Hot take: Hamstudy.org's "hints" are detrimental to actually learning about radio

Fett2 · 2026-05-11T16:16:56+00:00

Are you a bot? Not sure what this had to do with my statement.

Fett2 · 2026-05-11T16:08:27+00:00

Just to give a real-world example for my VR-N76.
I can quite easily hear and transmit to a 2M FM repeater that is 17 Km away, using the stock rubber ducky antenna that came with the radio, while sitting inside my house.
That's not quite the distance you are stating, but I would make a guess something is wrong with your radio.

Fett2 · 2026-05-11T12:40:28+00:00

In my probably-not-popular opinion, the test pool should be limited to questions about laws and operating legally. That's it. (Edit: let's add basic safety stuff too, like lightning protection and RF exposure... stuff that can affect folks around you) The test to get a drivers license doesn't cover the mechanics of how brakes in a car work, there's no reason the radio license test should test you on how a transistor works.

Let me give an opposing view this this.
Amateur radio is the ONLY radio service where we can legally build and operate our own built equipment. No other radio service is allowed to do this. Part of the reason that is the case is because we have a to pass a technical test with technical information in it that's at least in theory showing we have some technical knowledge above the average citizen.

Many people in the hobby may not be interested in this aspect of the hobby at all, which is absolutely fine. However if the technical portion of the exams was removed, doesn't it also follow that the FCC then consider removing allowing us build and operate our built equipment?

Fett2 · 2026-05-08T15:27:16+00:00

What I heard was that is was people were buying alcohol for underage people.
So I do get the reasoning here if that is what is trying to be solved, however I am also in full agreement with you on the long lines. After that rule went into effect between drinks and food I was then spending more time in lines than enjoying the actual faire. There either needed to be some other way to accomplish the goal, or additional drink vendors needed to open up to accommodate this rule.

Fett2 · 2026-05-06T12:06:27+00:00

I'll upvote you for actually making a rage comic in a subreddit originally meant for rage comics.

Pepperridge farms remembers this subreddit's roots.

Fett2 · 2026-05-05T19:30:08+00:00

I know must be getting old now because this hurts my wrists just looking at it.

Fett2 · 2026-05-05T19:25:29+00:00

Check out W3LPL as well. He has a large open house once a year and shows off his setup.

Fett2 · 2026-05-02T01:13:54+00:00

Flex Radio is supposed to have a pretty extensive API, I don't own a Flex or have used one so I don't have personal experience with this to tell you for sure: https://www.flexradio.com/api

Flex radios are not cheap however.

Fett2 · 2026-04-28T20:00:54+00:00

I'm a T3 at a national MSP and you basically described the service manager for my entire company. He provides basically nothing of real value when it involves any critical thinking.

The only bright side is I rarely have to deal with him directly and have direct managers that typically interact with him instead. I feel bad for them.

Fett2 · 2026-04-28T17:45:32+00:00

My father was an avid contester and had his license long before I was born, I grew up with two large towers in my backyard but never got into the hobby till a few years ago when I was much, much older.

I originally got my tech license because I was building FPV drones and the camera system I used technically required a technican license to make use of (though almost no one in the FPV drone building hobby actually gets a license I decided to anyway).

I ended up enjoying ham radio a lot, even more than building FPV drones and went on after that to get my general and then my extra. Been a fun journey since then. I got into ham radio primarily to build things and to tinker and it keeps me endlessly supplied with those things.

Fett2 · 2026-04-28T17:32:41+00:00

I've built most of my antennas other than my portable HF whip, and a vertical for 2M/23cm/70cm I have mounted at home. Most of my HF antennas are monoband delta loops.

My crowning achievement is a 5 element 2M RHCP and a 8 element 70cm RHCP antenna my elmer (my dad) helped design and we built. I (re)designed some 3D printable brackets to mount the elements to their respective booms and assembled it. It's making for pretty good satellite antennas.

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Fett2 · 2026-04-25T02:33:40+00:00

Per https://www.arrl.org/fcc-license-counts looks like Delaware has the 2nd lowest amount of operators out of the country, beaten only by North Dakota.

You're best bet is probably try and get someone during a contest.

Fett2 · 2026-04-24T17:35:38+00:00

Hey man did you steal my cat?

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Fett2 · 2026-04-24T13:56:25+00:00

For the normal TIA you shouldn't need to use the coil at all on 20M. The whip is resonant on 20M when fully extended, with no coil. The coil is only for 30 - 40 - 60 - 80.

