bmitch2112
bmitch2112 on Hacker News
Walking, hiking, audiobooks, reading, amateur radio.
If you don't read the newspapers, you are uniformed. If you do read them, you are misinformed.
Posted by
bmitch2112 on Saturday January 04, 2025 @10:02PM
from the show-hn dept.
https://hamradioprices.com/
Hi HN,I'm an amateur radio operator (VE7AJK) and a web developer. I recently launched https://hamradioprices.com, a price tracker for amateur radio gear. Think of it as a DekuDeals (https://www.dekudeals.com/) but specifically for hams.The website currently only tracks radios, but I plan to expand it to include other equipment like antennas, tuners, and accessories as time goes on. My goal is...
Not from US so I'm not sure but I think you can access the 10 metre band with technician? If so, doing Parks on the Air or Summits on the Air could possibly be something you might like.
Even with Technician you may be able to do POTA or SOTA successfully on VHF.
Yep I love it for FT8. Fun little radio to play around with. If you want any more info my email is in my bio, feel free to email me.
For me (relatively young, definitely in the ham radio circles) I like two activities: Summits on the Air and Parks on the Air.
Summits on the Air - take your gear to a mountain summit and attempt to make at least 4 contacts.
Parks on the Air - take your gear to a state/federal/provincial/national park and attempt to make at least 10 contacts.
Check out Ham Radio Crash Course on YouTube. He has a bunch of great stuff for people interested. From there hopefully one of the areas will pique your interest and you can go down the rabbit hole from there.
I've setup quite a light mobile FT-8 setup in case you are interested.
I'm using the FT8CN Android app and a truSDX radio. USB cable from the radio into my phone powers the radio as well as sends/receives the audio.
For antenna I'm just using a hamstick on the roof.
This only puts out about half a watt but I was getting out about 2500-3000km away. You could then have an alternative power source like a battery to get around 5 watts.
https://www.wikitree.com/ I believe is what you are describing. It's great. If you have any interest in building your family tree this is where I would start.
You basically just need any sort of wire to receive. FT8 is a very weak signal mode so I wouldn't be surprised if you string up some speaker wire inside and still hear signals.
Do you have another radio to try it with?
Another cheap option is the truSDX https://dl2man.de/
I have it working with my Android Phone using https://github.com/N0BOY/FT8CN
It makes for a super lightweight pack. I usually bring a 17foot whip antenna to a park or summit and get contacts all over the world.
FT8 is lots of fun. Even more fun when you go to a park or up a summit and see how far you can get out and how far you can hear.
You don't need very expensive radio equipment to transmit FT8 so if you do get your licence back it is worth looking into.
http://qrp-labs.com/qdx.html
This is great! Reminds me of Fire & Ice and Solomon's Key 2 on the NES.
Amateur Radio. Check out Parks on the Air and Summits on the Air. Essentially you take your radio to a park or mountain summit. Setup your gear and try to make radio contacts with others. Good communities behind both and likely some people in your area doing it.
- It is relaxing and something outside to do.
- You can meet others locally who are into it as well and also meet people as you make radio contacts.
- You'll need an amateur radio licence which can be a new skill to challenge you.
I use onthegomap almost daily. Such a great tool. Thank you for it.
I don't know anything about trading options but wanted to say with a 9-5 job and 2 kids, getting any kind of MVP out is a great accomplishment. Well done.
Good to hear about the Flexispot desk. How long have you had it? Looking to get a standing desk and these look decent.
Thanks so much, this looks very cool!
I made the exact same thing haha. I use it all the time now. Would love to compare notes.
How did you make the text readable from the links?
Very cool! You did quite well in the video too, was that one take or multiple? :)
Very cool. Curious what esgy stands for or means?