I sat down, said a prayer, and finally figured out how to get FLRig, FLDigi to work on my 891 / SignaLink.

I think I made a RTTY contact....... contest going. Who knows. See if it gets confirmed in QRZ.

Ok....... one of my neighbors has created a pulsing RFI at night. I am thinking LED lights. It is LOUD.

I cannot find it walking around like a loon with my TinySA and the included little antenna.

Plan; take spare PVC pipe from the workshop, chop up on old tape measure and make a tape measure yagi. I think I should have all the required bits.

Unless someone has an easier solution.

Maybe a loop antenna would be easier than a yagi.  They can be pretty directional.

Traded pickups back in June and have been without HF mobile ever since.  Finally had some time to start getting it installed in my new (to me) pickup.  2020 Ram 1500.

Today I got the radio installed and all of the wiring ran. Just need to mount the Tarheel antenna and then do all of the bonding.  I’d rather have the head on that ribbed area in the console above the antenna control switch and still may move it down there if I can figure out a decent way to mount it there.

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Slow night at work tonight so I started making up the straps.  I didn’t bother soldering the terminals on the last install but hey I’m on the clock so why not lol.

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Made a wood mock up that lasted almost 2 years since I get to do very little radio time at home. Always knew I wanted to make it more substantial so had my cousin cut some sheet metal with 19" rack unit squares. Brought it home and put a couple bends in it.

Now to build a wood top that can be easily removed to access wires if needed.

Bought a broken Xiegu G90, with the optional fan stand thing.

Symptoms; LEDs flash on startup, but nothing else happens. LEDs persist until power physically disconnected.

Currently taking bets on if getting new firmware in it will fix it. Lol.

Waiting for someone to get back in town so i can borrow the USB COM cable.

Was on vacation for a few days but flew back early this morning and enjoyed a nice fall day, getting the antenna mounted and a few bonding straps installed.  This pickup came with a roll-up box cover that complicated the install a bit.  I was going to have a friend bend a new mounting bracket for me but I was able to kick the factory mount far enough out to clear the cover hardware by stacking up some washers and, by adding a longer bolt, was even able to use one of the box cover clamps for mounting the antenna bracket.  Tried it out when it got too dark to work outside and got a 339 report from a guy in TX while running only 5w…I’ll take that.  

Between the top rail of the bed being wider than my last pickup plus having to move the mount inward almost an inch, I can’t see the coil in the side view mirror anymore.  I can see the shaft of the antenna through the rear window though, so I added a couple small pieces of white electrical tape to it to mark the resonant spots on 20 & 40m.

Happily, this engine (5.7 Hemi) isn’t any noisier than my last…running the NB on the 891 on level 3 or so cleans up the engine noise nicely.

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Low tech attic antenna project.  I have two more Slinkys to give more length.  Will install temporarily
and hook up analyzer to see where it falls.
The Bengali key is from a SK member of our local club.

Update;

I borrowed the Cat USB cable and reflashed the G90 front and rear unit.

Radio works. Just need to buy a mic for it. I am only $86 invested so far with the radio and fan thing it sits on.

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Nice score!

They are awesome radios. 20w is a sweet spot for getting out, and it will tune any antenna.

Whole different animal than the 891. Figuring out the RF Gain, AGC, Filters....... i am twisting all the knobs and figuring it out

https://www.connectsystems.com/products/top/radios/G90/G-90-Manual.pdf

Wind test #2 for pole holders made from 1.5" pvc pipe with a 1.25" male threaded adapter glued on. I used a 1.25" galvanized cap I drilled and tapped 3/8"-16 threads in. and threaded a 12" common spike and backed each side up with a nut. I have one of my 13m poles in it seeing how it holds up in 30+ mph gusts. It did well the other day, but I am leaving it up longer and see if the spike gets loose in the ground.

Dragged my 50' mast out and started messing with my ham stick dipole set up. Not happy with the dip on 80m, but till work. Got 40m tuned up at around 1.5 around 7200. Still have to do 20, 17, 15 and need one more 10m stick. Not sure if I'm gonna bother with 6 or 12. Definitely not 6

Got PiHPSDR installed on a $35 Inovato Quadra, connected to a 10.1" touch screen driving my Hermes Lite 2 SDTXR. Still have to run a mic to it to transmit SSB.

Even in a cool room my Quadra over heats running digital modes.

I need to get it a power supply that doesnt blast rfi and use it for something else.

While the Quadra idea has a certain esthetic appeal, to get full value and maximum performance out of your HL2 you want to be running Thetis on a moderately powerful Windows machine.

