I hope everyone goes to a state park and has some fun today!

Hi, I need to get a written appraisal of some HAM radio equipment for the probate estate of someone who passed away. Can anyone tell me who I should call? The equipment is in Columbus, Ohio.

There's a few thousand feet of coax on my apartment buildings tree lawn for free. Interested?

Cleveland Hamfest opens tomorrow at 8 AM.

Cuyahoga county fairgrounds 160 Eastland Rd, Berea

Three weeks until my favorite contest of the year!

https://ospota.org/

I hope everyone in Ohio gets on the air on Sep 9 to join us! If you're activating a park, please comment below.

A week away!

https://www.ohqp.org/

(New Sub here yesterday, glad I found this group) I am super excited this year. I am working with my vertical antenna (bought it 11 years ago never really figured it out.) I think with the 5 Videos out there including KB9VBR. I got the sucker figured out. Although I dont need it because I am going to Burning River in Lorain for theirs this year. I was going to go to visit them but then I picked this other club and the guys were just sitting around with 2 stations idle. Then they started talking loud in the garage where we were. I am looking forward to this other field day location and this group of guys. -NA8Y

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P.S. Ive got my antenna hooked up and havent finished tuning it. What the hell am I doing on reddit?

We are still looking for additional volunteers for the 2023 Pan Ohio Hope Ride (POHR). POHR is a charitable bicycle ride that supports the American Cancer Society. It is a 4-day ride that spans the state from Cleveland to Cincinnati, with overnight stays along the way in Wooster, Westerville, and Dayton.

We are currently looking for assistance in the following roles:

SAG (Support and Gear) drivers SAG drivers follow along the route in their personal vehicles and provide assistance to cyclists in need. They are provided a tote of equipment (spare tubes, air pump, snacks, water, Gatorade, other misc. supplies) at the beginning of the event and are expected to return unused items at the end. SAG drivers are coordinated and dispatched using MARCS interop channels with amateur UHF simplex for use between vehicles. Anyone with their own MARCS radio is welcome to use it. For all other volunteers, cache MARCS radios will be signed out each day. SAG drivers are offered prepaid overnight lodging in hotels along the route. They are also provided food every day. Fuel receipts can be submitted at the conclusion of the event for reimbursement if desired. We would love to have SAG drivers accompany us for all 4 days but will accept volunteers for any individual days as well. We would prefer that SAG volunteers are able to commit to at least one full day.

Rest Stop Transportation Officers Transportation officers will be assigned to rest stops along the route. Transportation officers will be responsible for coordinating SAG pickups at each rest stop, assigning waiting riders to available SAG vehicles as they arrive on site, and then reporting all pickups to net control via radio (MARCS, simplex, or ham repeater depending on cache radio availability) or telephone. Each water stop is open for several hours so the time commitment for this role will not be significant.

An amateur radio comms plan will be in place for all days of the event, but will serve as a backup with MARCS being the primary means of communication whenever possible.

Anyone interested in volunteering for this event, or with any questions about the event should contact Mat Nickoson, KC8NZJ mat@n8esg.org

As a side note, I’ve heard many comments from people regarding the past communications leadership of this event. I want to assure everyone that the event is being run by a new group (Event Support Group www.n8esg.org) as of around 2019 and ALL amateurs are welcome and encouraged to participate in this event!

Thanks again and I look forward to your assistance!

Ohio NVIS day is Saturday, April 22, 2023 10 A.M.–4 P.M.

https://arrl-ohio.org/SEC/nvis_day.html

This event is organized by Ohio ARES. All stations are invited to participate, affiliation with ARES is not required. The goal of the event is to test NVIS communications across the state of Ohio. The event usually starts on 80m right at 10:00am. It will start near 3.902 +/-. We usually move to 40m after a bit of communication on 80m. The last few years the skip zone on 40m has been too large and Ohio stations can't hear each other. If that's the case this year, it might be useful for an out of state station to take over as NCS and work the Ohio Stations and give them a chance to see if they are able to hear any other Ohio Stations.

This is not a contest, there are no points. It's just an exercise to get out our field deployable antenna and test them.

Medina County ARES will have multiple antenna set up and connected to an antenna switch. The switch will be connected to a single HF station. We will ask each contact to stand by as we switch antenna and give us a signal report on each antenna. We will record the signal reports returned and also record the receive signal reports so that we may compile the results and determine which antenna is performing best.

We have a turnstile dipole with 80m, 60m, and 40m legs committed to coming and a folded terminated dipole committed to coming. I believe one member is going to bring a Chameleon EMCOMM? He has not committed to that yet. We also might see a myantennas.com end fed. I hope all four show up, I want to see how they all compare.

In previous years, nothing ever beats the turnstile dipole. I hope we can find something that beats it this year!

There is a Statewide Tornado siren test today. Please check in to your local skywarn net. Participating Skywarn nets, post repeater details in comments.

Besides that little get together in Xenia in May, this is one of my favorite hamfests in Ohio. Anyone else going on Sunday?

http://www.tmrahamradio.org/hamfest.php

Totally new to this. I understand I can’t transmit, only listen. I figured out how to listen to FM radio, but the ONLY frequency on the VFO side of things that I can find with a signal is the NOAA weather radio at 162.545. If all I can ever find is those two things, I’m fine just having a radio for power outages and storms, but I thought I’d be able to also listen to discussions between ham operators. I hit SCAN and it just scrolls along with no results. I’m in the middle of Columbus.

