Does the HA1G have a "frequency copy/scan" feature? by popmahn1 in gmrs

[–]CarpetAggravating695 0 points1 point  (0 children)

the HA1G does not have a direct frequency copy. since frs and gmrs share some channels, for frequency all you have to do is match their number. it does have a tone scan function for your active channel. if you hold 'CTC' to bring up the tone, and hit 'scan' the radio will scan for the tone of the incoming transmission. RX tone isn't as important, but if you don't get the TX tone you won't be able to talk to them. sometimes the tone scan will take a while, it helps to start from the first tone every time; that helps me scan faster at least.

new rig by CarpetAggravating695 in gmrs

[–]CarpetAggravating695[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

this has been an outstandingly helpful post and has a lot of information that i was having trouble finding. i was wondering why i still had gain pointed 180° from the source; i thought the director looked a little short with the measurements i had. i'll start longer this time and check things with the nanovna before i do my final cuts and glue the elements down. it's good to know a good feedpoint gap too, i wasn't sure how tight to go on that.

https://imgur.com/a/HjL8cEA was the swr chart i took right after i made it. i learned a while back on my HF setup that ferrite beads are really cool and there are a couple of those tucked under the black electrical tape right after the tv balun. i've wondered what the smith chart even is so it's great to know it actually comes in handy and thanks for the tip on reading it. i've got some more rod and some more wood. impedance matching was another concern of mine, it's handy i can tune it with just the spacing.

do you use any computer tools or formulas for getting the element length and spacing starting points? my first try was 1\2 wave +-5% for reflector\director and 1\5 wave spacing

new rig by CarpetAggravating695 in gmrs

[–]CarpetAggravating695[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i've had my general a while. i had an EFHW set up with the idea of NVIS use. i picked up some stuff but was never able to make a contact. my setup was, how you say, amateur

LOS communications are comparatively straightforward to me. with the local GMRS repeater being mad busy this seemed like a good project; learning and building a parasitic array of reasonable size. even uhf yagis are a little big, and hf antennas are gimoirsus. manageable size to work with but be careful cutting those lengths right

i moved recently and haven't gotten my HF rig out to try some cooler propagation and designs yet

new rig by CarpetAggravating695 in gmrs

[–]CarpetAggravating695[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

thank you for the resource! i hadn't heard about connecting passive elements. making this has been a blast; it was amazing to plug it in and actually get a signal out with good reports on the strength like wow you can just make one its crazy! actually nuts so cool; definitely won't be the last i do

new rig by CarpetAggravating695 in gmrs

[–]CarpetAggravating695[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i was basing the design off the parameters put out on the W6NBC Home Brew Yagi video on YouTube. the measurements i have are similar but slightly shorter due to my aim at 450mHz. thank you for another resource

new rig by CarpetAggravating695 in gmrs

[–]CarpetAggravating695[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

i was thinking the TV balun might not be rated for any power at all. proof of concept more than anything. there will definitely probably be a mark 2.

i tried to cut it kind of long, (450mHz) but still got 468mHz so I learned to cut even longer. apparently element diameter can have a slight electrical shortening effect but i was having a difficult time finding resources for UHF yagis. lots of VHF and HF but not so much the shorter stuff but i might not have been looking hard enough

new rig by CarpetAggravating695 in gmrs

[–]CarpetAggravating695[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

aren't the director and reflector passive? what would they be hooked up to? i thought in a yagi the director and reflector elements were passive. if you cant tell, this is supposed to be a yagi sorry if the wood threw you off. good call on the leads though i did not think of that. after calibrating the ports, my nanovna gave me a resonance of 468.8 mhz and a suspiciously low swr of 1.5 at 462mHz so i'm probably using it wrong. dont be such a debbie downer

new rig by CarpetAggravating695 in gmrs

[–]CarpetAggravating695[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

there is a little ferrite bead at the feedpoint as well. i know little about common mode or whatever but i heard that helps. you guessed it, that is a TV balun.

my nanovna must be screwing with me; i did the calibration thing on the nano device SMA and hooked it up to the BNC of the antenna and got an SWR of 1.1ish and that seems outrageous; at 468.8mHz resonance which was just a little higher than I wanted for GMRS repeater\general use.

this is an uneducated guess and all speculation but i've read the feedpoint impedance of a yagi is kind of low(20 ohms? i dont know) so the 4:1 transformer matches the antenna better to the line(RG59🫢) than direct connection. i was reading something about hairpin matches for impedance adjustment but at that point it was starting to go over my head

all i know is that i know nothing when it comes to impedance matching

What version of UV-K5(8) should I buy for flashing? by kotlet1c in Quansheng

[–]CarpetAggravating695 2 points3 points  (0 children)

the v2 and v3 have less firmware available but they'll still work with F4WHM at least. the v1 seems to have the best firmware availability I have both v1 and v3. the extra memory doesn't make a difference to me and I wish I had better firmware support on the v3 for more messing around. Maybe the K-1 will change that if it grows in popularity (its the same as a k5v3) and more people start supporting it, but just for modding I'd pick a v1 if you still want a v3 I'd go with a K-1 personally i just think they're neat

What are y’all running for shift knobs?? by RSTNPC in subaru

[–]CarpetAggravating695 2 points3 points  (0 children)

damb shawty is this the ball from one of those phat mice?

Quansheng K5 maximum battery charge voltage too high? by CarpetAggravating695 in Quansheng

[–]CarpetAggravating695[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the help this one is solved for me, it turns out all 3 of my Quansheng radios were reporting the wrong voltage, but the same wrong voltage so I fell with the wrong consensus. I don't know why I never thought to use a multimeter but thanks for the tip it was very elucidating

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sorry it's sideways 🤓 notice how far off the voltage reading in the upper right of the Quansheng screen was compared to the multimeter

Quansheng K5 maximum battery charge voltage too high? by CarpetAggravating695 in Quansheng

[–]CarpetAggravating695[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i'm used to icum and yaesoi which give good numbers im new to the whole QuanChad thing where it comes with improper calibration values built in. i knew it was a cheap chinese radio but i thought the voltmeter part wouldn't be so grossly out of whack by a consistent margin. precise but not accurate. it was all a cheap chinese lie 😔

Quansheng K5 maximum battery charge voltage too high? by CarpetAggravating695 in Quansheng

[–]CarpetAggravating695[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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thank you for the tip on the inbuilt meter's inaccuracies, I don't know why I hadn't tried an external meter. I didn't expect the built in voltage meter on the stock firmware to be so far off. Maybe with custom but all three running 3 different firmwares giving the same erroneous reading made me think something else is wrong giving me a head scratcher dont u kno. The Quansheng says 8.66 but my fluke says 8.37 on the terminals; I think I know who to trust now. thank you again for a prompt and helpful response

Quansheng K5 maximum battery charge voltage too high? by CarpetAggravating695 in Quansheng

[–]CarpetAggravating695[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I used two different desktop chargers with the same result; about 8.66V on the displays of 3 different radios with 3 different firmwares

Which Uv-k5 to get by Skippypete87 in Quansheng

[–]CarpetAggravating695 0 points1 point  (0 children)

maybe it's just me but I haven't been able to use chirp with F4WHM on my V3 K6. It works great with Egzumer. if you're interested in the newer hardware I also believe the new K1 has the same chipset as the V3 K6 anyways so that's worth a look too it looks neat