ham amateur shortwave pirate radio chickenband - /diy/

Anonymous11/25/25, 17:28No.2960056/ham/ Amateur, Shortwave, Pirate Radio, ChickenBand General

Backpacker's Folding J-Pole edition https://www.bridgingagap.com/Emergency%20Preparedness/Emergency_Communications/Information_files/Backpackers%20j-pole.pdf Previous: >>2952430 >New to /ham/? Read this shit! http://www.arrl.org/what-is-ham-radio https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility-division/amateur-radio-service >Your search engine of choice works well too! >The wiki is down but is archived https://archive.is/PjR5s >NEW FAQ is updated to preview 15 https://files.catbox.moe/aftx43.htm >Idiot's Guide to Coax Cable https://www.pcs-electronics.com/guide_coax.php >Looking for frequencies to monitor near you? http://www.radioreference.com >Basic Rx loop fundamentals https://www.w8ji.com/magnetic_receiving_loops.htm >DIY SWL Mag. Loop http://www.kr1st.com/swlloop.htm >Small Tx Loop http://webclass.org/k5ijb/antennas/Small-magnetic-loops.htm >In Depth Loop articles http://www.kk5jy.net/magloop/ >Homebrew RF Circuits https://www.qsl.net/va3iul/Homebrew_RF_Circuit_Design_Ideas/Homebrew_RF_Circuit_Design_Ideas.htm >NEW Library https://mega.nz/file/UCgEGAjb#rwNcnMAQCUUbSp8supsFvn9QEHCWUW86eLcZa16ZG4Y >Online Practice Tests: http://aa9pw.com/ https://hamstudy.org/ https://hamexam.org/ > Real-Time Propagation Data http://prop.kc2g.com/ >Space Weather https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/communities/radio-communications >WSJT-X Home Page https://wsjt.sourceforge.io/wsjtx.html >Homosexual (ft8) guide https://www.g4ifb.com/FT8_Hinson_tips_for_HF_DXers.pdf >APRS http://www.aprs.org/ >Weather Fax resources https://www.weather.gov/media/marine/rfax.pdf https://weatherfax.com/stations/ >point to point predictions, its free and will give you an idea of how much power/ what frequencies to use to reliably talk to your friend https://www.voacap.com/hf/ >how do I into Morse code in a good way? https://pastebin.com/HByjfN4F >Shortwave radio schedule https://shortwave.live/

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Replies

Anon11/25/25, 17:29No.2960057

Anon11/25/25, 17:30No.2960058

Anon11/25/25, 17:31No.2960059

h8er b8

Anon11/25/25, 18:55No.2960077

d4 j00z!!!! Don't give the antenna j00z your money just to Dx!

Anon11/25/25, 21:07No.2960105

the chad ham

Anon11/25/25, 21:09No.2960106

the chad scanner

Anon11/25/25, 21:11No.2960107

Anon11/25/25, 21:12No.2960108

Anon11/25/25, 21:13No.2960109

Anon11/26/25, 05:01No.2960229

the other day i learned how AM towers can actually kill you. neat.question: does the resistance of your antenna coax have to be balanced with the resistance of the antenna?

Anon11/26/25, 23:53No.2960361

let me guess, you need more

Anon11/27/25, 17:45No.2960480

We can have 1/2 and 1/4 wave antennas, but why doesn't this series continue? 1/8, 1/16, etc.

Anon11/27/25, 19:37No.2960503

Has anyone taken the FCC T1 (15wpm) and T2 (20wpm) exams? I'm not finding much on what the different COLEMS send or how to prepare.

