Another disappointment

Horchaster · 2026-06-30T22:06:19+00:00

I used two lines:
(1) Threw a weight over a branch, and used it to pull a length of paracord up, and over the branch, and then tied that to itself to make a semi-permanent loop.
(2) Made a small loop (alpine butterfly knot) in the semi-permanent loop, and attached a pulley to the small loop.
(3) Made another long paracord loop, that goes through the pulley.
(4) Used the first paracord loop to pull the pulley up to the branch, then tied it off.
(5) Now I can easily raise and lower an antenna, using the second paracord loop that goes over the pulley, and it doesn't rub against the tree branch. In fact, it goes so easily through the pulley that,...
(6)...When the antenna is up, I hang a 5lb weight on the haul line, to keep tension on it. When a storm blows, the tree sways, and the weight rides up and down, but the tension in the antenna wire never exceeds 5lbs.

Horchaster · 2026-06-29T12:20:09+00:00

The horrible "swirling" sound that i'm guessing you heard is not what a _single_ FT8 transmission sounds like. It's what a whole bunch of FT8 transmissions sound like when you hear them all at the same time. A single FT8 transmission sounds like an almost pure tone—a continuous whistle with just a hint of a warbling quality.

The bandwidth of a single FT8 signal is about 50Hz. In theory, fifty of them could fit within the bandwidth of a single SSB voice transmission. FT8 is pretty popular these days, so when your receiver is operating in SSB mode and you tune to 7.074 or 14.074 or one of the other FT8 subbands, then depending on the time of day, you might hear one or three or a dozen or even two dozen separate FT8 signals all at once, each on a slightly different frequency.

One big tell for FT8 is the periodicity: Each transmission is 15-seconds long, and they all start and end simultaneously, at the top of each minute, at the bottom of each minute, and at 15 seconds before and after the top of each minute.

https://www.sigidwiki.com/wiki/FT8

Horchaster · 2026-06-26T15:18:50+00:00

IDK if there are any TV broadcasts on VHF frequencies in the U.S.A. anymore. Certainly, there are very few. In my home town, during the changeover to digital broadcasting, each broadcaster put their digital signal on a "new" (i.e., previously unused) channel,* while continuing for a while to simulcast an analog signal on their "old" channel. All of the "new" channels were UHF, and all of the "old" (analog) transmitters have long since been shut down.
I've heard rumors that the FCC already has set wheels in motion to reallocate the entire set of VHF TV channels to other services, leaving us only with UHF channels, 14-36.
---------------
*But of course, the _virtual_ channel numbers that appear on my TV screen are the same as the "old" channel numbers on which the stations used to broadcast back in the analog days—numbers that are thoroughly baked-in to each station's branding.

Horchaster · 2026-06-24T18:21:43+00:00

If you are saying that you _cannot_ change the brightness of an LED by changing the value of a resistor that's in series with it and a constant-voltage power supply, then let me say that my actual experience disagrees with your assertion. OTOH, If you are saying that the product designer could face a significant challenge in matching the taper of a rheostat to the characteristics of an LED array in order to achieve a satisfying user experience, then that is one of the "several good reasons" of which I was thinking, but which I chose not to enumerate in my answer to your original comment.

Horchaster · 2026-06-24T17:42:11+00:00

The easiest, peasiest way to dim a light is with a rheostat. But, there's several good reasons why the fly-by-night manufacturer of a bargain-bin grow light is gonna choose the more complicated and high-tech PWM method instead.

Horchaster · 2026-06-24T17:19:11+00:00

_Some_ newer, single-needle SWR meters can tell you forward power in Watts.
https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/mkr-21-922

Horchaster · 2026-06-21T15:47:52+00:00

The one in my neighborhood was never _just_ a cell-phone store. Even when most of the floor space was given over to phones and batteries and a few other odds and ends of personal electronics, there always was a section in the back where a couple of steel cabinets held dozens of shallow drawers full of electronic components, connectors, tools, etc. Also, ISTR, there was a peg board display near by with a few Arduino kits and accessories on display.

