What did you do for your comms setup today?

[MacWa77ace]

You can get the accessories to setup a 'mobile' HT in your car. You just need:

a Mobile antenna, magnetic mount or clamp on for HAM frequencies. click here
An antenna adapter to connect your HT to the mobile antenna. click here
A way to mount it in your car. click here
A PTT mic and way to mount that for easy access.
Optional: 12v charging adapter to plug into the car.

You can get a noise cancelling/amplifying headset setup. PTT or VOIP. And all the accessories for that.

[MacWa77ace]

Not sure where to put this but Prime Day Deal on 2) Baofeng 3800mAh batteries for $20.99

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MNTFD4P/ref=ox_sc_saved_image_7?smid=A1GCFDV7RY77XP&th=1



I don't have prime so I won't be doing this for my comms setup today. But someone could.   

[NT2C]

I don't have prime so I won't be doing this for my comms setup today. But someone could.   

Like me. 

[Moab]

Just curious why you guys don't like Prime?

[MacWa77ace]

Just curious why you guys don't like Prime?

It's to expensive [or not worth it IMO]. 'Cause I still get free shipping on Amazon. All the same movies/TV shows on FreeVee, and all the music on youtube music. If Prime let you download the MP3's, then maybe but probably not since the price increase.

[NT2C]

Just curious why you guys don't like Prime?

Where did I say that?   

[Moab]

In case you don't follow the bargains section. HF pelican cases one third off. I think would fit 4 handhelds and accessories perfect. Or 4 or so handguns.

https://ufozs.com/smf/index.php?topic=2452.0#new

[NT2C]

Charged a dead radio battery.

Okay, this is a bigger deal than it appears.  I bought a pair of those batteries that Mac mentioned above, but when they came in one was defective and wouldn't charge in my drop-in charger, just blinking red/green.

Usually, that just means that the voltage dropped below the point that the charger could start charging it.  (Likely sat in storage for over a year)  Such batteries can be recovered by paralleling them with a charged battery for a few minutes to get their voltage up, then drop them in the charger.  That wasn't working well on these because my desk is a plastic table and they kept squirting out from under my fingers as I tried to juggle two batteries and keep short wires connected to the right terminals.

I contacted Amazon and they sent out replacements and wanted the bad ones back.  Not being a dummy, I decided not to send them back until I had the new ones in hand and charged.

While I was waiting I decided to try something else.  These batteries have a secondary coaxial charge port, and I just happened to have the cord for it.  Sure enough, using the port seems to bypass the battery protection circuit in the battery, and the protection circuit in the cord wasn't as fussy about the voltage and allowed it to charge.

I now have four fully charged extended batteries for my UV5Rs

[MacWa77ace]

@NT2C
Can you schematic that technique using of one battery to charge another?
I'm surprised you didn't have patch cables customized to do that already. [If I'm imagining how its done correctly.]

FETA: I recovered a dead 19.2v drill battery pack that wouldn't charge by using a better charger once.

[NT2C]

Just positive to positive and negative to negative. Works with most pairs of Li-ion battery packs. Just make sure they're the same capacity and voltage.  If you see sparks you did it wrong.

Keep them connected a few minutes, just long enough to put a bit of a charge on the dead one, then it should charge properly again.  Works with dead tool packs too.

[NT2C]

Added a short "can" style NMO VHF/UHF antenna to the Jeep's inventory of spare antennas.  This is for those times when off-roading through heavy brush where branches would break my regular antenna.

[Skidjit]

Just finished a road trip from NH to OH (Camp Perry to be exact), along the way I made an overnight stop in Moshannon State Park in PA. Managed to hear plenty of contacts on 20M/40M; 10M was dead. It was actually the only way I heard about the events in Butler as I was completely off the grid at the campsite.

While I could hear just fine, trying to transmit provided negative results. I was running QRP on my FT-818 with a EFHW 10M Dipole and a 20/40M vertical. Also attempted to listen into JS8 but that was a failure as well.

My plan is to get back to an area that is not congested on the electromagnetic spectrum and give it a go. I was limited on time during the road trip so I did not perform a full diagnostic like I could at the home QTH.

On the lighter side, I have a deal coming for an IC-7300 which will allow me to move my Kenwood TS-480 back into the mobile.

[EBuff75]

Well, now that I've got a programming cable, I loaded our local CERT channels into my new TIDRADIO TD-H8.  I did find one error that I pointed out to our radio guy (a fat-finger entry in one of the channels in the file he sent out) and for some reason, not all the settings copied/pasted correctly when I was building my own file.  Fixed all of that by hand before uploading. 

