Ham Radio / Off-grid communication

Okay the autism has spread, I got a 1:9 balun (specifically a nooelec one nine v2), I am trying to make a random wire antenna, but every resource I look at tells me conflicting information, I just want to install an antenna for receiving. One thing tells me to put it ground level and slope it up, another tells me to put it as high as possible and horizontal as possible, another tells me to just let it hang loose, use a tiny counterpoise, no counterpoise, extremely long counterpoise, ground it, don't ground it. I am confused. Help.
 
Blue Miaplacidus said:
Okay the autism has spread, I got a 1:9 balun (specifically a nooelec one nine v2), I am trying to make a random wire antenna, but every resource I look at tells me conflicting information, I just want to install an antenna for receiving. One thing tells me to put it ground level and slope it up, another tells me to put it as high as possible and horizontal as possible, another tells me to just let it hang loose, use a tiny counterpoise, no counterpoise, extremely long counterpoise, ground it, don't ground it. I am confused. Help.
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Depending on your situation with a 1:9 you could try a loop on ground- literally 50' of wire laying on the ground in a loop (the exact shape doesn't matter).
 
BIG BILL HELL'S said:
Depending on your situation with a 1:9 you could try a loop on ground- literally 50' of wire laying on the ground in a loop (the exact shape doesn't matter).
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I will give it a try. I have a 50' piece cut already. My back garden is pretty big, faces north, and a lake. I have a two story workshop with 2nd story 25x25' outdoor balcony so plenty of space and height to work with. Also installed 2 telescoping pieces of PVC pipe on my deck that I can use to swap antennas. The tip stands about 15m high.
 
Mostly dicking around and fine-tuning my HF portable / POTA QRP go-bag. I’ve settled on a ¼ wavelength vertical for 10-20 m as a lot of the places I’m going to don’t have much in the way of trees to put my EFHW on. I’m also shopping for a decent but affordable SWR meter/VNA (nothing fancy but the sheer number of nanoVNA clones is a bit disorienting).

Another QRP kit came on my radar: https://pebblehf.com/
Not yet released, but it could be great for portable operations.

Something interesting to test would be IRC via ham radio: https://github.com/sparques/hamirc
2 downsides:
  • Written in Go, which I really don’t know.
  • Not active anymore ?
As it presents a KISS interface, it should work with modem73.

73, my kiwis.
 
Juan Números said:
Mostly dicking around and fine-tuning my HF portable / POTA QRP go-bag. I’ve settled on a ¼ wavelength vertical for 10-20 m as a lot of the places I’m going to don’t have much in the way of trees to put my EFHW on. I’m also shopping for a decent but affordable SWR meter/VNA (nothing fancy but the sheer number of nanoVNA clones is a bit disorienting).

Another QRP kit came on my radar: https://pebblehf.com/
Not yet released, but it could be great for portable operations.
Click to expand...
Big if true
1774539116223.png

It seems to be a fork of the uSDX hardware? If this can actually do digimodes like FT8 that would be incredible
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kit looks really simple, reminds me of the "Forty-9er" CW kit for 40 meters but with fancy SMD component on the back

 
Juan Números said:
Another QRP kit came on my radar: https://pebblehf.com/
Not yet released, but it could be great for portable operations.

Something interesting to test would be IRC via ham radio: https://github.com/sparques/hamirc
2 downsides:
  • Written in Go, which I really don’t know.
  • Not active anymore ?
Click to expand...

I'm kinda hype for the Pebble. Under $50 for a single band all mode HF radio?
For ~$250 you could kit up for 20m and 40m operation with a decent vertical portable antenna. (Memory math might be off a little there)

As for that github project maybe we put Claude Code and Cursor to work and see if it can update it and make an active fork if one doesn't exit.

@888Flux , is there any other chat via HAM protocol like that or just JS8Call and RTTY?
 
WanderingFarmer said:
@888Flux , is there any other chat via HAM protocol like that or just JS8Call and RTTY?
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Not Flux, but there's also the (somewhat unused admittedly) other FLDigi modes like PSK31, Olivia, etc. that are keyboard-to-keyboard. These IIRC have lower sensitivity than JS8Call but still can work serviceably for chat needs if the signal is strong enough.
 
Channel Catfish said:
Not Flux, but there's also the (somewhat unused admittedly) other FLDigi modes like PSK31, Olivia, etc. that are keyboard-to-keyboard. These IIRC have lower sensitivity than JS8Call but still can work serviceably for chat needs if the signal is strong enough.
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Yeah, sorry, I wasn't trying to exclude others from answering.

I should've said "keyboard to keyboard" modes instead of just naming 2. They're all usable with WSJTX aren't they now? (Besides JS8Call)

Though that kinda missed the point now that Ive thought about it. The whole reason youd want to talk on IRC via radio is so you could chat with your non-radio friends via the internet. Like Winlink for email via radio, which could also use a reexamining.
 
