Categories
HTs Radios

Upgrading to a DMR Portable Radio

Anytone AT-D878UVII Plus
Anytone AT-D878UVII Plus

After spending a weekend in the Cascade Mountains with my first handheld radio, a TidRadio TD-H6, it was time to have a conversation with my wife. The TD-H6 from Amazon is a fine inexpensive first radio. I have learned many things about 2-meter operations and repeaters with it. I have also experimented with some antennas and have had mixed results. However, this weekend while we were camping in the forest, I explained the Wilderness Protocol to my wife and did my best to check my radio every 3 hours from 7 am to 7 pm. I was also scanning for local repeaters.

Throughout the day I did hear a couple of radio check transmissions on 146.52 and attempted to respond but I was not heard. I also tried to start a QSO through the local repeater I had heard in use, but again, there was no response. I should have brought some materials to make a jungle antenna and string it up in a tree, but I was not prepared for that. The good news was my wife’s questions.

“Why isn’t anyone responding to you?” “Isn’t this supposed to help us communicate when we don’t have a cellular signal?” I started giving answers and explaining radio wave propagation and VHF/UHF in the mountains, but she then asked the big question. “Isn’t this an entry-level radio you have?” “Is there something better?” This is when I started to smile.. I had been wanting to upgrade my HT (handy talkie) for a few months. I felt I needed to upgrade to a better radio. The TD-H6, which is an upgraded UV-5R will still be around. I’ll still be able to use it for local communications when I’m with a group, but it was time to get a better radio with more capabilities.

I thought through the wife’s questions carefully and started to use those along with some experience I had built up along with other things I would like to be able to do and started to create a list of features I would like. My list went something like this, in no particular order:

  • Budget Friendly
  • More than 5 watts on highest power setting
  • Dual banded – 2-Meter and 70 Centimeter
  • Digital and Analog
  • Reputable manufacturer
  • Good customer service from vendor
  • Great battery life
  • GPS
  • APRS transmit and receive

Once we got home from our camping trip I went online and started researching. The first place I turned was the Ham Radio Crash Course channel on YouTube. I’ve been watching Josh’s videos for some time and I trust what he has to say. I watched a bunch of his review videos on different HTs. Each one he reviewed had many of the features I was looking for, but the ones with most of the features I wanted didn’t hit the one thing that trumps them all; they were too expensive to get past the wife’s watchful eye. So I moved on to the Ham Radio 2.0 channel on YouTube. Jason had a bunch of great videos, especially when it came to digital modes. After watching a bunch of his videos I decided the best digital platform to go with was DMR. This way I am not locked into one vendor’s hardware or network. I also found a link back to the Ham Radio Crash Course channel with another review I hadn’t seen. This one was on the Anytone AT-D878UVII Plus.

After watching hours of videos on Youtube and reading countless reviews on many different websites I concluded that the best option for me was going to be the Anytone line of radios and specifically the AT-D878UVII Plus. I was hoping that I could find a package from BridgeCom Systems that had everything in it like what they sent to Josh on Ham Radio Crash Course for review, but they didn’t. The only way you could get all of the accessories packaged together is if you also included more hardware than I wanted or needed, like a hotspot. Nonetheless, I ordered my new radio with a few of the accessories that I know I could use right away.

Now I wait. I was able to go through the BridgeCom University lessons on introduction, programming, and using a DMR radio. I found out that you need to have a radio ID to use DMR. This is easily obtained at radioid.net. I also started looking for downloadable code plugs for this new radio so I can program it quickly when it comes and get right on the air. Most of these are found on sites requiring membership. So far they have all been free memberships with an ask for donations to keep things running.

I have been warned by some Elmers on social media that there is a steep learning curve with digital radio. That’s okay. I’m very technically minded so I’m not worried. It runs fully as an analog radio too, so I can always work the local nets with it as I learn more about the digital side of the hobby.

Stay tuned for an unboxing and first impressions blog in a week or so.

Categories
HAM on Linux

Winlink on Ubuntu Linux 20.04

Yes, it is possible to run Winlink Express on Ubuntu Linux and I have gotten it to work. Some would ask, “Why do you want to run WInlink Express on Linux? There are native Linux clients for the Winlink system.” That is correct, there are. I have tried a couple of them. I had success with a command-line client and it reminded me of the old command-line email on BBS systems years ago. However, if you are going to do any emergency comms, the templates that are a part of Winlink Express are a necessity.

