Virginia ARES

I’ve been interested in looking at volunteering for my local ARES group. However I’m not quite sure what’s currently going on with it.

I went to the local hamfest about 2 years ago and they had a ARES forum. I thought great that give me a chance to see what it’s all about. Instead there was a room with about 50 really pissed off people. I couldn’t understand what was going on but something to the effect that a high up guy retired and no one has appointed a successor and there’s no communication going downstream so everything stopped.

There was talk of setting up another website and forming a new ARES chapter, etc… They didn’t want anyone joining until they got this new website/chapter setup. So I put my name on the list for email notifications. After about 6 months the weekly/monthly emails just stopped and the person sending the emails stopped being involved.

I finally decided to get back into the hobby full steam and wanted to look into it again. After a bit of Googling I’m finding a few things.

VCAP ARES – You can tell the way they wrote their closure notice they were disgruntled.

This

ARESVA – This appears to be a more up to date site. But even the wording on it says things aren’t working very well.

Does anyone know what’s up with VA ARES particularly in SW VA?

submitted by /u/elitegoodguy
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Dumb question on HF digital modes

I picked up my technician a few weeks back, and have been shopping around for a decent HF radio setup. My main requirement is to be able to transmit and receive on various digital modes (in addition to CW), on multiple bands, and also have some sort of control via serial port or USB with an non-proprietary and published protocol. I’ll likely be spending 90% of my time on the HF bands with digital and CW, so getting the higher licenses is going to be a ‘must’. I’ll be taking my General in a few weeks, if not sooner, and I’ve already got the Extra manual for studying after that.

My background is software engineering and embedded electronics. Designing, building, and programming electronic projects, and using test equipment is pretty much what I do on a daily basis. Because of that, I’ve been leaning towards a few HF kits, and have purchased a few that are intended to be used for digital modes. At the same time, projects like this can take a while to fully implement, and I’m realizing I might need a daily driver in addition to a project car. Shopping for a ‘real’ HF rig is a bit more confusing for me, non of them really list the specs / usage cases that I’m looking for.

My main question is, if I’m picking up some random HF rig, which digital modes will work (if any), assuming that it’s hooked up to a computer with proper software? I hear that radios like the FT-817 (which I can’t afford) work well for digital modes, but how is that accomplished? Do they output I/Q data to an audio port, that feeds into a computer sound card? I’m assuming that a radio that does not output IQ data cannot be used for modulations that vary carrier phase?

submitted by /u/flyinglotus1983
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Can a dual band 2m/440 base antenna also handle HDTV?

I live in a dense urban area on the north side of Chicago where HDTV can be challenging to receive with indoor antennas, despite being only 3 miles from a transmitting antenna on the 96th floor of a building. I get a fair amount of pixelation and dropouts, even with a powered indoor antenna on the second floor.

I’m speccing out putting a dual band antenna on a roof chimney (appx 30ft above grade) and wondering if this would outperform my powered indoor HDTV antenna?

Plan would be to use a duplexer to branch off the feed for the TV’s and protect them from the transmission feed.

submitted by /u/tb-reddit
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Question about coax grounding

I’m getting prepared to install my base station and had a question regarding grounding my coax. From what I can tell, it’s desirable to tie my coax ground into my utility ground – like what u/xradionut did.

The entry point for my coax into the house happens to be where a ground wire is sticking out and wrapped around a natural gas line/meter. Would it be safe to bond my lightning arrestor to this ground?

If not, would it be acceptable to ground using a single 8′ copper pipe? It is absolutely necessary to bond to the utility ground?

Edit: to clarify, I’m talking about the electrical ground for the lightning arrestor, not the antenna ground elements.

submitted by /u/mumrah
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Virginia ARES

I’ve been interested in looking at volunteering for my local ARES group. However I’m not quite sure what’s currently going on with it.

I went to the local hamfest about 2 years ago and they had a ARES forum. I thought great that give me a chance to see what it’s all about. Instead there was a room with about 50 really pissed off people. I couldn’t understand what was going on but something to the effect that a high up guy retired and no one has appointed a successor and there’s no communication going downstream so everything stopped.

There was talk of setting up another website and forming a new ARES chapter, etc… They didn’t want anyone joining until they got this new website/chapter setup. So I put my name on the list for email notifications. After about 6 months the weekly/monthly emails just stopped and the person sending the emails stopped being involved.

I finally decided to get back into the hobby full steam and wanted to look into it again. After a bit of Googling I’m finding a few things.

VCAP ARES – You can tell the way they wrote their closure notice they were disgruntled.

This

ARESVA – This appears to be a more up to date site. But even the wording on it says things aren’t working very well.

Does anyone know what’s up with VA ARES particularly in SW VA?

submitted by /u/elitegoodguy
[link] [comments]

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8212326 http://ift.tt/2gFjUhz
via IFTTT

Dumb question on HF digital modes

I picked up my technician a few weeks back, and have been shopping around for a decent HF radio setup. My main requirement is to be able to transmit and receive on various digital modes (in addition to CW), on multiple bands, and also have some sort of control via serial port or USB with an non-proprietary and published protocol. I’ll likely be spending 90% of my time on the HF bands with digital and CW, so getting the higher licenses is going to be a ‘must’. I’ll be taking my General in a few weeks, if not sooner, and I’ve already got the Extra manual for studying after that.

My background is software engineering and embedded electronics. Designing, building, and programming electronic projects, and using test equipment is pretty much what I do on a daily basis. Because of that, I’ve been leaning towards a few HF kits, and have purchased a few that are intended to be used for digital modes. At the same time, projects like this can take a while to fully implement, and I’m realizing I might need a daily driver in addition to a project car. Shopping for a ‘real’ HF rig is a bit more confusing for me, non of them really list the specs / usage cases that I’m looking for.

My main question is, if I’m picking up some random HF rig, which digital modes will work (if any), assuming that it’s hooked up to a computer with proper software? I hear that radios like the FT-817 (which I can’t afford) work well for digital modes, but how is that accomplished? Do they output I/Q data to an audio port, that feeds into a computer sound card? I’m assuming that a radio that does not output IQ data cannot be used for modulations that vary carrier phase?

submitted by /u/flyinglotus1983
[link] [comments]

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8212326 http://ift.tt/2gfsx4o
via IFTTT

Can a dual band 2m/440 base antenna also handle HDTV?

I live in a dense urban area on the north side of Chicago where HDTV can be challenging to receive with indoor antennas, despite being only 3 miles from a transmitting antenna on the 96th floor of a building. I get a fair amount of pixelation and dropouts, even with a powered indoor antenna on the second floor.

I’m speccing out putting a dual band antenna on a roof chimney (appx 30ft above grade) and wondering if this would outperform my powered indoor HDTV antenna?

Plan would be to use a duplexer to branch off the feed for the TV’s and protect them from the transmission feed.

submitted by /u/tb-reddit
[link] [comments]

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8212326 http://ift.tt/2gEvMPX
via IFTTT

Question about coax grounding

I’m getting prepared to install my base station and had a question regarding grounding my coax. From what I can tell, it’s desirable to tie my coax ground into my utility ground – like what u/xradionut did.

The entry point for my coax into the house happens to be where a ground wire is sticking out and wrapped around a natural gas line/meter. Would it be safe to bond my lightning arrestor to this ground?

If not, would it be acceptable to ground using a single 8′ copper pipe? It is absolutely necessary to bond to the utility ground?

Edit: to clarify, I’m talking about the electrical ground for the lightning arrestor, not the antenna ground elements.

submitted by /u/mumrah
[link] [comments]

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8212326 http://ift.tt/2g1uQFf
via IFTTT