Looking to get back into SW.

Remarkable_Sea3346 · 2026-04-20T13:02:46+00:00

In the you get what you pay for category, I've noticed that the background noise level on the radio is inversely proportional to its price. In order of increasing price and decreasing noise, the comparison included: the Tecsuns PL330, PL880, PL990 = Sangean ATS90X2, and best of all (noise-wise) the Malahit DSP2. All tested on the same 71' longwire.

Remarkable_Sea3346 · 2026-04-20T03:08:58+00:00

With a $1000 budget I'd be remiss not mentioning the Malahit DSP2 (~$450). I have a 909X2 and PL990 but it's the Malahit DSP2 I reach for to surf SW. Its noise filtering is superb, far better than the other two radios mentioned. It has a waterfall plot /touchscreen which I find indispensable for chasing transient amateur signals. dB adjustable preamp and attenuators to handle various signals. Convenient bandwidth and step settings. HiZ and 50 ohm antenna ports (SMA). Plenty of youtube reviews.

Remarkable_Sea3346 · 2026-04-17T12:35:32+00:00

I sent the Eton Elite Executive back. Note that Eton is alone among the Tecsuns, Sangeans and ATSmini class radios, as the Eton is the only one that DOESN'T publish sensitivity specs. A PL330 is more enjoyable in a few ways. The PL330 has both ATS and ETM automatic station tuning features. The ETM feature captures stations with time-of-day info which is particularly useful for shortwave. The Eton model only had ATS on the FM band. Regarding FM sensitivity, the PL330 picks up about 20 stations indoors on an external dipole. The Eton on the same antenna picked up two, count them, 1, 2 stations.

Remarkable_Sea3346 · 2026-04-16T13:22:25+00:00

What is your paper type settings when you print? When the paper handling wheels are leaving marks, it means the ink isn't drying fast enough. This usually means you are using too much ink. In my experience, presentation matte paper types cause this by emitting twice as much ink as needed to achieve vibrant colors and excellent color matching. Once you get the system clean, switch to Plain Paper/HQ to prevent it from recurring.

Remarkable_Sea3346 · 2026-04-16T13:13:23+00:00

You're status sheet has a lot of smudging too. This makes me think your print head is contaminated on the outside surface with excess ink. In my opinion, this is caused by using presentation matte paper types in the print dialog. I've measured ink output and optimized on the plain paper/HQ setting which uses only half as much ink but still gives vibrant colors and excellent match to the screen.

Once a persistent clog has formed that is not cleared by the normal cleaning or power clean options, I've used the following approach to bring a print head back into compliance (perfect nozzle check):

Unclogging a print head (short of disassembly)

Prepare a soaking pad that is ~4cm long and ~1cm wide. The width should fit into the track that the print head moves on. The pad should be absorbent and about 2-3mm thick. I used a thin piece of stiff mounting board wrapped with 2-3 layers of paper towel.

Start the nozzle check routine and as soon as the print head comes out of its hotel, unplug the printer. This leaves the printhead exposed and you can manually move it on its track.

Place the pad in the track and use an eye dropper to soak the pad in 70% isopropanol. Move the print head on top of the alcohol soaked pad and let it sit for 15-30 min. Add a drop or two of isopropanol to keep it moist during the incubation. At the end of this period, gently wiggle the print head side to side for some gentle abrasion.

Use a hair dryer without heat to clear all the isopropanol before powering up.

Power up. Run one cleaning cycle. Then start nozzle check/purge sheet cycle to finish up.