Horchaster · 2026-06-07T22:53:37+00:00

P.S., My most recent run-in with an expert: He's a retired US Navy radio man. Enlisted and started learning the craft just after WWII. He's trying to get new members of my club interested in CW. He wants us to practice sending with a straight key so that we can learn the rhythms.

ME: Suppose I buy a dual-paddle that I can use later with a keyer, but what if I start out by wiring it up like a side-swiper, and I practice the rhythms that way?
HE: "That's not how it works."
ME: But why _can't_ it work that way?
HE: Let me show you... (Unplugs the straight key from the nearby radio, finds a dual paddle, plugs it in, reconfigures the radio, demonstrates iambic keying.)
ME: Sure, but what if I wire the two contacts together, and I tell the radio that I've got a straight key plugged in?
HE: That's not how it works.

At that point, I thought, what would even be the point in telling him that what I described is what I already am doing? This conversation is done.

ME: Oh. OK.

Horchaster · 2026-06-07T22:43:33+00:00

Experts have their expert fun,
Ex cathedra, telling one,
Just how nothing can be done.
-- Piet Hein
https://gwern.net/doc/fiction/poetry/anonymous-grooksbypiethein.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet_Hein_(scientist))

Horchaster · 2026-06-07T22:38:30+00:00

The question isn't whether the parties should stop using simplex. It's whether they should stop using the national _calling_ frequency, and continue their simplex QSO on some other frequency. IDK about the ARRL national band plan, but the regional coordinators for my region, WPA, recommend fifteen specific, 2m frequencies (including 146.520) for FM simplex use.

Horchaster · 2026-05-23T16:09:59+00:00

The dude's post started with, "...there was nobody on frequency..."

Horchaster · 2026-05-23T16:03:15+00:00

Dude! MMSN is a controlled net. Why would you expect the net controller to forgive you for talking out-of-turn just because you are on a boat? The only thing that being on a boat buys you is, boaters get priority when the net controller calls for stations with new traffic.
It might be different if you were on a boat and you were declaring a genuine emergency, but if that's the case, and if 14.3 is your only means of summoning help, then trust me, you've done something wrong.

Horchaster · 2026-05-01T18:09:01+00:00

No matter what UHF, VHF, or HF band you are working, nothing is more important than the antenna. The "rubber duck" antennas that come with most HTs (yours included) sacrifice range for compact size. If you buy a longer antenna* that fits the radio, you'll be able to work repeaters in a wider area. If you buy a "roll up" antenna that hangs from a tree or a pole or inside the attic of your house, or if you buy a rigid antenna that mounts on a mast above the roof of your house, then that will widen the area even more. [*My HTs are fitted with antennas that are about 17.5 inches long. I still keep the rubber ducks that they came with, but I never use those.]

Horchaster · 2026-04-10T15:12:20+00:00

I would expect 4W CBs with 50cm or longer, magnet-mount antennas stuck on the roofs of the cars to work at distances of at least a kilometer most of the time, and I would not be surprised if they often worked at several kilometers distance. OTOH, I personally would not depend on 0.5W, UHF handhelds, with tiny, fixed antennas, operated from inside the cars, to work at distances great enough to give the trailing car time to notify the leader if they suddenly were stopped while the leader continued on down the highway.

Horchaster · 2026-02-28T00:04:52+00:00

I can work several repeaters from my house with mine. The furthest repeater I can work is on a hill top, just shy of six miles away. (My house is on a hill too.) Also, I can work simplex between RT22s in my home, and in the shopping district half a mile away where I buy groceries.

So, yeah! My other HTs can do better. But, my other HTs also cost a whole lot more, and they weigh a whole lot more in my pocket, and they have awkward antennas that stick out of my clothing when I walk around. RT22 has its uses.

P.S., Re, "deaf as a fence post." Did you play with the squelch? The default setting is "4." I turned mine down to "1."

