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John Cooper
Registrace 10. 01. 2012
Open Source SDR - The sBitX from hfsignals
In this video, I show you my new sBitX radio that I picked up at Dayton Hamvention this summer 2024 and I’m really enamored with it and thought I would share my thoughts with the amateur radio community.
zhlédnutí: 258
Video
Super Penetrator SPT-500 - part 2
zhlédnutí 1,3KPřed 9 měsíci
Part 2 of Hy-gain Super Penetrator SPT-500 saga. After correcting the factory assemblers feed point botch we were able to find a nice match 1.1 Lowest SWR at 28.340 with a nice wide 2.0 bandwidth from 27.325 to 29.100. This was at 256 inches total length and 105 inch radials. However, my skepticism grew as I found other area's of concern. The last two sections of driver and all four radials onl...
Super Penetrator SPT-500 - No Match Solution - Part 1
zhlédnutí 658Před 9 měsíci
After struggling for hours with two brand new Hy-Gain Super Penetrator 500 antennas I found the issue. The assemblers at the Hy-Gain factory had connected the feed point incorrectly on two brand new antennas. Based on my google findings, buyers have had this issue since at least 2021. It is hard to say how many left the factory this way. Hy-gain stated they sell thousands and we must be doing s...
QRP go-box “everything but the sink”
zhlédnutí 195Před 11 měsíci
This video is a quick run through of my QRP digital go box. I use Winlink on a regular basis and alternate between VARA, ARDOP, and PACTOR. This box allows me to operate quickly and easily with minimal setup in the field. I hope it inspires you to experiment creating a solution to you own needs. 73’
APRS with a standard HT
zhlédnutí 1,2KPřed rokem
In this video I go through my setup for using a Digirig interface to operate APRS. The rig is a Yaesu FT-60 with a Diamond SRH77CA antenna, Digirig interface and cable, UZ7HO Soundmodem, and Pinpoint for Windows. Thanks for watching and 73 de KC8ZKI
Winlink - tips for QRP success
zhlédnutí 832Před rokem
Learn a few tips and tricks to help maximize success sending Winlink messages with a QRP rig. The video includes a successful Winlink session with a station 1000Km away using a Yaesu FT-818 at 5 watts into a moonraker SPX-100 antenna while operating indoors.
Vara FM Wide - stock red Signalink at 25210bps!
zhlédnutí 477Před rokem
A demonstration of Vara FM wide transferring data at the highest speed level using a stock red transformer Signalink connected to a Yeasu FT-818. The receiving station is a Kenwood TS-2000 using a black transformer Signalink. The highest level of 25210bps was maintained for the majority of the session sending a 1mb image. 73 from KC8ZKI
Icom IC-705 + SDR-Control Software = FT8 with no disconnects!
zhlédnutí 4,5KPřed rokem
In this video I demonstrate wireless FT8 using SDR-Control software (roskosch.de/sdr-control/). I connect to the Icom IC-705 via WLAN and call CQ using the included FT8 tool. Other tools include a LOG, PSK reports, RTTY, PSK, CW Decode, Midi control, Weather FAX, and more. The antenna used is a Chameleon P-Loop Magnetic Loop.
Sotabeams Bandspringer MIDI Antenna raised with 7.2 meter fishing pole
zhlédnutí 2,6KPřed 2 lety
A demonstration on how to setup the Sotabeams Bandspringer MIDI antenna using a 7.2M, that's meters not millimeters, carbon fiber fishing pole. I tune this antenna with an MFJ-16010, a great little manual tuner for both random wire and EFHW antenna's. You can hear and see, thanks to wonderful spectrum scope on the Icom IC-705, how well this antenna performs. I cannot recommend it enough. You ma...
Easy Field Day Antenna Setup - 33ft Telescopic Pole in Hitch Mount
zhlédnutí 4,4KPřed 2 lety
Here is a great solution to raise an HF Antenna to a workable height when trees or other supporting structures are not available. This pole is strong enough to support wire antenna's or even a small yagi. Shown in the video is an example of using the pole with an MFJ dipole mount and 20M hamsticks. I have also successfully used this pole with a ZS6BKW, a G5RV Jr, and an 80M-6M OCF dipole. MJF's...
