Welcome Forums New Here? Introduce Yourself! Hi from Cornwall

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    • #1762
      Terman@1
      Participant

        Hello from Cornwall, I’m Terry !

        Totally new to this, looking for a new hobby, something totally different, a mate has a ham license and is occasionally active.
        Thought I’d look into it before spending the cash.
        I’ve no license or radio yet, I know that’s something I will need to sort at some point.

        I’d be more interested in mobile radio and getting out and about more so than being stuck indoors, trying to make stuff, trying something a little technical (very unlike me).

        Any advice welcomed please, I’d be on a budget (aren’t we all these days) ..

        • This topic was modified 3 weeks, 2 days ago by Terman@1.
      • #1764
        M0PWX
        Participant

          Hi Terry

          welcome to the forum

          so you say mobile radio? that can cover a multitude of options

          a VHF/UHF radio in a car with an antenna fixed on the car
          a handheld radio / walkie talkie working local repeaters?
          HF radio for doing parks on the air? ( https://pota.app/ )
          satellite operation using a walkie talkie and an arrow antenna?

          than you have the option of voice, morse code and digital modes

          as for budget it depends which area you want to get into

          one cheap option to start listening is an RTL-SDR.com dongle (make sure you get a genuine one, the chinese fakes are rubbish and not much cheaper) https://www.rtl-sdr.com/rtl-sdr-quick-start-guide/ with a couple of basic wire antennas and free software on an old laptop / pc you can listen from old long wave station, all the way up HF, VHF, UHF to satellites

          a baofeng basic VHF / UHF handheld is at most £30-£40, and a fixed antenna for a car should easily come in under £100
          or to add satellite ops baofeng and a basic arrow antenna you are up to £150-£200

          HF for field operation / POTA (take a car to a carpark etc setup a mag mount antenna or portable HF antenna) something like a Xiegu G90 (about £400) and a HF portable or magmount antenna (£100-£150)

          other options are if you are up to building a radio from a kit, there is the QMX HF digital mode radio from QRP-Labs.com for about £100-£150 depending on options

          all of the above costs are for new kit, beware of ebay, unless you can collect and see the kit working before you buy

          if you can borrow a copy of radcom from a ham how belongs to the RSGB, or find copy of practical wireless in a large wh smiths you will see the adverts for Moonrakeronline, martin lynch & sons, walters and stanton, sinotel, nevada radio who are the main ham radio stores, all are happy to chat and help you with kit selection as virtually all the staff are experiences hams, and all the stores tend to have youtube channels showing kit and how it performs

          any questions, just ask, as i know the above is a lot of information and options,

          if you are signed on to the free essex ham foundation license course, then Pete (M0PSX) used to do a weekly live chat for the group which is very helpful, and happy to answer some questions at the end

          73
          Peter M0PWX
          (not Pete M0PSX who runs this site)

          • #1769
            Iain
            Participant

              Iain, also from Cornwall, here. Am in exactly the same situation, currently working through the EssexHam online Foundation course with a view to sitting the exam in early March. Am probably heading down the HF/CW route, though the Cornish Radio Amateur Club run a regular CW practice net on VHF, so I may start there.

              Hope to QSO at some point! (Assuming that I have the terminology correct…)

              Iain

          • #1770
            M0PWX
            Participant

              Hi Iain

              welcome to the Hobby

              if you are going down the CW route, there are a number of good free programs to help you like the g4fon program https://www.g4fon.net/CW%20Trainer2.php and web pages to help you learn to read CW (i have never managed due to lack of time and patience)

              i work pretty much only FT4/8 digital modes on HF, i do occasionally use FLDigi to read some CW, PSK31 and olivia QSO’s, and by nature i do pickup like the CW sounds of common items like CQ etc

              a cheap RTL-SDRBLOG.com dongle will get you started on HF listening with a basic wire antenna, or one of the cheap qrp-labs QCX 5w transceiver kits (Hans build instructions are great and very detailed, you can download and look at them before you buy, and there is a very active groups.io forum around qrp labs for help as well)

              73
              Peter M0PWX
              (not Pete M0PSX who runs this site)

              • #1771
                Iain
                Participant

                  HF, CW and I get to build a transceiver kit?
                  Yes, I fear the geek is strong in me!
                  Thanks for the pointers.

              • #1772
                M0PWX
                Participant

                  the QRP-Labs QCX is CW, but they also do the QMX which is a digital mode 5w transceiver (FT8,FT4,PSK31 etc) but it connects to a pc/laptop and uses WSJT-x or FLDigi to encode / decode the signals

                  see my page https://www.qsl.net/m0pwx/modes-and-freq.htm it has the main frequencies and where to download the software for each mode (direct downloads, no affiliate/spam links)

                  get the additional pack of BS170 FET’s it uses for the output stage, they can blow if the SWR is high and the most common

                  QRP-Labs shipping takes 2-3 weeks from turkey via fedex but it is reliable

                  73
                  Peter M0PWX
                  (not Pete M0PSX who runs this site)

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