My "base station" is up...kinda...and learning stuff...

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I've got my antenna jury rigged right now. The mast is bungied to one of the posts on my side porch and the coax is run to the house. Had fun putting another hole in my house...always fun doing that. Got my 11 year old daughter to help. She enjoyed it. I used my FRS radios to talk to her while she was in the basement watching for the drill bit to come through.

I then let her calk up the holes after running the cable...and even let her attach the coax to the antenna itself. Nothing earth shatteringly hard...but she was involved. Not sure she has the desire to get her tech ticket, but maybe one day.

So, I tested hitting Paxton and MAN what a difference. [grin]

Nice and clean sound. Initially, I was getting pretty decent quieting on the frequency, but noticed that later in the day, I started getting background static and even with no carrier, I'd get static. I just upped my squelch a bit and that took care of that.

Someone was saying that solar flares are happening right now...so 2m is getting impacted.

I got home last night, went to my "shack". It really is literally a rolling cart against the wall. It holds my power supply and radio and gives me a surface to write on.

I spent an hour or so just chatting with some guys on the repeater. Learned the best practices of group chat...round robin'ing the conversation to each person in the group. Talked to WA1JXR for a bit and he was super nice and helpful.

All in all, my first real day of using the radio and antenna. It was great!

Now, I just need to permanently mount the antenna on my shed and I'll be good to go...for now!

Thanks to all here for the advice and help.

73s
 
Sounds very nice. I was listening to George's Old Timer net tonight on Paxton repeater. Full quieting and S meter pegged. I'm in W Quincy and antenna up about 100 ft on 7 th floor balcony. Give a shout to me WA1TSL just before net starts. I'm usually listening on 2 m while on HF psk31.


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My "base station" is up...kinda...and learning stuff...

Mine too, got it up mostly on Sat, now the learning starts!
 
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