Ham Radio / Off-grid communication

The Real Slim Shady said:
I really would love to hear that record. If he is using transmitters in different places to appear as several different people, I already love the guy. This is pure genius.
Click to expand...
Got 10gb of recordings in my folder for 2019 but snagged a random date (July 14 2019) off the top where they were really going at it. One of the recurring features of this mess is a recording on loop being transmitted "You can check in but you can't check in, this is HAM RADIO!" over and over.

Edit: For anyone with a radio capable of listening to 80m, my freq bookmarks folder has 3908khz marked as where the insanity centers around.



 
Last edited:
Koi Fish said:
By the way, fetch me an hackRF and I will stream Null's MATI episodes over the HAM frequencies.
Click to expand...
The best spot for pirate broadcasts is in the 6900Khz area.
There you have a much better chance of people actually listening to your broadcast and posting about it on HFUnderground or Free Radio Weekly.
1.png
 
Another Char Clone said:
It's rather low powered as I recall, you may need an amplifier for it to go decent range, fun for pirate stations.
Click to expand...
the HackRF has a output power of around 20 dBm (100 mW) on the HF frequency range, so you would need a pre-amp and low pass filter.

There have been a few projects which have taken the HackRF and turned it into a HF transmitter.



though it would be an interesting project, it just wouldn't make the most practical transceiver.


1709603343016.png
In fact, HackRF One can even function below 1 MHz, but the performance drops considerably as the frequency decreases. The curve is reasonably flat down to about 1 MHz, so we consider that to be the lower limit for most uses.


Now that we've seen consistent low frequency performance across multiple manufacturing runs, we're comfortable changing the official specification: HackRF One operates from 1 MHz to 6 GHz. Try attaching a long wire antenna to listen to shortwave radio!


Although HackRF One has reasonable performance down to 1 MHz, it performs better at higher frequencies. To get the best possible performance down to 1 MHz and lower, I recommend using an external upconverter/downconverter such as the excellent Ham It Up, open source hardware designed by Opendous.
Click to expand...
 
There's some sort of contest going on because the weather has been nice for March this time of year. I added a lot of relays around the horseshoe. Apparently they are doing a contest and are collecting callsigns and are encouraging everyone worldwide to patch in to the relays.
 
Aljam said:
There's some sort of contest going on because the weather has been nice for March this time of year. I added a lot of relays around the horseshoe. Apparently they are doing a contest and are collecting callsigns and are encouraging everyone worldwide to patch in to the relays.
Click to expand...
which bands? 17m and 10m?
 
Jump said:
The best spot for pirate broadcasts is in the 6900Khz area.
There you have a much better chance of people actually listening to your broadcast and posting about it on HFUnderground or Free Radio Weekly.
View attachment 5783126
Click to expand...
It's a shame the days of the cheap AM surplus transmitter are over. Throw some batteries, a boat anchor transmitter and a simple wire dipole into a vehicle, drive to a good transmitting spot, hurl the dipole into a tree and get to blasting.
 
Are there any pirate broadcasts on VHF/UHF, except for the MILSAT stuff? Or is everyone using HF because you can have a car battery powered rig cover entire hemisphere if the prop is okay?
 
Big cities sometimes have pirate FM transmitters, buddies tell me in NYC they pick them up in certain neighborhoods, it's more localized. Outside that I mostly hear work crews for companies too lazy/stupid/incompetent to get proper radios for business using baofengs sitting on a random frequency.
 
Koi Fish said:
It looks better than the RTL-SDR I have, and local is better than nothing lol
Click to expand...
Since the RTL-SDR is only a receiver, that would be correct.

For only a little more than the HackRF you can get a Xiegu G90 that has 20 watts output. That's enough to shitpost halfway around the world, depending on band contiditions.
 
Koi Fish said:
It looks better than the RTL-SDR I have, and local is better than nothing lol
Click to expand...
Your transmit performance with the HackRF is going to be incredibly limited, less than 200-500 meters. It's not a full-fledged transceiver, and it's not really designed for amateur radio use. If you are looking to get into HF I would go with the Xiegu G90 like @BIG BILL HELL'S said. Great entry level rig and 20 watts is enough to work digital modes just about everywhere with a good antenna. SSB and voice contacts will be somewhat limited though running 20 watts.
 
777Flux said:
Your transmit performance with the HackRF is going to be incredibly limited, less than 200-500 meters. It's not a full-fledged transceiver, and it's not really designed for amateur radio use. If you are looking to get into HF I would go with the Xiegu G90 like @BIG BILL HELL'S said. Great entry level rig and 20 watts is enough to work digital modes just about everywhere with a good antenna. SSB and voice contacts will be somewhat limited though running 20 watts.
Click to expand...
That's really useful to know, many thanks. Although despite the transmission capability, i'm mostly interested into the hackRF because it seems more capable at receiving than the RTL-SDR I have, at least with SDRAngel on frequencies that aren't basically FM Radio and Radio Romania International. (also where i live the hackrf is around 200€ less than the xiegu)

Any thoughts on the Malachite SDR? I think that with an OTG and an RTL-SDr, you can basically turn a cheap smartphone into basically it without the whole clownfest that is paying for updates.
 
Koi Fish said:
Any thoughts on the Malachite SDR?
Click to expand...
The MalachiteSDR, or rather it's Chinese clones are way overpriced in my opinion. I've also seen people report differing levels of build quality on the receiver, from poorly assembled to good quality. It's based on a design from Russian HAM R2AJI, and much like with the (tr)uSDX designed by DL2MAN, any open source hardware is going to find itself on a pick and place machine and sold on Aliexpress - even when sometimes of questionable quality from the original.

Koi Fish said:
I think that with an OTG and an RTL-SDr, you can basically turn a cheap smartphone into basically it without the whole clownfest that is paying for updates.
Click to expand...
The SDR++ software has an Android APK

You can buy an Android tablet for less than $60 nowadays and have a dedicated device for using your RTL-SDR with, which is less than the MalachiteSDR's price of $300
 
ignusfiremage said:
This thread inspired me to get my tech and general. I’ve been having a lot of fun. I appreciate all of you for making me finally pursue ham radio.
Click to expand...
Welcome to the (unofficial Kiwi Farms HAM radio) club! I gotta know, what rig(s) do ya run?
 
Roxanne Wolf said:
Welcome to the (unofficial Kiwi Farms HAM radio) club! I gotta know, what rig(s) do ya run?
Click to expand...
Happy to be in the club. I first saw this thread mentioned in the kino casino chat a few months ago.

I picked up a ft-65 HT and started listening with that while I studied for my tech. It’s a nifty little hand held.

Once I passed my tech I got a ftm-300. I've made a boat load of contacts with that one while on the road. I still need to get APRS figured out. My understanding is that you can leverage it as a beacon to figure out when other APRS users are in range.

I’ve got an IC-7300 on the way so I can start playing around on HF.

I plan on getting my extra once the new test is out.

What’s your set up?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom