Great video, and obviously still relevant three years hence. I've been in the hobby for four years, and frankly don't know how to use an antenna analyzer. For field day this year, I think I'm going to forgo making contacts, and just ask the club members to walk me through their antenna, and maybe even show me how to analyze them.
Hmm...works fine on my iPad...try this again: Download your FREE PDF of 403 CHEAP do-it-yourself homebrew wire antennas that you can easily construct for your own ham radio station: bit.ly/317FkfD
I'm using a homebrew End Fed straight wire that has 132 feet of wire ran into the top of a tree. I made it myself in about an hours time. Works great as I have made contacts all around the world with it. I have a total of $58.00 in it. I'm also using the cheap rotator and tracking system from one of your other videos. I still can't believe how well it works. It has made working the satellites so much better. Thank you for this channel. It is a wealth of knowledge.
I have used a regular half wave dipole,a double bazooka,a bazooka and now i'm going to try a loop. I just ant to say thank you folks for all your hard work
Fantastic!Out of all my multitude of antennas have constructed over the last six decades, I have never constructed a loop antenna - even though everything I hear about them is so positive. We are getting ready to move again in the next six months… Hopefully the trees and yard will offer an opportunity to finally build one of those loops! Thanks for watching my channel! 73 de Robert K3RRR
Robert - I noticed a brief comment in this video that you would be doing a video in the near future regarding how to get full duplex capability out of the IC-705 with an inexpensive portable device. Given this video was created 5 months ago (and I’m incredibly impatient) would you be willing to share what piece of hardware you’re referring to? The full duplex capability is a game changer and, as long as you make use of a good set of headphones or a headset, will let you know if you’re making it into the bird (or not) so you can quickly made adjustments. Especially if you’re operating by hand. Thanks!
Hi Jeff, I have been sidelined with some major medical issues for the past several weeks… 19 doctors visits just in the month of July! So I am still in major catch-up mode. The gizmo I'm referring to is a Comet Triplexer that lets me add another radio to work with the ICOM 705. I've got the video footage already shot of me making satellite contacts in simplex mode and also in full duplex mode using my ICOM 9700 with the 705. I just need to find the time to assemble all the pieces to upload a meaningful video here on my RU-vid channel. Once I get life and business caught up, I'm hoping to start rolling out videos regularly including this one being the first addition. Thanks for your support, Jeff! 73 de Robert K3RRR
@@K3RRR wow! So sorry to hear of your medical issues!!! Ahh ok. I thought you were somehow able to reproduce the full duplex capability of the 9700 within the 705 so you only needed one radio for simultaneous transmit and receive. I use a Kenwood TH-D72 HT for most of my VHF/UHF satellite work as it’s a true full-duplex radio. Use that with a headset and a Yagi antenna and mmmm! Good stuff! If the 705 had full-duplex capability natively, that would really take things to another level. I have seen some hams (with VERY deep pockets) carry around 2x IC-705 radios to work sats. I’m still recovering from the purchase of my first one (and AH-705 tuner), so it will be a while before I can entertain that thought. 😎 I wish you the best and hope that you’re moving quickly to the side of recovery! 73!
I don't understand how one would make a non duplex radio, duplex. There is a sequencer in the radio that can't be bypassed. There is only one path to the antenna that can't be changed. Meaning, its not possible on the 705. That's what makes the horribly disappointing 9700 unique. Two completely separate sets of radios, with a diplexer. What makes it worthless is, they are programmed as one, so it doesn't work on lin sats very well, and is a CAT mess. Still better to use 2 sets of radios. In my setup, I use the 9700 as my tx radio, and a 705 as my RX radio. If I didn't have the 705, I would use my Kenwood D74 as a RX radio. Or any other 2m SSB capable receiver. A cheap SDR dongle is just as good.
