Newbie eager to learn

[M7OAZParticipant]

Good afternoon, I recently passed Foundation and try to get started with a minimum of investment. I acquired a FT-60 (i love airband listening) but did not get any contact with any “handheld design” antenna – looks like the closest repeater is just about out of range. I ma planning to install a Diamond X200n on my chimney stack and hopefully will be able to reach out soon.
Assuming I am successful in VHF, i will invest later this year in a HF rig and go through intermediate that I have been studying for…

[M0PWXParticipant]

Welcome to HamHub M7OAZ

congrats on passing your foundation, i have a Diamond X300 mounted High up on my house, and it gets out great, from isle of sheppey repeaters in canterbury and cambridge with 30w from my FT991a

if you have a cable run of more than about 10m use good coax like RG8 / RG213, RG58 is very lossy at 70cm frequencies, and not great at 2m

have a look at https://www.qsl.net/co8tw/Coax_Calculator.htm 10w into RG58 at 70cm you only get about 3.5w at the antenna, RG213 you get just under 7w to the antenna, and remember losses work both ways, so with RG213 twice the signal will reach the rig / handie meaning you will hear a lot more as well

73

Peter
M0PWX
(not Pete M0PSX who runs this site)

• This reply was modified 7 months, 2 weeks ago by M0PWX.

[M7OAZParticipant]

I eventually got the X300 too! it’s not yet up on the roof but on flat roof 2nd floor (waiting for better weather!) and limited to my hand held 5w and my license 10w (until Feb when hopefully I’ll have passed intermediate!). Still unsure about future purchase but listening on all HF from SDR dongle!

[M0PWXParticipant]

have you calibrated the SDR dongle?

best way if to use WSPR signals as they are very narrow band and on most bands

if you are using something like SDR# you will have 2 parameters for calibration one is the PPM to set the TCXO and an offset

to set the PPM its normally best best to use the highest frequency you can, then use something like one of the beacons (i use GB3UHF and GB3VHF) about 30 miles from me)

if you are looking at HF i have a page on my QSL.net site that maybe useful for you https://www.qsl.net/m0pwx/modes-and-freq.htm it has the most common digital mode frequencies and the software you need to decode them

Peter
M0PWX

(Not Pete M0PSX who runs the site)

[Author]

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