Portable VHF/2m operations can often be a challenge when range is required: Here is a simple and economical portable set-up providing you do not have to run into the bush. Except from the length of the RG58 cable, all the components were picked up from the local council clean-up! The aerial is a ground independent […]
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Category: Ham Hacks
Articles on tricks to make ham life easier.
The Case of the Elusive Stinger: Repairing a Terlin Outbacker
The Australian Terlin Outbacker antenna has been a stalwart of HF mobile communications since time immemorial. It’s a sturdy, adaptable, vertical antenna that can cover the entire HF spectrum by plugging a flying lead into one one of a number of sockets depending on the band of operation. It also has an adjustable top section, […]
FT-897 Suburban QTHenator
(and an exploration into local noise sources) After moving out of a tiny unit into a house I finally had the opportunity to throw a bit of wire into some trees and connect it to my radio. Easy interstate contacts were now available, but there was something nearby making obnoxious noise every 60kHz on HF: […]
Workbench Cam
The clubhouse is now equipped with a Workbench Cam! Remember these evenings where everyone crams around the table at the front of the hall to witness the opening an interesting box or the soldering iron trying to fix a broken device. And how about these lectures where the presented gear is on the table and […]
Phone chargers for the car!
Two recent camping road trips where we relied on the travel time to charge our 2 phones convinced me to build a linear 5v power supply. We use an AM Airband radio in the car that is very sensitive to RF from typical switch modes phone chargers. The IDLA charger we bought even overrides our car […]
Book of Resistance
I got tired of wasting so much time looking for the right resistor in my resistor box. I’ve got a good span of values, but not many of each. I decided to buy a photo album and have 1 page per value, took me 2 hrs to organise but will save me so much, more […]
DMM leads into the PSU
When working on projects I often need to plug my DMM leads into my bench power supply to test PSU voltage, current drain, probe voltage onto the circuit, etc. My PSUs have banana female plugs, I only use the spade side of the plugs, not the front holes. I tend to poke the test leads […]
Flower Pot Antenna on a wire
Here is a very handy aerial for permanent and field day installations. We’ve used VK2ZOI Half-Wave Flower Pot Antenna’s design, however we’ve only used the UPVC conduit for the choke section. This gives us a 2m aerial on a wire. It can be raised by pulling from the top, typically with a rope over a […]
Lego Iambic Key
Poor man’s morse key
Youtube video zoomed pictures, the shorter key is “iambic”. It apparently made it to the Australian favourite ham radio magazine.
Anderson on Jiffy boxes
Many projects require Anderson plugs to power circuits in jiffy boxes. Here is a way to do it. The Anderson plugs have a flat side and a side with the hooks sticking out. I faced the flat side onto the lid. This will require that you either remove the lip on the edge of the lid, […]
Ham Hacks Category
All A new category has been added to post all these little tricks you do to make your hobby life easier and you would like to share.
Vanity Power
Looking for 12v power for your Bluetooth or dashcam? I’ve connected mine to the vanity mirror lights in the sun visor? Uses far less power than the 2 incandescent lights. In our car it is switched with the ignition – not the accessories somehow. Just need to plug before the light on/off switch. So no wires from the top of the windscreen […]
Anderson Y
I use Anderson plugs for all my 12 volt equipment. Except for my HF rig, most of my equipment is of very low current drain. I tend to always terminate my Anderson power leads and extensions with 2 plugs so that I can connect multiple devices, however I don’t like having the spare plug floating […]
Spade adaptor
SLA batteries come with 2 different size spades, narrow 4.7mm or wide 6.3mm. When getting a replacement SLA, you don’t always have the choice on the spade size. You can get away with plugging a 6.3mm female to a 4.7mm male, but the other way around will just not work. I found an easy way to make adaptors, if you don’t […]