So i started the day out on really wanting to get my MFJ receive only loop antenna up. I have used it before, but always slightly too low. The mast I purchased to support this is the DIAMOND AM 450, it is designed to hold light antennas such as the MFJ-1886.
As you can see in this video
just twist – yeah twist my a**e
When out with it, i guyed it and twist-locked the mast, but it always came slipping down, most the very top and the 3rd section from the top. I took the antenna down and brought it in for the evening, giving the mast a good clean/dry and seeing if i could get each section to lock in the comfort of my hamshack.
I did have some limited progress but still felt the 3rd section was not tight enough, the others were so tight, they really was an effort to unlock them.
I went out the following day, but again the mast slipped. I stood there trying to tighten each section, for untold time, but it just didnt grip, at all. I was clearly wasting my time with this mast. So if you want my opinion, DONT get the AM450, its dreadful mast with poor locking sections. All my other masts have some form of ‘lock’ or ‘locking screw’ and work perfectly.
Buddipole 20M
So whilst i am enjoying just how good the little mag-mount whip works on 20M with the IC705, i do have a proper, and pretty well equipped, buddipole setup. My problem, and here the blame lays soley with me, is that when ever I use the buddipole a part of it breaks, or gets damaged. I am pleased to say todays work showed that my patience and method have improved and no damage to the buddipole occured (so far..)
big whips, 20m, apprx 5m up
2:1 balum in effect
ALOT of buddipole parts
buddipole in action on 20m
I want to put this here as a warning for anyone that buys the buddipole *ALWAYS GUY YOUR MAST* and not just ‘at the end’ when its going up, when ever you are working on it/near it, guy it, you need to concentrate on getting the SWR down and doing the loading on the coils correctly, bumping the mast so it falls over is probably going to hurt you and your wallet when the expensive ‘whip’ antennas snap from the copper screw-ends.
You do not want to rush a buddipole build – much like any other antenna, but there is more to do with a buddipole, hence why I’m always a little bit reluctant to get it out. Compared to a dipole or a random end fed, there is a substantial amount of work (arrange parts, put parts on, tune antenna – reguy for elevation, measure SWR, bring down, SWR..)
But that said I’m very happy with the gain I’m getting off the buddipole dipole, sure it could jus tbe the conditions, but the antenna is really pulling in the signals. I’m putting out 10mW on WSPR. Just checkout the reports.
WSPR Report on 20m with .1W
On FT8 the SWR was over 3 on 5W of power, but I’m hoping the kit I’m building will help with that !
ATU for 705
It will probably take me a few hours over a couple of days to do all the necessary winding and soldering, but the ATU gets impressive results (when built correctly !)
ATU-100 demo
I’ve ordered some tools (didnt fancy cutting a fence post with a small wood cutter) which will come in useful around the house.
Was very greatful to receive an email from Callum regarding the tilt base giving some advice and alternate parts, suggesting the Barenco BE211//2. Myself and JTB (read previous post) are already planning on a ‘metal’ upgrade, so will hold off the BE211/2 for now.
barenco BE211/2
Having watched the ’tilt’ base created by Callum I ordered the parts I didn’t have, and these have since arrived !
girth on that wood
bolts and washers
I ordered online for limiting my exposure to other people, but having seen the wood am very glad I did ! Not sure why, but it seemed alot bigger than i imagined – which is good. I have an old pallet in the garage which i think will help with the remaining wood components. I will have to source a pole of some type for mast to go onto, but am glad the wood and bolt/rod have arrived !
QRP
QRP Books
Morse keys and trainer
QRP Boooks and Morse Keys & Trainer
The IC-705 has really got me into QRP, given that without any additions, its max portable power is 5W and 10W when powered from external supply. I watched Peter Parkers’s excellent QRP Video and knew i had to also read these books to really understand and get the most out of what was being taught
QRP Presentation by VK3YE
Needless to say, I’ll be blogging extensively about my QRP experiencs with the 705.
CW Academy
Further to recommendations on DX Commander Discord server I have signed up to CW Academy and book my space on the BEGINNER CW class. It does mean ‘waiting’ until April, but having seen this excellent video about learning from CW Academy, have done well in getting a slot as early as that !
