Fellow HAMs?! On a Firearms forum?!

Apache 4rank

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This must be where the cool kids hang out! I'm new to this forum and stumbled across the comms sub.
Call here is KM4VDL.
I'm the current VP of the Iredell County Amatur Radio Society.

Which other of you HAMS here are also gun nuts?!
 
Hello from Raleigh. Not nuts but an enthusiast.
 
Lol. What kind of rig ya running? "Older than dirt" Hams often have the best toys.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

Right now the following are hooked up:

TenTec Omni VI+ w/Centurion Amp
Tentec Corsair
Tentec Paragon
Cubic Astro 102-->Collins 30L1 amp
Cubic 150
Drake 2C, 2CQ, 2NT
Drake R4C Tx4c
Drake R4B Tx4B
Drake TR7xcvr--> L7 amp
HyGain 3750 Xcvr
Johnson Navigator/Drake 2B
Yaesu FT901xcvr
Yaesu FT107
Kenwood TS820S
Collins 75A1/32V2
Heath Apache/Mohawk
Heath SS9000
Heath HW5400
Yaesu FT102 Xcvr
uBitx xcvr

Antennas

Cushcraft A3S w/40M add on at 40'
Cushcraft 12/17/30 rotatable dipole @ 50'
160/80/40 sloper
80/40 dipole

That's the present rotation
 
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Ham, gun nut, and amateur prepper.

Ham wise. I’m the VP and public relations chair of W4UA. I run a mobile iCom ID-880H, with a comet CSB-790A that makes my rice burner look like a clown car. At home, I’ve got an FT991A with an OCF dipole good for up to 80m and for Christmas Santa is brining me a Diamond x700hna for the 2m/70cm.
 
Ham, gun nut, and amateur prepper.

Ham wise. I’m the VP and public relations chair of W4UA. I run a mobile iCom ID-880H, with a comet CSB-790A that makes my rice burner look like a clown car. At home, I’ve got an FT991A with an OCF dipole good for up to 80m and for Christmas Santa is brining me a Diamond x700hna for the 2m/70cm.
I love my x700. I use it on the top of a bucket truck for emergency comms.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk
 
I love my x700. I use it on the top of a bucket truck for emergency comms.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk
Mentioned it to my XYL first question was, “how big is it.” Well, um, about 5x taller than you. Second question, “it’s not going to attract lightning and burn down my house Is It?”. No dear, I’m going to run it through a polyphaser to prevent that. Third, “where are you going to put it?” On the old satellite dish mount on the back side roof. XYL: ok.
 
Yaesu Ft-897 at home, and a Wouxun handheld in the truck with a magnet mount mobile antenna.
Usually on one of the Sauratown repeaters, when I'm on. Just a lowly technician.
 
Mentioned it to my XYL first question was, “how big is it.” Well, um, about 5x taller than you. Second question, “it’s not going to attract lightning and burn down my house Is It?”. No dear, I’m going to run it through a polyphaser to prevent that. Third, “where are you going to put it?” On the old satellite dish mount on the back side roof. XYL: ok.

HAHAHAHA love it. I get a lot of looks and see a lot of ppl pointing when they see my X700 on the top of a bucket truck. For field day last year, we flew a monster US flag from it. It is an awesome antenna.
Make sure your polyphaser is well grounded. I am the RF engineer for a local broadcast station. The station was hit by lightning a few months back. A poly phaser was installed but was not properly grounded. Goodbye TX.
 
Make sure your polyphaser is well grounded. I am the RF engineer for a local broadcast station. The station was hit by lightning a few months back. A poly phaser was installed but was not properly grounded. Goodbye TX.
I will do like I did the one for the HF radio. It’s mounted / screwed to a copper plate that is clamped onto the grounding rod, just below ground level. I’ll clean the copper first, too, and then wrap it with the self vulcanizing rubber thst you wrap coax connectors with. There are three ground rods and they’re clamped to the house ground.
 
Yaesu Ft-897 at home, and a Wouxun handheld in the truck with a magnet mount mobile antenna.
Nothing wrong with that setup. I used a handheld and magmount for quite a while.

Usually on one of the Sauratown repeaters, when I'm on. Just a lowly technician.
No such thing as a lowly technician. Keep at the hobby and one of these days you’ll go for all four tests. Yes, there is a fourth. It’s to become a VE.
 