If you do a search on running Winlink Express on Linux you will find a plethora of pages and wikis to help you. I tried a few and then finally started filtering my searches for results created within the last year. This is where I found success. I’m not going to recreate the instructions here. Instead I will link to the blog I used and it worked great with no problem. Not every Linux system is alike and what worked for me may not work for you. Here is what I am running.

  • Asus Laptop with an Intel® Core™ i5-7200U CPU @ 2.50GHz × 4
  • 12 GB of RAM
  • Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS 64-bit
  • Gnome 3.36
  • Wine 5.0
  • dotnet 3.5 SP1
Winlink Express running on Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS

As you can see, that is Winlink Express 1.5.34.0 running on Ubuntu using Wine 5.0. How did I do it? I followed the instructions found at http://k6eta.com/linux/installing-rms-express-on-linux-with-wine

If you find this and it helps you, let me know. I’d love to hear about your Linux adventure.

Categories
Licensing

Upgrading to General Class

One of the things I was looking forward to about getting my amateur radio license was being able to request my grandfather’s call sign. It had not yet been re-issued. It would be such a legacy to have that call sign. Once I passed my Technician Class exam I started looking into what it took to request my grandfather’s call sign. I found out because my grandfather had an Amateur Extra license and his call sign indicated that, I could not request it until I too had an Amateur Extra license. Okay, back to the books I go.

I went on to Amazon.com and purchased the General Class License Manual for my Kindle. I like electronic books and I thought this would be a handy reference to have accessible with me wherever I have my mobile phone. I started skimming past the first chapter on the history of radio and licensing procedures. I already understood that from my Technician Class license I got a little more than a month ago. Then I started getting into more of the meat of the General Class license material.

As you move forward in the manual there are many good illustrations to display what the material is talking about. Whether it be antenna design and propagation patterns or electronic symbols and circuits, the images are essential to understanding the material. They are so small on a Kindle, especially on a mobile phone, you can’t look at them while you read about what is being described. I tried it on my tablet and it was a little better, but still not adequate.

I have finally surmised that for these matters a physical book is the best answer, so I have ordered one. My experience with my Technician Class license manual told me to get a spiral-bound manual. Do yourself a favor and purchase the physical book. It’ll be a great addition to your library.

Categories
Antennas

My First 2-Meter Homebrew Antenna (Part 2)

If you haven’t read the first part of this blog, I encourage you to navigate to https://kj7rdy.conklincomputing.com/antennas/my-first-2-meter-homebrew-antenna-part-1/ and check out how I arrived at this point.

My ugly wire nutted 2-meter dipole was working well, but it was fragile and not really mobile at all. It was time to beef it up and make it less experimental and more packable and re-deployable.

I picked up a tip for homemade non-conductive backing material from the Kevin Loughin KB9RLW YouTube channel. He uses plastic cutting boards from WalMart as terminal board and mounting material. So I picked up a 9″X12″ cutting board for $1.78 from WalMart along with a variety pack of screws and nuts for a few dollars. That was all the material I needed. My design was pretty solid and I did have one other thought, but I’ll leave that for a future part 3.

First I laid out my 3″x3″ terminal/backing board in marker on a corner of the cutting board and cut it out using a hand saw.

The plan was to have three hanging holes (top, bottom, right) and then 4 terminal screw points in a row. The top and right side holes were to hang it on a wall, in a tree, or anywhere else I needed to. Hanging from the top hole would orient the antenna horizontally and hanging it from the right side hole would orient the antenna vertically. The bottom hole is to hang a choke if it becomes necessary.

I cut it out and drilled out all the holes with a 3/16″ drill bit. Just big enough for the 3/4″ screws to go through. I later realized I needed the hanging holes to be bigger to get a rubber band or 550 paracord through so they were enlarged to 3/8″.

Now it was time to put terminals on my 75-ohm RG6 coax and my #12 solid copper wires. The #12 copper was no problem. I crimped on the ring terminals and then soldered them in place. The RG6 was a bit more troublesome, but crimping on the ring terminals and then getting enough solder in and around the twisted aluminum braid wasn’t overly difficult.

With the soldering now complete, a couple of #12 copper jumpers were installed between the terminals. This was so I could ultimately add enough silicone sealant to cover the coax feed point and water proof it but leave the #12 copper terminals free to install and remove the wire antenna segments. Another note, the nuts for the #12 copper wires will more than likely be replaced with wing-nuts to make installing and removing easier down the road.

I was sure to connect the right side terminal to the center conductor of the coax so if I orient the antenna in a vertical fashion, that #12 copper wire is pointed up.