I’m really confident that with tuition from CW Academy and giving the commitment required to learn, i will go from 0 wpm to at least 10 wpm.
Full licence
Also learned that the FULL LICENCE is now available on-line ! Of course i wanted to book straight away, but the latest that could be booked so far was end of Feburary. Given my ‘Intermediate’ exam i thought i would really have to commit and revise well, so I didnt book yet. However, i have bought the RSGB Full Licence Manual, which looks slightly less scary than it would of a year ago (Just passed Foundation).
It begins ! I think with my workload & uni, its going to be 4-6 months of training
This great video gives a recent full licence experience, and i will be taking on the advice
full licence exam experience
With the absence of clubs, training again will be online and with youtube, I’m really grateful for the amount of work people put into their training videos. I will be using Cornish Amateur Radio Club – they really helped with my intermediate
I continue to enjoy the 40m dipole, getting contacts all over the world on FT8 and decoding Wefax images. Hopefully the sun is out this weekend so cutting the wood can begin for the Nebula swivel mount !
So it has been a gorgeous sunny day with little to no rain down here in IO90BS today, of course it being a work day means that I am kept very busy ! However I do get a lunch break and made the absolute most of it !
The decision
So after yesterday was, i dont mind saying, hard work to get the mast up, I really pondered what my next steps are. The days are short, the weather, mostly wet & cold, doesnt lend itself to antenna building like those lovely long sunny days of being able to put an antenna and still have sunlight after it.
I watched Callums DX Commander piviot video, many, many times in the evening – and i thought, this has to be the way for me. On my own, getting an antenna up and down, i have to have as much help as I can get where engineering can give me that assistance. This was about 11:30 a night, and most of my sensible friends are asleep at that time, or at least wouldnt want to be disturbed on a Sunday night about ‘is it a good idea to build a mast tilt DIY’ so couldnt get a second opinon.
https://youtu.be/v0xrqmoKC_s
Tilt Over Vertical Nebula base by Calum
The build !
I asked my good friend, who we shall call ‘John the Brush’, some thoughts on the video. He is very capable and building and generally ‘making things work’. He was very quick to identify the required parts, which is something I couldn’t do after browsing B&Q and Wickes last night.
“he made that from a bit of M10 st4udding and some 100 x100mm fence post” – now i don’t know what M10 studding is, but B&Q sell it and it looks like the pole that Callum put thru the wood.
I’ve now ordered the wood (From Wickes) and the M10 and nuts and bolts from B&Q, total cost – £42.04 (including delivery). I have plenty of tools, although i have to say i love that Makita drill that Calum uses in his video – what an awesome bit of kit that is – i’ve got a Bosch SDS drill which i think should be able to do the same job.
So, that gives me a short-to-mid term plan for the Nebula, but what about NOW ! I dont like being off the air, it was hard work to get my lience and its a nice enjoyable, relaxing hobby (well putting 18m masts up can be a strain…)
The NOW
So I was pondering, what is the quickest antenna i can get up in the small window of time i have for lunch. I thought about and started getting the bits for the classic – i’ve got all the wires and can get it up and running pretty quick, but things can, and do go wrong.. Whilst i was untanglilng all the radials, i spotted my 40 meter dipole, and remembering Tim (G5TM) had just done a recent video on dipoles.
Simple antenna, quick to put up, and respectful performance
Dipole it is ! I had everything ready and could get this up pretty quick.
40 meter Dipole
With one end attached to a washing line, another to fence post, it got my 40m antenna up in the air ! Now, time to see, how is the SWR..
A little high, but the ATU will manage it
So i only had so much time, usually i’d be looking for between 1.5-2 on the SWR, but 3.3 was good enough – i did have to reposition the right-arm of the dipole as it was just touching the mast, that did get the SWR down a further .3 points.
I went in and put it on the 7300, sure enough I could hit the ‘TUNE’ button and SWR was restored to 1:1 – this is on the 7300 internal tuner !
