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.
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 !
73
Alan, 2E0FWE
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 !
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 !
https://regist.dstargateway.org/instructions/
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)
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.
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
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.
Lengths used and respective colours –
| frequency | black | red |
| 2m | 14.62″ | 43.75 |
| 70cm | 67″ | 32″ |
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.
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 |
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
You will then need to configure the radio for the new pistar hotspot
I created a new group called ‘hotspot’
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)
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 |
I then pushed the configuration to the radio and rebooted. This completes the IC-705 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.
https://www.pistar.uk/wifi_builder.php
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.
Restart the pistar and login with the new password.
First configure to use DSTAR. from the panel. For now, keep it at DSTAR only.
If you make any changes, you must click on Apply Changes for *each section* else your changes will be lost.
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)
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 !
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 !
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.
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.
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.
Hope to hear you in DSTAR !
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 !
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.
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.
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.
Stay safe and keep well
73
Alan
2E0FWE/M7ALU
It has been a mixed bag with the weather here, so not as much as chance to do the outdoor work I had wanted to do. Mostly its prep for when the Nebula arrives as in measuring out a 5m circumference for the guying points, no chance of that with the wind and rain !
As is I decided to tidy my shack up. As I’m doing far more software development than before and less time with the synths I’ve moved the music equipment to the ‘spare’ room. Everything has fitted quite nicely back in there, making it into a nice dedicated space for the synths. I will take pics when my lad is back and we have it all working agian !
My main motivation in tidying the shack was to get several of my rigs out and make the exterieor and interior cabling as tidy as possible. I really dislike untidy cables, especially in ‘racks’, so i really wanted to get my shack tidy !
Having moved mac #2 out, i have now moved my ‘build’ station to that desk, freeing up the space near the windows where rigs have tended to go (and will likely stay there). Also i have a nice desk for prototyping and working with my new Raspberry Pi 400. I’ve put in a smaller mixer which i will use for the radio audio and maybe the mac audio (good the occasional movie!)
As you can its a heck of a mess at the moment, but this is after moving computer desks around. There is so much cabling with all these things, its quite amazing how it builds up !
The radio worked fine, but I’ve not reconnected the computer yet.
The fish eye lens gives a good view of the room and the new free space, yes that is an exercise bike ! I actually use it durign the week when working, i have 15 minutes away from the keyboard very hour or so to help me concentrate and also get some safe exercise ! but as you can see its quite a mess in here, but still better than it has been.
I love the new RPI 400. At £100 for a Pi, it wasnt cheap, but i love the functionality. Obviously i have a full-scale mac that I use for all my work, but I think the PI will see alot of Pi R&D with actual device I/O programming. The keyboard is excellent and the mouse very ergonomic. I was able to use Youtube, webbrowsing with no problem, its a very capable unit. I wont be in any rush to remove the OS from it, next steps will be to setup the physical ‘build’ board to do some hardware prototyping with.
Here is the smaller mixer I am using for now. Its not as complex and nor does it have USB input for a mac, but i like the size and simplicty of it. As long as I can descern the radio output from headphones and the speakers, it will do for me.
My next job (and why i’ve not gone crazy/OCD On tidying the upper desks) is to install these under desk cable trays. I think they will help alot as i can put the PSU strips in there and also velcro the cables together. I am not 100% on how to tidy the RX/TX cables – its so overlooked that the sheaths are also conductors, so its important to get things like RF bonding and earthing right to remove any in-shack RFI. I’ve asked a fellow Youtube Ham for help, so wont post on here yet, but hopefully stage 2 will have a link to that video 🙂
In the mean time I am looking forward to the Nebula arriving in the coming weeks and getting a couple more transceivers out of storage. I’m keen to get back onto VHF/UHF and maybe even 6M, will see how the tidying goes and how much space i have.
Until then 73 & Stay Safe !
Alan / 2E0FWE
Whilst enjoying my studies of Machine Learning I had the radio on in the background. I was very interested to see some ‘patterns’ on the 40m band
Not right at this time, but earlier in the day my fellow ‘neighbour’ ham G7VRD told me these are OTH. What is that ? Well this is Over the Horizon Radar, where radio signals are based off the ionosphere and then measured. They have been around a while, as in the 1950s, but technology has ‘evolved’ and ‘new’ arrays are being built ! These patterns were throughout the 40m band most of the evening ! Whilst annoying if you wanted to use the band for its intended use, nevertheless provided some interesting reading on what OTH was and how it worked.
