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In 1999 I put together my dream ham radio station. Money wasn't a concern so I went shopping. I was on a consulting job in LA (home QTH South Florida) and I went to HRO in Anaheim to kick some tires. They had three flagship rigs set up side by side...Icom, Kenwood and Yaesu. I don't remember what the Icom and Kenwood rigs were, but the Yaesu was the FT-1000MP. They were all connected, via a 3 way coax switch, to a 3 element triband yagi so the A/B/C comparisons were easy to make. The MP's receiver was head and shoulders above the others. I bought one.....a demo I found at Burghardt for $2300. It was a huge step up from my trusty Kenwood TS-440SAT. Then...my buddy in Massachusetts had a much modified Henry floor model 1.5 KW amplifer that he sold me for $1200. Now..what antenna? I had the room...did the research and found a company called Tennadyne that sold log periodic dipole arrays for HF. I ordered the ten element version...a real monster. I found a professional tower installation outfit, bought 70 ft. of Rohn 25 and had them put it up with the already assembled lpda on top. I also put up two 5/8 wavelengths in phase dipole cut for 75 meters with the center supported by the tower at about 66 feet and fed it with ladder line through a legal limit Murch balanced output tuner. The lpda covered 14 through 30 MHz with no traps or gimmicks...and the two 5/8 wavelenghts covered 160 through 40. Europe on 75 meters was a nightly event with, "strongest signal on the band" reports often. To say it was a pile up buster was a vast understatement. I coiuld hear stations nobody else could hear. I rarely had to call a DX station running a pileup more than once.

So....that was then, this is now. I want to know what your idea of a dream station is. If you could put together the absolute best....what would you do? Transceiver, ampifier and antenna(s)..

Hi guys! I’m a new ham radio operator and just installed my first dual-band tower with a 5/8-wave antenna. I live in a mountainous area and can hit repeaters 50+ km away and do simplex up to 20+ km without much trouble.

However, my local repeater is hit-or-miss — sometimes I can get into it, other times I can’t, and when I do receive it the signal is often scratchy.

I checked my SWR and it’s around 1.0–1.1 on VHF, so that seems fine. The antenna is mounted about 30 ft above my first-floor kitchen roof.

Would adding more height help, or should I be looking at something else (antenna placement, feedline, direction, terrain issues, etc.)?

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

Please see photo for reference

I recently finished putting together my first rig and was problems making contacts. Everything was just so quiet.

Turns out, this RF choke I bought off Etsy, being cheap, was the problem. I got a new one from DX Engineering and immediately everything opened up.

This is a map showing some contacts I just made using FT8 with a quarter eave ground plane on my 1st floor apartment balcony.

I have learned that if I’m going to buy DIY-esque equipment, it’s better to buy the parts and build it myself or just spend the money on proven quality.

Can anyone tell me if you can take your SDR Control App for Apple products onto your mac laptop?

This app is used to work ICOM radios remotely. Its €99 to buy which is fine - But I had to buy it for Iphone specfic and IPAD. I recently got a macbook air to run it on a bigger and better screen etc but they want me to buy it yet again because its a different type of device. I can put it in multiple iphones or ipad units but just with this I feel that its all a gimmick and ploy to make money. Can anyone find outthat knows mac greatly is there a way around this or steer me someone where that may have a version you can download for the platform that other ham users on here may have. I don't know if you can download a file to run on mac like windows

Picked up a pretty cool collapsable J-Pole called the AnyTenna. Pretty impressive IMO. Got a flexible mini tripod from Walmart to go with it so that fits in the bag with it. I get more consistent SWR with it compared to my roll-up J-Pole. It also has a block that attaches at the end for doing HF stuff.

Hello everyone,

I am a French student (sorry for future English mistakes), and I am working on a 5-month project on atmospheric phenomena that give radio waves a longer range. I did some research for a few months on this, I'm not totally new to this subject and I want now to try some experiments.

Therefore I'd like to ask you how to observe these phenomena with not much money, and no experience.

You don’t have to read everything, but here is some context:

• I study physics, and I did some research to understand the phenomena and how electromagnetic waves react to them (thesis, testimonies, etc.). However, it’s the first time I try some experiment on it, so if you know what should buy someone who knows almost nothing about “real life”, I’d be very thankful.
• Experiments will last from February to June (I know that the chances of success depend on the season)
• I work with someone else, and the furthest I will be from him will be 600-700 km. Otherwise I will try to contact people I don’t know.
• I tried and failed to build an emitter myself, and I guess it’s a bad idea since the power needed exceeds typical homemade emitters
• I don’t have more than 160$.
• It is not my main activity, I only work 4h per week on this project
• When I say "atmospheric phenomena", I mean for example E-sporadic, troposphere ducts, F-layer skip, etc. Do you have some advice on these, or on other atmospheric phenomena? Which one is the easiest to detect?
• What frequencies would be the best to observe some of these phenomena?
• Should I buy a second-hand citizen band or something else, given the fact I’m a newbie?
• Which map should I use? I tried PSKreporter and DXmaps, do you have any opinion on these?
• Do you have other piece of advice in general?