A quick test on FT8 yeilded positive results !
30 Watts into a inexpensive dipole gave good results, even a quick QSO !QSO with I1GPG via the 40m dipole
What a result, for less than an hours work, i was back on 40 meters. Then I eyeed the 705.. could i use that with 20m ‘whip’ on the mag mount ? hell, lets give it a try !
results on 20m for such a quick setup was impressive
This really was ‘plug and play’ antenna, the mag-mount is on my step ladder, which gives some support (it is guyed as well) to my dipole mast. The SWR results on the 705 were slightly higher than the Rig Expert, but still not bad for such a quick, and somewhat crazy, setup.
I was able to tune FT8 audiably, but have nothing to receive. Next project – Raspberry Pi 400 on the IC705 !
Conclusion
So I’m back on air, able to enjoy listening and transmitting on 40m and potenitally 20m as well , as well as a fix in plan to get the Nebula up. I’m really happy that i can quickly get back on line and also progress the Nebula.
Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to test 20m in the day, even WSPR would be amazing, at a push FT8 ? (FT8 requires working/engaging with the app, I’m working in the day).
Big thanks to “John the Brush” (who is a ham, but doesnt go on air!), Tim and of course Callum !
So as predicted, its been typical English weather here today, drizzly and cold. I bumped into a neighbour and we was discussing how “spring” like it was yetersday.. and the forecast doesnt look good for a while..
So what did i manage to do today – well long and the short is that after a couple of trys i *did* get the nebula vertical and guyed in, but the wind and rain was really taking the toll on me, so i had to pack up for the day.
measuring the guy-stake positions
I took the 120 degree pattern and 5m distance for the stakes so (hopefully) my measurements for the ropes would be long enough.
stakes inserted to a good deapth – one good thing about the wet weather !
One area where the wet weather did help was being able to get the stakes into the ground, as you can see from the first pic, these are not short at 18″, a good club hammer got hem into the ground nicely, so it was a positive start after measuring and getting them into the ground easily.
the struggle beings, but some progress !
I really struggled for about an hour with getting the mast up, its really heavy and i was getting no traction. With a classic i can get it up no problem, but its much, much lighter than a nebula. I was somewhat at a loss as to what i was doing wrong ! So i went back and RTFM’d, in it sugest using two ropes as a ‘2nd man’ on the base. I done this and that at least started to get the mast in the air ! huzzah – but now the guy ropes wouldnt reach 🙁 bummer. So i repositioned the mast and ‘2nd man’ and finally was able to get the mast vertical !
Nebula in the wind and rain, its up but its coming down pretty quick agian !
I was happy that i could get it vertical and on the guys, the wind was having a great time vibrating it like heck, and as you can see from the top of the mast was really wanting to send it over – guying the nebula at 3 stages is giong to be a minimum IMHO, anything less, you could end up waking up to a mast on the ground… or worse !
So to conclud whilst I’m ok with todays progress, it leaves me asking some questions. I follow the weather and when there is a warning, the mast always come down (see previous blog postings) – the Nebula is always going to be hardwork to get it up and down as easy as a ‘classic’. I can ask friends for help to get it up the first time fully rigged, but what when I need to get it up and down myself ?
I’m thinking to make the most of the bad weather, get a classic back up, but with M&P cable/connectors, and follow Callums example of a tilt base over the next few weekends, at least that is something I can do in the ‘garage’ in the dry and will mean getting the mast up and down is that much easier. I dont think any of the ‘commercial’ tilts will take a mast with a 3″ diameter, plus adding on more (i would estimate at least £100, if not £150) to the atenna the costs are going up.
I will sleep on it but i suspect the English weather and keeping to a budget on these things will decide for me.
It has been a lovely sunny down here in Bournemouth and have been able to take full advantage of the good weather by getting on with assembling and tidying the gardens.
First off i set about extending the Nebula as far as I could on my own. With much twist I managed to get it to 17m32cm, which is what the docs say is ok to use.