Whilst I was busy with Juypter Notebooks, and as I now have the antennas plugged in thought it interesting to monitor JS8. Its nearby digital mode of FT8 gets plenty of traffic, JS8 is very sparse, which seems a shame as it looks a good way to ‘chat’ via FT8 digital mode.
I sent out HB and ACK’s and it was clear there are people listening, but not many sending CQ, nethertheless it was an interesting evening and this somewhat ‘dubious’ amateur transmission was observed, whilst interesting am wondering the legitimiacy of it.
I enjoyed seeing JS8 Call in operation though and didnt interrupt my studies, so i could do a bit of both.
So i enjoyed my FT8 and Data Science, having worked thru the night and with work-work the next day headed for bed eventually at 4AM.. 🙂
Stay safe and keep well !
Al / 2E0FWE
Been off the radio for the last week or so for exam revision (passed, if your interested its for IAC Terraform). Am waiting for the Nebula to arrive, so not been able to post about making cables, etc. I dont really want to use the new cable for the existing antennas, will see what is left after the nebula arrives.
I’ve only just today re-plugged my antennas back in the very late evening around midnight. Am thoroughly enjoying listening to a ‘net’ on 3.767, its coming thru crystal clear, its really nice to hear all ends of the conversation. Not caught any call signs yet, but I’m only half paying attention, but the banters good.
I’ve ordered a rotator from Farnell for the MFJ1886, being a VH226E. I didnt want anythign very expensive for a heavier Yagi or any other setup, i’ve got enough, probalby too many, antennas up, and just want to rotate my MFJ1886.
I’ve not really done a review on it yet, just not had the time… Uni work and work-work are just keeping me so busy, and absence of antennas..
Anyhow, good news on the C19 front today, lets hope that we can all stay safe and keep well.
73, Alan / 2E0FWE
So will make this a quick one. I follow Tim (G5TM) on Youtube and he published this video on coax.
Long and the short of it is basically is treat your antenna as a ‘unit’, i.e. the antenna itself (wire/beam/loop), the connectors and the coax, and in your budget the antenna system is as crucial as the transceiver.
I also asked my long-term mentor and friend PA2TG his advice – guess what the recommendations of both G5TM and PA2`TG recommending the same coax to me for my needs (HF)!
With that I have ordered and now received some UltraFlex 10 and connectors from W&S, plus the scissors to help me make a good job of it. There is this excellent video on how to put the connectors on the coax.
Having received an email from M0MCX that the “Nebula” will be here any time soon I am naturally very excited to see how it all operates !
Having seen the video on splitting the audio source from the main antenna and using a secondary ‘receive only’ antenna for the MFJ-1028 I thought this was an excelllent idea to deal with the QRM I have.
This video gives an excellent example of how to install the RX7300 and all the necessary connections. However, I use an MFJ-993B on 160m although my end-fed antenna is only designed to goto 80m. The internal ATU is good upto SWR of 3.0 approx, so an external ATU becomes essential.
My first ‘issue’ was getting the case off. I read comments that others had suffered this as well, beit from overight screws, or using the wrong screwdriver. I found a screwdriver that worked perfectly, but one screw (speaker screw, top left from the rfront) wouldn’t budge. In the end i relcutantly used a dremel and a small drill bit to remove the screw.
I do not understand why manufactures put screws in so tight. I wasnt happy about using a dremel on such a new piece of equipment.
I looked at the ATU cable and where it could fit. I wasn’t going to cut the case, thats for sure, and whilst i dont use the other sockets at the moment, i may do in the future. It felt like i was gaining one feature, i.e. to tap the RX circuit but had to lose another. The Instructions for the tap kit specify that the ATU cable be tucked away and kept away from the fan. However, this gave me an idea to look at could I route the cable around the fan enclouser and not-tighten the screws quite so much ?
I carefully fed the ATU wiring around the fan enclousre, not thru it, but between the fan case and the chasiss of the transceiver. I put on electrical tape onto the wire and the chassis to provide a degree of protection to the cable.
I was able to get te ATU cable and the RX Tap out of the casing nicely. The next step was to do some basic testing of the transcevier, firstly without the ATU to ensure receive was working correctly, then to test some low-wattage (WSPR) and then higher (FT8) transmissions.
