I am assembling a Pixie CW, single frequency, QRP transceiver kit which I intend to use for SOTA/POTA work. And no, it will not be my primary HF radio. I have two crystals which came with the kit, 7.060 and 7023 MHz. Per ARRL band documentation, they're both in the same recommended "usage" part of the band. Changing would require desoldering one and soldering in the other. There is no room on the board for a socket, at least no socket I know of. So the question is, which one, or shop for another? I don't have enough HF experience at this point, and no CW experience yet, so I'm undecided with no preconceptions. Your thoughts on this are welcome.

Edit: I seemed to miss that 7.023 is not allowed for my license class and would cut out a lot of SOTA/POTA hunters. Decision made by fiat.

The song playing seemed to be some sort of ballad, I'm not sure who's hosting this station or what language it is in, I searched up 6069 KHz and 6069 KHz AM on google and didn't get any results pointing to where it could've came from, can anybody help tell me what this station is? and possibly other facts?

I ran across this 'zon ad (no affiliate link or involvement with the seller), https://www.amazon.com/Baofeng-Handheld-Rechargeable-Frequency-Charging/dp/B0GFZ864KY/ref=sw_ttl_d_pd_sw_d_sw_dealz_cs ....ALL THAT for 65$.

I read stuff daily about starting out, what should I do, do I *NEED* this or that...NO YOU DON'T. My first car was an Escort GT with 130k on it already - was it state of the art - no, was it the latest thing - nada ....BUT IT GOT THE JOB DONE.

Alas Amateur Radio - do you know if your a talker? Some people aren't they are tinkerers though - still a ham, Don't be shy - we all have at least one thing in common, we're hams. I know the DM32 isn't state of the art, but as a tech starting out it gives you access to not only analog but digital - DMR these days is usually 200x what local repeaters are, give you access to far away contacts (no it's not "DX", DX is for HF). Almost like fishing in a bucket to say. You don't need to ker chunk local repeaters looking for life...it's already there. Get to a tall hill around you, step out and call CQ on the VHF calling freq. See what's out there. You won't know till you try.

Save the Porsche or Ferrari equipment for when *YOU* feel your ready to empty that wallet. I among many other HT"s still have my very first UV-5r V1 from ~16 years ago.. still to this day it keys up local repeaters like a pro, I have an entire room filled with gear from over the years, still works.

Just GET ON THE AIR and HAVE FUN!!!

Olá senhores, tudo certo?

Estava dando uma olhada na web e encontrei o radio HT Baofeng DM32, um rádio digital (DMR) com algumas configurações interessantes do meu interesse. Acontece que aqui no Brasil, o DM32 tem uma diferença significativa quanto o UV32, que é apenas analógico.

Visualmente são os mesmos rádios.

A pergunta que faço aos colegas Radioamadores. Dá pra modificar a firmware do UV para deixá-lo digital?

Caso alguém conheça algum procedimento e possa compartilhar ficarei agradecido.

Today, I finally installed my very first antenna. Borrowed it from a good friend who introduced me to ham radio!

It's mounted at ~10 meters in height with dipoles for the 10m and 15m bands. My first tests went great, tough bands seem a bit quiet at the moment.

I'm interested in learning more about MARS listening. So far all I've picked up are a brief transmission a few weeks ago, with the speaker telling someone to let them know if they needed more help, and the tail end of a weather forecast a few hours ago. Both were on 13927 kHz.

I'm in an urban area in Ohio, but I often take my radio to a nearby lake and get much better HF and SW reception there. I'm using a Tecsun PL-330 with a Tecsun AN-48X antenna. I also have an XHDATA AN-80 reel antenna that I rarely use.

Are there certain frequencies that are more active than others? Certain times of day to listen?

I realize my setup is limited, but I'm curious what I can pick up with it.

Thanks.

I’d like to make a 12v (13.8v actual) to 16v boost converter so I can charge my battery while driving. On the input end would be a cigarette lighter style plug and the other end would be PowerPoles. The output would feed a charge controller which in turn would feed the battery.

To prevent accidentally draining my vehicle’s battery I want it to work at 13.8v input, but not 12v.
Is there a kit I could use to make my own? Would it comparable to a ready to use

Title says it. I’ve loved playing around with APRS. But Ansrvr no longer sends back a list of active groups. So I’m just trying to see what’s out there.