DX Commander Nebula – 17m32cm
I dont mind saying it took me a few times to get the antenna out fully, the first attempt with trying to get it to lock from the bottom-most sections didnt work out, so i put it all back down, then carefully took out the furthest (top) sections carefull and locked each section. There is a fair amount of flex, but I’m stil careful as the top looksl like it could snap if careless exertion took place.
Once extended, i set about putting electrical tape on each joint of the mast, to give additonal support and minimize any tension scratching from the jubilee clips.
Electrical tape was appliedto each joint (some had to be corrected, but mostly ok)
with the mast now ready for the plates, i headed back in and started work on those.
bolts, washers and wings
getting the alingment
impressive amount of radial connections
and finally the element plate
making up the radial and element plates
Building the radial and element plates was straight forward. The bolts, washers and wingnuts fitted perfectly with little or no resistance going into their thread – good manufaturing process there. The plates themselves look great and built to last. They are considerably bigger than the ‘classic’ plates, the amount of radial mounting points is great – and its those raidals which really helpin with the direction and ability to ‘push’ the transmission out.
dyno label printer
labels at the ready
applying labels to the correction positions
and the feeder plate
labelling
I’m going to follow Callum’s advice and start with 3 elements, namely, 80, 40 and 20 – as those are the bands i use the most. When i have all the SWR for each band as good as they should be i will add all the elements for more band coverage, but walk before I can run so to speak!
Alignment by using the documentation provided was easy enough and one less job to do outside. I dont like littering and despite my best attempts previousy the label-backs have flown off after sticking on, theres a fair bit of nature (birds,insects,etc) and I dont want to ruin their habitat with sticky label backings (what a hedgehog makes of an 18m mast has yet to b eseen.. I did have a robin visitor earlier this year tho !).
clamps and splicers on
i find these clips fiddly
measuring spreader height
classic and nebula
clamps, spreader and classic/nebula side by side
With the spreaders in place i was able to take the measurements of the heights to calculate the length of the guy wires. I’m going to use (as per doc) 1, 2 4 spreader points for guying, but will start with #1 first to ensure my measurements and cutting are accurate. All values are cm
Spreader
Height
Time Self
x=(h*h)+(d*d)
sqrt(x)
total rope
1
310
96100
346100
588.302
2
580
336400
586400
765.767
4
1134
1285956
1535956
1239.336
7780.221
Diameter
500
Guy rope length in sqrt(x)
I will double check these measurements again, so if your planning to do this between now and tomorrow morning – please do check your measurements as mine havent been applied yet!
I then set about tidying everything up and removing the existing end-fed wire. This took quite a bit of time and the end fed got caught in the tree – thankfully the tree wasnt damaged and a good ‘yank’ set it free ! Here is my video of the tour of the QTH after removing the end fed and the nebula work-in-progress.
Nebula Day one progres
And with that I then moved the nebula to the side garden where it will be erected. It was a real handful to move but i got it around the corner of the house from the front garden to the side eventually and have safely mounted it above ground height.
nebula 1
nebula 2
nebula 3
Tomorrows weather doesnt look as good as todays, so progress may be limited, however I’m pleased with what i have acheived so far, and as ever, am greateful for all the hard work Callum has put into creating what I’m sure will become a legendary antenna.
Stay safe and hope to publish more progress tomorrow !
To give its ‘full’ title, that being the DX Commander 18m eXtreme, has arrived ! Very well packaged and thankfully unharmed in transit.
The packages came on two separate days, but well tracked with the couriers used by Callum.
The packing was really well done to get so much into a relatively small box.
dx commander parts – alot of wire !
Was glad to check that everything (as long as the contents of the bags) seems all there (including guying rope)
Visually, the quality of the components makes me think these will last a very long time indeed. The plates and UHMWPE ‘spreader’ plates are incredbly well made, and Callum is a perfectionist, so can be sure that these will fit the 18m pole really well. I did have to look up what the ‘green things’ were, these are securing the radials – a very nice idea.
The ‘pole’ itself is quite something, it is quite a weight compared to the ‘classic’ pole, but given the amount of sections, unsurprising. As ever, it looks incredbly well manufactured and will provide many years of operation. Whilst this at my QTH is still a ‘temporary’ antenna, i;ve had no problems with a well-guy/rigged dx-commander staying up. The only time i have taken down is the met office weather alerts for very high winds, and thunder (i dont have a lightening arrestor).