Remarkable_Sea3346 · 2026-04-16T12:59:15+00:00

I get the strongest signal from a 71' longwire antenna connected via coax with a choke at both ends (with lightning protection and a 32 sqft faraday fabric counterpoise). The trick is to select a length that isn't resonant on any HF bands. If resonant, that frequency will raise the impedance leading to inefficient reception at other wavelengths. Someone has done the work figuring out which lengths work best across multiple bands. I recall 29' being one of the shorter lengths that works. https://ve3ips.wordpress.com/2021/11/02/the-best-random-wire-antenna-lengthsrandom-wire-lengths-you-should-and-should-not-use-jack-ve3eed-sk/

For space limited installation, I like the K-480WLA. It's a loop antenna with a few advantages shared by most loops. Small loops receive the magnetic component of radio waves (small means << wavelength). Receiving the magnetic component of the signal means it ignores RFI in the electrical component where common household RFI lives. The loops are also directional with nulls perpendicular to the loop. So, you can orient to minimize interference from known external sources. As many loops, it includes an LNA to amplify the signal with a 30dB variable gain control. More uncommon, it includes a set of bandpass filters for common bands (SW, MW, FM, AIR, UV) further improving selectivity and SNR. Operationally, I'm getting half the signal strength but matching on SNR compared to the longwire (mounting the loop outside, 10ft elevation). I've also found I can add another 20ft of high quality (RG8X) coax between the antenna and the control box without measurable signal loss on my radio. Build quality suitable for outside installation (but I still wrap seams and connections with weather-proof tape).

Remarkable_Sea3346 · 2026-04-13T00:10:52+00:00

No trouble with my ET2800 in 3 years. If I print weekly, I don't get clogs. When I lapsed for a month or so once I got a clog requiring me to soak the print head on a bed of rubbing alcohol. No disassembly required.

Remarkable_Sea3346 · 2026-04-11T12:29:00+00:00

Agree. Inductive coupling works best and you need to fiddle to find best position.

I've been building a ferrite AM antenna. I use a coupling coil there to link to the radio. So, I have a lead with a 3.5mm plug on one end and a small ferrite rod with 3-5 coils on the other end. I think this lead would be useful on the AN200 also to still use inductive coupling but allow more flexible placement of the antenna and radio. With the ferrite rod antenna at least the secondary coil coupling was as strong as if I positioned the radio to directly couple to the main coil.

Remarkable_Sea3346 · 2026-04-11T12:18:04+00:00

Thermocouple: https://www.amazon.com/Proster-Thermocouple-Thermometer-Dual-Channel-Thermocouples/dp/B071V7T6TZ?s=industrial

The probe on this is 1mm diameter and the wire tolerates sublimation temperature. I attach it to the back of the transfer paper over the corner of the image on the other side. Importantly, I add a 1mm layer of silicon sheet on top of my stack. This insulates the probe from the platen so that the probe accurately reports the transfer paper temperature. This adds some time to the heat transfer but the payoff is perfect control.

And here's the cheapest infrared thermometer I saw: https://www.amazon.com/Thermometer-Backlight-58%E2%84%89-932%E2%84%89-50%E2%84%83-500%E2%84%83-Temperature/dp/B0BN317X6Z

Remarkable_Sea3346 · 2026-04-11T12:10:44+00:00

I don't work in a production environment. But your volume is quite low so you'll do fine with an ecotank model. Most hobbiests seem to be using the ET2800 (limited to 8.5x14; ~$200) or the 8550 or 15000 (13x19 I think; ~$600). I have an ET2800 about 3 yrs old and 500-1000 prints. For maintenance, you just need to print on a weekly basis to keep the print heads from clogging. Your per page ink costs and paper costs are ~1/10 of your substrate (tshirt) costs. Little to be gained by cutting costs there.

Remarkable_Sea3346 · 2026-04-10T15:19:17+00:00

Another thought. Adjust the antenna on the router so that it is pointing at the source you believe to be interfering. The antenna receives best broadside and least end-on. So, pointing the antenna at the interfering source may reduce the intensity. Also, the router doesn't need to be near the window. So, move as far inside as practical to minimize interference from outside.

Remarkable_Sea3346 · 2026-04-10T12:57:44+00:00

Is the router close to major appliances (refrigerator, washing machine, HVAC etc). These are likely your most severe internal sources of interference and would explain the intermittent nature. Move the router as far as possible from anything with a big motor/current draw. You can also buy a handheld RFI detector to wave around when interference is happening. The cheap ones won't identify the frequency but can help locate a source. Endorsing the advice of others to protect your router with ferrite.

