- Today on Ham Radio Q&A,
I dig into the mailbag and answer your questions,
so please keep watching for more.
(upbeat rock music)
Hi I'm Michael, KB9VBR, your host for Ham Radio Q&A,
I'm on a mission to inspire
and educate the amateur radio community,
so if this is your first time watching,
please consider hitting that subscribe button.
First off I want to thank everyone
for watching and subscribing.
In the last month this channel
has passed the milestone of one million video views.
We're also pushing towards 15,000 subscribers,
so if you enjoy watching these videos,
you're certainly in some good company.
Next up, before I dig into the questions,
I want to chat a bit about my previous video
which is on the ARRL's recent petition
for rule making to expand HF privileges
for the technician license holders.
I've been a ham for 20 years now
and have survived both the license restructuring of 2000
and the dropping of the morse code
testing requirements of 2006, and both did not kill me.
It's no surprise to me that this proposal though
would bring out vocal and highly polarized opinion.
I did a rough count of the over 200 comments
left on this video in the first four days
and found, despite a few of those troll comments,
most were generally in favor of this proposal
with about an 85% approval rating.
I think that's pretty good.
Well there are so many comments
that I'm only gonna pick out two
and I recommend that if you're really interested in this,
you may wanna peruse the rest of them
because I was really pleased at how thoughtful
and cogent almost all of those comments were.
But I think Freddy hits the nail on the head
on why this proposal is important.
He writes, I feel it is a very positive change
with the new privileges of the tech
will become more active and stay and/or progress in class.
Plus the growth in the service is a necessity!
We, that's him, just experienced a true emergency situation
where the amateur service proved to be
the only means of communications
that our impacted area had for the communications period
and that included government assistance agencies
for several days.
So in short, more licensed operators at any level
would have been a great asset!
Sincerely K0LC.
Well thanks for that comment, Freddy.
One of the purposes of the amateur service
is to provide emergency communications in a time of need.
Our statewide, and that's my states, ARES/RACES group
has a very nice linked repeater system,
yet it's dependent on Voice Over IP technology
to stay online.
We're finding that in a true disaster situation
that HF is a better solution for regional communications.
Having a technician class license holder
with the ability to communicate
on 40 and 80 meters NVIS would truly be an asset.
Now there are those that will say
that in a true stuff hits the fan emergency
that licensing won't be an issue
as anyone could transmit on any frequency.
I'm gonna argue that's a wrong statement
and not accurate in the letter
and spirit of this emergency provision.
Plus that mentality does nothing to train
or prepare a person to operate in that manner.
Moving on, I received a couple different questions
on the same subject.
Gerald asks, well, the other item that needs addressing
is the renewal policy for expired licenses.
The FCC should allow anyone who has passed
any of the exams to re-enter the service at any time.
We should be doing everything to keep our numbers.
There is a lot of upcoming technologies out there.
Allow expired technicians to pay their money to rejoin
regardless of when their expiration date was.
Well actually, that provision already exists.
Since 2014 an amateur can reclaim their expired license
by passing the current technician exam.
So if you were previously a General or an Extra
and let your license lapse, passing a technician exam
and supplying proof of the previous license held,
will grant you your old license class.
I think that's a pretty good compromise
to the expired license situation.
On my recent introduction to DMR presentation,
I received this question from Christopher.
Being a truck driver and not always in a good spot
for a repeater do you absolutely need a repeater
or can it be done through a hotspot device?
Some hams, especially in areas
that may not be served by a DMR repeater,
are using their hotspots with a MIFI link.
As long as you can receive cell service,
you have access to the network talk groups.
But there's gonna be one caveat,
as your phone's data plan will need to support that use,
an active channel could use
three to six megabytes of data an hour,
and I believe at your average data
will still be under about one gigabyte per month
with average use.
So you know this might be an excellent option
for the over the road driver.
On the Chameleon P-Loop review,
Carl of Chameleon Antennas gives us a couple of tips.