Tuner Battery Box for the Yaesu FT-818
zhlédnutí 12KPřed 2 lety
The TB-BOX from CQ-HAM provides extended DC power and antenna tuning in one very cool little box. Six 18650 Li-ion cells provide an additional 6800mAh. The wide range antenna tuner will match non resonant whips or other field expedient antennas. It includes a beautiful leather case. Designed by amateur radio operator bh5hde and available on eBay by searching for "TB-Box for Ft-818". The fit, fi...
ATAS Tuning Part 2 - S9+ Signals
zhlédnutí 790Před 2 lety
This video demonstrates a well tuned ATAS-25 receiving s9 signals. See part I to see how this antenna was tuned. Part I: czcams.com/video/_SOseHMc8jc/video.html
Setup and Tuning of the Yaesu ATAS-25 with the help of a NanoVNA.
zhlédnutí 4,4KPřed 2 lety
This video demonstrates the use of a NanoVNA to fine tune the Yaesu ATAS-25 portable antenna. Once tuned you can enjoy s9 signals with this antenna. Part II: S9 Signals czcams.com/video/1BIIbVDuRIE/video.html
Copper pipe length please
i inherited one of these and it inspired to get my license ive made contacts all over the world
It is wonderful to hear you made the decision to get your license and that you are enjoying the hobby. Welcome to the fraternity. 73 and thanks for sharing
Me and that guy would be besties. Ham Radio, Fender Amps/Guitars and reloading?
Good eye! I do enjoy all three of those hobbies. 73 and thanks for watching.
ALOHA, u and 1 other youtuber are the newest info on SBITX, the next would be 2 months. How was the shipping to your state? Did you pay extra in shipping because I live in Hawaii. Great vid. Informative.
I picked mine up directly at Dayton Hamvention at the manufacturers booth. Gigaparts sells them and would be able to provide shipping details. Thanks for watching
Good job in locating the problem, apparently they're shipping the bases for the CLR2 and RatShack.64 - but without the matching coil up inside, which is just weird. But you got it right, drill a hole put a bolt through & turn it into a 3/4 wave with a matching Network that makes up the difference, because most people don't realize that only at 1/4 wavelength and 3/4 wavelength and one and a quarter and one and three quarters, etc, can you find a 50 ohm impedance, so you're basically completing the three quarter wave with like you said adding the inductance to a capacitive antenna to make it look like 3/4 wavelength at the radio. I've been playing around with these for I don't know how many decades now, clear back to the 70s, and I've got - I don't know - five or six of the old Penetrators kicking around - or most of the parts anyway, and I built a few of my own 5/8 and have found that for local chit chat you can't beat a 22 ft antenna radiator, and then match it - I use a ring like the old sigma II 5/8 by Avanti, and the entire ring is fed with the RF, then a small coil to ground to dump the DC static. Piece of crap for DX though, MACO V58/5000 will beat it every time because of the higher takeoff angle. Penetrators are awesome if you get them up 50 - 60 ft you'll get some of the best long-distance local (or what some mistakenly call "ground wave" ) performance, but if you want an arse-kickin' higher angle DX antenna it's hard to beat the 19' 8" MACO V58/5000.
Well *_that_* explains it! I'd heard of ppl finding it impossible to tune their new SPT-500 and I just figured ppl or paperwork were wrong about the length, but they're using the base from the CLR-2 / R. S. .64!
I once built to penetrator from scratch, using 102-in stainless steel whip on top of a 20 ft 2x4 and copper wire from there down to a makeshift air pin matching Network and three hundred four inch radials made from I can't remember what. this is over at a guy's house who didn't understand why he wasn't being heard very well by the locals on their verticals when he had a horizontal dipole pulled up 20 ft over the roof, got lucky with this build on the first try we saw 1.25 to 1 and called it good and people that used to hear him with a six to seven now had him at 20 over. That was kind of fun!