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I'd take that one step further. The 4th is being a VE/Elmer.

I'm a relatively new Ham but I've been in Broadcast RF for a while. It's all the same stuff just different frequencies. It's an awesome feeling guiding another person, regardless of age, thru our hobby.

I have guys that call me up on the regular that are twice my age that are as excited if not more about a new antenna they just finished building or about an old beautiful tube type they need help raising from the dead.

I love teaching and sharing knowledge with others.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk
 
K4DOR here.

Truck mounted: TMd-710ga,
HFrigs: ic7300, KX3, ft897,ft817,
Handhelds: id51a, th-f6a, and over a dozen baofengs
 
I'd take that one step further. The 4th is being a VE/Elmer.
I sort of fell into that role with kn4jox. It was field day and I taught her how to run my FT991A and she burned up the airwaves. She then bought her own HF radio setup and pretty much duplicated mine, except she got a higher power tuner and a double G5RV which does 160m strung up in tall trees. Now she’s an extra class and one of our VE team.

I will admit I’ve got antenna envy. Her setup is super quiet even in the middle of High Point. She says that the old codgers on the radio don’t believe she’s running “barefoot” at 75 watts sideband.
 
Whippersnapper! Ham since 1962.

Not very active now, unfortunately.

You should get back on the air. It's always a bit of magic...still for me. Lord knows there's more to learn.
 
Just a suggestion... Before you wrap the selfvulcanizing stuff, wrap the polyphaser with electrical tape. Then cover the tape and go just past it to ensure a good deal. If you ever have to take it apart, getting that stuff off is a nightmare; the tape will shield your connections from the stickiness. Learned that from a microwave tech that worked for me. When you are working on something at 400' agl the last thing you want to do is be picking goop out of connectors. (ok, the LAST thing is dodging the I sorry that has a nest up there, BUT...)

I will do like I did the one for the HF radio. It’s mounted / screwed to a copper plate that is clamped onto the grounding rod, just below ground level. I’ll clean the copper first, too, and then wrap it with the self vulcanizing rubber thst you wrap coax connectors with. There are three ground rods and they’re clamped to the house ground.
 
If I remember correctly, I did wrap it in tape.

I also came across an article in a copy of QEX, the ARRL experiments magazine, about how wrapping it in electrical tape actually made things worse in terms of water penetration. Not entirely sure I believe it, but that's what they said. I don't remember the details, but maybe that article is available online in an archive?
 
This must be where the cool kids hang out! I'm new to this forum and stumbled across the comms sub.
Call here is KM4VDL.
I'm the current VP of the Iredell County Amatur Radio Society.

Which other of you HAMS here are also gun nuts?!

WC9CW here. Pretty sure I did a presentation for your club on the National Traffic System last year. Enjoyed meeting you guys.
 
If I remember correctly, I did wrap it in tape.

I also came across an article in a copy of QEX, the ARRL experiments magazine, about how wrapping it in electrical tape actually made things worse in terms of water penetration. Not entirely sure I believe it, but that's what they said. I don't remember the details, but maybe that article is available online in an archive?

If you don't cover the electrical tape, as it ages water can infiltrate along the edges via capillary attraction. That's why you have to extend the rubberized crap past the ends of the tape.
 
Whippersnapper! Ham since 1962.

Not very active now, unfortunately.

First licensed in 1963 as a jr. in high school. Back when novices were restricted to 75 watts input power, crystal controlled, and CW only... ...and I had a "WN2" call. Our high school radio station was "K2JRJ." It had the coolest rhythm in CW. Re-licensed again in 1976 with my wife, and we've both been licensed ever since.

Used to be very active on RTTY with Klienschmidt TTY, and Teletype 28ASR. Yaesu FT-901DM is still packed away in the basement and hasn't seen the light of day in 26 years since we moved up here from Florida. Still have a brand new Yaesu FL2100B linear with 10 meters on it! (Bought it before they banned 10 meters from linears, and never used it.) Also down the basement is a home-brew 2m repeater with Wacom duplexers and Super Station Master VHF antenna.

