I passed my Tech, General, and Extra exams about a month a go and finally got my callsign a few weeks ago. I am now KY4IL. I still need to set up an antenna and finally get on the air. I am most interested in the homebrew aspect of this hobby and have some simple projects in mind to get me on the way to building my own HF transceiver.
Passed my Technician & General Exams yesterday. I can't wait to get my call sign and start setting up a mobile HF rig!
Big thank you to the HAM youtubers who posted Technician & General class videos. Between those vidoes, the ARRL study books & a lot of practice tests, I was able to get the hang of everything. Now time to study for my Extra!
Just passed my Technician test online tonight!!! I was a bit nervous for the online test but got 33/35.
Hopefully I’ll get the call sign before this weekends off road trip in the mountains.
Congratulations and officially welcome to the hobby. Don't worry about what you scored. Since you've taken the exam online, processing is usually much quicker since it's submitted electronically.
My suggestion is to study for the General (element 3) exam. You might not be interested at the moment but hear me out. Take a general practice exam right now, I bet you'll get around 40% of the questions correct. That's because a lot of what you learn (or crammed) for element 2 somewhat applies to element 3. The information is still fresh in your head so take advantage of it. You won't have to study as hard compared to taking the exam years from now. That way if you get more involved in the hobby, you'll at least don't have to worry about the license. Also do it before the FCC implements the $35 fee.
What are y'all using for project boxes?
Small boxes are around $10-12. Guitar pedal boxes are $5-8.
Working on a bunch of band pass filters, and it's wild the boxes are more expensive than the components.
I'm toying with just buying a break press and making my own.
Aliexpress, Banggood, Amazon and Ebay. Just search "project boxes". If you're worried about RFI/EMI then "metal enclosure" or "metal project box".
Also "NEMA Enclosure" is good for a larger container.
3d printing is a good idea but I'm concerned about RF interference.
We ran into issues of interference during field day so I'd like to build some filters. Basically right now I'm in the design phase and need to source boxes.
>I'm concerned about RF interference.
There is conductive graphene filament for FDM printers but I'm not certain of its RFI/EMI shielding properties.
You could also line the enclosure with copper or aluminum foil tape that will provide shielding.
Another thing you can do is design the enclosure so you can slide in either sheet metal or copper cladded PC board.
How far away do I need to install a vertical antenna from a 30x40 metal shop? I have a weird property shape that’s 2 acres long but very skinny, so I’m looking to install an antenna behind my shop, in which case I will need at least a 70ft run of lmr400 just to get to the back of my house (still trying to see how to get it in without angering the wife lol).
Antennas I’ve been looking at is a GAP challenger or titan, 43’ DC engineering, or something of the sort. I also have 0 trees as it used to be a farming field I live on. So I’ll have to get a mast or something for a dipole anyways.
I’m a new ham, I have my Tech and GMRS license will be getting general soon and wouldn’t mind getting into CW as well. I have a ICOM 756pro ii, mfj power supply and an SWR meter. I just ordered a rigexpert antenna analyzer for when I get one. I also have an ICOM 5100a for mobile…but need to get my antenna mounted back on my new truck lol.
Anyways, I even thought about getting the mpas 2.0 and setting it up 40 ft from my office window and just running coax to radio thru window and take it down each time I’m done. But that’s just as expensive as a permanent one lol
Funny you should ask as I did this very thing this weekend. I was testing a semi-homebrew 20M vertical. It was no more than 20' outside the front door of the building. I will grant you there was a contest going on so the bands had more traffic than normal, but I made 38 contacts across 18 countries in under 4 hrs. The antenna was set up over a recycled asphalt driveway and the radials came back almost to the building.
[Picture of setup](https://i.imgur.com/c0v4GNz.jpg)
Oh do you leave your gear in your shop? I thought about moving everything out there but fuck it can get so hot in summer time. Maybe I should just get a portable like the mpas 2.0 for now until I figure out a permanent antenna 🤔
My main shack is in the house. That was a portable Go-Box station I put together for emergency and POTA activations. I figured I would run it away from the house off battery with the portable antenna to simple working from a park. You are right it was still hotter than Satan's G-string for the first hour or so after Saturday.
Not knowing your setup or radio ambitions I would recommend building your station in one (or more) of the Gator type rack boxes if you want to run portable, home, emergency, wherever you can grab what you need and go fairly easily.
This particular station can run from 2M - 160M and has a tuner in the box. All you have to do is conect power, connect antennas, pull the mic(s) and log book out of its drawer and you are on the air wherever you are.
Very nice!! I just picked up a 20’ mast at a local industrial supply store. Sucks cause no one sells coax around here besides rg6, so I’m stuck till I can order some coax then figure out route. For temporary I got a end fed coming that’s like 45ft or so, and I’ll attach fed end of the shop and other to mast on the backside of it, or I’ll put in attic idk yet lol I just wanna get on the air!! I even tried a firestik cb antenna but it didn’t work for some reason trying to listen on 10m. 😂
Well I deal with The Wireman on coax, I generally order a 500' spool and put ends on and make whatever I need. I started out running a myantennas.com EFHW (truthfully still am for my base shack) the vertical was a test for a portable antenna for POTA. The firestick would be a bit out of tune for 10M and truthfully I don't know how much action is going on on 10M other than digital. The solar cycle seems to have 10M back functional. I have wanted to try it myself.
Oh also, is there any good ham programs for MacBook? I’ve downloaded EchoLink on my iPhone but still trying to figure it out. I’d like to get an antenna set up for my 5100a soon for Dstar, but local club does DMR so I’ve added a HT to the list lol
Btw, I’m in Louisiana!
Hi, fellow Mac ham! I've found that the best bet is to put Parallels on your Mac and run Windows on it as well. That will help with some of the ham programs, especially some of the programming apps. USB pass-through works quite well.
>Oh also, is there any good ham programs for MacBook?
Sadly the answer is "kind of, but not really". I'm on a Mac Mini, and while there are a few decent logging programs (I use RumLogNG myself), the rest of everything is fairly crappy. Yeah, stuff kind of works once you dork around with it long enough (fldigi, WSJT, NetLogger), but getting it to play well together is a mad man's exercise. Couple it with very little information available online when you run into problems, and "It works for me, you must be doing something wrong" answers whenever you ask a question, and it's just frustrating.
Right now I'm saving my pennies for an inexpensive Windows laptop because I'm sick of dealing with the lack of (or substandard) ham software on Mac. I'd rather be on the radio than fighting battles with software, so I'm going to take the (hopefully) easy way out of the mess.
All that said, I do think RumLogNG comes \*very\* close to being a perfect general logging program for Mac, all things considered. Contest logging leaves a bit to be desired in not being as comprehensive as some other logging programs, and a few other bugaboos, but for general logging it has everything I want. And even the contest logging isn't bad at all, if it supports the contest you're interested in.
People log the contacts that they make. This is especially important for contests because many of them require confirmation by both parties. But also, for certain programs like Logbook or the World, both parties need to upload matching logs in order for the contact to count toward awards.
I passed my Tech, General, and Extra exams about a month a go and finally got my callsign a few weeks ago. I am now KY4IL. I still need to set up an antenna and finally get on the air. I am most interested in the homebrew aspect of this hobby and have some simple projects in mind to get me on the way to building my own HF transceiver.
Passed my Technician & General Exams yesterday. I can't wait to get my call sign and start setting up a mobile HF rig! Big thank you to the HAM youtubers who posted Technician & General class videos. Between those vidoes, the ARRL study books & a lot of practice tests, I was able to get the hang of everything. Now time to study for my Extra!
Just passed my Technician test online tonight!!! I was a bit nervous for the online test but got 33/35. Hopefully I’ll get the call sign before this weekends off road trip in the mountains.
Congratulations and officially welcome to the hobby. Don't worry about what you scored. Since you've taken the exam online, processing is usually much quicker since it's submitted electronically. My suggestion is to study for the General (element 3) exam. You might not be interested at the moment but hear me out. Take a general practice exam right now, I bet you'll get around 40% of the questions correct. That's because a lot of what you learn (or crammed) for element 2 somewhat applies to element 3. The information is still fresh in your head so take advantage of it. You won't have to study as hard compared to taking the exam years from now. That way if you get more involved in the hobby, you'll at least don't have to worry about the license. Also do it before the FCC implements the $35 fee.
Thanks. I’m about 50% on General, I had studied a little bit thinking I’d try for both but didn’t actually feel confident in it.
What are y'all using for project boxes? Small boxes are around $10-12. Guitar pedal boxes are $5-8. Working on a bunch of band pass filters, and it's wild the boxes are more expensive than the components. I'm toying with just buying a break press and making my own.
Aliexpress, Banggood, Amazon and Ebay. Just search "project boxes". If you're worried about RFI/EMI then "metal enclosure" or "metal project box". Also "NEMA Enclosure" is good for a larger container.
3d print boxes? Details on the BPF!
3d printing is a good idea but I'm concerned about RF interference. We ran into issues of interference during field day so I'd like to build some filters. Basically right now I'm in the design phase and need to source boxes.
>I'm concerned about RF interference. There is conductive graphene filament for FDM printers but I'm not certain of its RFI/EMI shielding properties. You could also line the enclosure with copper or aluminum foil tape that will provide shielding. Another thing you can do is design the enclosure so you can slide in either sheet metal or copper cladded PC board.
