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Post by Joey on Apr 16, 2023 18:04:05 GMT 10
Where I live, I'm looking at a min 200km distance to the nearest radio clubs and centres where there are really any hams to speak to "locally" Luckily the terrain is reasonably flat for the majority of the area but there is a mountain range towards the coast. Though according to the repeaterbook app, I have a few 2m and 70cm repeaters scattered around.
I would love to jump on a yaesu, but the missus will also jump on my head if I spent that much money lol
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Post by Joey on Apr 23, 2023 18:32:26 GMT 10
Woot, nearly ready for the exam, just waiting delivery of the WIA foundation book, just been cruising through the RES training videos
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Post by Joey on Apr 23, 2023 20:58:44 GMT 10
Is there a way to reduce the power level of a radio to keep within the 10W limit for the foundation using an external device? As some of the radios I'm looking at for a starter radio have a 35w output for their lowest settings
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malewithatail
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Post by malewithatail on Apr 24, 2023 8:13:46 GMT 10
You can attenuate the output using some non inductive resistors and making the impedance equal to 50 ohms total to match the radio.
The better radios have a drive control that can be used to control the power output, and as long as u can prove to a radio inspector, if there are any any more, that you are using the power permitted, all will be well.
The other thing to try is to request permission from the Department for a license change to the higher power level. 30 watts is less than 6 db and you can make the 10 watts equivalent to 30 watts with a 6 db gain aerial, so if you use a unity gain aerial with the 30 watts, the result is the same. The department is not hard to deal with. When we did moonbounce, our permit was for 5 kw pep and they had no issue with that.
Its a bit like requesting a 1 kw permit out here, they allow for higher power in some instances and there is talk of the regs being permanently changed to allow for 1 kw for those hams that meet certain locational conditions, such as being 50 km from a population center etc.
Fun fact:In Australia, once you give an animal a name, you are required to keep it. The law dictates that you are only allowed to name an animal if you intend to keep it as a pet; you cannot name an animal you intend to eat.
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greyhat
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Post by greyhat on Apr 24, 2023 12:01:27 GMT 10
Good to see you're progressing Joey. What radios have you got on your wishlist currently?
Strange that the lowest is 35w, would usually see lower numbers to help save power if on battery when the extra oomph isn't necessary to do the job.
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Post by Joey on Apr 24, 2023 18:03:41 GMT 10
Good to see you're progressing Joey. What radios have you got on your wishlist currently? Strange that the lowest is 35w, would usually see lower numbers to help save power if on battery when the extra oomph isn't necessary to do the job. Looking at some Yaesu and Icoms and they have either 35 or 50W power options. Another multiband Anytone is the same options. |
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Post by Joey on Apr 24, 2023 21:05:54 GMT 10
I know that they are looking at options with increasing the power limits for the foundation license at the next LCD update, but that's still a few months away before it even goes into discussion at this point sadly.
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tactile
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Post by tactile on Apr 25, 2023 8:08:49 GMT 10
I know that they are looking at options with increasing the power limits for the foundation license at the next LCD update, but that's still a few months away before it even goes into discussion at this point sadly. I was going to say this but didn't mention it here because couldn't confirm the source. It was either an email from the WIA, or my club...I cant for the life of me find it. If I was you I'd just buy the rig and if the rules thing really bothers you...focus on a licence upgrade.
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malewithatail
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Post by malewithatail on Apr 25, 2023 8:20:05 GMT 10
Like Ive already mentioned, be honest with the department, tell them you are upgrading and the radio u have puts out 30 watts instead of 10 and get permission to operate it as is. They are not demons waiting to jump on unsuspecting hams for doing something wrong.
No matter how paranoid or conspiracy minded you are, what the Government is actually doing is worse than you can imagine.
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Post by Joey on Apr 25, 2023 8:31:10 GMT 10
I know that they are looking at options with increasing the power limits for the foundation license at the next LCD update, but that's still a few months away before it even goes into discussion at this point sadly. I was going to say this but didn't mention it here because couldn't confirm the source. It was either an email from the WIA, or my club...I cant for the life of me find it. If I was you I'd just buy the rig and if the rules thing really bothers you...focus on a licence upgrade.
Letter from ACMA acma.cmail19.com/t/d-e-zkrziy-tlilkrzm-r/ |
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Post by Joey on Apr 28, 2023 11:17:01 GMT 10
OK just ordered my radio. I went for an icom ic-2730a dual band to start with, next radio will be a 10m radio.
Now I just need to find a suitable dual band antenna for the radio and someone to do my license testing so that I can start using the radio when it arrivea
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malewithatail
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Post by malewithatail on Apr 28, 2023 11:24:48 GMT 10
Well done, pity your not around here, I believe SARC is carrying out some license tests next month.
Remember, friends, you and your children are just fodder. You exist to apply time and energy and effort and creativity to natural resources in order to create wealth for the richest people in human history.
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malewithatail
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Post by malewithatail on Apr 29, 2023 12:03:52 GMT 10
Its a pity that hams don't build their own gear anymore these days. Its a lot of fun building my own gear and operating it on air. My backup receiver is a home made all valve set that runs from 12 volts dc. Its actually a regenerative detector with a RF stage and 2 audio stages.
