Welcome to my Amateur Radio page.
I have been a ham since the summer of '96 and a member of the Military Affiliate Radio System (MARS) since the spring of '99. I am 18 years old and enjoy every minute of ham radio that I can. Some of my other interests are fishing, surviving in the wilderness, and paintball.
I currently hold an Advanced class license and I am very active on 20 meter phone, 2 meter SSB, RTTY, and SSTV. My favorite band is 10 meters.
Thats me as the control operator (holding the mic) of the VHF/UHF station during Field Day '98.
My Shack
In my shack I have a lot of equipment. For those of you who are interested in what other people think of certain radios, computers, etc. drop me a line and I will give you my opinion. My shack concists of:
Yaesu FT-847 HF/VHF/UHF Transceiver
Yaesu FT-8100R VHF/UHF Tranceiver
Yaesu FT-3000M VHF Transceiver
Kenwood TH-79AD VHF/UHF Transceiver
KamPlus TNC
AOR AR-8000DX Scanner
Radio Shack Pro-2046 Scanner
AMD K6 2 3DNow 300MHz Desktop Computer
Here are some pictures of my shack.
My Yaesu FT-847
and my Kenwood TH-79ADH
SSTV
SSTV or Slow Scan TV is an interesting and very exotic mode. Instead of just talking to a person you can exchange still frames with somebody. Here are some pictures I got off 20 meters.
One of the more humerous pictures I've received.
My personal favorite picture.
PSK31
PSK31 is a new digital mode that has just become popular. It was designed by Peter G3PLX and is based on the digital mode RTTY but operates at 31.25 bauds. There are two modes of PSK31. They are BPSK and QPSK. BPSK is more popular on the Ham Bands. It is a very advanced digital mode due to the fact that a single PSK31 signal only requires 31 Hz for bandwidth. The most common frequencies of operation are:
1838.150
3580.150
7035.15
10140.150
14070.150
18100.150
21080.150
24920.150
28120.150
The use this mode, software and a simple soundcard interface are needed. Digipan can be downloaded here. A schematic will be uploaded soon.
RTTY
RTTY or Radio TeleTYpe is a mode of digital transmition which amateurs have used for years. Some origional teletype machines used in the news companies were very heavy and expensive. Now with personal computeres so readily available programers have been able to creat programs can send and receive RTTY when used in conjunction with a radio. There are many of these programs out there. Most of them require a demodulator modem of some sort. The hamcomm-type modem is very popular and a schematic is pictured below. The hamcomm program is available here in my software page.
POCSAG (Pager Messages)
WARNING. The information presented here is for educational purposes only. I am not responsible for any damage done to radios if the modification presented here is performed or for any legal involvements constituted by unlawful use of this information.
POCSAG stands for Post Office Code Standard Advisory Group. This is the type of data used in pager networks. It is transmitted at three standard bit rates; 512, 1200, and 2400 bits/sec. There are many programs on the internet that can be used for decoding these messages. You can find POC 32 HERE in my software page. It runs under Windows 95/NT and uses a sound card or a hamcomm type modem. It will decode all standard bit rates. The most common frequencies are between 152 and 153 MHz, 454 and 455 MHz, and 929 and 933 MHz. In order to use this program you must obtain unfiltered audio from you receiver. If the receiver has a discriminator output use that. If it does not have a discriminator output, a modification must be done to the receiver. The FM demodulator IC must be tapped. In many scanners the popular MC3361 IC is used. The Pro-2046 uses this chip as do most other Radio Shack scanners. Pin 9 is the audio out for that IC. In my Uniden BC3000XLT the IC is RCL10930 and pin 12 is the audio out. To see a list of discriminator pinouts click HERE For more information see the March 1997 issue of Popular Electronics
BC-3000 discriminator modification
FREQUENCY SEARCHING
If you are like me then you take a great interest in all of those "beeps" and "blips" out there on those strange frequencies. When I first got my scanner I spent hours searching the entire 25 MHz to 1.3 GHz range. Little did I know that those ear-piercing tones which I quickly tuned away from would soon grab my attention in a growing desire for knowledge. Some of those strange signals which I have come across were unidentifyable and I would like to know anything and everything about them. Below is a list of .wav files which contain signals like the ones I described above. If anyone has any information about them or knows computer programs to decode them please let me know. I would appreciate it.
This is digital telemetry from a US satellite called TRANSIT. A Russian version called COSNAV also operates on the same frequency of 150.000 Mhz, but it had a huge doppler shift because I could sometimes find it at 149.920 MHz. Its telemetry is a variant of RTTY. These satellites were used prior to the introduction of GPS for navigational purposes. For more information refer to http://solar.rtd.utk.edu/~mwade/project/transit.htm. Thanks for the info Dean.
me at: n1yqe@rocketmail.com
