Ham Radio / Off-grid communication

If you wanna go with a vert and can make your own ground plane, a cheap 10m antenna I've used in the past is a CB mobile whip, trimmed to 10m.
 
Juan Números said:
I need to get my shit together on HF but since I'm moving in a few months, I'm not sure that trying to get an HF antenna on the balcony is worth it.
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That MFJ-1622 balcony antenna is a popular choice.
I just string up as much wire as i can and use a 9:1 balun with a countpoise wire and let the tuner do it's thing.

The biggest issue with apartment HF operating is QRM on your RX. If the guy next door has something like a plasma tv or cheap wireless cellphone charger your fucked. I would string a random wire out on the balcony first and just listen around and see what your noise floor is like before investing in a HF antenna system for transmitting.
 
Thanks for the recommendations !

Jump said:
The biggest issue with apartment HF operating is QRM on your RX. If the guy next door has something like a plasma tv or cheap wireless cellphone charger your fucked. I would string a random wire out on the balcony first and just listen around and see what your noise floor is like before investing in a HF antenna system for transmitting.
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That's why I'm not really keen on trying to do my HF setup before moving, lots of QRM where I'm at make for a terrible SWL experience, never mind getting on the air.

I just hope my next apartment (which I'll own and be able to do modifications) has less RF noise.
 
Got a malahit sdr for on the go radio surfing. It's pretty good but the touch screen is fucking garbage and the firmware hasn't been updated since 2021. However the form factor is fucking perfect because I can discretely put it in my pocket. Another downside is the memory bank isn't big enough compared to my hardware radio 50 slots compared to the 500 my uniden scanner has.

Listening is easier on the scanner due to the cycling of frequencies but the malahit is way more feature rich.

RTL sdr is great for my station but it's not really portable or discrete enough
 
Aljam said:
Got a malahit sdr for on the go radio surfing. It's pretty good but the touch screen is fucking garbage and the firmware hasn't been updated since 2021. However the form factor is fucking perfect because I can discretely put it in my pocket. Another downside is the memory bank isn't big enough compared to my hardware radio 50 slots compared to the 500 my uniden scanner has.

Listening is easier on the scanner due to the cycling of frequencies but the malahit is way more feature rich.

RTL sdr is great for my station but it's not really portable or discrete enough
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An RTL connected to a phone using one of the SDR apps is going to be more portable and less conspicuous than whipping out a pile of Slavware, as cool as the Malahit is.
 
When I was SDRing out in the wild last summer, I had an USB-OTG adapter for my phone and a USB extension cable that went down to my cargo pants pocket or backpack where the RTL-SDR was hidden, along with a UHF rubber ducky antenna. Of course this limits your antenna size and position, but I had sensible reception when on a hill in the suburbs of a large town. If you sit down in the grass with earphones staring in your phone you look exactly as if you were watching Netflix.
 
Aljam said:
RTL sdr is great for my station but it's not really portable or discrete enough
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Discrete? This is ham radio. You should learn to embrace your inner neckbeard and roll up to the public park with an old laptop and full on HF rig.
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I have begun to fuck around with Meshtastic. It doesn't actually seem all that useful except with range dick measuring contests as yet - which, given that heretofore the primary use of LoRa was a proof of coverage crypto that totally makes sense. Still early days. Stuff's dirt easy to set up, too.

So I joined a Discord server for a nearby group trying to set up some meshes. Buncha noobs, bunch of weird survivalists, alright whatever, that was the mix for HF transceivers back in the 80s too. One of the leaders proceeds to give a short tutorial about how to trim an antenna with a VNA. Described how you can get it wrong and be only close while being 'within half a cunt hair' of the measured proper length. Lesson: Always test. Good shit!

Some time later, a dude with a ham callsign for a username barrels in and chides the teacher for 'resorting to poor language' and threatening to leave the server. For use of 'bad words'. On fucking Discord. Looked the fella up, he's the president of some repeater club in the sticks. Also, if I follow his chain of vanity calls right, I've been licensed longer than him. And I bet he sits around with the guys and wonders why the kids just won't get into radio.
 
Jump said:
Discrete? This is ham radio. You should learn to embrace your inner neckbeard and roll up to the public park with an old laptop and full on HF rig.
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Battery is just so much better on the malahit but if I can figure out the stallman patented thinkpad strap I might consider it. Now excuse me while while I go outside and activate. I got 12 hours of hunting down other neckbeards
 
Any of you nerds give SOTA or POTA activating or chasing a try? I'd like to give them a shot but the SOTA peak finder map website is so bad I'm not sure where to even begin. POTA map only lists some parks but the area I'm in has many more than shown.
 
hog cranking frog said:
Any of you nerds give SOTA or POTA activating or chasing a try? I'd like to give them a shot but the SOTA peak finder map website is so bad I'm not sure where to even begin. POTA map only lists some parks but the area I'm in has many more than shown.
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I've been meaning to do some SOTA and POTA activations this year. The official SOTA map picker does suck. Try https://sotl.as instead. POTA only allows state/provincial or national parks (and forests, wildlife preserves, monuments, trails, etc.) No city or county parks. That unfortunately means some areas are kind of barren of POTA entities. On the other hand, the boundaries of some POTA entities can be large. For example some national trail systems cover roads that span multiple states. One thing I found useful was to get a list of all POTA entities in my state, put them in a spreadsheet, find the official websites for them, looked at their official boundaries and used Google Earth to scout out possible activation sites.
 
hog cranking frog said:
Any of you nerds give SOTA or POTA activating or chasing a try? I'd like to give them a shot but the SOTA peak finder map website is so bad I'm not sure where to even begin. POTA map only lists some parks but the area I'm in has many more than shown.
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Ya ive done some. Hunting is easy. Just watch the spot page or spin the vfo and you will likely hear someone calling CQ POTA. Just exchange signal reports and your done. All the logging is done by the activator. As long as you have an account on the pota/sota site you will get credit for it.

My activation's are lazy since I have HF in my mobile. I'll pull in a park and try and get the minimum 10 while eating lunch or something.
Next time out I am going to try and HAM it up completely by selfspoting via APRS rather then using my cellphone.

I am to old and out of shape to do SOTA :ghost:
 
What's the experience like of using HAM radio to access the Internet? 9600 baud's enough to access your e-mail in a pinch out in the forests of British Colombia.
 
Anti Alien Alarm said:
What's the experience like of using HAM radio to access the Internet? 9600 baud's enough to access your e-mail in a pinch out in the forests of British Colombia.
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Here in the US it’s not practical for personal use since encryption is not allowed under Part 97. But you aren’t necessarily limited to 9600 baud. The HamWAN network does 10 Mbit/s on the 5 GHz band.
 
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