Novices and foundation licenses have to use type approved gear, full calls can build and use their own gear on air. The only people who can use home made gear to transmit messages around the world ! And that's a privilege.
If it takes infinite energy to accelerate something to the speed of light, how come the 2 D size batteries in my torch can, or are they more powerful than I thought ?
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greyhat
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Post by greyhat on Apr 30, 2023 9:10:43 GMT 10
Joey - I see you're having difficulty getting your exam scheduled. Try contacting XD on here, he offered a remote exam in this thread. Good stuff getting some gear. I remember when I programmed an old baofang and 'ker chunked' the local repeater for the first time, was a good feeling!
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malewithatail
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Post by malewithatail on Apr 30, 2023 10:20:07 GMT 10
Holding walking stick in the air and shaking it around, and doing my best old mans impersonation...." And I remember when there were no repeaters.....and things glowed in the dark....."
Those who vote decide nothing, those who count the votes decide everything...
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Post by Joey on Apr 30, 2023 12:20:59 GMT 10
I managed to find someone through the VEA to help with my testing, XD hasn't replied to my PMs regarding the testing.
The testing fee is paid up and the test application sent off, now to wait for the AMC to approve and send the test to my tester.
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malewithatail
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Post by malewithatail on May 4, 2023 16:10:12 GMT 10
Ive been thinking about comms gear and the maintenance of it after the SHTF.
All who have got the foundation, or even novice licenses, good on you, you are now ahead of the pack but.....what happens in a SHTF senerio that requires you to either repair, or even build a ham radio station ?
You are not allowed to do that under the above licenses, but full calls can.
Its rather a privileged situation that Hams are the only group of private persons in the world who can legally design, build and use homemade equipment on air, both transmitters and receivers.
Time for an upgrade peoples. The thrill of that first contact, on a homemade transmitter using scrounged TV valves and a homemade regenerative receiver still is with me to this day. You built something from bits that enabled communications to others far away, and independent of the masses, fully repairable almost indefinitely and, just as good as commercial gear available at the time.
Things have moved on and its not possible to build a transceiver like Yaesu or Baufang offer, but, it doesn't need to be so complicated, with multiple memory's and different colored displays. Simple gear will still do exactly the same job of getting a message through, and sometimes, better as its not as confusing in use.
In fact, my backup transmitter is a homemade all bands (HF anyway), all valves that runs about 15 watts out, is variable in its tuning (not crystal locked and therefore not stuck on one channel or frequency), and can also cover the broadcast band in an emergency to give local area information out. My backup receiver is also homemade, consisting of one stage of RF amplification, one regenerative detector and a couple of audio stages, giving enough volume to fill the shack and able to hear anything, including SSB, that is around and above the noise floor. All valves, and running from 12 v DC via its own inbuilt EMP proof power supply, it can be used almost anywhere. The transmitter doesn't need a matched antenna and functions extremely well on a random wire thrown over a tree. The system can run full duplex, so you can transmit and listen at the same time.
Surplus WW2 gear can also give a good account of itself, but spares are now getting very hard to obtain. My main receiver is a WW2 Kingsley AR7, made in Australia.
Such gear was designed to be serviceable in the field by mostly untrained persons, so is logically laid out and easy to access most of the internals. Its a tribute to the designers that such equipment is still operational over 80 years later, with maintenance of course.
Work out your spirit. Revive your spirit. Put a fire in it that no one can affect. You've got to develop self love that is independent from the world. Get rid of the excuses. Get after life. This is all you get, then you turn back into dust.
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Post by Joey on May 5, 2023 17:27:23 GMT 10
Only took them 3 days to process my application and send out the paperwork for my exam which I've got booked for this weekend.
My Foundation manual also finally arrived. Stupid auspost took 3 weeks to deliver the damn thing
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malewithatail
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Post by malewithatail on May 6, 2023 17:34:44 GMT 10
I picked up several Jaycar AR-1748 AM/FM/SW radios from the tip over the past few months, none worked obviously !
I decided to see if there was generic fault with the model, because, on paper at least, it seams a reasonably radio, covers all the short wave bands plus the FM and AM bands. And at $199, not cheap.
The first one was dead, just a backlight from the display when the on key pressed. Nothing worked, and this is a classic symptom of the microprocessor failure. I de-soldered the shield and saw some brown crud around the crystal. Scraping this away left one lead of the crystal hanging in mid air. Re-soldering it after cleaning the board and that radio was working again.
The next one seemed to power up and had signs of life. The display changed with the knobs and so on, but no sound.
Traced this fault to the audio IC chip. The radios are stereo on FM if switched on, but mono on AM etc. The switching only picks the audio from one channel for mono, it doesn't mix the two audio channels as I would have expected. Anyway, one channel of the audio chip is dead, and, yup, it was the channel that feeds the speaker, which is obviously mono even when switched to stereo. (Stereo is available only from the line out and headphones sockets). The chip is not available, why am I not surprised ?, so I took the easy way out and bridged the audio left and right outputs together. Its never gunna work in stereo again, but who cares ? I now have a couple of reasonably decent radios to give to preppers.