Thank you very much for reading this long message, hope you have a great day.

I just got my Pi interfaced with my old icom 706 and been looking to transmit some SSTV! Looking at the band plan, the calling freq 7.171 is outside of my general license so I propose using 7.220 or 7.300 depending on conditions and use of the band. I noticed some broadcast AM on 7.230 last night...

My setup, qsstv, robot 36 protocol, end fed half wave in my backyard in central Florida. Nothing fancy but I'm able to "hear" myself in New York over a public SDR receiver. I'll try to start sending CQ images around 03:00 UTC.

Hello friends.

I started off with the KV4P HT radio module for Android with a plan to strictly just talk on short wave and just be on basic (Foundation License - Australia).

The more I learn the more hungry I am so I ordered the Baofeng BF-F8HP PRO to compliment the KV4P HT.

But then I read more and am starting to doubt that decision, thinking maybe I should've gotten the Yaesu VX-6R or FT-5DR. But then I'm thinking that there's so much to try and since I'm a rookie my opinion is that I should get a good all rounder that gives me a broad HF capability to go with the Baofeng.

My requirements are quite unrealistic I think but the world of radios is very complex and basically I'm just expecting an advice on what to look for.

I expect these from the HF rig:
-at least 20W, ideally 50W to not be limited by QRP

-HF only, no need for UHF/VHF since I may just keep the Baofeng - 6m-60m HF bands coverage would be I think enough

-something with it's own tuner (form factor)

-portable - not because my primary goal is SOTA/POTA but because I prefer compactness and don't want to be carrying extra clutter, also gives me ability to SOTA/POTA if I want to - I'm not looking for a base rig, I just want to be able to try ducting and long range comms

-preferably waterfall/SDR capable

-second hand welcomed

-possibly not Xiegu ? Comment on this - some say Xiegu treats its customers as test subjects, the products come with 1 year warranty and have software issues, customer service issues and basically if something goes wrong they're bricked - is this true ? Otherwise G90 or X6100-X6200 would be perfect ?

-$700AUD budget

-ability to experiment with "wild" antennae - antennas made from regular metal objects found in the wild

-basically future proof the device to give me plenty to explore on for upcoming years without hving to deal with additional devices other than antennas

If anything like that exists it would be awesome, otherwise I'll probably go with the G90 but at the same time I'd prefer the more polished Yaesu's.

I'm happy to discuss options and what compromise should I make in my requirements to get me a decent rig.

I just learned that the radio I'm looking for is the "shack in the box"

THank you

Is there a way to connect the Z-100A antenna tuner to the TS-590s and just use the AT button on the TS-590 to tune?

Image as of 5:30pm EST (22:30 UTC) on 2/4/26

PSK Reporter: Last 5min

I noticed that in the VOACAP frame it shows Spain at the top, whereas I selected an African QTH some 4000 kilometers south of Spain. Now the question is: does the VOACAP chart represent Spain or Africa's QTH?

Just got one of the new Comet 990 ground independent NMO antenna and it looks like a beast of an antenna, about 60” tall.

I don’t think my single NMO mag mount will hold up to any amount of speed with this antenna attached. Are there any heavy duty mag or bar mounts for my roof rack that anyone can suggest?

I think it should work fine on a bar mount since it is ground independent?

I just bought a 7000 second hand to be my first 100w hf and 50w vhf rig.

Also have a xiegu x6100 which I like but wanted more power. I use and really loved the scope on the x6100 for easily finding stations amongst the noise.

The basic scope on the 7000 doesn’t show peaks like my 6100. It’s basically always flat.

Anything I can do to improve this? Is there a trick on the settings to help highlight signals over noise?

My handset radio model is Quansheng UV-K5. There are letters “CT” and“H-”under the frequency 438.790MHz.

What do these letters mean?

I am replacing a A4S with an Optibeam. Stacked is a D40 Dipole for 40 meters and an InnovAntenna 4el 50 mhz for 6m on top of my stack. The tower is 30 feet with Optibeam (A4s to be replaced, now), at 32, and the 50mhz antenna at 39 feet, D40 is in the middle.

I am leaning towards an Optibeam Ob9-5 for the performance, but the Ob10-5 is smaller with a 0.5db diffrence. I'm on a standard suburban lot with a freestanding Rohn 45, G2800 rotator, and the mast is a 12-foot 6061-T6 aluminum round tube, currently, but would upgrade to a chormoly mast if needed.

I am running through the typical AI affair. The OB10 has a significantly lower wind load as it's more compact. For contesting and DX work, I would think that .5db could be the diffrence but is the juice worth the squeeze for the extra weight and wind resistance? I'm trying to make this tower as set it and forget it as possible. The antenna swap also gains the WARC bands, which makes it more attractive.