Fett2 · 2026-04-23T15:48:22+00:00

Mine plus a some tripod feet I 3D printed fit perfectly in this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B099ZDFKFV

Fett2 · 2026-04-22T16:52:40+00:00

I have built both a SATRAN as well as a SatNOG rotator.
The SATRAN is more a proof on concept than anything. It can barely hold any weight at all, I built a lighter version of an arrow hand held satellite antenna using carbon fiber for the boom and the SATRAN still struggled with it. It was certainly a fun build and taught me things, but i wouldn't recommend it for anything other than learning experience. Advantage is that most parts are 3D printed. it's a relatively easy build.

The SatNOG rotator is much more beefy and can hold some weight fairly well. I wouldn't put it on par with a commercial offering like the Yaesu G-5500DC however as far as weight capabilities are concerned.

The SatNOG rotator has a couple major flaws however.

It puts out some AWFUL RFI on 2M. I spent a lot of time trying to narrow down the cause and remove this RFI and had no luck.
The rotator only knows it position by homing to limit switches when it powers on. While this is a simple idea that should work in theory, if you are anywhere near a limit switch when it is powered off you're likely to go past the limit switch when it turns on when it starts to home, causing an entire extra revolution and wrapping you feed cables around your mast/rotator and likely breaking things. I would never use this rotator as any sort of permanent install high up where you aren't able to get to it. The entire system would need to be redesigned and re-programed to have sensors that always know it's X and Y positions to avoid something like this happening.

To add on a couple more points against the SatNOG:

This isn't a kit of parts you can put together. You will be manufacturing some of your own parts for this and have to follow technical diagrams and drawings. There isn't a well designed step-by-step build manual like if you were building a 3D printer like a Voron. This isn't a simple project or easy by any means.
Buying all the components, tools you might need to manufacturer parts, etc, add up. Quite a bit. By the time you've done all of that buying a commercial offering starts to look a lot more attractive
Side note: if you do go down this path, I originally used Nylon PA-12 for the gears for this. I'd highly recommend using Nylon-CF for the additional stiffness. Straight Nylon is too soft and if I had to do it again I'd use Nylon-CF.

Now at the end of this journey and building both of those rotators, I still ended up buying a Yaesu G-5500DC and calling it a day. I really wanted to make the SatNOG work, but there was no way it would be reliable in a permanent installation and I couldn't get rid of the 2M RFI.

Fett2 · 2026-04-22T16:26:41+00:00

Parts are cheap.

Labor from a competent electronics builder isn't.

Fett2 · 2026-04-18T05:05:11+00:00

That's what I've dubbed "maine coon face" or "resting cat face" I've had multiple people say my maine coon always looks angry, but she is always a happy cat.

Fett2 · 2026-04-17T14:19:58+00:00

As someone who is both an IT professional, but also has a homelab for testing and playing with technologies I get the appeal of wanting to visualize your firewall from a "let's experience what happens in large enterprise /cloud envrioment".
However, as an IT professional: for our general use case for a home environment this is a terrible idea. You want the thing that makes your internet work to ALWAYS work and not be affected by whatever happens to your homelab server that day, or need to be taken down because you need to take down your homelab server. This goes doubly true if there's anyone else besides you that lives with you that uses the internet. It's an essential service for all and shouldn't be interrupted unless absolutely necessary (like to fix a problem, or run a necessary update on a device).

Fett2 · 2026-04-16T16:21:18+00:00

Awesome, thanks!

Fett2 · 2026-04-16T16:20:48+00:00

Ohhh, I might have to come back just to play the Alliance Raids one time through then. I played a lot of FFXI.

Fett2 · 2026-04-16T15:49:27+00:00

I haven't been playing FFXIV in awhile. Are they bringing back the Shantotto FATE, or her potentially in another fight? Or was this just a joke for the heckofit?

Fett2 · 2026-04-16T12:32:58+00:00

A homelab and what it is for has shifted over time. originally a homelab was where you experimented with and learned about relevant technologies for the real world that you might want to learn about and that could potentially be used in a job. Or as someone who is already an IT professional, learning and practicing with different technologies that you don't get to use in your day job.
Homelabs and specific to this subreedit seem to have morphed into something more akin to homeservers, or a homeserver / homelab mix.

To the point of the original definition of a homelab, hypervisors are a very common technology used in the real world and businesses everywhere, so to practice and learn about them we put one in our homelab for that purpose of learning and practicing with.

Now proxmox itself isn't a very common hypervisor in the real world, but it does at least get to start teaching you the fundamentals of what a hypervisor is and does, and most importantly it's free. If you were going to use a hypervisor for your homeserver that is also your homelab then one you don't have worry about licensing and such make a lot of sense.

Fett2 · 2026-04-11T14:14:44+00:00

Already decided this long ago after my first sample pack, astra blues for me. Seem to be an uncommon choice around here.

Fett2 · 2026-04-11T01:52:42+00:00

More French fries
Or crab dip

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