SteveShannon

Exactly. FT8 and phone are different uses but a person doesn’t have to choose one and forsake the other for all time. FT8 has a very narrow use case, logging bare minimum contacts quickly. On a good day it can be fun chasing FT8, but at another time a person might just want to talk to someone. Or play with one of the many other modes of amateur radio communication. There are so many different ways to communicate and fortunately we can play with all of them.

I think I shared this with you before, but if not I apologize. This is the Marine Corps Antenna Handbook. It does a great job explaining antennas, propagation, frequencies, and distances at a level that I think most people can understand. For instance page 117 is the beginning of a chapter on NVIS and how it can be used to achieve continuous communications at distances that would otherwise fall within the “skip zone”. https://www.marines.mil/Portals/1/MCRP 3-40.3C With Erratum z.pdf Here’s a snippet: To communicate over the horizon to an amphibious ship on the move, or to a station 100 to 300 kilometers away, the operators should use NVIS propagation. The ship’s low take-off angle antenna is designed for medium and long-range communications. When the ship’s antenna is used, a skip zone is formed. This skip zone is the area between the maximum ground wave distance and the shortest sky wave distance where no communications are possi- ble. Depending on operating frequencies, antennas, and propagation conditions, this skip zone can start at roughly 20 to 30 kilometers and extend out to several hundred kilometers, preventing communi- cations with the desired station. NVIS propagation uses high take-off angle (60° to 90°) antennas to radiate the signal almost straight up. The signal is then reflected from the ionosphere and returns to Earth in a circular pattern all around the transmitter. Because of the near-vertical radiation angle, there is no skip zone. Communications are continuous out to several hundred kilometers from the transmitter. The nearly vertical angle of radiation also means that lower frequencies must be used. Gener- ally, NVIS propagation uses frequencies up to 8 MHz

You should have received a link in email to download your official copy. Check your spam bin. What’s your FRN? I can’t download your official copy but I can look up your account and let you know if a license has been issued. Usually it’s within one or two business days after payment.

Most repeaters require either CTCSS tone or DCS code before they will accept your transmission. So, either TX CTCSS or TX DCS. As you know, you don’t need either to receive from the repeater.

It works like a small duplexer. Frequencies above a certain frequency pass through one port but are blocked by the other. Frequencies below that go out the other port. Another way to think of it is like a crossover network for a two way speaker.

https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/cma-cf-360b?seid=dxese1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAhaHMBhD2ARIsAPAU_D5C3JA_o7d31ztb25XmLYRcVfdWMQHB3S_boYaz6gLcRpIicr-fJwMaAvsiEALw_wcB

If you’re asking me, I don’t know. Configuration files I can’t imagine would be a problem. Copyright protected executables might be covered by the rules somehow.

Check the Atlantic Radio website.

A tape measure.

They have two different flexible versions: Ultraflex and hyperflex. They also offer a cable called Airborne which uses aluminum in order to achieve a lighter weight. I have not evaluated it. There’s no reason to avoid aluminum as long as it’s prepared correctly when attaching the connector. M&P will also custom builb cables and ship them to you quickly.

Do it! Yes, it would be easier to use the Retevis 97L, but it wouldn’t be nearly as fun! As long as you keep your coax to a short length one of the ultra flex versions of 10 mm cable, like Messi & Paloni make will be just fine. M&P shields are all copper for both foil and braid. Times Microwave LMR 400 shielding uses two different metals for the foil and braid and people on RepeaterBuilder point to that causing problems only during full duplex operations, which is nearly all of what a repeater does. I haven’t seen data to support those concerns. No matter what you do I would steer clear of cable with a solid center conductor like the plain old Times Microwave LMR400 uses. Get the best quality cable that works well for your use. I agree with you about coax being better for portability than hardline. Do the math to see what your comparative losses will be, but if you truly want this to be portable you’ll want it to be easily coiled and laid out without fear of work hardening or eventual damage. My experience with repeater controllers isn’t helpful in this case; the IDoMatic would probably be the easiest solution and then add something like a Pi to provide additional audio messages. In that way you’d still have the reliability of the ID-o-MATIC for repeater control if the Pi flaked out. Keep us informed as you build it!

As far as the General exam being not much more difficult than the Technician, and then the Amateur Extra being not much more challenging than the General, I think it really comes down to each person’s interests, knowledge, and experience. I have a strong technical background and education and for me I felt that studying for each test was incremental compared to the previous exam.b I studied more for the Technician than I did for either of the other two and I studied less for the Extra than I did for the General or Technician, yet I scored highest on the Extra exam. TL; DR - everyone is different. Work at a pace that’s comfortable and enjoyable for you. Ham radio is a hobby, not indentured servitude.

This!

Yup! Once you’re studying build on it. But you can also go back next time your VEC offers exams and take the general and extra, no additional FCC fees.

Glad it worked.

I don’t see anything wrong with that. You’re transmitting on one radio on channel 26 and listening on the other radio on channel 26. How near to each other physically are the two radios? You might be desensing one while transmitting on the other that’s close to it and that might be why you don’t hear yourself. It sounds like you hear the repeater’s squelch tail. Do you ever hear anyone else on the repeater? Are you asking for anyone to give you a radio check? Try giving one of the radios to a friend who’s a house away and have them listen for you.

So if you shorten the antenna completely and leave the coil off where is the highest frequency dip? Sweep every megahertz between 14 MHz and 30 MHz to find all the dips.

That’s not a repeater; it’s just a duplexer and it’s not tuned correctly for GMRS.

I still have my Pioneer SA8500 and direct drive Pioneer turntable from the seventies.

Contact Retevis customer support.

Perhaps it’s a line level output to feed an actual PA amplifier.

Use your antenna analyzer function and sweep frequencies above, in, and below the 10 meter band to see where the dip is of the fully extended antenna without the coil. Then shorten the antenna until the dip is near the top of the 10 meter band. How low does the dip go (SWR). Is that SWR of 4.0:1 the bottom of the dip? Widen the sweep so you can see the actual dip. If you already did this and I didn’t understand it I apologize.

I have an old Johnson Messenger with tubes and crystals that you might really enjoy!

You’re correct in one regard; new technology does replace old. Spark gap transmitters went the way of the rotary dial phone once vacuum tubes were developed. But in a more important way, you have completely missed the point. Many (perhaps most) of us who adopt analog radios for communication do so because of the desire to be as independent of commercial or government provided infrastructure as possible. History has taught us that such infrastructure, as complex as it is and as reliant as it is on commercial interests, trade agreements, and the peaceful coexistence of nations, is vulnerable to disruption by overload, hacking, space weather, or the overnight whims of one unstable politician or another. The features might change and more and more digital modes may be developed, but the basic physics never will and those physics allow a person to build a very simple radio transmitter and receiver, in spite of how far technology has staggered forward. I just need to stock up on transistors.

Transceivers that do all of the bands you have listed are very rare (non-existent perhaps). You’re more apt to need to buy three different radios. The IC9700 will do 2m, 70 cm, and 33 cm. The IC7300 will add 160-6 meters, but neither of those do 1.25m or 25 cm. You could listen to all of them with an SDR though, fairly inexpensively and then determine whether you want to invest in radios that do those specialized bands.