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The Ultimate Explorer Vehicle: Test Driving Bran Ferren's KiraVan

on September 26, 2016

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Wooden Antenna Mast

I was researching antenna mast ideas a 3-4 weeks ago because I want to put up an 80m Horizontal Loop antenna before the fall. I have a monstrous row of trees down one side of my property so that will supply two corners of this big square in the sky. I have the steel tower attached to the house and right next to my Ham Shack so that will provide the 3rd corner and a point for the feeline to connect. The 4th corner was a problem though...

No suitable trees, a power pole nearby that services my property and the neighbors. I needed to stay away from the power lines and yet get that fourth corner of the Horizontal Loop up in the air almost 40 feet.

Steel masts, steel towers? And then I stumbled on a couple websites talking about wooden masts.

They are cheap to build, are strong enough if supported by guy lines, and perfect for something like one corner of a wire antenna like the Horizontal Loop.

For just under $200 I bought everything I needed from the local hardware store.
x1 - 16' 2x4…

RTL2832U R820T SDR USB Dongle and SDR# (SDR Sharp) Installation

Over the last year + certain models of Digital TV (DVB-T) tuners in the form of a USB dongle have been gaining popularity with hobbyists when it was discovered that this tiny USB stick could be used as a Software Defined Radio receiver with a fairly wide range of frequency and use.

The RTL2382U Chip, this is the ADC and USB data pump. It is then mated with different models
of tuner chips.
E4000 Tuner - 60MHz to 1700MHz; retiredFC0012 Tuner - 50MHz to 1000MHz; retiredFC0013 Tuner - 50MHz to 1700MHz; retiredR820T Tuner - 24MHz to 1850MHz ; active
The current model is the RTL2832U/R820T, it has just replaced the E4000 which is still available online as well. The RTL2832U/R820T is comparable in performance, wider in receiving range, and less expensive overall.

The frequency range of the RTL2832U/R820T is roughly from 24MHz to 1860MHz.

So this includes 10m, 6m, 2m, 222-band, 440-band, 900-band, 1240-band, and much more. Even lower frequencies (all of ham radio HF) can be received with add…

Setting up WSJT-X with Flex SDR and PowerSDR

http://wsprnet.org/drupal/
It took me a week to figure this out so it's good to document for my own future reference.

First off it I tried the WSPR 2.0 software for Windows from K1JT and the CAT control would not respond at all to the Flex radio and PowerSDR.

When I switched to the WSJT-X software (ver 1.7.0) from K1JT that did work with CAT and appears to be a much more versatile program working with many other modes like JT65 (not just WSPR).

Flex Radio settings under PowerSDR v2.7.2

2x VAC lines active in settings. Input VAC1, Output VAC2, Sample Rate 480002x CAT COM ports active. COM10 for primary CAT, COM12 for PTT.ATU = OnAF = 100AGC-T = 120Drive = 1 or 5 watts depending on output choiceSQL = -160DIGU mode selected for all bands being used by WSPR4k filter selected for all bands being used by WSPRPC Settings Virtual Audio Cable software installed and configured for 1 pair of cables (1 and 2)vspMgr Virtual COM Ports installed and configured for 2 pairs (10-11) (12-13)Start Menu…

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