Tootfinder

Opt-in global Mastodon full text search. Join the index!

@mcdanlj@social.makerforums.info
2025-06-05 03:20:55

#AmateurRadio Field Day is coming, and I am but a baby ham who wants to try to work #CW on field day, but would like a little practice first.
Morse Walker has an

@mcdanlj@social.makerforums.info
2025-06-01 02:25:20

Baby's first unun!
My #AmateurRadio journey continues with making some of my own equipment...
I wanted to be able to connect either an EFHW or an EFRW to my KX3, but move the actual antenna away from the radio, so that I can POTA with other people close enough to talk, while keeping the antennas for the different out of each others' near field so they don't interere. To …

Partially-assembled unun. A nut on the upper right is connected to the coax shield, and is connected to a brass screw on the right for a counterpoise connection. A blue 100pf capacitor is in the upper left of a purple 3d-printed box, connected between ground and the center terminal of the input. At the bottom, the 6th turn is tapped and run to another brass screw which provides the 9:1 random wire connection. A strand of red magnet wire goes up to the upper left over the blue capacitor; it conn…
The internals of the unun with kapton tape covering the torroid, and the 49:1 antenna connection brass screw in the lid at the upper left.
The assembled unun with two wires attached. At the top is a wire next to a ground symbol on the side of the 3d-printed box. This wire is the counterpoise. On the lower right is another wire connected to the side of the box. This is the random wire connected to the 9:1 antenna connection. At the lower left, in the middle of the lid, is the antenna connection for an end-fed half-wave antenna.

Each of the terminals uses a heat-set insert as a finger nut to connect the antennas.
@mcdanlj@social.makerforums.info
2025-06-29 17:28:52

Baby's First #AmateurRadio #FieldDay! I ran the GOTA station for a few minutes to warm it up, and again in the early morning after the night crew were done for a handful of QSOs, but I spent many hours in the CW tent. At the start I just froze up and needed lots of help from th…

@mcdanlj@social.makerforums.info
2025-05-29 02:34:41

In the #AmateurRadio world, I'm a heretic because I use XT60 instead of PowerPole. (I do carry bidirectional adapters just in case.)
Tonight, I remembered that I have some "decoy boards" for 12V and 15V USB PD. I discovered that I could solder them directly to XT60 connectors in order to use USB PD power banks as field expedient power sources, thanks to the pitch of the connec…

@mcdanlj@social.makerforums.info
2025-05-27 00:51:46

Last fall, when I got my #AmateurRadio license, I got an inexpensive VHF handheld and expected to want to talk voice, and maybe later digital modes. I wasn't going to touch morse. After a few weeks of listening to repeaters ID in morse code, I caved and started trying to learn morse. I bought an HF rig, and didn't end up using VHF much.
Tonight, another ham in the family joine…

@mcdanlj@social.makerforums.info
2025-06-25 11:06:42

Super proud of my wife, who passed her #AmateurRadio Extra class exam last night — and minutes later, volunteered to teach a Technician class this fall, and asked about becoming a VE.
She loves to teach, and she's good at it. Her students are lucky to have her as an instructor, and I know that will be true for

@mcdanlj@social.makerforums.info
2025-06-14 20:37:24

Did my first #AmateurRadio bike race support today as a family activity. My oldest and I ran separate ham SAG vehicles, and my wife ran net control some of the time.
I had borrowed a mobile U/VHF rig from my club so that we could have one rig in each vehicle, but then my coax was apparently damaged for the antenna in the other car which disabled its mobile rig, so "bring your …