Another NOOB Thread

Posted: 2/28/2021 7:19:13 PM EDT

As a newly minted Tech looking for advice and recommendations. My plans are to take the General exam this Saturday and continue after that. Currently have a couple of Chinese handhelds. Installed a discone in my attic and have a Uniden scanner hooked up to it. Currently on order: Yaesu FT 2980R and a Samlex 1235M and am seriously considering an IC7300. plan is to use the Yaesu for 2m with the discone.

Looking for HF antenna recommendations; lot is 120ft across and a couple hundred deep with several decent sized trees I could easily hang a dipole from. Shack will be in front of house, cable entries through the right side top, across attic down the wall to shack.

Looking for any and all advice, recommendations and since this is ARFCOM, criticism. Thanks

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Posted: 2/28/2021 8:40:03 PM EDT

[#1]

Welcome.

Congrats on your new license. If the question is an icom 7300 the answer is yes.

Posted: 2/28/2021 8:49:16 PM EDT

[#2]

That discone is perfect for your scanner but you can do better pretty cheaply for VHF/UHF amateur frequencies. The discone’s broadband nature makes it great for a scanner but a compromise for 2m.

HF antenna, I am a fan of the balanced line doublet.

Posted: 2/28/2021 8:50:02 PM EDT

[#3]

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Quoted:
Welcome.

Congrats on your new license. If the question is an icom 7300 the answer is yes.

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This.

https://www.ar15.com/forums/outdoors/Let_s_Make_an_OCFD__aka_Windom_/22-681504/?

All roads lead to arfcom

Posted: 3/2/2021 1:43:32 PM EDT

[#4]

Decided to order the 7300, it shipped today.

Posted: 3/2/2021 8:09:12 PM EDT

[#5]

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Quoted:
Decided to order the 7300, it shipped today.

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@PanzerOfDoom
Excellent, Icom just came out with a firmware upgrade for the 7300, it will be ready when you are. Feel free to drop your questions here on getting things together.
73,
Rob

Posted: 3/2/2021 9:18:07 PM EDT

[#6]

Quote History

Quoted:
Decided to order the 7300, it shipped today.

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Very good decision. Plan to do the software update right away. It really added some nice new features. It is also stupid easy and only takes a couple minutes.

Posted: 3/16/2021 8:40:08 PM EDT

[#7]

Update:

Passed the General exam and am in the data base. Have everything I need for now and am currently building a work station. Only thing I haven’t figured out is grounding the shack; rod outside, hole through wall tied to heavy gauge wire and bonded to house ground?

Goal is to get antennas in the attic and get on the air within the next week.

Ever growing pile of stuff:

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Work station in progress:

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Posted: 3/16/2021 11:20:47 PM EDT

[#8]

For grounding externally, means grounding the coax from the antenna before it enters the shack, usually with a lightning arrestor mounted on a plate in an entry box. The plate gets tied to a ground rod, that ground rod gets bonded to the main electrical ground rod (flat copper strap is best).

Internally, you have a seperate ground strap from each radio, power supply, meter, PC, etc, to a single ground point inside, this also gets bonded to the plate outside.

Also suggested to plug the shack equipment into MOV surge suppressors. Thats the bulk of it. There is also common mode stuff that may need to be dealt with by ferrites, coax loops.

Good read here: https://www.w8ji.com/house_ground_layouts.htm

Posted: 3/17/2021 7:55:20 AM EDT

[#9]

Quote History

Quoted:
Update:

Passed the General exam and am in the data base.

View Quote

Congratulations!

Posted: 3/22/2021 9:25:45 AM EDT

[#10]

Up and running:

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Posted: 3/22/2021 11:08:28 AM EDT

[#11]

That is a really nice looking desk. I like your yard too btw.

Posted: 3/22/2021 9:26:47 PM EDT

[#12]

Quote History

Quoted:
Update:

Passed the General exam and am in the data base. Have everything I need for now and am currently building a work station. Only thing I haven’t figured out is grounding the shack; rod outside, hole through wall tied to heavy gauge wire and bonded to house ground?

Goal is to get antennas in the attic and get on the air within the next week.

Ever growing pile of stuff:
https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/50910/B19EF293-CD34-4A24-81D0-F0E0E41C8290_jpe-1868368.JPG

Work station in progress:
https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/50910/154B8070-C298-4C97-9AA0-C6EABC51060C_jpe-1868369.JPG
https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/50910/C10EDE30-5DA9-4551-908B-EFE1DCDDC50B_jpe-1868371.JPG
https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/50910/1F87E468-D6F3-4318-B00C-80578F75B15B_jpe-1868372.JPG

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Congrats! Looks like you're going to have a really nice setup.

Posted: 3/22/2021 10:41:05 PM EDT

[#13]

Nice woodwork and setup, OP!

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Quoted:
Update:
...Goal is to get antennas in the attic...

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With all that backyard space and trees, why the attic antenna?
Typically there's a lot of noise from domestic electronic equipment and your transmitted signal can cause weird things to happen with them. An outside antenna greatly reduces, if not completely eliminates, the chances of that happening.

Posted: 4/6/2021 12:34:51 PM EDT

[#14]

Quote History

Quoted:
Nice woodwork and setup, OP!

With all that backyard space and trees, why the attic antenna?
Typically there's a lot of noise from domestic electronic equipment and your transmitted signal can cause weird things to happen with them. An outside antenna greatly reduces, if not completely eliminates, the chances of that happening.

View Quote View All Quotes

View All Quotes

Quote History

Quoted:
Nice woodwork and setup, OP!

Quoted:
Update:
...Goal is to get antennas in the attic...

With all that backyard space and trees, why the attic antenna?
Typically there's a lot of noise from domestic electronic equipment and your transmitted signal can cause weird things to happen with them. An outside antenna greatly reduces, if not completely eliminates, the chances of that happening.

Grounding and lightning mitigation were my main concerns. I have since come up with a plan and will soon be in the trees:
Station ground

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Out

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To here, 8ft ground rod

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Bonded to here, main utility ground

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Bonded to an additional 8ft rod

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With an old cable TV rod I found added

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I’m going to place a utility box on the wall in the vicinity of the last rod in the line. Incoming coax from the back will come in there via lightning arresters out the top of the box, through the soffit, across the attic, down the wall to the shack.

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Posted: 4/7/2021 10:23:59 AM EDT

[#15]

Try to keep your coax run as short as possible for VHF/UHF, and spend the money on the good stuff. (don't even bother with the cheap shit)

Long coax runs eat RF energy at those frequencies, and your expensive RF just warms up the dielectric.

Posted: 5/15/2021 2:42:45 PM EDT

[#16]

Final update:

Completed Extra and was assigned my vanity call sign yesterday. Finished with my outside setup and had my first international contact with someone in Brazil.

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Buckmaster 7 band:

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One leg 45 feet to here:

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The other leg 90 feet through the trees that way:

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And the backyard in the first pic now looks like this, been busy this spring:

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