Anon11/28/25, 02:04No.2960581

In the time I just spent trying and failing to comprehend NEC, I could have built an antenna and run my experiments with a VNA

Anon11/28/25, 10:13No.2960634

Well I wanted to get in on HF for cheap cheap and had good experience with Chinese tech in the past so I bought into the (tru)SDX and usdx+ meme. >blew finals on trusdx a couple of times >managed one ft8 contact on 17m >blew finals chinese black box usdx+ a good couple of times (6-7) too >managed 150+ ft8 contacts on 20m >pads on the PCB where to solder the finals to have finally started to give out >bought an antenna tuner maybe it would prevent it somehow >nope Yes I'm a massive retard for other stuff but I would check SWR for my antenna and it would work pretty well when I managed to tune it to 14.050 which is pretty damn close to 14.074. And I mean in order for it to transmit the SWR has to be literally 1.09 or 1.05. Anything like 1.2 and poof go the finals. And the best part is I didn't even need to turn on transmit in wsjtx. When you use vox mode, it sends out these transmit pulses as soon as you connect the mic input so you can blow them without ever turning transmit on.

Anon11/29/25, 04:14No.2960823

putting a 10w repeater on my roof for gigglesgonna make a little field manpack baofeng repeater deal for when im inna woodsalso got two mp31's for an even shittier simplex repeater dealmp31 is hyper based I wish they came as a 4 pack

Anon11/29/25, 07:20No.2960850

why do I need a loicense to transmit on a hand held on the higher watt channels. If I am driving around and transmitten can they still find me, or tell who I am, does the radio transmit a special unique code super secret that is traced back to that particular radio?Can I use the lower power channel and giant antena to transmit farther without muh loicence?

Anon11/29/25, 09:51No.2960861

Turns out my cheap HDMI cable with the DVI adapter is radiating noise at a local 2m repeater frequency, explains why I hear nothing but buzzing when I have my radio indoors. Clipping a pair of ferrites on it did nothing, neither did swapping to a better HDMI cable, but swapping to a cable with integrated DVI adapter stops me from picking up the noise sufficiently well that I shouldn’t have a problem with it. I guess the DVI-D to HDMI adapter is really poorly shielded or something.It’s a 1200x1024 DVI monitor but I can’t smudge the numbers around to get 434.050MHz, harmonic or otherwise. Even with the 10/8 bit encoding, assuming 60fps. Maybe there’s some sort of legacy TV stuff like blanking intervals going on. SDR couldn’t see it, but it was plugged into the same computer.

Anon11/29/25, 22:01No.2960978

Fellas, is EZNEC decently accurate modeling software? It seems to run well, but I wouldn't mind hearing some opinions on it's usefulness before I commit to grinding the manual.

Anon11/29/25, 23:01No.2960993

Kek, the gmrs guys in my area are a bunch of good 'ol boys, to put it mildly, but they're the smart kind. A while back, some jogger activist type tried to troll them, but turns out they're quite adept as fox-hunters, and they pinpointed his ass in like 15 minutes. Upon discussing his location, he gave up. Not that they'd have actually done anything beyond that, but from his sudden silence he must have thought the klan was after his ass. Weird episode to listen to. The only downside was I had to refuckulate my rx ant to catch the repeater signal since they turned it down for a few days.

Anon11/30/25, 00:52No.2961014

thoughts on mounting an antenna to your car? i hear cb is dead, but scanning gmrs while on a long roadtrip sounds like fun

Anon11/30/25, 21:16No.2961155

https://www.qsl.net/dk7zb/Duoband/dipolduoband.htm This look good for baby’s first roof antenna? It’s to connect to my 5W handheld Quansheng. He says it should be mounted 280mm in front of a vertical mast in order to get 50 ohm impedance on the 2m band, but doesn’t state how tall the mast should be above the centre of the dipole so I guess it doesn’t matter so long as it’s significantly larger than the dipole. I probably won’t make it with the extra reflector, I’m not looking for high directionality at the moment. First directional antenna should probably be something I can aim with trial and error without a ladder.As for HF, I’ve done the HF receiving mod to that Quansheng so I guess I’m interested in an antenna for that too, but I’ve got all the stuff lying about for a PA0RDT active mini whip that I’ll probably make and put on the same mast. With a linear power supply, of course.