Oh I am, Thetis 2.10.3.4 but I have two HL2's, tinkering with a portable setup.

If someone with a Xiegu G90 could determine the size/thread pitch of the little ground screw on the back that would be helpful.

Looks like a fine thread M3 1cm long. Mine fits kind of loose.

I’m working on a project that I thought would be easy.  I’m downsizing my Pota backpack from a gigantic full size bag to a Red Rock Rover large sling bag.   To cut weight and size.   I’m carrying much more than I need to.   This new bag will fit under the rear storage deck in my suv.  Out of sight!

Problem is I can get everything in the bag if I take the cooling stand off of the G90.   With the cooling stand the laptop just won’t fit.   So no cooling stand right now.  

I’m going to work at it some more and see if I can work a miracle.  I like to use ft8 as a backup if the QRM is Nuts at the campsites.  

Here’s the new kit

G90/power cord/mic
Bioenno 9ah and charger
40/20/10 EFHW
25m arborist tree line and 10oz bag
Digirig and cables
Evolve III pc and charger
Shemagh
Grounding spike and cables
30’ rg8x coax
Power meter for battery

Old kit included the above plus the following

Wolf river coil SB1000 with 3 16’ radials
Nano vna
David Clark headset
cooling fan / feet for the g90
Box of connectors and such.

Is that a single lever begali? They have some neat variations.

This is my hang-up with moving my entire shack over to Linux. Programs like FT-8 take a little extra fiddling. Full-featured logging programs would need to be run under Wine, which is unappealing. There is usually a sort-of-ok opens source app that will work.

Problem is, if you choose to run the CPS for a DMR radio (for instance) in a virtual machine, you need a better tech than me to get the input-output reliable. I'm betting firmware updates are tougher.

Well I had built a mag loop antenna to fit in my truck bed using an air variable capacitor as a proof of concept. The concept being

the bed cap is fiberglass and should be relatively transparent

A short vertical while having a relatively high takeoff angle for a vertical is still not high enough for regional comm on 40,60 and 80 and extremely inefficient on 80

A small mag loop transmitting antenna has significant radiation  in the vertical and calculation show it to be potentially 6 db or more efficient compared to a short mobile vertical.

The concept was proven by making ECARs QSOs with various net controls and switching back and forth between the short vertical and the mag loop. On transmitt and receive I was consistently getting a 4-5 S point difference, 30 db signal difference with an IC-7300 ( so knowing that the low S values are not true signal strength convention, it may not be a 30 db difference, but still large) assuming higher gain and much better near vertical radiation pattern. I was transmitting 100 watts into the mag loop.

The problem was retuning the cap remotely and the fact that no matter how much resistance I added to the cap turning axel, the air variable cap setting moved with almost every bump in the road.

So I bought a ceramic air variable to solve the moving problem.

Then I realized while I had been testing the mag loop antenna, the Tundra had a steady wheel slip indication and failure of the wheel slip system. I had the steady light and could not turn the system off or on with the on/ off switch.

2 months later I started the truck to take it to the shop to read the special Toyota codes, my reader showed nothing, and the system was online and working again and still is 3 months later.

So now I suspect the increased RF in the horizontal from the mag loop may have caused the electronic system failure of the wheel slip system and after so many drive cycles the system reset.

So now I don’t know If I should build the antenna or not, I don’t want to fry any electronics in the truck.

100 watts in a mag loop creates a very strong magnetic field in the near field, and either by proximity or vehicle coupling may have induced stray voltage and current into the electronics causing the failure, that eventually recovered. Next time it might not recover.

So not sure what to do. My plan was to upgrade the 1/4 copper tubing to 2 inch copper pipe increasing efficiency by a factor of 2 and thereby increasing the voltage across the capacitor from 2000 volts or so to 9000 volts or so IIRC, which is why I bought a vacuum variable rated to 15,000 volts.

Operating such an antenna in the bed of the truck could be very detrimental.

Any inputs from anybody?

Gyprat had a similar issue in his 4Runner on a certain band IIRC. He carried a code reader with him to reset the ECU because the truck would go into limp mode. Not sure if it was from common mode or radiated. But when I get to installing into my T4R I have plan to start with a bisectional bifilar choke to combat the CM along with bonding & see how things go from there.

Dont forget your blanky.

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Some suggestions for further pruning:

- Put the chargers in another bag. That way when you go off on foot you are not lugging them around for no purpose.

- Do you really need the ground spike? Does it improve performance to any noticeable degree?

- Switch to a GPD micro laptop. Many models are available on Amazon.

