Passed my technician exam

[WRYZ926]

49 minutes ago, AdmiralCochrane said:

I found out I could get rebuilt Aouye soldering stations cheap. 

How are those compared to Weller and Hako soldering stations? 

I know those two are pretty much the go to for most hobbyists and repair shops that only use a soldering station occasionally.

[SteveShannon]

1 hour ago, WRYZ926 said:

How are those compared to Weller and Hako soldering stations? 

I know those two are pretty much the go to for most hobbyists and repair shops that only use a soldering station occasionally.

I have an Aoyue SMT hot air rework station.  It works, but it’s big and clunky.  The only reason I got it instead of something else was because it was cheap.  I mean really cheap.

[Jaay]

22 hours ago, SteveShannon said:

N9ZAS?

Yes SIR ! 

[SteveShannon]

6 minutes ago, Jaay said:

Yes SIR ! 

I’ll add you to Buddy Watch Alert.  I’m AI7KS.

Okay, if I see you’re on the air when I’m on the air I’ll call you.

[Jaay]

1 minute ago, SteveShannon said:

I’ll add you to Buddy Watch Alert.  I’m AI7KS.

Gotcha ! I'll keep my ears open for your call ! 

[AdmiralCochrane]

10 hours ago, SteveShannon said:

I have an Aoyue SMT hot air rework station.  It works, but it’s big and clunky.  The only reason I got it instead of something else was because it was cheap.  I mean really cheap.

Yes, it's clunky.  Same reason for purchase.

[hxpx]

Alright, I passed my general, so now I can talk to anonymous men across the country instead of just anonymous men in my area.
 

 

On 5/28/2025 at 7:48 PM, hxpx said:

I've been listening to the old dudes on the local GMRS repeater talk about french onion soup and basketball (separate conversations) for too long and decided I need different soup conversations*, so I took my technician exam today. Got 33/35. Thanks, hamstudy.org!

Since I don't have an HF rig yet, I hopped on someone's public KiwiSDR and started poking through the 40m/80m bands and heard... old dudes talking about soup. I can't get away from it. Apparently radios are meant for soup chat.

[marcspaz]

My two favorite HF radios for newer operators and for people who aren't DX contest junkies are the Yaesu FT-991A and the iCom IC-7300.  The Yaesu includes 160m through 70cm (all bands, all modes) and the IC-7300 covers 160m to 6m (all bands, all modes).

 

My personal opinion, the IC-7300 has much better receive sensitivity, but it is more prone to interference because of it.  It is almost impossible to use in a group for things like contests or Field Day, but its great if you typically use it at home or with no other operators around.

 

The FT-991A is truly a "Shack in a Box".  Good at everything, not great at anything.  If you have any interest in 2m or 70cm SSB, its a good choice and one of the few "new" radios that support it.  Otherwise you are paying original retail or more for used radios that have been discontinued a decade or more.  For example, I have an IC-7000 that was discontinued in 2014.  Last known retail price when on sale was $900 from HRO.  They are for sale today for between $900 and $1,100 depending on if they have the head separation kit or not.

[WRYZ926]

Band pass filters are a must when operating multiple HF radios in close proximity to each other. We use them in our trailer for field day with good results. A few of us even use them on POTA if there are 2 or more people close to each other. 

[marcspaz]

They don't help with the IC-7300.  If there was a radio within a half mile pushing more than 1w and they were on a frequency below me, I couldn't hear anything but that radio.

I made two for 20m and ended up buying a third that was a high dollar commercially made and none of them worked.  I ever skipped a patch cable and used a double male barrel connector direct to the radio and the filter did nothing.  They all looked great on the analyzer, but the radio just lacks the proper shielding in the IF circuits or some other critical part of the system.  Never did figure it out.  Just started using mt FT-891 for contesting with the group, since it has a native amp keyer.

[marcspaz]

Here are a few sweeps of one of my band-pass filters.  I'm confident the filter works fine with about -60dB of attenuation on the other bands.  The assumption is that key parts of the radio are not shielded well enough.

10m

 

20m

 

 

40m

 

 

80m