Kevin Turner

honestly just try the vertical and see. you can always pull it down if you hate it. i used to overthink this stuff way too much before i just started experimenting. my 40m vertical is a random length wire with a tuner at the base and like 8 crappy radials and it still works pretty well, not gonnna win any contests but ive worked eu from the midwest on it without too much trouble

so ive been noticing 10m and 15m doing some really strange things the past couple weeks. like some days i can hear europe just fine in the morning, decent signals, worked a few italians and a german station without much trouble. then other days its completely dead, like the band doesnt even exist. im running about 100w into a dipole up maybe 30 feet so nothing fancy. checked the solar flux index a few times and it was bouncing around between like 140 and 180 which i thought was pretty good for this part of the cycle? but then i look at the K index and its been all over the place. is that whats causing the inconsistency or am i missing something. ive only been licensed about 8 months so still trying to wrap my head around how all this actually works in practice vs what i read in the books

so ive been thinking about this for a while and finally started messing around with it last weekend. basically i have a 4-port antenna switch out in the shack and im tired of walking over to flip it manually every time i change bands. figured an arduino could handle reading the band data output from my radio and switching the relays automatically. the radio puts out BCD band data on a DB9 connector, ive already confirmed the voltage levels are TTL compatible so that parts straightforward. my plan is to use a Mega since i have one sitting around, read the BCD lines, decode the band, and fire the appropriate relay through a ULN2803 driver board i pulled off an old project. the relays are 12v so thats fine, just need to level shift the 5v logic side if im driving anything directly. what im not sure about is whether anyone has done something similar and run into weird timing issues with the band data. my radio apparently has a brief glitch on the BCD lines during band changes and i dont want the arduino catching it mid-transition and switching to the wrong antenna for half a second. thinking i need to debounce in software but honestly havent thought it through completely yet. anyone dealt with this or have a sketch i could look at as a starting point?

same boat as you were like six months ago lol. what i ended up doing was just setting up LoTW for the awards stuff and then i signed up for eQSL too because its free and a lot of the guys in my county net use it and it kind of became a social thing almost. i dont really do paper cards yet, maybe someday. one thing at a time right

so we have this county-level exercise coming up and im trying to figure out the best way to power everything without relying on shore power. the EOC wants us to demo a fully independent setup for at least 6 hours of sustained ops, maybe longer if they extend the scenario. right now my plan is to run my IC-7300 and a small laptop for logging off a 100ah lithium battery with a 30a power supply fed from a Honda eu2200i. the generator is quiet enough that it wont drive people crazy inside but im second guessing whether i even need it if the battery can carry the load by itself. on the antenna side im thinking a linked dipole up maybe 25 feet on a fiberglass mast, probably targeting 40 and 80 for local nets and 20 if we need any regional traffic. the site is a fairgrounds parking lot so no trees to work with which is why im going the mast route. my real question is — is it worth lugging the honda just to keep the battery topped off, or can i run purely off battery and just swap in a second pack if needed. the 7300 draws around 20a on transmit but were mostly going to be net control so a lot of receive time. anybody done extended field ops like this and have a feel for realistic battery consumption with that kind of duty cycle.

nice, the 891 is a solid choice for a go-kit, I ran one for two years before switching to the 857. few things off the top of my head -- do you have a way to charge the battery in the field? a small solar panel or a DC-DC charger you can run off a vehicle is huge, because that 40ah will last a good while but not forever if youre transmitting a lot. also dont forget a good SWR meter or at minimum a little antenna analyzer, I can't tell you how many times I've had a bad connection somewhere and wasted 20 minutes before I thought to just check the antenna system. the other thing I always recommend and people always forget is spare fuses, like just a little ziplock with assorted automotive fuses and a few powerpole connectors already crimped, because something will blow at the worst time. and a headlamp that fits on your head, not just a flashlight. you'll thank me later when you're trying to tune something at 2am with both hands.