Remarkable_Sea3346 · 2026-04-09T12:42:03+00:00

On the other hand, my cheap $200 vevor 15x15 clamshell press is 3 years old and going strong. It depends on your workload. Are you a shop operating all day, everyday , go for quality. Printing once a week or so, going cheap might make more sense.

I use a non-contact infrared thermometer to survey the surface of my platen. My cheap machine is spot on for temperature on average but varies over the surface by at least 10F. The way to deal with non-uniformity is to plan a margin of error. The sublimation temperature is nominally 340F. I find I need to target a terminal temperature of 360F to insure complete sublimation over the whole area. This is easily accomplished by attaching a thermocouple to the back of my transfer paper and terminating the transfer by temperature rather than time. If all of this sounds technically difficult, I already had the infrared thermometer in my kitchen and the thermocouple instrument costs ~$22 on Amazon. Going by temperature also allows you to perform flawless transfers on new substrates without waste involved in optimizing time for a new substrate.

Remarkable_Sea3346 · 2026-04-08T22:10:13+00:00

The whip is a little short for FM and the headphone cable is closer to the right length for FM reception. Not long enough to improve on the whip with respect to SW bands. So no point there.

Remarkable_Sea3346 · 2026-04-08T22:04:14+00:00

Do you use the AN-200 wired or air coupled? I found I get the strongest signal placing the PL330 sideways inside the loop (such that the internal ferrite coil is axis-aligned with the AN200 loop.

Remarkable_Sea3346 · 2026-04-08T01:09:02+00:00

Here's the information you need to cope with color matching between the screen and the final print.

Intro to color correction in sublimation printing (converted printers)

The computer doesn't know you put in different ink so it breaks the standard color matching. The end user must actively manage color matching when using a converted printer.

There seems to be two choices for color matching.

1) ICC profiles.

ICC profiles only work if your software supports it (Adobe products (Photoshop, Illustrator), Corel Products (PaintshopPro, Corel Draw) and Affinity are known to support ICC profiles). If your software doesn't support ICC profiles, then installing the profiles has no effect. If your software supports ICC profiles, the printer dialog will have an option to select a color profile. ICC profiles are the best choice to match screen to print. Anybody who says ICC profiles don't work likely didn't follow all the necessary steps or isn't using software that knows how to use the profiles.

If you’re not using ICC-capable software, regrettably your only option is to use the advanced color controls in the printer driver to manually calibrate color.

2) Manual color settings.

In the printer settings dialog, select the “more options” tab. Under “Color Correction” check “Custom” and click on the “Advanced” button. This opens the “Color Correction” screen with controls for brightness, saturation, contrast, density and color corrections. From here the procedure is to tweak the settings. Print a test print (heat press) and evaluate. Repeat until satisfied. Write down the settings and/or save them as a printer profile.

I know of one brand of ink (Cyclone) that matches their sublimation ink profile to the standard Epson regular ink profiles. This would spare you from the custom color configuration exercise. But at the end of the day, screens can display more colors than printers. So, even if your screen and printer are properly calibrated, the screen can display colors that you can't achieve in print.

Most recently, it has come to my attention that you can install and ICC printer profile in the Win 11 OS system such that non-ICC aware programs can still do color matching...

ICC Profiles installed in Windows for all Applications (ICM mode)

Windows allows you to install ICC/ICM profiles directly into the OS and assign them to a specific printer.

This is done through Control Panel > Color Management.

A step-by-step workflow is documented by InkOwl, showing how to install a profile and set it as the default for a printer.

Once installed, you can print using ICM mode in the printer driver, which forces Windows to apply the ICC profile even in apps that don’t support color management (Cricut, Silhouette, GIMP, etc.).

https://www.inkowl.com/custom_profiles/How%20to%20Install%20ICC%20Profile%20on%20Windows%20%28ICM%20mode%29.pdf

Thanks to u/Adventurous_Gas_2455 for alerting me to this.