Not active at all anymore. Tried using the Icom 2-AT on the local repeaters, but folks here in the mountains just aren't real interested in talking with anyone who isn't part of their group. So be it. My wife and I both have Boefang uv 5r handhelds that we use whenever we're going to be in the same area, but out of site of each other.

Ham radio just doesn't seem to be what it used to be, but I'm still proud to be a ham, and for all the work I put into getting the license, I'll keep it active for as long as I'm still kicking...
 
When your ready, let me know! Our VE team will meet at the drop of a hat to test someone. We love bringing in new Hams.

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Shoot me a pm with more details on this, I picked up a couple beofangs before the ban and have been wanting to get mine. Just havent taken the time and would like some more detail.
 
Our high school radio station was "K2JRJ." It had the coolest rhythm in CW. Re-licensed again in 1976 with my wife, and we've both been licensed ever since.[/
I can see why, with those letters and a 2 :)

You might like SSB on 80 or 160 meters. More regional than a repeater, covering most of the SE and you should find people to talk to. CW is still going strong as well with more folks learning it. It’s not really fast code but people are using it.

The higher frequency bands are getting a little better. This last couple of weeks I’ve heard Cape town, SA, Canary Islands, Japan, Nicaragua, and El Salvador on 20 meters.
 
I can see why, with those letters and a 2 :)

You might like SSB on 80 or 160 meters. More regional than a repeater, covering most of the SE and you should find people to talk to. CW is still going strong as well with more folks learning it. It’s not really fast code but people are using it.

The higher frequency bands are getting a little better. This last couple of weeks I’ve heard Cape town, SA, Canary Islands, Japan, Nicaragua, and El Salvador on 20 meters.

I never did much on 160. I have worked ssb on 80 & 40, but mostly on 15. 20 meters was always "kilowatt alley," and if you didn't run a lot of power, you weren't real successful. I had the FL2100B linear, but the only reason I bought it was for RTTY, which is FSK (Frequency Shift Keying) requiring 100% duty cycle, 100% "key down." I was running a Yaesu FT-101E back in those days, so I figured that if I cut back to about 30 or 40 watts out of the Yaesu, and fed that into the linear, I might get 300 or 400 watts out on RTTY, and nothing would be running all that hard. I made plenty of RTTY contacts without the linear, so I never used it. It still sits in its original box, somewhere down in the basement. If I ever were to try to use it, I think I'd power it up slowly through a variac, to let the filter caps "reform."

We (about a half dozen of us) formed a RTTY neighborhood net on two meters simplex. We all built ST-6 terminal units, and we were all on autostart. We had a "picture" net every Tuesday evening where we swapped RTTY pictures. Lots of cartoon characters, holiday pictures, and lots of Playboy centerfolds. This was back in the late 70's, and we also did something else that I believe, HAD to have been a "first..."

I used to work for the telephone company, and the Heathkit H-8 computers were fairly new. Two local guys who's back yards connected, both built H-8 computers. I supplied some telephone cable which they buried in their back yards, and established connection between the two houses. When they got their computers up and running, they used a spare pair in the cable to establish an RS-232 link between the two computers. One of the guys had, "Colossal Cave" (The Granddaddy of all adventure games) running on his computer, and the other guy interfaced his computer to his 2m radio. With the two computers connected via the RS-232 link, I sat in my house on 2m, with my TTY, and I would key up, type an adventure command, then immediately drop my carrier to get the response. I was able to play "Adventure" on 2m from my house, using the setup of both these guys computers & radios. This was all on (to the best of my recollection) 144.52 simplex. I believe it was a first back in the late 70's.

Today all "teletype" communication is electronic. It was fascinating to just watch the TTY machine (especially the Teletype model 28 ASR) typing away at either 60 or 100 wpm, smell the oil, and feel the heat and listen to the sound... It's just not the same without the MACHINE! Remember when every newscast you ever heard always had the sound of a teletype "tickey-tacking" in the background?

Thanks for the memories...
 
Shoot me a pm with more details on this, I picked up a couple beofangs before the ban and have been wanting to get mine. Just havent taken the time and would like some more detail.

Same here. Programmed one and been listening. This year I would like to go further to actually use it sometimes.
 
By the way, I just posted a link for a bunch of QRP / low power focused ham radio magazines for free....
 
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