Due to low budget, I'm looking for a cheap, portable HF transceiver for a beginner. Currently I could identify Xiegu G90 and sBitx v3. The future user is a professional electronic engineer with experience in DSP, embedded systems and so on. Which of those is better suited in that situation?

Hello Reddit,

The original MH-31 that came with FT-857D developed issue with the down button that stopped working, so I decided to buy a new microphone and chose the MH-59A8J.

According to the manual, I switched Menu option 59 to RMT, but the microphone buttons don't work, except for PTT and Power On/Off - so apparently it's not being powered up by the rig?

I started looking for similar issues and found several discussions, including this one:
https://www.reddit.com/r/amateurradio/comments/bzioa7/yaesu_857d_and_mh_59_remotemic_malfunction/

I tried all three types of resets: VM / FUNC / Home + Power but none resolved the issue.

Has anyone encountered this problem, and how did you manage to solve it?

Any advice on where to start digging would be greatly appreciated.

UPD - I found exact description of my issue here:

https://vk4ghz.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9750

My ft-857d microphone MH-31 partly works i can PTT i can scan up and i can turn off the unit but i cannot scan down , connecting the MH-59 selecting RMT the only thing i can do is turn off and on the unit and use the ptt nothing else works

And then below they suggest solution:

I managed to repair it I found an open circuit surface mount 470 ohms resistor on pin 8 of the microphone input circuit not allowing the MH59 to communicate with main cpu of the radio.

Thanks for any advise!

I'm studying to become a licensed send-amateur. Since years I use a transceiver which can be used on 10-12 meters. Until now it is programmed so that I can only use it on the 11 meter setting with power limitation.
When I get my license I could program it to be able to send on 10 meter and with more power.
But is it this allowed? That I use it for 10 meters with 100 watt PEP on SSB and on 11 meter with 12 watt PEP on SSB using my HAM call on 10 meters and my CB name on 11 meters?

I have my FT-710 connected to my PC with the silicone labs drivers and am using Win4yeasu or Ham Radio deluxe (testing out both). Both rig controller work fine and WSJT-X also does a great job.

But when trying to use my headset on SSB, I hear the radio fine but transmit does not work when when PTT enbaled (space bar on Win4Yeasu or hitting the MOX button), the radio keys up, but the mic transmission does not get to the radio. I do have the headset enabled for LISTEN in windows and sends to the USB Speaker for the Yeasu.

I also know the sounds does go out correctly since when I enable VOX mode, talking into the headset does key up the Radio and transmit fine. Just the normal PTT function does not work and I do not like the action of the VOX mode.

SSB MOD Source = Auto, but I have tried USB

Any Ideals?

Hey all! I am a fairly new ham and I'm just starting to dabble in HF, I'm still a Tech so only 10m right now but working on General.

I went to HRO intending to buy an EFHW but the guys there talked me out of it saying I'd be much better off with a dipole, so I ended up with a 10m dipole as a temporary solution, problem is I don't have a good place to put it up, it's currently hanging off the side of my house in an inverted V and not working great, I think mainly because it's so close to the house.

I don't have a ton of space to work with, here's a satellite photo of my house, the red square is where my office/ham shack is (2nd floor) I currently have a Diamond X50 on the roof there for VHF/UHF.

The only trees on my property are the two in the front of the house (left side of photo) and they are not that tall, about the height of the house. There's some branches from the tree in the top right that hang over my yard that I could potentially use (what's the etiquette on this? Is it okay to use branches that hang over my yard? Don't ask, and beg for forgiveness later?)

My ideas so far were either... EFHW from my office to the tree in the back, I still don't think this is a long enough distance but maybe I could make it work. Or some sort of roof mounted antenna, I'd prefer to avoid anything that's directional cause I don't want to deal with having to rotate it.

My HF rig is a Yaesu FTDX10 if that matters at all.

I am open to any and all suggestions! Thanks for your help!

73

Hello guys!

Recently, i got a radio pack, dirty, unused.... I disassembled, cleaned and fixed them, but i cant get the MCS2000 to turn on.

Asked the previous owner, he said: If i remember correctly, the power supply was connected in reverse.

That means, if im lucky, it has a Diode that i just have to solder off, and it should turn on, i already had a radio with the same problem and it worked. The only problem is, thats its not the same modern Yaesu i had before, its a pretty old Motorola, so there is not much info available, at least not enough for Me. So the big question is: Which one should i remove? I found a comment from 2006, they said it might be the one with the spring under it (the large circular one at the bottom left, i will show the same spot from the other side at the comment section) which seems logical for me, its pretty close to the connnector, its large... BUT i dont want to touch it without being sure that THIS IS WHAT I NEED TO REMOVE! Seems like the whole thing is soldered on this side, under it there is 2-3 smaller pieces, but im not sure if this is the right piece, if it is, how should i remove it, should i try to break it off, or should i remove all the 3 pieces first...?