18m pole
I have done several ‘surveys’ and thinking of the practicalities of building an 18m mast will bring. I’m glad i’ve got several large lawns which will accommodate the build ! I will take a video before taking down the current 80m end fed configuration which has served me really well for last few months. The UK Antennas multiband has been exceptional, and I’ve had many QSO’s – i dare say my antenna is setup far from optimal, so its all credit to the UK Antennas build that i get out with very low (i.e. mostly 1:1 – 1:3 SWR) SWR readings.
good quality cable land connectors
I have up until now being using, whilst not bad, not exactly the best/recommended. So I will be using M&P connectors as well as Ultra Flex 10 coax measured to good lengths (as in not too long, not too short).
For now i am reading the instructions carefull, learning some new knots to help with the guying and will make that video before the weekend, when the end fed will come down and construction hopefully start !
So having not only being able to listen to G5TM on air today, he published yet another fantastic mobile operating video.
G5TM – Another excellent Mobile session on 15M
I was mulling over what to do today, I always have enough to do, but Tim’s video made the decision for me that I will at least try out my 20M antenna which I had purchased from Thunderpole.
As ever, there was a light drizzle, but i was determined to at least try out the IC-705. My Mazda Bongo already had a fitting for an antenna on it, which hasnt seen much action at all in ove ra year I suspect, but thought I would give it a try.
Mazda Bongo in the New Forest today (no antenna, but a cracking picture with the rainbow!)
I headed out with the the Rig Ex[ert AA-55 and started to read results off the antenna. First reading was ok
First reading off the 20m vertical on the bongo, not bad, but should be better
I took the anntena down and readjusted the bolts, simple enough, especially compared to putting a great big mast/vertical up and cutting/adding lengths each time.
Second attempt – far more reasonable results
The second adjustments brought very good results with almost less than 1:2 SWR across the band, with a very nice low in the morse area (more motivation to learn morse now !) with the SWR at 1.5 to 2.1 on the telephony side of the band I think this is acceptable, ideally i’d like to get it down further across the whole band but for 30 minutes fiddling, this was good enough to start with.
a bump in CW, but <1:2 on the upper half ot the 20m band
I continued my fettling and got the SWR down to 1.03 and less than 1:2 on the SSB telephony range. For a £19.99 antenna, i think this is a satisifactory result. I then went about attaching the IC-705 !
IC-705 in the bongo attached to a 20m whip
So i was very happy with the reception across the 20m band with the whip antenna, apologies for the quality of the video with putting my phone down,etc – i’m not even an ‘amateur’ when it comes to making videos like this, but I will get better 🙂
I tried a test transmit but the SWR was way off the readings the rig-expert had given me, which was slightly disappointing, but if everything went perfectly the first time of trying, it would make it the interesting hobby that it is.
As i said, the mount has been on the bongo for quite some time, and the metal around it has got quite corroded.
Removing the antenna mount from the Bongo revealed more rust
So i have brought in the antenna mount and intend to rub-back the rust and treat it before returning the mount to see if the SWR improves.
Rust on the interior of the clamp
I still am very happy that the intial experience was generally positive and am very much looking forward to operating mobile.
I’ve ordered an ATU kit from america, but that will take some time to come (Jan 2021), but am looking forward to building and trying it out!
Fantastic news is that my shipping label notification for the DX Commander Nebula arrived in my inbox. I am really looking forward to this antenna – hopefully it will be with me for this weekend.
I have measured a 5 meter guying radius ready for the whopping 18 meter tall antenna.
https://youtu.be/RZHtHMOAPCQ
18 meter tall !
I reckon the build will take some time, everything is quite scaled up. So now I’m waiting for that big package to come.
Exciting – yes – alot of work to do, VERY MUCH SO !
Having got the 705 which is DSTAR capable spent the afternoon/evening with getting this setup. I already had the components, it was a question of getting it all together !