I was able to receive WSPR no problem and also transmit and see my transmissions were being received via WSPR.net map. This was on 1W of power. I then proceeded to FT8 on 40m, as this is a popular frequency any time of day with generally good propergation. With 20W I was quickly able to make contacts and confirm my RX tap was working correctly and my TX was working correctly.
I attached the external ATU via the power and re-routed the antenna feeds to go via the ATU. I kept the RX tap still in a close loop to ensure my previous setup was working correctly.
I was pleased to see that I was reaching Europe on 80m and low SWR, so the transceiver was working well.
I will monitor the fan on the IC-7300 to ensure the the wire between the PCB and the ATU are not being ‘clipped’ or any other damage. Next step is to fit my receive only antenna and test the phasing/nulling of the MFJ-1026.
Until next time, 73.
2E0FWE
I can report that all the rigging and daily inspections insured that the end-fed antenna stayed up well despite storm alex lashing down wind and rain of epic proportion !
Whilst I have been enjoy several QSO’s on other digital modes (SSTV, BSPK) other than FT8, id thought I do an update on the next steps for the End-Fed antenna.
Whilst my signals are not bad, there is a noise floor present. Whilst I have largely removed alot of sources of QRM from ‘the shack’ (see earlier posts on QRM) my end-fed antenna seems particuarly good at picking up ‘noise’. Maybe its good to state what I think noise is as well.
When I tune the radio, I should be able to, ideally, hear all stations on that frequency (and mode). What noise brings is either man-made or remote interference to a weak signal. For noise that is ‘local’ the weak signals hide in a ‘noise’ band, this can be upto S9 for thinks like washing machines/VDSL/construction equipment.
With the ‘local’ noise its possible to use the an external antenna (lets call that a receive antenna) and transmit on the existing antenna, then between the two ‘phase’ the noise until it is no longer present.
I am going to use the MFJ-1028 noise canceller as I was using this already with my Kenwood and DX-Commander multi-band vertical, but as both a send and receive antenna making using of the ‘T/R Delay’ – The Icom 7300 doesnt come with its own ‘receive only’ port unlike its ‘bigger brothers’ in the Icom range, but is easily adapater to have one via the a plug-in kit from Inrad.
The installation looks simple enough as shown in the video below. I face the challenge that I am also using an external ATU (MFJ-993B) so getting both ports in will mean doing the install slightly differenty.
I have a number of antennas i could use as a receive only, but a recommended ‘noise gather’ is the ‘mini-whip’. I picked mine up off ebay and it arrived in a bout a week.
I have yet to install the miniwhip, but have all the necessary parts, including a rather impressive 4th ground pole ! I will be following the guidance from the following video
I will first try using the mini-whipa and end-fed combo and feedback on results !
Hopefully there will be less bad weather in the coming week allowing more ‘build’ work outside, for now i’m glad my masts have stayed up and we are all staying safe at home !
Until next post – 73 !
As i have been doing more ‘re-arranging’ in the QTH, I thought I would revisit the snippet from the previous weeks posting on NOAA & METEOR decoding. I have evolved from ‘home brew’ antenna and tools on OS-X to fully automated and a specialist NOAA/METEOR antenna.
Hopefully by the end of the post, you will get a feel and and idea of where you would like to start or explore further !
My first interest in weather and amateur radio came from receving Wefax images. I still do this as it complements and also gives me some idea of interference/reception issues as i can usually clearly see any issues in the fax.
My favourtie charts are the UK ones available from on 4608 Khz trasmitted by Northwood.
<insert pic>
I find the detail and various types of graph really satisfying to read and decode via HF.
Following on, i found on youtube about a simple antenna and using SDR receiver to decode ‘NOAA’ satellites
The audience here is very clearly windows users, and whilst I have a Windows 10 machine for HF Digital modes, i wanted to keep the SDR seperate from that system.
I built the antenna from bits I had around, although it did take up quite a bit of decent low-loss coax to get it up a reasonable height.
Get the antenna orientated well North-South effected the signals the most. Whilst heigh was important, gettign the polarization brought about the best results.
