THat's cool. Tomorrow I will have a wife and two kids. Though, it might be helpful if you're wearing your Camo Sox Cap.
![[smile]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/001.gif "Smile [smile]")
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Ham Radio: Who is going to the Marlborough flea Saturday?
- Thread starter WetChicken
- Start date
THat's cool. Tomorrow I will have a wife and two kids. Though, it might be helpful if you're wearing your Camo Sox Cap.
Ooops....Its a little late to say this but I hope you guys know this flea is at a middle school. No carry.....
/John
/John
You guys have a great time. We're headed up to NH to visit with some friends. Wish that I could be there with you guys...but I'm sure that there's going to be another Flea coming up here soon.
cockpitbob
NES Member
I picked up a 20A metered supply for $40, a FT-2600M ($55) and a mag mount antenna. Hopefully most of it works.
Lots of good books (cheap) for new hams, but Matt has a point.
The great news (for me) is my 11yo son blew my doors off and passed his General exam. My son tells me we owe congratulations to another NESer who was there and got his Extra. I won't mention his name and steal his thunder.
Lots of good books (cheap) for new hams, but Matt has a point.
The great news (for me) is my 11yo son blew my doors off and passed his General exam. My son tells me we owe congratulations to another NESer who was there and got his Extra. I won't mention his name and steal his thunder.
That's why I don't go to many hamfests -- it's exactly like the last one I was at 20 years ago (discounting NEARFEST last year), and totally predictable. Welcome to your first taste of............ The Reality!
Today I met Radio, Wetchicken, Turbocharged and his dad and BigBird. It was great to me you all.
Also, I added a 900MHz HT to my inventory: A Motorola GTX900 with external mic, long antenna, 2 batteries and a stand-up charger all for $120. Not bad.
GEMOTO even programmed my new GTX for free!
/John
Also, I added a 900MHz HT to my inventory: A Motorola GTX900 with external mic, long antenna, 2 batteries and a stand-up charger all for $120. Not bad.
GEMOTO even programmed my new GTX for free!
/John
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Turbocharged
NES Member
I met a couple of you. It was nice meeting NX1Z, cockpitbob and wetchicken, and nice seeing Bigbird again.
I bought a couple cool things, but there wasn't much there. Way too many people think they can sell a box of tubes at these things. At the MIT flea there is always at least 3 people with tables covered in the same tubes every time, and they usually sell only a handful of tubes.
I bought a couple cool things, but there wasn't much there. Way too many people think they can sell a box of tubes at these things. At the MIT flea there is always at least 3 people with tables covered in the same tubes every time, and they usually sell only a handful of tubes.
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Felt naked toady.
![[rofl]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/013.gif "ROFL [rofl]")
They make the people at gun shows look normal!!I walked around and the only guy I met in the exam room was BobJ.
Oh well. There's always next time.
I didn't buy anything but I did get a kick out of some of the old gear.
Passed the Extra today!!!
So you're the new Extra! Congratulations!!
Good stuff, isn't it? Now all you have to worry about is upper and lower band limits. That's why I got my Extra -- too damn lazy to look at the sub-band charts!
Good stuff, isn't it? Now all you have to worry about is upper and lower band limits. That's why I got my Extra -- too damn lazy to look at the sub-band charts!
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I jumped on the radio after I read the post about 15 meters. Had some good action but all stateside.
I spent a few hours this afternoon getting my antenna even higher. Something tells me that I'll only be happy for a few days and then I'll be scheming to get it higher. I do need to get one end up a bit more. LOL.
I also need to cut the coax to a more reasonable length. I have about 15 feet sitting in a coil behind the radio.
Question for you more experienced hams;
The feedline for my G5RV passes by and touches an aluminum gutter. Do I need to do anything about that?
ETA - FYI I was on 40 meters
I spent a few hours this afternoon getting my antenna even higher. Something tells me that I'll only be happy for a few days and then I'll be scheming to get it higher. I do need to get one end up a bit more. LOL.
I also need to cut the coax to a more reasonable length. I have about 15 feet sitting in a coil behind the radio.
Question for you more experienced hams;
The feedline for my G5RV passes by and touches an aluminum gutter. Do I need to do anything about that?
ETA - FYI I was on 40 meters
Which portion of the G5RV is touching the gutter? The ladder line stub or the coax feed? You want to keep twin led away from anything metallic like the gutter. In practice, though, you're using a tuner with that antenna anyways, so it really make no real difference. EDIT: Unless you're running high power, where you could see some arching. In fact, on anything other than 20 meters for a classic, G5RV, the coax itself is radiating, and therefore interacting with anything metallic in close proximity, but again, for all practical purposes it's effect is null.
That being said, I still keep my ladder line stub away from my gutter with a 5 foot length of board under my roof. I'll post a pic tomorrow.
That being said, I still keep my ladder line stub away from my gutter with a 5 foot length of board under my roof. I'll post a pic tomorrow.