- Why is there a shemagh in your radio bag?

- No doubt the arborist gear is a very effective way to get things in trees. If you are willing to give up convenience for size and weight consider a slingshot, lead weight and a small roll of 70lb test (or stronger) fishing line.

Why do you need the power meter for the battery? The G90 has a power meter on the upper right corner of the screen. It's close enough for field work. My evolve III will last long enough for most activations without charging.

In my jeep I keep the radio output power at 50W.  At 100W it causes the traction control system to fault and it doesn't reset until you turn the ignition off and back on again.  At 50W I've never had a problem.  The time and effort involved in tracking down the problem and fixing it is not worth it.  I just run at 50W and call it good.

So your jeep is like cousin eddie and the microwave.

I'm running multiple radios and it's got to be a bit of a maze of switches and what not. I have two amps, the Alpha takes about 26 watts of drive. I have the Neptune on my Hermes Lite 2 that drives the Alpha when I'm using that radio. So I needed multiple PTT lines to key the amps. So I fabbed up this little combiner using some Schottky diodes. I fired up the laser & got all fancy with it.

 Essentially, yes.

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Getting the Mosley tribander tuned in preparation of my tower build

Yeah, your current tower looks a bit lower than the ideal 1/4 wavelength!

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Not gonna lie I got Namibia maybe 30 minutes after this photo was taken with the same setup

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@Bluedog1971, is that the MFJ Mount?

No, I got it from Tarheel

Nice.

When I used more than 1 amp, I just used a $10 RCA audio selector to select which amp to key.

LOL

Thanks, I needed a laugh

Gotch ya.

Thank you

I built up my spare hf radio into a rig I can store in an ammo can (hopefully some emp protection) and so a family member can use once they get their license. I gotta add in the signalink usb and my rig control cord. Still haven’t put a power pole on the radio cord and the dc plugs.


I’m still debating taking the ac power supply out to give more space for getting to the powerwerx power pole bus. It’s setup to take battery or ac power.
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Nice, compact boxes. Keep in mind, if interested in EMP protection, is it more likely the AC supply will be impacted, or the power pole bus? Build accordingly.

If not in use it will be stored in that 20mm ammo can

I have been sorting through bits of metal and such trying to figure out how to mount a G90 in the car.

I dont think separating the head is going to be the right answer and the only mount i see on ebay looks like garbage.

I have a Tarheel antenna with controls once I get it figured out.

The most reasonable solution for the Xiegu seems to be to jam it between the seat and other radio. Lol

Got the Tarheel mounted.

One more problem: the internet assured me this cheap Icom mic would work the G90........ does not seem to be the case. So still need a mic for it.

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Just finished building and installing a six meter repeater. It's two Motorola Syntor X9000s. The band pass filter was swept and tuned in the TX radio which yielded another 20 watts output since it was set to roll off around 50 MHz. Both units are running headless. The X9000 does a POST and checks its peripherals. If something is missing it will not boot and goes dormant. I coded up an Arduino Nano and added a software serial port to provide two comms paths. Each goes to an RS485 converter board. The units are connected using Motorola Spectra siren cables with some pins swapped around to provide the proper connections. I used two DB25 breakout boards and mounted them in a 3D printed box. Each cable plugs into that and the various connections from the units go to a RUIX Allstar node USB modem. and then into a Raspberry Pi for internet linking and repeater control with synthesized voice. The Arduino, Pi and USB node are all powered from a 5 volt switching regulator board that gets power from the TX radio's cable A+ pin.

When turned on the Arduino boots up same time as the radios, waits a second, sends a CONTROL HEAD READY command out both serial ports to the radios. It then waits a second and sends SET VOLUME 5, SET SQUELCH 1, MIC ON HOOK commands to the receiver radio. Being there is no CTCSS conditioned COR the Arduino then does a byte compare of all receiver radio data bus data and when an UNMUTE packet is seen it toggles a pin connected to the USB node modem indicating valid COR condition. The node then handles the transmitter PTT line itself via its PTT out pin.

I am using some super small helical duplexers that I hope can handle the power and provide enough isolation without desense. I haven't had an opportunity to test the range with another user yet but I am getting coverage of about a 35 mile radius so far just kerchunking PTT and listening to the beep back. Once I can get the node online I will tie it to a VHF repeater co-located and be able to really see what it does. It's on a 6 meter Sirio Dominator antenna at 85 feet and pushing about 85 watts after the duplexer.

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The G90's control head is removable and only needs a generic 9pin serial cable to connect it to the body.