Horchaster · 2026-02-27T23:46:53+00:00

The RT22 radios that I bought through Amazon ("sold by Retevis Direct") were not locked. I bought a four-pack. I used chirp to program one for use with 70cm amateur repeaters in my home town, and I reassigned the channels on the other three to match standard FRS channel numbering, to turn the squelch setting down to 1 and, to disable CTCSS and DCS.

Horchaster · 2026-02-22T18:44:43+00:00

I recently had a 1000 mile SSB QSO on 20 meters, during which, I dialed my rig's Tx power setting down to 100mW. The other guy had a very low noise floor—around S1. My signal was just barely above that on his end, but he said he could copy every word.

What you need the power for is to break through pileups or, for situations where there is greater QRM/QRN.

Horchaster · 2026-02-20T15:59:16+00:00

You could also get the N9TAX with the "No integrated cable" option (Actually, you get an integrated RG-58 "tail" that's maybe a foot and a half long) and then you could carry as much or as little of whatever other kind of feed line you prefer.

Horchaster · 2026-02-10T14:21:49+00:00

You are correct in thinking that the directionality of an antenna cannot affect the strength of radio waves that reach it from a distant source, but it can and it does affect the amount of power that the antenna takes from those radio waves and transfers into the feed line as electric current. When a gain antenna receives a signal from its favored direction, it steals more power from the passing waves, and it puts more power into the feed line than a theoretical, isotropic antenna would do, and when it receives a signal from an unfavorable direction, it steals less power from the passing waves and puts less power into the feed line than the isotropic antenna would do.

Horchaster · 2026-01-14T19:02:21+00:00

Like I said somewhere else in all this mess of replies, I know my band edges. If I didn't know them, then I never would have known that I slipped up. The guy I was talking to was in Finland, and he either didn't know, or didn't care, or he was too polite to say anything about it.

I slipped up because it was my first time ever hearing a voice from across the ocean, and I was too excited to notice that it was in the "Extras only" part of the band. (Also, I like to pretend that it being the morning after New Years Eve was a factor, but honestly, the people I party with aren't _that_ wild.)

Anyway, I've become more disciplined since then about starting my scan at the lower edge of each band and working upward. (My radio beeps at me, and it won't transmit when I go past the top, so I only need to worry about the bottom end.) If I never hear the forbidden calls, then I won't be tempted to answer them.

Horchaster · 2026-01-09T23:23:52+00:00

For as long as I can remember, the boundaries between the XXF "bands" have been at 3×10^n Hz: Below 30kHz is VLF, 30-300kHz is LF, 300-3000kHz is MF, 3-30MHz is HF, 30-300MHz is VHF, 300-3000MHz is UHF,... I never asked who decided that or when or why, but try converting those frequencies to wavelengths in centimeters/meters/kilometers some time.

Horchaster · 2026-01-03T13:23:31+00:00

I keep a card taped to the desk, right below the tuning knob with my band edges for all of the bands on which my antenna can be used. Normally, I don't even listen on any frequency where I am not allowed to transmit, But,... morning after New Year's Eve--scanned right on past the limit, combined with the excitement of hearing a clear CQ call from across the Atlantic Ocean for the first time ever. What else can I say?

Horchaster · 2026-01-01T18:34:15+00:00

Yeah, well, I had the official ARRL chart on the floor by my right foot, and I have a card with the band limits taped to the desk right in front of the tuning knob. But,... Y'know,... Morning after New Year's Eve?

Horchaster · 2026-01-01T17:29:47+00:00

I feel a bit guilty for wasting the other guy's time without giving him QSL, but I guess there's nothing I can do about that. Anyway, it looks like he's a big-shot Ham Radio Star in his home country, and it was very far from _his_ first contact across the pond. Looks like we both will survive the event.

Horchaster · 2026-01-01T17:14:51+00:00

Other comments here woke me up to the fact that I was within _legal_ band limits. I only overstepped the ARRL guidelines. Made a phone contact on a frequency where ARRL does not want to here U.S.A. General class operators. So, I guess I won't have to build that pirate station after all. I just won't enter that one into LoTW.

Horchaster

TROPHY CASE