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Yes it's the twin lead. I was thinking of covering that section with a two foot section of vinyl hose or something like that. If you can post a pic of your setup that would be great.
Got the 440 machine back on the air today after the flea. You guys should give it a try and see if you can hit it, not sure how the coverage is right now. It's in Paxton on 447.9875 PL Enc 136.5 Dec 162.2 
I'm listening now.
I'm listening now.
Turbocharged
NES Member
Got the 440 machine back on the air today after the flea. You guys should give it a try and see if you can hit it, not sure how the coverage is right now. It's in Paxton on 447.9875 PL Enc 136.5 Dec 162.2
Different PLs for transmit and receive? That's somethin you don't see every day. Any reason it's set up that way?
That's not all that common in the Ham service, but not unhead of either.
Years ago, most frequency agile Ham radios didn't have split-tone capability, and to do so required a commercial radio modified for the Ham bands.
Nowadays, almost all modern Ham radios will do this, but it's still not common practice for Ham repeaters to be set up this way.
The reason for this is usually when you have multiple repeaters on the same frequency and it allows you to single out a specific repeater.
Notice that the Paxton machine also uses a "splinter" frequency, which is at 12.5 KHz, and not the standard 25 KHz which is the norm for the band plan.
No, only if you want to, you only NEED PL on the output but if you want tone squelch then you want the 2nd PL tone. Some people automatically assume they are the same and would have set both to the 1st PL, if they did that they would key up the repeater but not hear it since it is a different PL, get it? The reason is exactly as he stated, we have multiple machines on this same splinter freq sacttered around New England, they ALL have the same DECODE PL so you can hear them all but they have different ENCODE PL so you only key up the one you want.
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I'm surprised you haven't figured this out yet considering that most repeaters have PL on the input.
Waltham UHF is one of the very few I know of that does NOT have PL, and that's only because Kim WA1/PBU (the control op) uses some ancient radios that don't have PL boards in them. That machine has been plagued by intermittant noise on the input for years which we haven't been able to track down and fix. Many users, including myself, have asked for the PL to be enabled, but Kim refuses to do so.
On days it gets really bad, we switch over to what we call "Waltham 2" which is the KC2/LT machine on 443.050 / PL107.2
It's located on the Antico Tower, which is also on Prospect Hill. This is a fairly new machine and not many know about it yet, but the footprint is nearly identical to the WARA machine.
LOL For the bitching he did on NEAR-900 about not sitting there all day programming, he sat and programmed all day.
WOOHOO!!!!!Passed the Extra today!!!
![[party]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/021.gif "Party [party]")
Congratulations to all of the hams that passed a test yesterday!I think you will find that it doesn't radiate, but in fact it is used for tuning. If you can't get at G5RV to tune, you cut off a foot or so at a time, right?
Not true. I may have seen a single amateur rig that will do this, but I don't remember which one since it was so long ago. This is one of those features that the manufacturers don't put in to keep their sales up on the commercial side. In fact my 8900 TH-F6, and the state of the art IC-92AD that I bought yesterday doesn't. About the only way to do it is with two VFO's on an all mode rig, and even then not all of them do it since they only reference one of the VFO's PL settings for both sides. The Icom 706 is like this.
BTW nice hijack.
Jason
LOL For the bitching he did on NEAR-900 about not sitting there all day programming, he sat and programmed all day.
WOOHOO!!!!!
I think you will find that it doesn't radiate, but in fact it is used for tuning. If you can't get at G5RV to tune, you cut off a foot or so at a time, right?
Not true. I may have seen a single amateur rig that will do this, but I don't remember which one since it was so long ago. This is one of those features that the manufacturers don't put in to keep their sales up on the commercial side. In fact my 8900 TH-F6, and the state of the art IC-92AD that I bought yesterday doesn't. About the only way to do it is with two VFO's on an all mode rig, and even then not all of them do it since they only reference one of the VFO's PL settings for both sides. The Icom 706 is like this.
BTW nice hijack.
Jason
You trim the stub, which is the ladder line. The coax feedline will radiate at certain frequencies. I have a W5GI here, which is the bastard son o f a G5RV and a Bazooka, and on certain parts of 15, 10, and 6 meters, it radiates something fierce.
But again, the trim is only on 20 meters. On other bands, the twin lead is an active part of the antenna, for instance, on 80 meters:
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Call me dumb ass...I mean on the output? Or I think that I'm really confused now..
I know that I program in a PL on my radio when I want to key up a repeater... But I need one for when it talks to me? As in, If I don't have it programed on the radio...I can talk on the repeater...but I can't hear it?? Is this what we're talking about?
I don't think he understood your post.
Some repeaters also transmit the PL so that you can screen out interfering stations that don't transmit the PL - just the way the repeater does on its input. I forget the name for it. Tone Squelch I believe.
Sorry, I misunderstood you. When you refer to the receive PL on your radio it's normally called "decode".
The term input typically refers to the input of the repeater.
