-2019 9:09am

What is the pass rate for the Exam? I could not make it last week, typical the one day in the year I had a wedding to attend, would not have made it to Dublin and back here to Galway in time.

Definitely will take it in November.

Malmsteen · 16-05-2019 10:37am

No nothing yet Mad_Lad and the pass is 60 % on both papers....

16-05-2019 2:08pm

Shyboy wrote: »

What is the pass rate for the Exam? I could not make it last week, typical the one day in the year I had a wedding to attend, would not have made it to Dublin and back here to Galway in time.

Definitely will take it in November.

Ah you were the missing person !, you must have been due to attend in the morning so ? I remember them saying they’d wait a few more mins .

Yep 60% pass in A and B .

Ah I could be doing it again in November myself haha hopefully not.

Shame you couldn’t make it make sure and re apply ASAP and don’t leave it too late.

16-05-2019 2:13pm

Malmsteen wrote: »

No nothing yet Mad_Lad and the pass is 60 % on both papers....

At this rate it looks like it’s going to be next week !

Have to admit the waiting is killing me.

I got an old Yaesu FT-77 waiting to be used again, bought it a few weeks ago, it’s a lovely classic rig , I love they style and I loved when radios looked like radios and not like computers. It’s very simple to operate , couldn’t be simpler in fact lol

One thing that amazes me is it’s receiver quality , quiet and lovely analogue sound and not of that under water sounding dsp you get today, amazing for such an old and simple rig !

If I pass I’ll get a more modern rig not sure what , don’t care for waterfall and care more about receiver quality and sound quality.

16-05-2019 11:37pm

Hearing FM5DN now on my Kiwi SDR, guy from Martinique, 18,125 Khz amazing, I love radio ! he's talking to VO1FOG who's signal dropped and hardly legible now, amazing.

I really hope I pass the exam !!!!!!

Amazing , just amazing !

http://emeraldsdr.ddns.net:8074/

Try my SDR in the link above you might still hear them.

Radio Is Fascinating

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