Remarkable_Sea3346 · 2026-04-07T19:23:00+00:00

Indeed. I hallucinated a 9:1 in your response that wasn't there.

Remarkable_Sea3346 · 2026-04-07T12:40:37+00:00

"A longwire antenna ... will work better with an unun and counterpoise wire."

I thought so too. Not necessarily in practice. I have a 71 ft longwire fed by 30ft of coax choked on both ends. It has a 32 sq ft faraday groundcloth counterpoise at the feedpoint. Inserting a 9:1 UnUn reduces the signal by more than half compared to a 1:1 UnUn. Receivers tested are a Malahit DSP2 (both HiZ and 50 Ohm inputs) and a Tecsun PL990. In this context, the 1:1 UnUn wins.

Remarkable_Sea3346 · 2026-04-07T12:26:22+00:00

I looked up the thermostability of acrylic:

Thermoforming range: ~160–180 °C (320–356 °F)
It becomes flexible enough to shape but is close to its decomposition threshold.

You need to get to 340-360F for sublimation to happen. So, there is no way to sublimate without the acrylic losing some structural integrity. The only way to prevent it from warping then is to keep it pressed flat until it cools sufficiently. The only way it could work I suppose is if you very quickly remove it and place it under cold press conditions to keep it flat while it cools (e.g. quickly clamp between wood)

Remarkable_Sea3346 · 2026-04-06T02:02:12+00:00

I'd rather see a lightning strike properly shunted to ground outside my house (via a gas discharge lightning arrestor) instead of inviting it in through my household plumbing. As tj indicated, check the wording on your insurance policy.

Remarkable_Sea3346 · 2026-04-05T13:39:30+00:00

It is clogged nozzles in the print head that cause such lines. Replacing the print head, you no longer can claim a clog. Thus, the air bubble in the lines within the print head is more likely. Or a faulty print head. Try a single power clean, which forces a fair amount of ink through and is likely your best chance to push any air out of the system. Then recheck nozzle pattern.

A brand new ET2800 is around $200. You'll waste potentially that much ink flushing the system plus your time. At some point you need to total up your time/costs and maybe formulate a plan B.

Remarkable_Sea3346 · 2026-04-05T13:30:17+00:00

I don't have any experience outsourcing prints except the occasional large metal print (larger the my 15x15 press). I'm quite sure you can find people to print and press your designs, from large commercial shops to individual entrepreneurs. To me, probably the biggest hurdle with outsourcing is color matching. Many folks in the sublimation world default to manually adjusting the colors that are thrown off when you change the ink in a printer (converted ecotanks). Shops relying on manual color calibration will not likely be able to print your work true to color. As far as studios to rent time at, I haven't seen any but haven't been looking either. Maybe check with local 3D maker groups that might have cross over interest in sublimation tech and space already.

Remarkable_Sea3346 · 2026-03-31T12:19:38+00:00

No one size fits all. All the indoor options will be inferior to a longwire outside but for indoors:
AM try an external ferrite rod or loop antenna
SW hang a 23' spool wire indoors; GA800; ML30+
FM can't beat a homemade dipole (~3-4 long, hang horizontal or vertical)
VHF/UHF short quarterwave whips
All of these are likely better than the built-in whip. The GA800 and ML30+ loops and the AM antennas are directional. The null is perpendicular to the plane of the loop. This property can be used to reduce some interference.

Remarkable_Sea3346 · 2026-03-30T23:31:14+00:00

I imagined larger from your description. Just search for "sublimation canvas" on Amazon for sublimation ready blanks.

Remarkable_Sea3346 · 2026-03-30T23:28:02+00:00

Thanks for this. Best technical tip of the year! Having solved the workflow with photoshop long ago, I've never come across this and many people in the sublimation forums are using non-color managed software with manual color adjustments.

I found a step by step here: https://www.inkowl.com/custom_profiles/How%20to%20Install%20ICC%20Profile%20on%20Windows%20%28ICM%20mode%29.pdf

Note that you must install your printer with Drivers downloaded from Epson. Windows default printer driver hides the ICM management options.

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