Keep in mind, that im not really experienced with these, thats why im Asking the more Experienced users, please keep the negative comments for yourself!

I really hope that someone can help me out, sorry for my poor english, Thanks for reading! :)

https://preview.redd.it/1rs8cf6a4k4e1.jpg?width=1536&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=adc1b3e07c0cd9dc8321cbfba52d1e3101b4365e

I've had an extra class license for a few years, but never gotten into HF. I've done a bit of SOTA, and since I live in an apartment I'd like my first HF radio to be primarily towards that end. My first priority would be phone operation on 20/40/80m, with CW on these bands once I get proficient.

Right now I'm looking at the Xeigu g90/x6100/x5105 as a first radio for portable operation - does anyone have opinions on which of the 3 would be best for these use cases?

Alternatively, is it worth doubling the budget to get something like the IC-705 or Elecraft KX2?

Y'all ever see one of these? It would be a cool little radio but the battery it shot and the solder pads got pulled off the board when I tried to remove the battery. Any ideas on how to fix it? cause I can't find em anywhere so replacing it is out of the question.

Hey guys, im looking to purchase a external GPS module for my yaesu ftm-500. I can not find the one that yeasu makes for the radio. What are you guys using?

its a 3.5mm connection

Replaced some tubes, cleaned some contacts and pins, back to normal. Honestly can't believe the power supply didn't need re-capping. No AC ripple at all. This is a hot reciever but it's hard to tune up. One knob turn affects at least two other knobs/switches. Love it tho.

Does anyone know how to pay the 10-year fee for an amateur radio license? My bro is disabled, my Mom has guardianship and she has been through hell trying to renew his license for him. Bro is a dedicated ham whose goal is to have a radio for every frequency and he would be absolutely devastated if he lost his license.

After 2 emails and 4 phone calls with the FCC, plus a lot of searching and reading docs, we are no closer to renewing his license. During one of the calls, my bro gave the FCC rep his SS# and permission for Mom, as guardian, to access his account. She was finally able to obtain a user name and password but the 6-digit code sent by the FCC to get into CORES doesn't work. Has anyone else encountered difficulty with the code?

We are so confused about the process because the FCC website has to be 30 years old, forms and instructions have conflicting info and we don't speak FCC-ese. Could anyone confirm that these are the steps to renewal?

• We somehow get a 6 digit code that works
• Login to the CORES account
• Find and digitally complete Form 159
• Somehow attach Form 159 to a payment
• Pay $35
  • Is CORES the only way to pay or could we send a check and Form 159 to the FCC by mail?
    • I found this address: Federal Communications Commission, 1270 Fairfield Road, Gettysburg, PA 17325-7245

Has anyone else struggled to answer Form 159 questions?

• Lockbox #
• FCC Code 1 & 2
• Payment type code

This is a lot but any shred of info would be so helpful. Finally, does anyone know if there's a better way to contact the FCC? Email and phone haven't exactly been awesome. Thanks so much!!

is any one on here from p.a that is into or has some frequencies i can use or join? pls inbox me.

Hi! I have been operating for a while now and am looking to explore new challenges. I would like to learn more about moon bounce and eventually make contacts using this method. Are there any good books or other materials to help me get started?

I have a old daiwa cn-101 and when I hookup a HT at 10watts it only moves the forward needle to 1. And doesn't move the reflected. Set to the 15w setting. Am I doing something wrong or is the meter no good?

I am trying to convince a guy to take me back after I ended our relationship. I wasn’t ready but I am now, and I want to do something special to woo him back. He is a huge cb radio enthusiast. Would anyone have any ideas for me to express my intentions?

My business works in school buildings where we are often many many walls of concrete away from eachother and our radios can struggle. From my research it looks like we want to use UHF frequencies for better penetration, but it looks like that is also GMRS which you can't license for a business. Yet I see plenty of scenarios where people are walking around with their Motorla UHF radios for commercial purposes. So how do I legally use UHF for my business. Amazing Google just keeps pointing me in the GMRS loop...

First off I know this is the perpetual open ended question, however I am considering a new radio. Currently I’m handheld with a yaesu FT60. I also have a Retivis RT 95. I’m looking for a good radio I can use for POTA/Sota. I’m not currently a QRP guy so a radio with more than 5 watts available would be nice. I’ve had my eye on a yaesu FT 891. I know a lot of folks are all about the G90 but I’m worried I’ll want more.