Great to hear from you… The ICOM 705 only has one antenna input. At the time I did that video, I did not have a duplexer that allowed me to connect both the antenna for the 2 m downlink frequency and provide me a way to simultaneously connect my antenna for the 70 cm uplink for transmission. I've since added a Comet TRIplexers that allows me to have both of these antennas along with my HF antenna all connected at one time feeding the single antenna input into the ICOM 705. I have a new video coming out in the next few days that includes my first contact on satellites with the ICOM 705 Stay tuned! Robert
I heard the bad audio from Perrot on the 878 however, I've heard that parrot can give poor audio via some hotspots but be fine when on a normal channel. Thing is, are you getting reports of poor audio because I know my audio is perfectly fine when transcoding from the OS3 using my FT-3d and 878. While I have no such issues with my OS3 parrot sounds really bad on Blue DV and the DV stick 30 but it's perfectly fine on normal talk groups, reflectors etc. I'm extremely happy with the performance from my Openspot 3, crossmoding is so easy with the OS3 and anytone 878, I have my 878 programmed to switch profiles easy and I have it programmed that changing to different reflectors is a breeze, the OS3 manual is very helpful. Perhaps reset the OS3 to factory default ? check for firmware update, I'm on the latest beta.
Hi Skorpion, it is not just the parrot that gives me the bad reports… I get consistently very bad reports about being completely garbled and barely understandable on the weekly AMSAT Net if I use my ICOM 705 or my ICOM 9700 in OS3 transcode mode from DSTAR to DMR. If I use my Anytone 878 Plus with the OS3, I get perfect audio reports. I've got two OS3s and get the same results with both of them. I haven't tried it again in a while since it's just as easy to use the 878… But maybe the boys in Estonia improved things with some firmware updates. I'll add that to my Ham Radio Action List to see if things have improved! 73 de Robert K3RRR
@@K3RRR That's strange, I don't have those issues with my 878 and OS3, have you reset to default ? Updated Firmware ? There are gain settings that I needed to adjust for the different modes which can make a big difference. But, have to say, very few radio TX/RX audio quality can match the Blue DV and my Bose headset.
I find sdruno to be just a piece of junk software package. I have sdr console working great with no fails. I get lots of crashes with the plug ins on sdruno.
SDRuno has been consistently good for me albeit I have had a crash or two for sure. I think Simon Brown did SDR Console as I recall. I have the highest regard for Simon and his amazing programming skillsets. I do have the software installed but just have not gone through the learning curve to learn yet another SDR program. If crashes became a problem like you experienced, I would probably make the jump too. 73 de Robert K3RRR
Thanks, Lou… Have never actually used a G5RV except at Field Day and it even worked great during all of that chaos! I have made a lot of Ugly Baluns… For me, I find it 1 L coke bottle with the top and bottom cut off makes a perfect form for an HF Ugly Balun… 73 de Robert K3RRR
Tnx Rob. Just completed the 40m delta fed with tru ladder line fed in the lower left corner. Apex up at 30ft. I thought the 1:1 at the shack would work but the 4:1 was the answer. Now considering dropping a vertical 25ft piece of 500ohm ladder line from the apex with the ends shorted. Tunes great on 40-6. Grabbed a qrp guy in CA tonight on 20m. 80w CW of course. :)
Thanks, Dan, for the view and the subscription! Hope you find some wire antennas you like in that pdf! -.- ...-- .-. .-. .-. 73 de Robert K3RRR K3RRR.com @K3TripleR RU-vid.com/K3RRR -.- ...-- .-. .-. .-.
Great video that I will have to watch a couple of times at least. Looking forward to hearing more about your antenna setup and software. Thanks for all your efforts on this presentation. 73 de N3CI.
Hi David, thanks for the nice comment! There is a lot of content jampacked into this 10-minute video. That's one reason I used the format that I did so that someone could actually go and scrub through the video seeing the step-by-step setup when they're ready to implement the PstRotator software. You might let me know what videos, in particular, would be most helpful to you. 73 de Robert K3RRR
Thanks Julian… After watching your great videos on your RU-vid channel for years, maybe some of your terrific creativity rubbed off on me! This is my first ever video done with Adobe Premiere Pro after using Camtasia for years. As such, this 10 minute video took me 60 hours start to finish - including learning the software!