Yes, quite frustrating. The home-brew antenna you made sounds like it worked very well. 👍 nice job, Thanks for watching
Thanks for the video. I really love the IDEA of this radio, but I've been holding off in part because I currently have a lot of stuff and not enough time 😀
I realize that this two part video is a bit old, but I just came a cross it recently and I have to say I found it interesting. About a month ago I bought the G90 looking for another portable soulution to complement my FT-891 both of which I can transport via Apache cases with everything I need in each case. Normally, I use a Wolf River Coil which is fairly easy to set up but in your video, you use a 51ft wire with a 9:1 Unun both of which I have. In shot, I look forward to giving this idea in a nearby park Thanks for the great video. By the way, what method do you use to get the wire into the tree? Throw bag? Or something simpler?
Thanks for watching. I do sometimes use an arborists throw bag
Only nit is opening the tail gate - as another poster notes, you could add an extension for such,
what is the auonomy with that battery? and how can you know it is fuly charged?
My apologies, I am not sure what you mean by auonomy? The battery came with a lifepo charger that has an led that turns green when the battery is fully charged. It is a 3 cell 18650 unit that reaches 3 x 4.2v for a total of 12.6 at full charge.
@@johncooper6894 i meant autonomy, as per a full charge how long does it last?
@@itrstt66 the total capacity is 5ah so 10 hours or more just receiving. Less depending on how much transmitting you are doing and at what power level.
Will the app run JS8 and Winlink as well?
No, Not this app. There are some solutions for running JS8 and Winlink on a mac. Nothing turnkey that I am aware of
I built the exact setup you have, tx is great but seems it can't hear very well. Any recommendations?
I find the radio sounds best with rf gain turned down. Try it with the agc off also, it can sound very good.
Ordered one from DX Engineering back in the Fall of 2023. Used an analyzer to tune it, and the best I could get was 5.9 SWR. Also, the radial elements were very loose too just like yours. I sent it back to DXE, and they refunded my money. Thanks for posting the video. How did you fix the radials? I don't have a metal cutting bandsaw.
If I recall I used a sawzall blade to widen the slots. We also replaced all of the hose clamps with higher quality clamps. Since this one, three other local hams have purchased them and all three needed the changes. These are great antenna's with a little effort. 73 John
@@johncooper6894 OK thank you.
So glad I stumbled on this video!!!! 3 damn days messing with this antenna. I used to have the original 70s model and never had any issue tuning it... Now thanks to this tip I have flat 1:1 on 28.5 I also wrote and sent a msg to DxEngineering where I purchased my antenna describing the issue and what was needed to correct the issue and linked your video as source.
I am happy to hear the video was helpful. It is a great antenna once you get it configured correctly. 73 and good dx
Hey there! I noticed you have the same issues with choppy modulation via wlan I get with WFview on PC. Lost packets? I tried adjusting the baud speed but it doesn't seem to make a significant difference
Greetings, connecting via wifi does have its own set of issues. There is a registry
Change you can make in windows to eliminate the built in wifi throttling that is on by default to save battery. I haven’t tried it yet myself. Might be worth a try.
@@johncooper6894 Hey, that worked! Kinda' :) The output power is a bit jittery at the top and the ALC is having a workout but I managed to snatch Brazil at the first try with 10W. That's 13k km from my location. I wasn't aware of that setting... Thanks a lot, de YO4OCM
@@OctavMandru You are very welcome. 73 de kc8zki
How many watts do you run typically when in the field with that battery? 73 de KC1NDQ
I run 20 on SSB with the G90. My sessions are typically just my lunch hour and I have not exhausted it ever. This would be a hunting and pecking session. I am sure it would run down quicker if I was running a POTA frequency.
There's several things I could think of spending $20k on and this is one of them.
Yep great stuff. I love magnetic Loop Antennas etc.
What about a choke? Gotta be some RF coming back on an unbalanced antenna.
Dude I totally went and bought this exact same setup. For some reason it gives me TX ERROR when trying to tune and I try to transmit. I'm as green as it gets at ham radio. What am I doing wrong?