Hello

I recently got my Technician license and have joined my local HAM club. I’m currently using a Baofeng UV-5R Mini with a roof-mounted dual-band jpole antenna.

I’m studying for General now and want to buy something I can grow into instead of replacing right away. My budget is around around $300 , and I’m fine with older gear if it’s reliable.

I'd like to learn HF while i'm studying, and use the 10m band where i can.  eventually im thinking i may learn CW, but for now will stick to phone .  

I was looking at building a QMX+, but once I added everything up, I started wondering if I’d be better off putting that money toward a used radio instead. I like the idea of doing some POTA work in the future but need to focus on one thing to start I suppose. 

If you had around $300 to spend, what radios would you keep an eye out for? Any models that are especially reliable or good for a first HF rig? Also open to any buying tips for older radios. Ii intend to build my first few antennas.

Thanks , KF8GSO

I've managed to snag 2 baofeng UV-21 pro's and 1 iradio uv-98 plus for just 70 Euro's, I live in the Netherlands btw. All three of them have seen so little use that the plastic foil is still on the display. You can imagine that I'm very happy, even if I can't use them to send yet. I'm going to take my novice exam on the 11th of august.

The cable for the Baofengs is already plugged into my laptop, by which cable do I need for the iradio UV98 plus? The display claims Radtel when I turn the power on. Is it the same cable as for a radtel 880? Or do I need to order the one for the radtel 950? The iradio is equiped with a USB-C port (I take that a regular usb-c cable won't work for programming) and a number of contactpoints hidden under a plastic cover secured with a screw. Any advice would be appreciated.

Any tips on how to get the most out of these radio's would also be very welcome. I've got the CHIRP software installed to use for programming.

Thanks in advance and cheers from the Netherlands!

Hello.

My nephew just found out he is getting his HAM radio license (he passed a test). His birthday is coming up, and his parents are struggling a bit right now.

I want to provide him with a good setup, but I dont know where to start... nor do I know anything about HAM radio.

I am hoping there is some equivalent of a Toyota 4Runner in the HAM world that will be good to get my nephew going for a while before needing to buy anything else, but that will also be modular to the extent that if he presumably wants to hook an antenna to the side of my sister's house one day he will be able to without having to start from scratch.

Any advice or tips would be really appreciated.

Arguably my budget would be $1,000 or less, but if thats a "whats a banana cost anyways, $10?" type of amount and it could be done for 1/3 or less I dont want to spend money unnecessarily.

Thank you!

I recently moved back to WA from WI and set up my GAP Titan DX at the new QTH. Before, it would tune on 40m at a reasonable 2:1 SWR. Testing it now I find that the resonant freq is about 7.275 where it's 1:1 (or very close) and at the lower end of the band 7.00 - 7.100 (roughly) where I usually hang out on FT8/CW, the SWR is close to 3:1.

I installed the counterpoise with the 44 inches, 2 inch loop, and 11 inch dacron as mentioned in the manual. I then see this other "enhanced" manual (which is better than than the factory one), says that they shortened the wire by about 80 inches to resonate on 40 meters in the center of the band. That seems like a lot to shorten it, but if it works I'll give it a try at least.

It seems generally it should resonate below the 40m band, and bring the freq up to the 40m band, but mine is resonant at the higher end of the band. I did try changing length, but probably not enough since it didn't seem to move. I'll double check that I don't have the gray caps on backwards, but I don't think I do.

Anyone have any tips on this? 20m is totally flat and perfect tuned, and I know this could affect that band.

Thanks, 73!

Never tried any contact with this setup, normally i work from the Netherlands.

Saw these while walking around my neighborhood

I found it on 5450 kHz USB, if you want to check it out for yourself go ahead, I don't know how often it's active though, heres the notes I took in my journal:

LOG #003

Date: 7/21/26

Time: 12:09

Frequency: 5450 kHz

RMT: USB

Type: Utility / Weather

Signal Strength: Strong

What I Heard: Automated English voice reading measurements. Mentioned "over 1,200 feet" and temperatures. Also heard the phrase "NASA International."

Notes: Possibly a weather, aviation, or scientific information transmission. Voice was automated and repeated.

Identification not confirmed, but Data seemed to change such as temparature and other numbers as time goes on, also mentions things such as Visibilty and clouds.