First off, on tuning the antenna with an analyzer,
he says, do not hold the antenna analyzer when tuning.
Put it on the ground because your hand touching it
will influence the SWR.
Also, the Chameleon P-Loop,
while having a very low takeoff angle
in its default configuration,
Carl mentions that it can also be used
for near vertical incidence skywave propagation.
In order to use the P-LOOP 2.0 for NVIS,
you're gonna need to rotate the antenna on the side
while having the telescopic mast installed horizontally
in order to increase the radiations upward for 40 meters.
Thanks Carl for providing these tips.
And speaking of portable antennas,
Kristyanna says, you should do a video
on affordable HF vertical antennas.
Well for that I'd recommend
the Wolf River Silver Bullet coils.
You can put together a coil and a whip for under $100.
I have one myself and actually
I did a video review on that antenna last year
so you might wanna check that out.
Next up, a few questions about
the power pole splitter project I recently did.
1crazynordlander reminds us that,
the National Electrical Code or NEC
does not recognize soldering as a allowed connection.
It can come apart in high current situations.
Crimping is much better.
Thanks for this video.
This kit and tool will be part of my arsenal soon!
Well that is correct.
A proper crimp connection is better than a soldered one.
And that's one of the reasons
why I don't solder electrical connectors anymore.
And next up, Reggy's got the mnemonic
for remembering how to orient your power poles.
Red right, tongue top, that's what I have memorized.
And Mark admired the battery
that was in the background of the video.
He says, you left out one detail
which is admittedly off the subject.
And that is the battery in the background.
I was also interested in what you did
to connect to the battery terminals.
Well thanks for noticing the battery.
It's a U1 sized 12-volt Lead Acid AGM battery
that I purchased at Fleet Farm
which is a farm supply store here in the upper Midwest.
I used a couple of ring terminals
that I crimped to a short piece of zip wire.
Of course a power pole connector
is on the end for easy connection to my splitter.
And finally, Scott wrote in with a question
about making a purchase decision between two radios.
Great video, I'm kinda going between the ICOM IC-718
or the ICOM 7300.
It's not such a money decision,
it's more of do I want the simplicity
or the high-tech bells and whistles, any opinions?
This is a great question.
I think it's really hard to compare
the IC-718 and the IC-7300
as they are two different technologies
from two different generations.
There's a lot of features on the IC-7300
that would be either considered top of the line
or unavailable when the IC-718 was introduced.
But with that said, the IC-718 is very simple to operate.
I can sit a ham down in front of it
who has never operated HF before
and get them on the air in five minutes or less.
Plus I know they won't get lost in the menus or settings
and totally screw the whole thing up.
Transmit audio is superb, receive is sensitive,
and it's gonna run full duty cycle all day long.
What the IC-7300 brings is a sophistication
in filtering and digital signal processing,
plus full support for digital modes
with its built-in sound card interface.
To work digital, I had to add a Signalink
to the IC-718 which is another $100 expense.
Plus the 718 doesn't have a built-in tuner,
but that's not a big deal as you're gonna want
an external tuner with either radio anyways.
I think the downfall of the IC-718 is that the DSP
is on the AF stage, so that when the bands are noisy,
it's gonna get very weary to listen for long stretches,
nor does the IC-718 have six meters support.
So the final word, if you want simple, bullet proof rig,
go with the IC-718.
If you want sophistication of a modern SDR
based transceiver, then the IC-7300 is for you.
Do you have any questions or comments?
Please leave them below,
I'll pick out the best of ones
for my next your questions answered video.
And always for more articles and information,
please check out my blog at www.jpole-antenna.com.
Your support of this channel
drives the production of future videos.
So if you like this video,
give me that big thumbs up
and also check out some of the other videos
that are suggested right alongside here.
And don't forget to hit subscribe.
Pressing subscribe is your way to be notified
when future videos are released.
That's it for this time,
I'm Michael, KB9VBR, have a great day and 73.
(upbeat rock music)