It sounds like you might be trying to tune up out of band. Maybe you have split turned on and the B vfo is not within the ham bands? I would start by making sure split is off and you are in band. I hope you enjoy the setup. 73 John
шипит, как керогаз)) yaesu 710 рулит!
😆That is funny! The 710 is a nice radio. 73'
😁73!@@johncooper6894
Hi, im brand new, just got my General. Whats the thing called that connect to the battery terminals so you can plug the G90 power cord to it? Thanks!
Welcome to the hobby and congratulations on the new general ticket. It is called a pigtail. The one I use for this battery has female spade connectors on one end and anderson power poles on the other end.
Just sent a Winlink VARA-HF email from your node and discovered your page. Love that loop! 73 de AI4QT
Nice to hear. Thank you. Magloops are pretty impressive given their footprint. 73 KC8ZKI
This was perfect. Thank you!
You are welcome. I am glad you liked it. Thank you for watching and commenting. 73 John
Very interesting video as I'm currently investigating the various kinds of antennas I can use for POTA operation. Thanks for this. If only these 9:1 ununs weren't so hard to find here in France... I see that you do without a counterpoise, so basically the coax acts as the counterpoise, is that right? Some people advise adding a counterpoise and grounding it at the end, what do you think?
Thanks for watching and commenting Alain. Sorry to hear the 9:1 are not readily available in France. I have found that allowing the coax to serve as the counterpoise works well enough for voice or cw. Digital modes such as FT8 will however benefit from an additional counterpoise and a common mode choke on the coax. Grounding is a good supplement or alternative to the choke and also helps to keep the rf current from riding up the coax shield and interfering with USB sound card ports.
Thanks for your quick reply John. Do you use a single counterpoise or more? what length? I was wondering whether it's better making it resonant or not. I didn't know that it's an alternative to a choke on the coax either. Well, these chokes are equally difficult to source here. I'd make one myself but even toroids are a hard find. Of course I can order from abroad, but with eye-watering shipping costs and/or import taxes. You've got a new subscriber BTW, Your working outdoors with the G90 is quite precisely what I'm aiming for, so your channel is of utmost interest to me.
@@F4LDT-Alain thank you for subscribing. I have used a 13ft counterpoise successfully myself. Balun designs has a nice chart that shows various combinations that work out mathematically. Check it out www.balundesigns.com/content/Wire%20Lengths%20for%204%20and%209-1%20ununs.pdf
This is another good source for lengths. dxsupply.com/produktfiler/Wire%20Lengths%20for%204%20and%209-1%20ununs.pdf
This is good advice from the second source I referenced. Ideal: Sloper configuration with one counterpoise but several different length counterpoises is better. Length of counterpoise should be a minimum of 20-30 feet but longer is better. If possible run the counterpoise above ground away from or perpendicular to the antenna wire and do not ground the counterpoise at the unun. You can also use the unun with no counterpoise or ground if your feedline is at least 25+ feet long. In this configuration the coax shield will act as your counterpoise and there should be no ground at the antenna. With this installation there is a high probability of common mode currents on the shield so a good 1:1 choke balun should be installed in the feedline at or near the point it enters your operating position. Using this configuration with an indoor antenna system is not advised. Good: Attach counterpoise stud to a radial field of at least 8 wires minimum, each 10 -20 feet long. Again, more is better and will increase efficiency. Longer length radials are not necessary. Workable: Attach counterpoise stud on unun to a good ground rod at the feed point of the antenna.
Which flagpole hitch manufacturer is this?
The brand on Amazon is HiTow. Here is the full description: HITOWMFG Hitch Mount Flagpole Holder for 2" Hitch Receivers Flag Travel, 8.5" or 11.5" Length Black Powder
Just bought a new one from DX Engineering (January 2024) and same issue, center conductor was connected to screw on base of vertical element. I moved it to side terminal per your recommendation. I’ve not finished setup as snow and wind finally arrived in Michigan.
I am glad the video was able to help. It is a shame they are still shipping units that are wired incorrectly. Stay warm, wicked weather here too. 73 KC8ZKI
Were your radials loose too?