If your wondering what RMT means, It stands for Radio Modulation Type, I just use it to differ between CW, LSB, USB, AM, FM, and AMsync.

for now i have 3 analog radios but recently i became interested in DMR so a question
is the TYT MD-UV380 good beginner DMR radio?

Hello Ham folks!

Apologies if this isn't the right place to ask about this. I figured y'all would have the right knowledge base to help me out.

I've noticed there's about a mile long stretch of my local freeway where Bluetooth connection always gets disrupted. Not occasionally. Every single day when I drive through that stretch, my phone's BT connection drops out.

I figure there must be some radio source in the area causing the issue and I'd really like to track it down.

Does anyone have suggestions on what kit I'd need to do this? Would I use a spectrum analyzer for this?

I know BT is in the 2.4GHz band.

I plan to put my radio in my garage, I have close access to my house ground rod(which I'm planning to run all my coax cables(roughly 200ft) to onto a plate with lighting arrestors on it. Then I plan to run a 10-15ft gauge 6 cable from the house ground rod to my bus bar(to ground all my equipment) - First of all does this sounds right so far? **My second question is IF lightening were to hit one of my wire antennas could it fry my entire breaker panel and go into my house just by traveling down my KMR400 coax?

I have told this story many times, but I may as well tell it on Reddit.

So, long story short, I am a high school student who is into spaceflight, entrepreneurship, AI, etc and I have slowly but surely been working on a weather balloon project with school (the reason it is taking so long being all the scheduling stuff with multiple people), and I don't necessarily need a radio license to transmit our data from the balloon but it helps and I can use it for other things eventually. Anywho, I started studying for my technician test as you do, and I didn't like HamStudy for some reason, and as I have hinted at before, I have done some basic programming and am fascinated by AI. I kept getting ads for tools like Replit and Base44, so I decided one day to prompt Replit to make a study app for the FCC technician exam using a question pool file I gave it.

I tested with Patriot Radio Club, which I highly recommend, and when they asked me what I studied with, I showed them my app I had made. They liked it and encouraged me to expand on it and try to make it a real product. So here I am, with a study app that has since been completely redesigned and expanded upon with the FCC general exam (extra coming soon!) and analytics pages for the user to track their aptitude (will be refining the algorithm).

The app is still in Beta right now, but if you would like to check it out, it is called Centauri Academy (centauriacademy.app)

I'm looking for a detailed user manual for the Radtel 950. PRO. It's a complicated radio. There are some videos on YouTube, but they are more reviews than demos.

Thanks.

Can I use this method for ground rod placement? In this picture the coax shield is only going to the ground rod in the upper left but each of the other ground rods would be connected with a 6 gauge wire. Each ground rod would be roughly 25-30 ft apart. - Note, there wouldn't be a ground rod right where the coax goes into the house - is this ok?

I'm fairly new to the hobby and created a free iPhone and Mac app to combine my interest in amateur radio with my passion for the outdoors. You can download it from the appstore link found at www.solarpunkhamradio.com

I launched it a few months ago and believe it's the world's first iPhone app to integrate Parks On The Air with Geocaching On The Air!  I've recently added the ability to attach photos to your QSO and Geocache logs. It includes some common tools for the ham on the go including quick logging of QSO, POTA/COTA/SOTA, Digital Mobile Radio (DMR), APRS, satellite tracking, saved repeaters, band conditions, and some limited FT8/CQ decode as well as transmit capability.

I designed the app to run without a backend server so everything is contained locally on your phone or computer. However, if you choose to connect it to your QRZ.com, POTA.app, Geocaching.com, or LOTW.com  accounts then you can do some import/export of data.

It's a free app (no in-app purchases either)... I'm doing this to learn and hopefully help some other people in the hobby. 

If you’re running iOS version 18 or newer and want to give it a try you can get it from www.solarpunkhamradio.com and click on the “download on the app store” button. Or search for it by name in the App Store on your iPhone. If you're on your desktop or laptop make sure you're on the Mac App store to get the best version for your hardware. 

This is my first try building a mobile app and I've only had a few beta users so far. I’d love your feedback on what would make it better :)

73,

No HF propagation predictions, but real live measured data from your nearest ionosonde and some terrestrial observatories and geostationary satellites. See: https://hamwaves.com/swx

There is also a free and open MQTT server for integration into any non-commercial software application.

With enough support, an Android app will be soon released.