Amateur radio tuba players?

[The Big Ben]

KB7AIL PSK31 is my favorite. I'm on the West Coast in 7-land and live in a condo so only get on HF some weekends in the field.

[opus37]

KB0JDJ here. I'm still just an HF person with some CW. Never really got into the digital modes. Interesting the similarity of hobbies among tuba players.

[The Big Ben]

KB0JDJ here. I'm still just an HF person with some CW. Never really got into the digital modes. Interesting the similarity of hobbies among tuba players.

CW is the Original Digital. On and Off. Has always worked pretty well...

[Dan Schultz]

Checking the member list... my snow-bird Canadian friend Armin Hachmir hasn't posted in a while. I know he's into short wave.

[The Big Ben]

Sounds like a lot of fun. Amateur radio is a good hobby because it is so BIG. There are so many aspects of radio a ham license allows a person to do. I'd like a good QTH sometime before I die. I don't need a tower and a rotator. A multi-band dipole in the open air, 50 feet up would do just fine. I don't need a ton of power and don't need all of the extra stuff to compete with the big boys.

ObTuba: I guess I'd like a station that was the "Miraphone 186 of ham stations". Works really well, not really fancy, readily available, reasonable price. Would take a *lot* of money to get something that was a *little bit* better.

[opus37]

I have 100 watts on HF with a vertical. I can get most of the world on a good day. Where I lose is on a rare station that is getting piled up. They never can hear me.

[Rick Denney]

KR9D. I was using a G5RV wire antenna for a while, but the trees that held it up got blown down by Sandy. Since then, I play radio with club events, or one or more of the ARRL VHF contests (where I should have been, but wasn't, last weekend). The VHF contesting is with W4IY, a former routine top finisher, but not able to set up the towers we used to. I do Field Day with K4LRG, my local club, and we are quite competitive. I've been the 20m sideband band captain for that effort since 2008.

When the station isn't in pieces, I used a vintage Ten-Tec Omni V (with some hot-rodding, including an additional roofing filter) and a Ten-Tec Centaur amp (three 811A's for 600 watts). I also have an even more vintage Kenwood TS430S (worthless for contesting--receiver wide as a barn door--but fund for ragchewing), with an Ameritron AL811 amp that I think I've found a buyer for. And the usual bevy of VHF rigs. Nothing new in my station, particularly, though I have been lusting after an Elecraft K3 for several years.

I have an AB-577 tower and the parts to make a hex-beam, but just haven't done it. Too much other stuff to do, and I'd rather use that tower for club activities than have it corrode in my yard anyway.

Rick "a decent voice contester but not much of a ragchewer, and truly an abysmally bad CW operator" Denney

[The Big Ben]

I have 100 watts on HF with a vertical. I can get most of the world on a good day. Where I lose is on a rare station that is getting piled up. They never can hear me.

a vertical is really good for long distances... i meet lots of stations with strict HOA's that still want to operate, they come up with lots of ways to hide them. one easy way is to mount the antenna on a car and run coax out to it. the little circular antenna that MFJ sells is being used a lot in attics...

Hustler 4/5/6BTV trap verticals can be put inside a 3 or 4 inch PVC pipe that could also double as a flag pole if flag only went up on calm to mild windy days. Must get as many radials in the ground as possible (I don't think there are too many radials) but at least 2 1/4 wavelength wires for each band. DX Engineering carries a lot of parts to built vertical antennas, mounts, for over brackets and the like.

I don't have a lot of time to put into Field Day but will have Yaesu 817 for 10, 15, 20, 40. I'm going to use an end fed sloper fairly high near the water so there won't be an obstruction and should, at least, be able to get all of the operations around Puget Sound and, hopefully, to other places. I'll do SSB mainly but, if I get my act together and find a laptop computer, I might PSK, RTTY and some of the new, more obscure digital modes.

Call is KB7AIL, Section is WWA I'll be doing one operator, battery power and will have to look up my category. Hope to hear some TubaHams

[arminhachmer]

Checking the member list... my snow-bird Canadian friend Armin Hachmir hasn't posted in a while. I know he's into short wave.

Yes Sir Dr. Dan. I was out in the park today on 20m ssb with a home brew magnetic loop, 2w QRP. That thing has great ears but i think i will cobble up a 100 watt version soon.
cheers, Armin VA3YB

[The Big Ben]

Does it count if you have a 10-meter HAM that's been "converted" to allow the use of the 40 CB radio channels? And what if I had a 500-watt Linear and a Texas Star modulator?

Wooooo, doggies! You gotta hot one there, Bubba!

500 Watts! How many "pills" are that?

(Actually, they don't bother to modify 10 meter AM/SSB radios. That's what a lot of good buddies are using now.)