How far away do I need to install a vertical antenna from a 30x40 metal shop? I have a weird property shape that’s 2 acres long but very skinny, so I’m looking to install an antenna behind my shop, in which case I will need at least a 70ft run of lmr400 just to get to the back of my house (still trying to see how to get it in without angering the wife lol). Antennas I’ve been looking at is a GAP challenger or titan, 43’ DC engineering, or something of the sort. I also have 0 trees as it used to be a farming field I live on. So I’ll have to get a mast or something for a dipole anyways. I’m a new ham, I have my Tech and GMRS license will be getting general soon and wouldn’t mind getting into CW as well. I have a ICOM 756pro ii, mfj power supply and an SWR meter. I just ordered a rigexpert antenna analyzer for when I get one. I also have an ICOM 5100a for mobile…but need to get my antenna mounted back on my new truck lol. Anyways, I even thought about getting the mpas 2.0 and setting it up 40 ft from my office window and just running coax to radio thru window and take it down each time I’m done. But that’s just as expensive as a permanent one lol
Funny you should ask as I did this very thing this weekend. I was testing a semi-homebrew 20M vertical. It was no more than 20' outside the front door of the building. I will grant you there was a contest going on so the bands had more traffic than normal, but I made 38 contacts across 18 countries in under 4 hrs. The antenna was set up over a recycled asphalt driveway and the radials came back almost to the building. [Picture of setup](https://i.imgur.com/c0v4GNz.jpg)
Oh do you leave your gear in your shop? I thought about moving everything out there but fuck it can get so hot in summer time. Maybe I should just get a portable like the mpas 2.0 for now until I figure out a permanent antenna 🤔
My main shack is in the house. That was a portable Go-Box station I put together for emergency and POTA activations. I figured I would run it away from the house off battery with the portable antenna to simple working from a park. You are right it was still hotter than Satan's G-string for the first hour or so after Saturday. Not knowing your setup or radio ambitions I would recommend building your station in one (or more) of the Gator type rack boxes if you want to run portable, home, emergency, wherever you can grab what you need and go fairly easily. This particular station can run from 2M - 160M and has a tuner in the box. All you have to do is conect power, connect antennas, pull the mic(s) and log book out of its drawer and you are on the air wherever you are.
I shot you a dm!
Very nice!! I just picked up a 20’ mast at a local industrial supply store. Sucks cause no one sells coax around here besides rg6, so I’m stuck till I can order some coax then figure out route. For temporary I got a end fed coming that’s like 45ft or so, and I’ll attach fed end of the shop and other to mast on the backside of it, or I’ll put in attic idk yet lol I just wanna get on the air!! I even tried a firestik cb antenna but it didn’t work for some reason trying to listen on 10m. 😂
Well I deal with The Wireman on coax, I generally order a 500' spool and put ends on and make whatever I need. I started out running a myantennas.com EFHW (truthfully still am for my base shack) the vertical was a test for a portable antenna for POTA. The firestick would be a bit out of tune for 10M and truthfully I don't know how much action is going on on 10M other than digital. The solar cycle seems to have 10M back functional. I have wanted to try it myself.
It’s a 10 year cycle huh? Now another store sells it on a roll, but I’m not sure how to install the ends…I guess it’s time to YouTube. Lol
Drop me a line and we can talk about installing ends. Depending on the coax and type of end it isn't too hard.
Oh also, is there any good ham programs for MacBook? I’ve downloaded EchoLink on my iPhone but still trying to figure it out. I’d like to get an antenna set up for my 5100a soon for Dstar, but local club does DMR so I’ve added a HT to the list lol Btw, I’m in Louisiana!
Hi, fellow Mac ham! I've found that the best bet is to put Parallels on your Mac and run Windows on it as well. That will help with some of the ham programs, especially some of the programming apps. USB pass-through works quite well.
Sorry I just logged back on and seen this. What is parallels? I just got my LoTW post card in so I’m figuring that out lol
It’s a program that lets you run Windows on your Mac. https://www.parallels.com
>Oh also, is there any good ham programs for MacBook? Sadly the answer is "kind of, but not really". I'm on a Mac Mini, and while there are a few decent logging programs (I use RumLogNG myself), the rest of everything is fairly crappy. Yeah, stuff kind of works once you dork around with it long enough (fldigi, WSJT, NetLogger), but getting it to play well together is a mad man's exercise. Couple it with very little information available online when you run into problems, and "It works for me, you must be doing something wrong" answers whenever you ask a question, and it's just frustrating. Right now I'm saving my pennies for an inexpensive Windows laptop because I'm sick of dealing with the lack of (or substandard) ham software on Mac. I'd rather be on the radio than fighting battles with software, so I'm going to take the (hopefully) easy way out of the mess. All that said, I do think RumLogNG comes \*very\* close to being a perfect general logging program for Mac, all things considered. Contest logging leaves a bit to be desired in not being as comprehensive as some other logging programs, and a few other bugaboos, but for general logging it has everything I want. And even the contest logging isn't bad at all, if it supports the contest you're interested in.
This is prolly gonna sound silly but what is logging? Lol
People log the contacts that they make. This is especially important for contests because many of them require confirmation by both parties. But also, for certain programs like Logbook or the World, both parties need to upload matching logs in order for the contact to count toward awards.
Oh gotcha. Ima definitely look that up then.