They are good, and can receive all the WWV and WWVH time signals from the USA and Hawaii, and AM performance is not lacking as well.
After 10 years, could I recommend one to a serious prepper ? They are big, quite heavy when fed with a set of battery's, but work well. Reliable ? Probably, as many must have been sold and the chap down the road has one to listen to the footy on and its not missed a beat. Admittedly, its in his shed and never gets moved.
For fixed use, probably OK, but far too big for bugging out with, there are smaller and more sensitive radios available.
And consider the maintenance issue. They are a complicated beast with several circuit boards, a microprocessor and lots of knobs etc to go wrong. If you know what you are doing, get one for the BOL. The power consumption is quite good and a set of 6 D battery's will last a good few months. It only operates on 9 volts dc, so if considering solar, a regulator will be needed.
All that said, anyone got one ?
When geoengineering isn’t creating artificial droughts, rain falls out of the sky for free, and the rivers, streams and oceans are teeming with life and abundance (except for when we pollute them with pesticides, biosludge and plastics, of course).
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malewithatail
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Post by malewithatail on May 7, 2023 8:55:08 GMT 10
Following on from that above, what radio has MWAT got for bugging out ? It is one of about 20,000 made between 1974 and 1978 for the Barlows Television Company in South Africa. Frequency coverage is from 0, yes 0 megs, to 31 megs continuous. Its a Barlow Wadley XCR30, mk2. Originally designed by Dr. Trevor Wadley in the 1940s in South Africa, several other manufactures have made radios based on the same principle, the Drake SSR1 is an example. My radio had a fault with the RF stage, the transistor was very leaky and when I changed it, it came to life. Being completely enclosed in a metal box, it should be EMP/CME proof, and the only thing that may get damaged is the aforementioned first RF transistor. Ive installed a socket, so its a 2 minute job to change the transistor out of it gets damaged from an electrostatic pulse. The circuit is based on a type of phase locked loop, drift cancelling mixers and all analogue, yup, an analogue PLL. The radio has all discreet transistors and spares are available from almost any electronics shop, Jaycar, Altronics etc, except for the audio amplifier chip, which is a TDA version, millions of which were used in ghetto blasters and boom boxes for the last 40 plus years. Its built around a sturdy die cast metal chassis and case, which the front and back unscrew to reveal a large circuit board, and as access to the top and bottom of it is easy, servicing is a breeze. A set of 6 alkaline D battery's last for a year or more of everyday use. Performance ? If a signal is there, the Barlow will pick it up, and no need for an external aerial, just the 30 inch pull out whip works perfectly. The radio has a proper product (balanced mixer) detector for resolving single side band (SSB) from hams and shipping. Being crystal controlled and synthesized, its extremely stable, and even when moved whilst tuned to a SSB signal, it doesn't drift. Disadvantages ? Its quite heavy, and due to the way the circuit works, hetrodynes or whistles are audible at every 1 megacycle, 1,2,3....20,21 etc. As the only stations on these frequencies are the time/weather standards, its easy to zero beat the master oscillator in the Barlow to the time standard, giving accuracy of around parts per billion. Not bad for an analogue circuit made over 40 years ago. The chassis is positive earth, even with the radio using NPN transistors, the collectors are referenced to earth and that takes a bit to get your head around when looking at the circuit as its "upside down" compared to most other modern radios. Due to the positive earth chassis, its a pain to use in a vehicle from an external power source, using the internal battery's is no issue, but you could short the positive chassis of the radio to the negative chassis of the vehicle, destroying the 9 volt power adapter. A version was made with the FM band, but Ive never seen one in Australia, and besides, every phone has a SRD defined FM radio built in anyway now. My backup bug out radio is a home made all band regenerative radio, about 3 inches by 1 inch, including a small solar panel glued to the top. And I have a 9 volt solar panel for the Barlow that was put out by Tandy many years ago. Other radios in my collection are a couple of Sony ICF 2001 digital direct entry radios, real battery pigs that will eat a set of 3 D battery's in a day or so, a couple of conventional Zenith Trans Ocianics from the 50's that are in metal cases and perform almost as well as the Barlow, and a Tandy DX-160 communications receiver of the same vintage as the Barlow. My ute has a homemade SW converter connected to the AM/FM car radio that gives coverage of the main SW bands whilst driving. It has a BFO to enable reception of SSB signals, but is fiddly to use whilst in motion as it drifts around a bit when hitting bumps in the road. This is the second XCR 30 Ive owned, I had one when they first came out, but sold it. Some years later I realized just how good the design as so managed to find another one and bought it. www.radioheritage.com/Shortwave-With-A-Difference/barlwadl.htmWant one ? If you can find one, expect to pay at least $500, then another few hundred to change out the 50 year old electrolytic capacitors to make it reliable. This one shows the FM tuner arrangement. www.bobshop.co.za/item/158222741/Vintage_Radio_Barlow_Wadley_XCR_30_WORKING.htmlAnything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. Ammo is cheap compared to your life. |
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