Register your callsign with DSTAR!
To be able to use the reflectors on the DSTAR network, you need to register your ID. This took only a few hours, so if your waiting on your MMDVM, do this now and you’ll hit the ground running when both your registration and MMDVM arrive!
Register here, you will need your email, callsign and dont forget your password !
Once your registration is acknowledge you can then setup your gateways. You should add the ‘Z’ prefix, as this ensures the account will stay open (any left without modification for 2 weeks will be expired).
Add B and C for UHF and VHF frequencies to your callsign (which will be automatically populated)
Dstar personal information page completed
This will take time to propagate across the DSTAR network. For DSTAR Administration this is all I had to do to allow my hotspot to attach to the DSTAR network.
PI-STAR
The MMDVM being used is a popular one available from Amazon. This comes as a kit to assemble and includes all the necessary parts to get up and running – although I would recommend getting a dedicated power supply rather than depending on just USB ampage
MMDVM Hotpsot used from Amazon
70cm Antenna using Buddipole
I do have an external 2m/70cm antenna attached to a mast but was unable to get that to work (although later checks via SDR proved it was ok, will detract from the thread). I setup first in 2M configuration then ‘played’ with various lengths to get the VSWR down to 1.1. I used the IC705 internal SWR analyzer.
2M JPole from buddipole – adapted to 70cm
Lengths used and respective colours –
frequency
black
red
2m
14.62″
43.75
70cm
67″
32″
Buddipole antenna lengths
VSWR Sweep on 70cmSWR on 70cm
Configure the IC-705 via Software
I used the IC-705 configuration software on Windows to be able to recreate the configuration steps. I’d advise you to first download your current configuration and save it to ensure you can recover to your pre DSTAR config.
The software is available to download from here – its a simple Windows Instal. The USB cable interface on the IC-705 is located just under the power cable.
This is the full video on how to configure, but snippets of the essentials are shown below.
Configure Icom radio for DSTAR
Once loaded, the essential configuration is the Digital/My Callsign. Although its called ‘your call sign’ it contains anything but (for this configuration). Add in the following table
No
Name
Call Sign
1
Use Repeater
CQCQCQ
2
Unlink Repeater
U
3
Repeater Status
I
4
Echo Test
E
Essential ‘your call sign’ entry. 7 Spaces for 2/3/4 then the character.
All, apart from CQ, DSTAR commands are 8 Characters long, so where you see the white-space these are created by 7 spaces, then the character, i.e. for Echo Test <SPACE><SPACE><SPACE><SPACE><SPACE><SPACE><SPACE>E
these are the messages you will send to the hotspot
You will then need to configure the radio for the new pistar hotspot
I created a new group called ‘hotspot’
Add Hotspot Group to the Repeater List
I then added the configuration for the hotspot to match the DSTAR configuration and the frequency of the radio (obtained from Amazon page – in this case, 433.550.000)
Configure the hotspot
You don’t need all the entries, the signifiant ones are as follows
Number
Type
Name
Subname
Repeater Call Sign
Gateway Call Sign
Operating Freq
DUPt
Mode
1
DV
Hostpot
Hotspot
2E0FWE B
2E0FWE G
433.550.000
DUP-
DV
Settings for my call sign and MMDVM
I then pushed the configuration to the radio and rebooted. This completes the IC-705 Configuration.
Pistar Configuration
The next step is to configure the Pistar for DSTAR. If you havent configured your PI for Wifi yet, you’ll need to do that first. Probably the easiest way is to use the PiStar configuration tool, but that means sending your Wifi username and password, which some may not like, alternatly I connected a keyboard and screen with configuration on the commande line.
Once reachable on wifi, you will be able to reach the pi-star administration pages. Most routers running DHCP will allocate a record in the .local’ domain, so simply htttp://pistar.local/ will get you to the portal, default logins are username pistar and password raspberry. I suggest changing this on the admin page right away.
Navigate to ‘Admin’the password is the very bottom of the page
Restart the pistar and login with the new password.
First configure to use DSTAR. from the panel. For now, keep it at DSTAR only.