Anon12/02/25, 02:58No.2961453

How many more fires will you all start just to make yourselves feel relevant?>captcha: h4m

Anon12/02/25, 05:27No.2961473

>solder up a nice bias tee with a capacitance multiplier to really stamp out those high frequencies >see excellent ripple rejection before the RF choke >measure after the RF choke on the coax connector itself and see a bunch of noise I guess those axial chokes pick up a fair bit of magnetic field noise. I could try to lower it with a ferritic can over the tee, but that won’t work up in the antenna. I think instead I’ll wind a pair of toroids on these 8x16mm ferrite sleeves I’ve got lying about. With 5 turns I’m not measuring any appreciable inductance, so I think I’ve got my work cut out for me.

Anon12/02/25, 10:35No.2961513

Every ham is scared to make the 2200m dipole.

Anon12/02/25, 14:44No.2961547

I recently pulled my old mmdvm hotspot out of the junk drawer and set it up again for DMR. And while I know most hams dont take DMR seriously, the amount of traffic happening on brandmeister and TGIF is wild. I've set up a several large repeater groups as static talk groups, and I'm being blasted with irrelevant weather reports, medical stories, guys talking about UFO's, drunk guys driving around and arguing about everything, etc. For those of you complaining that CB is dead, DMR and all-star might fill the void, at least while your at home or the office. Yes, DMR is gay because its not really radio and relies on major infrastructure. You also can't shit things up for fun like CB, because you'll get banned. But I still think its neat and there are non stop voice qso's happening 24/7. It filters out some retards as well, because they can't figure out how to set up a hotspot or program a simple code plug.

Anon12/03/25, 00:28No.2961657

the AM tower I posted a few months ago that originally listed near me for 400k is down to 280k now.

Anon12/03/25, 23:56No.2961842

I’m about to assemble this HF amplified RX-only antenna, with some minor modifications, but it doesn’t say anything about impedance matching. Considering I’ll be using 15m of coax back to my radio, and listening up to the 30MHz/10m band, should I try and ensure the output is 50 ohm matched? Or does it not really matter?

Anon12/05/25, 11:46No.2962285

Rigs should have more fancy buttonology, like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3T-qhv57ZI

Anon12/06/25, 21:26No.2962687

I picked up some boat anchors today. >Drake tr-4c Need to grab a power supply off of ebay to see if it runs >World Radio Laboratories Globe Scout 65 transmitter only I picked this up because it was made relatively close to me and it's as old as my parents. I plugged it in and turned the filament gain on and the vacuum tubes inside glow. 40 watts of AM or cw. Need to get crystals to set the frequency.

Anon12/08/25, 04:06No.2963171

not janky at all...

Anon12/08/25, 15:42No.2963273

I've hit an educational roadblock. In lessons and exams, we're told 75 ohm coax is the devil. 50 ohm is less lossy. 75 ohm just won't work. Ok, less impedance means it's better. Cool. Fast forward and I spend hundreds on LMR400 because 'muh losses' only to find 600 ohm ladder line is far superior and you can make it yourself. Was it all a marketing hoax?

Anon12/09/25, 17:44No.2963491

I'm an apartmentfag in a Dutch city looking for gay ass hobbies. Is this the general for me?

Anon12/09/25, 19:24No.2963517

Made the mini-whip, but the SDR is showing me a bunch of noise that doesn’t move when I change the tuning, that goes away when I turn off the phantom power. So I’ll test it off a 12V battery, then see if grounding or charging the battery while it’s on causes any more noise, considering common-mode noise or ground-looping might be an issue. Then I’ll probably use a zener regulator, and bigger caps, and more chokes. Maybe common-mode chokes too. And probably swap to a transformer-based supply.Also Jaycar RG58U is ass. The C/U is fine, but the U has really sparse copper braid atop foil, to the point where the Jaycar BNC crimps don’t grab tight enough without doubling over the braid.

Anon12/11/25, 22:03No.2964046

If any of you US hams got a kick out of cramming on Ham Study and leveling up, the FCC Commercial tests are also on Ham Study and the testing process is similar. In a week or two of studying, you too can be FCC Radar endorsed.