[The Big Ben]

i was licensed as KB4YGC, but that was my first rig... a ham tech friend of mine fixed me up with a souped up Cobra 142 GT??? (can't remember the model for sure). he had shifted the band upwards into the 10 metes, did something to the output and helped me set up and tune a CB antenna called super scanner. the sunspots were active and contacts were easy. i was world wide with about 20 watts i thin

That's 10 meters all right.... Radio Shack sold a couple of 10 meter ham radios. The last ones (in the mid/late 90s) didn't sell too well and they closed them out at $59.95. Most every ham I know bought at least one of them. 25 watts AM and USB. No CW. The guys who wanted to use them as an IF for VHF/UHF work with transverters need CW for weak signal and were a little disappointed. I think it's an HTX-10. (As a CB band radio, it's called a Magnum 10)

[Steve Marcus]

Many years ago, I was WN3SEV. The randomly assigned call letters were 9 letters away from my initials.

Ran CW on a Heathkit HW-16.

Intended, but never passed the General ticket exam (didn't have time to study to get up to 22 wpm).

Life priority changed. Sold the ham gear long ago.

[The Big Ben]

Many years ago, I was WN3SEV. The randomly assigned call letters were 9 letters away from my initials.

Ran CW on a Heathkit HW-16.

Classic Novice radio. Did you build it?

[Steve Marcus]

Nope, bought it used and assembled.

However, what got me in the direction of ham radio (albeit novice) was a Heathkit CB transceiver that my dad and I DID build. It was my first experience with a solder gun.

[Rick Denney]

Does it count if you have a 10-meter HAM that's been "converted" to allow the use of the 40 CB radio channels? And what if I had a 500-watt Linear and a Texas Star modulator?

That is very likely to get you a visit from the FCC. The 10-meter amateur radio is not type-accepted for CB, and (as you know), CB is limited to 5 watts.

Ham licenses are so easy to get (at least Technician licenses that allow VHF communications) that I wish those in your line of work would just do it, and switch to 2-meter amateur radios (145ish MHz). Mobile units come with 50-70 watts of power, and you can put a linear on them up to 1500 watts. Legally. The real advantage is that it will talk line-of-sight for a goodly distance (I have made 2-meter contacts hundreds of miles away from mountain-top locations), and the conversation you are having with a guy 10 miles ahead of you isn't causing splatter and RF noise on the other side of the planet, which is quite easy with 11 meters. Proper antennas are shorter, too, and the amps are well-designed and clean. Most of the mobile 2-meter radios are FM, which means the signals are quiet and clean, with a proper squelch operation. The radios can also be used for APRS.

I remember seeing a demonstration of a so-called 30 kilowatt "10-meter" amp that had been nudged into the 11-meter band. When the operator keyed it up, the guy making the video discovered that his video camera ceased to operate properly, and he was 50 feet away.

Rick "who understands the temptation but...no" Denney

[Rick Denney]

this is field day weekend, anyone participating? we're WA4UXJ, but i'm not sure what classification we're in yet. we do it more or less for fun, casual operating if you want to...

i may take a psk station... maybe...

hope to hear y'all on the air!

K4LRG, which will run 4A from Virginia. I already did my operating, running about 100 an hour on 20-meter fone. Conditions were good--too good--with pileups on all good signals. We have a three-element Yagi monobander at 45 feet--so we put out a good signal. That station is probably running on the 75-meter fone band right now, unless 20 stayed open and had operators we hadn't already worked. We strong a 75-meter dipole between two of our AB-577 towers. The other sideband station is running 40 with a two-element beam, and the CW stations are running a 20-meter beam, and 40 and 80-meter delta loops.

I always enjoy building a Field Day station--it's one of the few club projects I have time to do.

Rick "who will be dreaming 'kilowatt-four-london-radio-germany' tonight" Denney

[Ricko]

KM4SNW here... passed my technician in the spring, knocked out general this summer. Just starting out - I've got the obligatory Baofeng but want to get into some HF stuff and digital. I'm thinking of picking up an Elecraft KX3 or Yaesu 817ND as a primary HF radio to take camping, out with the scouts, etc.

So... how do you guys run the cable around the house in a way that keeps your wife happy?

73

Ricko

[Ricko]

I've got a Diamond X6000A that I picked up at a garage sale for $5, a 65' 'backpack antenna' and I'm fiddling with an MFJ 9232 loop antenna tuner... Mrs. Ricko is perfectly fine with me setting these up temporarily on the patio, but I'm trying to work toward something more permanent. So far, the bonus room above the garage on the front of the house is the approved location - with the antennas out back.

I've also picked up one of the SDRPlay boxes and can pick up stuff all the way down in the 3mhz range with the loop... most of the way across the country.

Ricko