Settings #1
If you make any changes, you must click on Apply Changes for *each section* else your changes will be lost.
Settings 2
The essential part here is to get the radio frequency and call sign correctly, i.e. 433.550.000 for frequency and your own call sign in place of 2E0FWE. I’ve removed my exact Long/Lat, but you can put your own in. Once complete, click apply changes. I believe in the UK we are required to put ‘Mode Type’ to Private as we cannot ‘broadcast’ as amateur radio users in the UK (which I think ‘public’ effectively does)
Settings 3
Here we match our hotspot config with the DSTAR network. As the node is on 433Mhz, Channel ‘B’ is the one to use, if it was 144Mhz, then C. Hit apply and that wil complete your configuration !
IC-705 Usage
With the DSTAR Registration, PiStar and IC-705 Configuration complete, its now time to enjoy using the IC-705 on DSTAR via your own hotspot !
DV Mode
PRess the CALL button situated on the left side of the radio and change from FM to DV. To use the hotspot tap ‘from’ on the screen, select ‘repeater list’, ‘hotspot’ then the hotpot added via the configuraiton tool, in my case 2E0FWEB.
To start using right away, tap ‘to’, select ‘your call sign’ and ‘use repeater’. You should now be able to key-up and call CQ on DSTAR ! Of course you can test using Local Echo and Status commands (just adjust the last step in ‘yor call sign’.
You will be able to confirm your radio is communicating with your hotspot and the DSTAR Network.
Local RF Activity shows our radio is speaking to the hotspot, gateway activity shows others in the talkgroup talking
The DSTAR ‘last heard‘ feature can then confirm you are on the DSTAR network.
Finding talk groups / repeaters,etc.
With your IC-705 now on DSTAR you can choose which Talk Groups and Nets to join. There is an extensive list available on here. You can configure the group via the Pistar admin page and putting or selecting the reflector.
choose your reflector!
I hope this helps people use the IC-705 on DStar, it took me a little while to piece together all the pieces (including the antenna !) to get it working, but is worth the effort. There seems to be an increase in simplex D-Star usage on HF with the IC-705 being able to do the full range of HF, VHF and UHF.
So it has been a *very* busy week with work-work, uni-work and a ‘test’ at uni (which i done surprisingly well at!). I completed the cable management install last weekend (where did the week go again ?!), and got ‘this lives here’ sorted, but until Friday night havent been able to install the radio at all ! Am glad to say the IC-7300 reinstall was very easy , the one USB cable for the audio is amazing on this transceiver and I was soon back on FT8 & WSPR testing out everything was working again.
I’ve still got finessing to do on the cable management, but thats more about when everything is setup, know where the cables and lengths are – so far I’ve not got any less or any more QRM, and the amount of deskspace reclaimed is massive. Its just nice to have it much tidyer than it was !
IC-705 aimed at mobile operating, also includes VHF/UHF !
One of my favourite you-tube HAM radio operators is Tim G5TM, he always offers good advice and interesting operating. My favourite videos of his are the mobile operating.
G5TM mobile DX
Whilst is transceiver can pack a might punch (100W – mobile !) the Foundation experience of using 10W has taught me to be patient and make use of the equipment and frequencies available. For telephony on 10W I used the local repeaters and digital modes, namely GB3PB (really sad to read this repeater had gone (temp) due to Covid).
I am mostly think at home i will use the 705 on 2m and 70cm, and see if I can re-configure my pistar for DSTAR. I have a fantastic camper van, being the mazda bongo, and following G5TM’s lead will aim to go mobile with the IC705.
I’ve done a basic ‘out the box’ comparison video of the IC-705 being driven by the same end-fed antenna i use on 7300. Not disappointed by the ‘default’ audio quality here.
IC7300 and IC705 switched between multiband end-fed
I’m really happy with the IC705 and cant wait to go mobile with it. I’m wondering what antenna to use, i do have the buddipole, so that will be worth testing, but maybe a verticle fixed to the bongo where I can change the antenna ? Anyhow have loads of settings to tinker on the 705 and continue to tidy the shack and get the cable management tidier still.