Anon12/12/25, 19:34No.2964237

While we're talking radars, how do I build one?

Anon12/16/25, 06:52No.2965095

Why do boomers talk about synchronous detection like they do with gold plated vacuum tube headphone wires? Is it just a giant meme?

Anon12/17/25, 06:34No.2965334

>custom antenna on roof gets worse reception to local 2m repeater than stock antenna handheld held out window you know, i took down an unused tv antenna to put this antenna on its pole we didn't use that tv antenna because the reception from the local mountain was blocked by some big trees, and use satellite tv instead the repeater is on the same mountain as the tv antenna i am a moron

Anon12/17/25, 06:57No.2965336

If usps doesn't deliver my antenna tomorrow that was supposed to be delivered Wednesday I am going to kill myself

Anon12/21/25, 13:21No.2966134

Anons i am an absolute idiot what do i buy to get into HAM? It seems really cool. Is it expensive?

Anon12/24/25, 11:58No.2966816

pretty sure there's a kid jamming gmrs channels and maybe another jammer in my areahow to deal with jammers? I'm gonna start using privacy tones. But I'm gonna set up a repeater soon, and the one kid has already shown his ass on the one local repeater and it has an input frequency ctcss but he figured that one out. So he could probably figure out how to talk on mine

Anon12/25/25, 03:14No.2966937

Concerning passive repeaters: Is there any reason to use an integer number of wavelengths of coax between the antennas?

Anon12/25/25, 08:14No.2966979

>ctrl-f >"nvis" >zero results NGMI

Anon12/27/25, 18:44No.2967393

Is there a RF mixer to inspect a 5.2 GHz signal on a <100 kHz budget scope?

Anon12/29/25, 03:57No.2967757

I’m on a mission to establish presence on 630m through my apartment gutters even if it’s with WSPR

Anon12/30/25, 21:01No.2968095

hello guyz just got a Quansheng UV-K5 (V1, white lit screen) for free (bricked) managed to unbrick it and I'm wondering if there's any insight on which custom firmware is the most goated.ps: I'm new to this, I just happen to be familar with a couple of stuff since my father is a ham radio operator (with ~35 years of xp) and I study in STEM.

Anon01/01/26, 04:36No.2968351

hi guys. i've been getting into shortwave for music collage purposes. i have some questions:1. i've been using websdr, is there any benefit to buying my own tuner and antenna and seeing how it fares in the south of florida? 2. if i stick with websdr, are there any APIs available that give you control over the frequency. I think modulating that or modulating between a set of predefined frequencies could be useful for my purposes. 3. are there any AI tools that can detect bands with the best SNR ratio, or maybe that's just known by the data and AI is not needed 4. what are the best shortwave radios to get? i may eventually make my own but i have a lot more to wrap my head around

Anon01/02/26, 15:30No.2968563

Nice to see more diversity in amateur radio. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gVxeqEr-fY

Anon01/02/26, 16:13No.2968578

What does the sync button do?

Anon01/03/26, 16:31No.2968794

Here is a prototype of the new TenTec Phoenix. Looks like one heck of a nice radio. I put my deposit down a month ago to get one of the first 100 units. They are hoping to get them out before Hamvention. https://youtu.be/_US4pTooU8M?si=ewcc3gwasu9SEtad

Anon01/05/26, 21:01No.2969232

What could this be?I am still new to this and I see a lot of weird stuff that I can't decode.

Anon01/06/26, 02:19No.2969279

After a Day of kerchunking Repeaters, you look outside your window and see Bean with Beam.

Anon01/06/26, 11:54No.2969354

i have a qwestchunso i have this radio and and when it transmits on frequency A, the A*2 A*3 A*4, A*5 harmonics are very loud. actually much louder than A itself.the rf output on A is very weak since the chip was never meant to send on that frequency.to remedy this, can i do the following?first, put a low pass filter just above A. second, put an rf amp AFTER the filter and before the antennalike this: Radio -> LPF -> Amp -> Antennawill this do it?