Unfortunately, while the repeater is active, the guy running it is out of town right now and won't be around until this weekend for us to do a radio check.  Guess I'll have to wait until then.  I did print off labels with my callsign to put on the radio so I won't forget it.  There's a spot on the side that's probably meant for it (inset area about an inch long and maybe 3/16-inch wide), but I also put one over the logo on the front, since that's easier to see when I'm holding it. 

And the battery meter on the radio is terrible.  It's just got three blocks and one of the batteries went from showing two blocks (after running 9 hours) to being completely empty just 45mins later.  The life is okay, it's just that the battery remaining calculation is poor. 

I have seen a custom reflash that has a percentage based readout instead which might be better.  Not only that, the reflash gives you a bunch of different options for the layout and colors in the display.  The chat thread about it was for the H3, but the guy who did it apparently has one for the H8 too. 

I'm still looking at radio pouches, but most of them tend to be molle and I really want one with a belt clip.  I've got a couple of contenders, but haven't ordered anything yet. 

Oh, and I have a GMRS guide coming from Amazon.  Figured that it wouldn't hurt to have some printed materials to refer to, rather than depending completely on YouTube! 

[EBuff75]

Tested the CERT repeater with our radio guy tonight.  He tried a few different handsets on his end and I used my H8.  Testing went well, both with the repeater, and simplex.  We're about 1.25 miles apart, but it's a lot of houses, small businesses, and trees in between.  I did get significantly better reception with the longer antenna (the radio came with both a 6-inch "rubber duck" and a 15-inch whip), but it'll be good to have both of them, since many of our events are fairly compact where the smaller antenna will work better. 

Still doing a lot of reading and watching videos.  I did listen in a bit this evening.  There were a few guys chatting about refrigerator repairs. Both of them had a tendency to talk for minutes at a time without a break, which I understand to be rather poor radio etiquette.  It sounded like this must be a regular chat for the two of them.  They were both on big base stations (one of them said his was 50 watts), so they came through VERY clearly.  Not sure how far away they were, since neither of them mentioned their location.  

I also heard the tail end of someone doing a radio test of a TIDRadio of some type for his YouTube channel.  But he didn't say specifically which radio, or what his YT channel is, so no way for me to subscribe!  I also heard someone broadcasting from Toledo, OH, which is about 50 miles away.  Not bad for GMRS, even with a repeater. 

And I keep finding minor issues with our radio plan that I've been emailing to the guy who set it up.  Just tonight, I realized that he'd switched up two of the channels in relation to the "Line A" restrictions (being that we're close to Canada).  I've made the fixes on my radio, but he'll need to reprogram the ones he's been setting up for our members.  We're just setting the power output to 'Low' for those channels (19 and 21), so if anyone accidentally keys up while on one, they're less likely to broadcast a strong enough signal to upset anyone.

[NT2C]

Ordered one of these and downloaded the app to my phone and my tablet:



For those of us who are hams and who want to use APRS, Morse, and even ASSTV, this is a nice little unit.

I'll also be picking up a spare battery for it, a Bluetooth mic, and the amplifier.

[Z.O.R.G.]

Finally got off my butt and put connectors on a whole bunch of coax.  

[NT2C]

Finally got off my butt and put connectors on a whole bunch of coax. 

I usually sit on my butt when I do that but you do you.   

[Z.O.R.G.]

Finally got off my butt and put connectors on a whole bunch of coax. 

I usually sit on my butt when I do that but you do you. 

[NT2C]

I went to the local ham radio club monthly breakfast to meet some of the hams who joined the club after I quit 10 years ago.  It just happened that one had a pickup truck full of stuff from a ham's estate that was donated to the club and which they were selling to raise money.  I went out and found a nice 2m antenna for $20.

I looked it up when I got it home because the mount is missing U-bolts and I wanted to see if I could buy replacements from the manufacturer since they were metric.  Other than that the antenna is in new condition, not even dusty.

Guess how much it sells for?

$526.08 https://www.tessco.com/product/144-162-mhz-unity-gain-omni-fiberglass-antenna-with-n-female-connector-37462

[Skidjit]

IC-7300 arrived the other day. Took the FT-818 / FT-8800 out to VT while I was competing at Camp Ethan-Allen. Tried playing around with APRS on DireWolf with YAAC and APRIS32 but lucked out. Same with JS8Call. I got a few elmers local to me that I may enlist the help from.