Thanks for any advice.

Hello everyone, I'm not entirely clear on the current propagation. I live in Germany. If there is no color in my area, does that mean that the conditions are bad for my location? Currently on 20m I can't hear anything on my radio and I can't see anything on the waterfall diagram

I have a 2nd-hand bench power supply that I was given, never attempted to use it until now. It an Astron SL-14M. My multi-meter tells me it’s outputting 13.8v DC all the way down the leads to the connector, but two different radios I’ve hooked up to it won’t power on. One radio is fresh out of the box but been sitting a while, the other was working great when it came out of a vehicle a few years ago.

I understood the data limits changing from baud-rate to bandwidth would enable faster speeds, but have seen nothing about what's possible now. In terms of kbps for me of slow brain, where are we now on HF data transfer? I realize we're still talking extremely slow in the best of cases, but being able to transfer files at old school dialup speeds without having to involve one of the telecoms would satisfy so many of my emotional needs lol

My TH-F6 starts up fine when plugged into 12V or AC adapter. But it won't start up with my original (2011) battery, or a third party battery that is about 4 years old. Both batteries are charged to 8.4 volts according to my meter. I just ordered a new battery, but wondering what the problem might be, considering the old batteries still appear to be holding a charge.

I recently purchased this HT as my first high-end HT, and it's been awesome so far. I love the feel, the audio quality, and the menu system (I come from Yaesu, so most menus are better, haha). It is an incredibly nice radio, besides the battery and the battery display system.

It's just not cutting it. I updated the version to 1.03 (which was supposed to fix the battery display) That really hasn't helped.

Just show me the damn battery voltage. I don't care for a graphical display. I wish there was a way to just display the voltage on the top right of the radio.

Also, there needs to be a bigger aftermarket battery solution for this radio. The current 1820 battery is just not cutting it. This thing only lasted for 6 hours on RX and it died.

What are some ways you use this HT that saves battery? Is there a way to just show the battery voltage instead of an inaccurate display?

Id like to go on a big hike today and use APRS. Im afraid I'm going to need to drop another $100 on a second battery.

Everyone loves Hamclock, I have it in my shack, but what drives me nuts is we can't get a 16:9 version of this software. 2009 is screaming for its technology back with the 4:3 resolutions hamclock is limited to. Hams all over the world are running 16:9 monitors, upgrading to 4K HDR monitors, and let's face it technology has been upgraded, even in the Amateur Radio universe. Is it time to rip off the bandaid and bring Hamclock to a more modern version?

I think we as a ham radio community can build something that looks better, feels better and, can do better. This isn't a knock on the people who wrote Hamclock. They did a fantastic job with it, and I would like to include them in on this. What I am saying is that it could be better.

Hamclock FAQ 11, says the following:

Can I make different sizes other than those in the Makefile?

No, HamClock can only be built these sizes:

800x480

1600x960

2400xx1440

3200x1920

The base size of 800x480 was set when HamClock started life back in 2016 on a stand-alone ESP8266 microprocessor with an 800x480 LCD display.

It is not a simple matter to change that original aspect ratio. Each size requires its own custom fonts, graphics symbols, maps and images in order to take proper advantage of the different resolutions. Otherwise, these would be very pixelated if they were just multiples of the base images. Plus, if the ratio changes, the layout would need to be rebalanced. This is why all sizes are multiples of 2 of the base size in order to maintain the same layout proportions.

This isn't the world we live in anymore. Time to rip off the bandaid and do better. Xrandr isn't a valid solution anymore and the simple solution is to rip off the bandaid and rebuild the thing so it works better in a 16:9 world. Wayland doesn't seem to do a good job at what xrandr did because wayland natively handles 16:9 and hamclock doesn't. I don't know how hamclock was built otherwise I would re-build it myself and put it out there, but I refuse to believe that it can't be done and the reason given ist the best and just tells me the work needs to be done.

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Going to pick up my first radio at HRO while in Delaware this weekend (tax free, baby). Will I have an issue bring it through TSA in carry on luggage on the return?

Edit: Should have prob said its a base station. IC 7300 and a PSU to support it. Not a handheld. But, sounds like I should be fine.

For those interested and new HAMs, here is a vg video on the 220 band.

https://youtu.be/l6ds6RBufHI?si=5fBcumlqfuf1I9sj

Any recs on power supplies and other non-radio specific things to consider when building a base station ? the way I see it, I need a PSU, a transceiver, coax, and an antenna. where do I even get started looking at all this stuff? PSUs seem like radios, you can spend a little or a lot.