Anon01/07/26, 03:43No.2969500

can a filter be selected for maximal return loss and thus save the internal amplifier? i read that impedance matching is important. what about that?i know many would say the poor quansheng is not worth it but i still want to get my head around this.

Anon01/07/26, 05:36No.2969510

Amateur radio used to be a respectable hobby. Apparently the cucks have discovered it though.

Anon01/08/26, 22:24No.2969857

anyone using JS8 here? it looks like a good protocol. what is the catch?

Anon01/10/26, 09:34No.2970084

I had a radio dream this night, that's the first time. Strange and long dream, I was on holidays in some mountains with my family, at some point I was alone in a village and I start talking radio with a guy and a middle age woman comes by and ask to listen to radio, I knew I had no radio in my huge backpack but I manage to pull out of it a chink radio that can receive CB. So I get this handled, it has a huuuuge antenna, like 10m long, from time to time it came entangled with some wires in the street or some trees, we receive some chatting on CB channels, some music even, on SSB (that was important in the dream) and I don't remember how that ends.

Anon01/10/26, 23:26No.2970155

>full HF mod

Anon01/11/26, 03:42No.2970187

A bit of an unusual query, but anyway: I flew internationally the other day, and I have a hereditary disease that caused a medical emergency while in flight. They had a wheelchair waiting for me at the gate, even. It was apparently more dramatic than I thought, because I was passed out. Does anyone know of any archive or similar, to listen to recent ATC/flight radio traffic at different locations? Would like to see if I can find anything related to the scenario I was in.

Anon01/11/26, 06:49No.2970208

>Meshtastic

Anon01/12/26, 07:53No.2970400

Is it legal in the US to set up cell phone jammers on your own property for religious reasons? I want to build a sort of pagan shrine in my backyard where I am truly electromagnetically out of contact even from satellite phones. I figured hams would know.

Anon01/19/26, 21:16No.2971847

Anyone into LoRa or meshtastic? Considering getting one of these to use as a router node because the closest users I can see are 20+ miles away. Realistically how far can these little things reach with a decent antenna on hill?

Anon01/21/26, 22:06No.2972236

Guys, I have a Cobra 148 GTL and I think my mic is busted. When I key it, the needle moves, but like I’ll talk into it and I get nothing. No needle move past that point and the pa doesn’t work.

Anon01/23/26, 21:41No.2972566

What’s the longest range mobile setup you can possibly do for a CB radio? Like with an amp and stuff I mean.

Anon01/24/26, 01:25No.2972618

Got my train monitoring setup dialed in for decoding the various telemetry signals from the freight trains that pass through my area. I'm able to monitor about 80km worth of track using a 5/8 wavelength vertical with a ground plane made from romex. I'm going to build a more directional antenna to help with weak signals. Interestingly, a 20 year old scanner is working better for this than a sdrplay... Go figure.

Anon01/24/26, 19:41No.2972749

Hypothetically speaking, what would happen if someone from the USA spoke on the Canadian military’s radio waves?

Anon01/24/26, 19:55No.2972750

and DIE!

Anon01/24/26, 23:15No.2972784

>this id the Storm Net taking any traffic regarding this winter storm >net control, this is W1NTER. We have 2ft of snow, and we need su- >CQ WINTER FIELD DAY CQ WINTER FIELD

Anon01/25/26, 09:06No.2972829

Do people still talk on shortwave radio? Is it autistic where people use their call signs or does nobody care anymore and can you just forget about a license? I’m thinking about either getting another CB radio to put in my home or either getting a shortwave radio.

Anon01/26/26, 05:09No.2972967

If I wanted to chat with people over radio, would I be better off getting a Ham, Shortwave, or sticking to CB? I have a CB, but I’d like to extend the range. But if I’m going to do that, idk if it would just be smarter to get another type of radio.

Anon01/29/26, 06:00No.2973458

Does anyone know anything about LoRa WAN? Also what’s the best mobile HAM radio? I know pic rel isn’t ham, but I’m thinking about picking one up just to listen. What are your thoughts?