These are the last machines on big size radios.🎉
I believe you are correct. Thank you for watching. 73’ John
Many congrats from user Icom-7300! de UA3NDX, Anton
Not a good comparison. Ldg's are smaaller single core vs. Larger dual ore. What mix's are they. You gdt aa dislike from me.
Merry Christmas and happy new year to you too
I'd like to see the base.
The base is a rubber floor mat. It acts as a cushion against the concrete. It works when parked in grass also to keep the end from sinking. Thanks for watching. 73 John
Thanks! @@johncooper6894
Hello Jhon, no need to connect a counterpoise/radial to your 9:1 Unun? When would it be appropriate to do so? Thanks.
Hello, it is always a good idea to connect a counterpoise. In the case of the video the 16ft coax outer shield was acting as a counterpoise. An additional counterpoise would be beneficial especially for digital modes where usb port disconnects can occur due to common mode current. The addition of a ferrite choke is also helpful.
Thank you Jhon.
I recently got mine and I love it. That antenna tuner is very robust. Great little man pack.
Congrats! It is a great little rig. I am sure you will get much enjoyment using it. 73’ John
The ICOM 7851 is what Dreams are made of.The BEAST is so Beautiful.👍👏❤️🎤🎙
It is a beautiful rig. Steve gets alot if enjoyment out of it. Thanks for watching.
@@johncooper6894 I lost my ICOM 7700 a couple of months ago to a Lightning Strike and I miss it badly.The New ICOM 7610 is not in the same class but at least replacement parts are available if needed and not so for the 7700.
@@1OFGODSOWN That is a total bummer. I agree regarding the 7610, nice rig, I have one, but not in the 7700 league.
Qual è il diametro del loop? Per realizzarlo hai utilizzato un cavo rigido?
I was inspired to try it out myself!
I hope it works well for you! Thanks for letting me know. 73 KC8ZKI
The settings you have would this work for transmitting as well, sending your position or a message to someone?
Yes, you can send your position and messages using pinpoint. Thanks for watching.
Just ordered the bag off ali as I am in the UK.
I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for watching and commenting. 73 John
anyone know what mix the toroid is on the maxi-core?
DX lists it as a custom mix.
John put some Chokes on the power cord of the washer.
Good idea. I wonder how many? Thanks for the suggestion. 73 John
John, too bad they can't use 21700 LIFEPO4 batteries all you can get out of them is 12.6 VDC output, from them, I was making a 4-cell 21700 battery with a Buck converter to keep the voltage dow to 14VDC
What a good idea! G4GHB.
I agree. Thanks for watching and commenting. 73’ KC8ZKI
Where is the secondary loop??😮
The MFJ-933C does not use a second loop as an inductive feed. It is capacitively fed via a second variable capacitor in series with the feedline.
Damn we just missed the unboxing of the radio. The opening of the box went just fine.
There is a part two where we fire up the radio. czcams.com/video/NY0kNeq0MUs/video.html
Kinda sounds like, you deserve to keep the antenna, and get a refund, if not a fee due to you for quality improvement services.
I certainly wouldn’t say no! I am glad we were able to figure it out and maybe help future buyers avoid some frustration. I think the antenna will work great now. Thanks for watching. 73 John
Great job John!!!
Great video! What do you use to charge your battery?
Thank you. I use a solar charge controller. The battery has a bms in it and will charge from a regulated adjustable power source. You just have to watch the charging current
@@johncooper6894 Thanks for the speedy reply, 73's
Looks pretty good. I am thinking about one with an extension so I can open the tailgate!
An extension is a great idea. It is a pain hopping over the tailgate to get to anything in the bed once the mast is in place.
14k for a ham radio transceiver, hahaha your outa your mind. You have waaay to much money
I could imagine way worse things to spend $14K on
If I had it or if I were Single I’d own one for sure.It’s only money and we can’t spend it when we are DEAD so enjoy it while you can.👍🎙
What were the lengths of the wires? Thanks
The tuner is designed to tune a half wave length of wire. I use 33ft for 20M or 66ft for 40M