We don't hear any significant issues with your voice. Note that D-STAR uses a different, older voice codec, which already keeps less voice information, and transcoding between another voice codec modifies the sound of your voice. Also note that echo testing transcodes your voice twice (D-STAR -> DMR and the echo reply DMR -> D-STAR again), this double recompression also reduces quality.
I am astounded that you cannot hear the slurred speech from those tests! These are the tests you wanted me to run. However, the real issue is that when I transcode from my DSTAR radios to DMR I am consistently being told that I have bad audio even to the point of it being unintelligible. I check into the AMSAT DMR Net on Wednesday nights most every week and have been having this problem with net controls telling me that I have bad audio when I transcode. However, when I switch over to my Anytone 878UV Plus, they all say, "WOW, what a difference! Now I can hear you clearly!" Again, I'm having this problem no matter which of my three DSTAR radios that I use. Again, I'm having this problem no matter which of the two openSPOT 3s that I use. Clearly, I have a problem. What settings in the control panel can I change that could improve this so that these two OS threes work properly on transcode??
@@K3RRR Please don't compare a transcoded D-STAR voice to a native DMR voice. DMR uses a newer, better quality voice codec. Your D-STAR voice will be lower quality compared to what DMR users used to on the DMR network.
@@SharkRF The problem is that the transcoded DSTAR to DMR sounds SIGNIFICANTLY worse than DSTAR where I got no complaints on my audio from any of the three radios when on the DSTAR reflectors. The video includes the DSTAR Echo test that you wanted me to run to make sure that was not the problem. As you can tell from the video, the DSTAR Echo test sounded great. - And significantly better than the DSTAR transcoded test. If you're saying that the openSPOT 3 cannot transcode DSTAR any better than the test on this video - and that's as good as the openSPOT 3 can do - then that's a whole different issue when I am repeatedly told that my signal is unintelligible when I transcode DSTAR to DMR for talk groups. We are not just talking about lower quality - we are talking about unintelligible communications. This makes the openSPOT 3 transcode functionality worthless. If the above is true, it's beginning to sound like the transcode abilities of the openSPOT 3 are not yet good enough for transmitted audio - and are not yet really ready for prime time as advertised. Again, I'm still assuming that I've got a cockpit problem here and that I have made some stupid mistakes with some settings someplace that's causing this problem. But I keep asking what I can change in the openSPOT 3 control panel to improve my signal for transcoding but never get an answer from Shark RF to this question.
I'm using the openSPOT3 to transcode my DSTAR radios to DMR and think this might be where the problem lies. I get the exact same results with my Kenwood D-74, my Icom 9700 and my Icom 705 using BM Echo on DMR ID 9990 as a private call. This problem seems to be independent of microphone gain settings between 15% and 75%. When I listen to my audio with the monitor setting on both ICOMs, I hear my usual melodious, sexy voice sounding perfect. However…If I switch the openSPOT3 to DMR radio and DMR modem so there's no transcoding, my Anytone 878+ has perfect audio using the same BM echo on DMR ID 9990 as a private call.
Dmr seems to be old digital garbage audio. I wish more people used allstar. Wide standard fm. I have noticed digital pi’s differ on dmr. God speed brother.
Hi Carl, several followers on twitter had mentioned that you discontinued the RT-RR I knew you're working on a replacement… Let me know if you will need to test any of your other great antennas! 73 de Robert K3RRR
Why not just use sdr console with omnirig? It tracks very well. I’ve seen no issues with vspe myself. However I’m using an hf plus but looking at the rsp2 for uhf. The rtl doesn’t have the filtering that the hf plus has. Sadly airspy is tanking down the toilet and their R2 is complete garbage. Leaving the sdr play an only option for high end featured sdr. For what we use it for. “ amsat”. Many have noted that the console rsp2 together causes clipping and stuttering issues? Depending on the pc. Have you tried the combo Robert ? Thanks hope you get your rotor sorted.