After fucking around for a few days I realized my house and like 28m pine trees were destroying my signal. Would love to show a picture because it came out so good but I moved my antenna to the roof of my workshop, and ran a 46' wire to a PVC pole mounted on the roof of my house at an angle some random dude on YouTube recommended and a 20' counterpoise aimed at my lake. Now I have crystal clear reception.
 
WanderingFarmer said:
is there any other chat via HAM protocol like that or just JS8Call and RTTY?
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I'm developing a companion program for modem73 that allows for both group and direct messaging with text and files, automatic repeat requests, per peer gear ladder negotiation and automatic mode selection, sequencing, Ed25519 public key signatures [kosher] + optional encryption, and zlib compression to save space on air for larger frames.

There will be a cross platform TUI with notcurses and a Web UI that you can access in a browser. I eventually want to build out a store and forward function and bulletin software integrated as well.

When the station is set to HF mode, and both peers report CAT control through rigctl, there is traffic management and the option for client sto automatically negotiate which frequency to use for large file transfers and similar. The automatic QSY negotiation can be done through a pre-programmed table, like simplex pairs, or through the client itself with each peer.

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888Flux said:
Big if true
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The only thing that worries me is that the uSDX is a bit weak on the SSB IIRC due to microcontroller.

Juan Números said:
I’m also shopping for a decent but affordable SWR meter/VNA (nothing fancy but the sheer number of nanoVNA clones is a bit disorienting).
Click to expand...
Still fishing for recommendations of a decent SWR plotter. Bonus if it can do 70 cm.
 
Hi! First post.

I'm curious whether anyone has managed to get the Tempest For Eliza program for Linux to play/display actual MP3 files rather than simply the small collection of included simple tunes which are beeps.

Anyone play with TempestSDR?

Also, which morse code program for Linux is the best for quick learning?
 
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thirstytux said:
Hi! First post.

I'm curious whether anyone has managed to get the Tempest For Eliza program for Linux to play/display actual MP3 files rather than simply the small collection of included simple tunes which are beeps.

Anyone play with TempestSDR?

Also, which morse code program for Linux is the best for quick learning?
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Hi there, and welcome :)

You may be interested in gr-tempest which is a implementation based on the Java TempestSDR program as OOT modules for GNU Radio 3.10. It's compatible with any SDR like a HackRF or USRP through Soapy.


Here's a talk on it from back in 2021:

Also makes working with raw I/Q samples much easier than the Java program.


For code, check out LCWO which is based on the Koch method https://lcwo.net/courseintro

I wrote a bit about my personal recommendation for the best way to learn code here:
888Flux said:
if you want to learn code, I recommend the Koch method https://lcwo.net/courseintro

The recognition of character groups versus just character recognition is so much more important. the LCWO site is ama,zing for this. 95% of CW is hearing. keying itself is almost secondary if not even important at all

For keying just buy a iambic paddle and once you know how to listen the timing and everything else translates very well

I have one of these "Putikeeg" mini iambic paddles that are cheap and fairly well built, although my code is shit and i dont use it as often as i should
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Hi 888Flux,

Thank you very much for the welcome and the excellent info! I appreciate your help and the links+video.

:) I'll try to keep the newb noise down. I appreciate reading the informative information from users here. I'm happy to be here and thrilled to have found these forums.

However, I haven't found any information on how to play/display MP3 files with Tempest for Eliza. That shouldn't be a newb question. The docs say it's possible, but I haven't been able to do it. I hesistated before posting that bit, as it's a Linux question but I feel it belongs here rather than the separate Linux dedicated thread. If preferred, I can take that question there.

Thanks again for the welcome.
 
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WanderingFarmer said:
What sort of antenna set up do you have? It changes a little depending on if you're using a tower, single or multiple lines, etc.
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Right now, I have 3 different antenna mounted, I have a really old coax antenna push button switch box for 4 different connections but I am not using it, I am physically switching them by hand, with 50' of RG-8X to a hole in my workshop wall to my PC
 
thirstytux said:
Hi 888Flux,

Thank you very much for the welcome and the excellent info! I appreciate your help and the links+video.

:) I'll try to keep the newb noise down. I appreciate reading the informative information from users here. I'm happy to be here and thrilled to have found these forums.

However, I haven't found any information on how to play/display MP3 files with Tempest for Eliza. That shouldn't be a newb question. The docs say it's possible, but I haven't been able to do it. I hesistated before posting that bit, as it's a Linux question but I feel it belongs here rather than the separate Linux dedicated thread. If preferred, I can take that question there.

Thanks again for the welcome.
Click to expand...
I haven't used that program before, but is it this one? https://github.com/luamfb/tempest-lcd

1774983775669.png
 
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