OSPOTA is my favorite contest of the year! Very laid back and lots of fun. I make believe I’m on a DXpedition as I activate Middle Bass Island state park.

Get outside and activate a park! Or chase is that do. Looking forward to working you on Saturday.

Our 80th Findlay Hamfest will be held at the Hancock County Fairgrounds in Findlay Ohio this coming Sunday Sept 11th

Gates open at 8:00. Admission $10. Flea market spaces $5

More info here. https://www.findlayradioclub.org/hamfest

Any homebrewers from Ohio? AC8LZ looking for some advice

https://arrl-ohio.org/SEC/nvis_day.html?msclkid=6e739786c0c311ecac72c32a8d546710

This Saturday. April 23 is Ohio NVIS day! All amateurs are invited to participate, affiliation with ARES is not required. It's not a contest, it's a communication exercise. We'll primarily be using 75m SSB, and we'll give 40m a try as well.

My group of friends typically sets up 2-4 antennas and routes them all to an antenna switch. We then ask each contact to give us a signal report on each antenna. We record the signal report given by the other station and also the signal report we give the other station. So we have a transmit and receive grade for the antenna. We compile the results and decide which antenna works best.

In my experience, the AS-2259 typically outperforms all other antennas. We use one with 1/4 wave legs cut for 75m and 40m. This year we are comparing that antenna to a Chameleon EMCOMM antenna. It's not my antenna, it will be interesting to see how it performs.

OHDEN will also be active during the day on 3584.5 kHz using Olivia 8-500 mode. If you prefer typing to talking. Hope to work you on Saturday!

OHDEN PDF: http://arrl-ohio.org/SEC/ohden/utility-files/OHDEN%20STANDARD%20OPERATING%20GUIDE%20v1_3_6.pdf?msclkid=bdc6267cc0c311ecbaf370339e4052e7

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5358287

I created a center insulator. I'll try to get some photos up. To finish the part, you will need an SO-239 chassis mount, 8 screws, and antenna wire. I used this SO-239 from DXE. The eight screws are #4 sheet metal screws that are 1/2" long to hold the two halves together. I really like the high viz copper coated steel wire from DXE, but just about any wire should work fine. I routed the dipole antenna wire in hole on the side, then out the hole on the bottom that is nearest the SO-239, wrap it once (or more) around and then push it back in the bottom hole that is away from the SO-239. Then solder to the SO-239.

/u/CUM_GUNMAN commented on my post in the /r/Ohio sub that they own a UV-5R.

If anyone is considering their first ham radio, I have some thoughts to share.

If you're not yet licensed, I highly recommend a scanner instead of a radio. The Uniden BC125AT is excellent and relatively inexpensive. It's performance is absolutely stunning compared to any transceiver. No transceiver from any manufacturer can scan as quickly as a dedicated scanner. If you're using a transceiver to scan, you're probably missing traffic due to the transceiver being slow. The receiver circuitry in a scanner is also much higher performance then many transceivers. Some of the less expensive transceivers often get overload when there is a nearby high powered transmitter. They will go completely deaf until moved away from said transmitter.

After you're licensed I recommend the following three options: FT-60R, FT-65R, GT-5R.

If you're a discerning person, the Yaesu ft-60r is definitely worth the extra money that it costs. It has a rugged aluminum housing and outstanding performance. The ft-65r is a good value. Instead of a superhet receiver, it uses a direct sampling IC. While this works, it's not quite as sensitive as a Superhet and is more prone to becoming overloaded and deaf. It's not as bad as the Baofengs, but closer to their performance. The FT-65R has larger spurious emissions then the FT-60R. While the emissions are all compliant with the law, they rob the final PA of output power on your intended transmit frequency.

The Baofengs are the least quality transceiver. They do not have any RF filtering. This causes their transmit output to be very dirty. Which means it's transmitting on multiple (unintentional) frequencies at the same time. These are called spurious emissions. These emissions have the potential to cause harmful interference on police and fire frequencies. They also rob the transmitter of its highest power output potential. As power is robbed to create the spurs. The lack of filtering also causes the receivers to become overloaded when near a high powered transmitter or other source of interference. This causes the receiver to become deaf and unable to receive on the frequency that was tuned.

Baofengs continue to be the least cost option and therefore a first radio purchased. If you're going with a Baofeng, at least consider the GT-5R. This transceiver claims to comply with the technical specifications of Part 97. I purchased one to test and it does comply. I'd like to test more! The GT-5R has the added bonus of being transmit locked to the amateur allocation. With other options such as the UV-5R it's possible to make a mistake and accidentally transmit on police and fire frequencies unintentionally.

This is why I try to steer people away from the UV-5R. I know someone that bought one and tried using it just to listen. He didn't hear anything and got frustrated and gave up on the hobby. He didn't realize the radio had gone deaf at his house because he's near a large FM broadcast transmitter in Parma.

The Cleveland Marathon is seeking assistance from licensed ham radio operators. No affiliation with ARES or RACES (or any other organization) is required. Licensed hams are assigned to water stops to provide eyes and ears for public safety and the event staff.

https://n8esg.org/events/?civiwp=CiviCRM&q=civicrm%2Fevent%2Finfo&id=227

Post your 2022 county Skywarn training location, date, and time. (If it hasn't already happened!)

https://www.weather.gov/cle/SKYWARN_schedule