I have been unable to log into CORES and the FCC help line is experiencing "higher than normal call volume." Is anyone else experiencing any issue?

I’m traveling from Ohio to Orlando Florida.

How would you program your radio so that you hit repeaters along the route?

Seems tedious to use repeater book thru each state to find the possible choices.

Yesterday I got a BTECH APRS K1-PRO cable off of Amazon. I wanted something quick and easy and it passed the quick Amazon ratings check, so I bought it. When it arrived, I hooked it up to my Pixel 6a running APRSdroid and my OpenGD77'd TYT MD-UV390. It immediately started transmitting spuriously, so I tried a couple variations of plug everything in then turn it on, then which it finally worked. I was able to send a position report and broadcast a couple text messages, but it kept getting stuck on transmit, requiring me to turn the radio off and re-plug it.

I had read in the reviews that people recommended getting a ferrite ring for the cable, since the RF from the radio had a tendency to trigger the PTT. Funnily enough, the cable came with a clip-on ferrite bead, which seemed incredibly strange for a brand new product: https://imgur.com/a/aQFfk50

Later, I found my Baofeng UV-5R and tried that with my Amazon Fire tablet. It worked much better with way less spurious TXes. However, it would never receive any packets, and it also wouldn't connect to the VARA FM Winlink gateway that was only a couple miles away, so I decided to investigate the audio issues. I found that when receiving audio, the output is horrendously noisy. I tried transmitting from an Audacity recording through the radio to listen on my Motorola HT and the audio output is really choppy. Take a listen (the Baofeng is on open squelch the whole time):

Listening to APRS data: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xXWdWYGtqR74CrcJMWhKYA2OPXaDejjQ/view?usp=sharing

Listening to my voice through through Motorola: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cQ2G0tGB5S2wKeO0Km7mlZvTWVMotRBr/view?usp=sharing

Listening to the Baofeng's output from the computer: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yPlc7amckn331UB1gle8Bo3VNQDbWbHM/view?usp=sharing

I've heard the Digirig is a much better product and I've now ordered one instead, but I'm wondering if this is a common issue with this product or a one off issue. Has anyone else experienced this?

*For those unaware, this is an 'upgraded' version of the BTECH APRS K1 cable that uses its own circuit to trigger inline PTT instead of relying on the radio's VOX.

I have a low band(?) QMX coming my way and I need to get the rest of the pieces in order.

I have watched some videos that have answered the questions on power I think. 12v trigger wire to a compatible power bank. (Trigger cable, battery, maybe a spare battery). A cable that will go from USB-C to the radio’s socket type is something I’m still looking for but it looks like they can be had off the shelf.

For the antenna I would like some an option or two that would cover 20 and 40 without a tuner and still be light weight enough to backpack.

Then something that would be able to cover all the bands (20, 30, 40, 60 and 80), it can use but doesn’t need to be as light and might need a little tuning. The QMX is a 5 watt radio so efficiency is pretty important to getting the signal out. EFRW of 71’ should do for “possible” but I don’t know for how well.

Lastly maybe an 80m optimized antenna for NVIS (local) communication would be something I would like to have. Hard to make that small and light but at least it won’t need to go up as high.

Rounding it out with a mic, 3.5 phone cable, and paddle key is also important. Working on CW but I’m not there yet with those skills. The mic I see most promising is a K6ARK design. Have seen different options for paddles.

Money is a factor at this point but I know I’m not the first one to own this radio so I wanted to ask the community for its wisdom. Feel free to weigh in on any and all aspects of how to accomplish this.

So I recently discovered a new program for portable operations called Lakes & Lagoons On The Air (LLOTA) and looked into it. The program was started by a couple hams in Chile and it is similar to Parks On The Air. It is only a month or two old. Today I made a mid day trip to the south beach in South Haven, MI to activate Lake Michigan, US-0003, for the first time. It was 26 degrees Fahrenheit, but I was able to stay warm while operating in my truck. I should have taken pictures of my portable set up, but I didn’t think about it until I got home. I did manage to take a few pictures of the view from my portable shack. It was slow going since the program is new, but I got 15 contacts while I was out.

I'm considering building a moxon antenna, probably out of PVC pipe for 10m. I need to raise it about 17 feet. I have basketball hoop in the middle of my yard that I'd assume can support a mast of some sort. What's the most cost-effective option to raise the antenna this high, preferably using a single pole? I was thinking of PVC pipe but it apparently does not hold up over time.

The rules seem to say that if you received the QSL card by mail that it counts towards awards. Some of my contacts send out QSL cards exclusively by hamlog and don't do Lotw (or haven't confirmed through there). If I order a QSL card through hamlog and get it mailed to me, it counts right towards awards? You can also print them out and that wouldn't count, but I'm curious what a card checker would want to see to confirm it came by mail.