All that was left to do was to adjust the length of the #12 copper wires to tune the antenna. I used a couple of different antenna calculators to decide on 19 3/4″ as the optimum length of the wires from the feed point. I was sure to include the 1/2″ jumper as part of my total length. I added a couple of wine corks (what else do you use in wine country?) to the ends of the wire to keep them from being dangerous and hung the whole thing from the top of a bookshelf. Ta-da!

It worked even better than it did when it was there and just connected with wire nuts. I suspect that is because of the special attention I put in to measuring the length of the wire segments this time whereas before it was longer so I had room to trim if I needed to. I obviously needed to.

I have a couple of ideas to make this even better and more portable for taking on hikes and camping. I’m looking at replacing the #12 copper wires with telescoping antenna segments and adding an SO-239 to make connectivity more versatile. Stay tuned for updates.

Categories
Antennas

My First 2-Meter Homebrew Antenna (Part 1)

I bought my first HT, a Tidradio TD-H6 on Amazon.com. It is a great budget friendly entry-level HT. In other words, not too much trouble from my wife when purchasing it. I’ll write another blog reviewing it later. I had one problem with my new HT and freshly minted Amateur Radio License from the FCC. Most of the social nets were on a repeater that was about 9 miles away. The only way I could get into the repeater to join the rag chew was to stand up and hold my HT in the air pointing the antenna at an angle in one window in the house. That was not going to work long term. I set out to make an antenna that would be portable and get me better performance out of my Baofeng clone HT.

My first attempt was making a J Pole antenna using some 300-ohm twin lead. This is many new Ham’s first home built antenna. There are plans all over the Internet and folks that rave about them. It fit the bill for ease and portability. Well, in my case, portability anyway. A Ham mentor gave me a length of twin lead to do this with and I was off and running. It didn’t work out too well for me. I botched the soldering terribly. I learned that day that soldering the aluminum braid on 75-ohm RG-6 was nearly impossible, but that was what I had to work with. I went back to the Internet to search for ideas.

Coax Bazooka Antenna

My second attempt was a Bazooka. This is a vertically mounted piece of coax where the braid is cut and peeled back over the sheathing to a particular length and having the center conductor exposed for a particular length (about 19 inches for the 2-Meter band). This didn’t work out too well, and I tried a number of variations. The closest I got it to work was when following the directions from someone else using 75-ohm RG-6 coax. This including wrapping the sheathing with tin foil along with the braid for better conductivity. However, I still couldn’t trigger that popular repeater and without an SWR meter or antenna analyzer, I couldn’t know what I needed to adjust.

Now I was really frustrated and about to go spend some money on Amazon.com, which of course would not make my wife happy. But then I remembered a YouTube video I had watched on Kevin Loughin’s – KB9RLW YouTube channel about the tried and true standard dipole. This is an antenna more typically used in HF applications, not VHF/UHF, but I was going to give it a try. I cut another 20 feet of 75-ohm RG-6 from my spool I had in the shed and I cut a 24 inch piece of 12-2 with ground Romex I had from adding a bathroom outlet a while back.

I soldered on a PL-259 to one end of the coax and stripped out the other end. My memory was still strong with my attempt to solder the aluminum braid before so this time I went back to my trusty electrician’s tool belt and pulled out two wire nuts. I twisted the aluminum braid of the coax together and wire nutted it to one length of the #12 solid copper. I wire nutted the center coax conductor to the other piece of #12 solid copper. I measured out 20 inches from the feed point (wire nuts) and clipped each side. I propped this monstrosity up on the top of a book case and connected it to my HT.

Ugly Temporary Dipole using #12 solid copper for the elements and wire nuts for the feed point connection

Cue the fanfare. It worked! It was ugly, and an antenna purest would scoff first at the use of 75-ohm RG-6 cable television coax and second at the wire nuts, but it worked! I don’t currently have an SWR meter so my only way of testing was to just key up and see if anyone was monitoring; and there was. Stephen WM7X of the Spout Springs Repeater Association was monitoring. Come to find out he was one of the VEs during my Technician’s test. He said I was sending a clear signal. I relayed my antenna adventure to him and he chuckled and then encouraged me to keep experimenting. But it worked! I spent the next couple of weeks using this just like it was.

Then I started trying to figure out a way to make my ugly 2-Meter dipole a little more permanent, but also somewhat portable. You can read part 2 at https://kj7rdy.conklincomputing.com/antennas/my-first-2-meter-homebrew-antenna-part-2/

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