Seeking ideas for VHF/UHF fun on the ham bands…

June 16, 2013 | Amateur Radio | By: Mark VandeWettering

The other day I was in Ham Radio Outlet, and while strolling around I noticed a new VHF book published by the RGSB. And for some resaon, it made me think: I’ve got three different dual HTs, and an FT-817 which can work on 2m/70cm, why aren’t I doing more on VHF/UHF? I had a lot of fun operating via AO-51, AO-27 and SO-50, as well as the various APRS satellites, but except for SO-50, those have all gone black, and Fox isn’t due for a few months yet. I haven’t found repeaters to be very interesting overall: the sort of abstract social nature doesn’t seem all that exciting, and they represent little in the way of technical challenge. I like the idea of meteor scatter: I’d need to upgrade some equipment and build some antennas, but that seems reasonable. 2M weak signal SSB is probably something that would only pay off mobile (my home location is in a bit of a valley) but has some construction opportunities in it (antennas and the like). I’ve recently heard of coming Digital TV downlinks from the ISS, but haven’t got a clear idea of what hardware will be needed for reception.

I thought I’d toss is out to my readers: are there any VHF/UHF activities that you are participating in or would like to? I suspect that there are people who would like to have some new ideas, either because of limitations of their license class or their home situation, which may not favor large antennas. I’m also interested in hearing about any Bay Area groups who may do unusual activities on VHF+ frequencies.

Comments

Comment from Paul Stoetzer N8HM
Time 6/16/2013 at 4:09 pm

Which HTs do you own? If you own a Kenwood TH-F6A, you can get on the linear satellites (VO-52, FO-29, and AO-7) as well. Use the all-mode receiver as the downlink receiver while you uplink with the FT-817. It’s a challenge to manually adjust for Doppler, but that’s part of the fun!

Heck, you could use one of those $20 DVB TV dongles with SDR software as the downlink receiver.

Comment from MM0Z
Time 6/25/2013 at 5:06 am

Hi Buddy. The problem with HAM radio on 2m is that most of interesting stuff (wspr, wsjt) is designed to operate with SSB modulation – so all those nice 2m FM radios are useless in just everything except AX.25(aprs) and weather satellites.

What would be more cool is to use FM and some WSJT modes – so ALL radios could do that.

For me this is a huge problem. My only radio is 2m FM handheld… So I’m out of PSK, WSJT and other cool stuff out there 🙁

Comment from Dr. Jack Purdum, W9NMT/8
Time 9/12/2013 at 10:05 am

Hi Mark:

I’ve been following a lot of your work and need to ask you a question. I’m the author of 17 books, mostly on programming, including the last one titled Beginning C for Arduino (Apress). I have a publisher (McGraw-Hill) for book number 18 title Arduino Projects for Amateur Radio and I’m co-authoring with another ham. However, it’s starting to look like he will not have the time to finish the design work needed for the book. Personally, I’m a software guy with enough hardware knowledge to be dangerous. (I’ve fried more than my fair share of components.) If it turns out that the guy can’t carry the load, would you be interested. If you give me an email address, I can send you the TOC so you can see what we want to do. Perhaps the hardest project is a VFO and digital readout for inexpensive (QRP) rigs. I have a lot of manufacturers who are supporting the book and, in return, are listed in the appendix or featured in the article. The companies include TEN-TECH, MFJ, Pololu, Seeed Studio, Digispark, and others. TEN-TECH has even sent its new Rebel QRP rig, which is powered by the ChipMax 32Uno.

If you send me an email address, I can send the TOC to you. Please keep this confidential for the moment, until my current co-author makes up his mind about his time constraints.

73,
Jack