My first reception pics, whilst not amazing, really pleased me as the technology was at least working correctly. On a mac the missing component was being able to decode the ‘wavs’ to images, for this i used https://github.com/artlav/meteor_decoder which was easy enough to build via homebrew.
I monitored https://github.com/csete/gpredict where i could manually and getting the direct overpasses with the V antenna produced very good results.
I continued to do this for some weeks and built up my collection of NOAA pictures. I had still yet to sucssfully decode METEOR-2 as that was a digital signal and passing times were not in favour of a day-time working schedule.
We are still currently in a Covid-19 situation as time of writing and since Feburary 2020 here in the UK, so whilst many designs of NOAA antennas exist, I very much avoid supermarkets/large DIY outlets,etc unless absolutely essential, and usually for ‘click and collect; (Order online, pick u pin store, no wandering around).
With that in mind i reached out to Dr Google to find pre-made NOAA antennas. This thread on reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/RTLSDR/comments/8biful/is_there_any_place_to_buy_a_decent_137_mhz_noaa/ gave me the link to the National RF antena http://www.nationalrf.com/satellite-tenna.htm. These are built to order, so there is a wait time, but it is well worth it. I was kept fully informed of progress and still had my V antenna to keep me going. Packaging from the US was fantastic, very well protected and assembly was very easy. I did have to get some PVC pipe to use a ‘mount’ to the mast and a BNC to SO39 adaptor, but these are very easy to come by and have no real loss to the to the receive-only antenna.
I used my VHF mast, replacing my 2m/70cm antenna with the NOAA antenna. Whilst the mast can go up 30ft, it requires careful observation and maintenance to keep that high. Instead, i opoted for just over roof height of 2m and a clear line of sight to the horizion.
The antenna greatly improved the reception of signals as later pictures show, albeit I am still using the mac and GQRX and a simple SDR at this time.
I continued with the Mac, SDR, GQRX, Gpredict and meteor decode for quite some time, but as i got busier with work i had no time even to manually decode, as much as I enjoyed it !
The next step was to further improve reception and automate. This was accomplished by purchasing filters and amplifiers specifically for the NOAA RCPT frequencys in VHF and then re-cycling a Raspberry PI3.
The original video gives the necessary filters, but for a shortlist here they are
NooElec SAWbird+ NOAA
Flamingo+ FM – Broadcast FM Bandstop Filter v2
NooElec NESDR SMArTee XTR SDR
As I wanted to automate this and provide a simple way to just look at the received images i used https://github.com/reynico/raspberry-noaa repo, which was by far the easiest package to setup and use on my Raspberry pi.
If your not familar with linux/unix this could be a bit of a blocker, as you do need to manually edit some configuration files, so being familary with standard OS commands and a text editor like ‘vi’ i would say are the ‘essentials’ to being able to use this. I dont mind saying i had to refresh my memory on how ‘at’ the scheduling tool worked having always be a ‘cron’ person.
In practice once setup, there is very little to do, but what i have done is to alias ‘atq’ to make the list of tasks in date order.
alias atq=’atq | sort -k 6n -k 3M -k 4n -k 5 -k 7 -k 1′
This makes reading the scans far easier and i can still use gpredict on my mac to see which ones are the most interest to me. The software will automate, and try, every scan, but if rtl_sdre is already running, will not be able to run. In that case its always useful to ‘prune’ out the less interesting or scans which will suffer the greatest interference. I always priortize Meteor passes over NOAA passes as Meteor decodes seem to be. a maximum of 2 per day. This is easily managed by the combination of ‘at -c <job>’ to ensure no duplicate tasks are running.
I have been running on a PI now for just over 2 weeks, and as part of the QTH tidy up am moving the Pi from a ‘desk’ to a shelf where it will be safe and less prone to me knocking the amplifier and notch filter out.
I am amazed by all the scans i can receive and thoroughly enjoy understanding how it works, and being a recipient to the amazing images that both the NOAA and Meteor satellite send for free !
Overall i can say that investigating the weather satellites has really complemented by amateur radio activities. I’ve learned how important good antenna design is by the progression from a simple V dipole to a professionally built helical antenna, and the use of amplifiers, band filters and the right SDR unit to use for the hardware available.
I have since purchased 2*Pi4 as I would like to use a Raspberry PI more with the other SDR’s i have (Airspy, HackRF) to learn to program and enjoy the decoding more. Building good antennas will only help what i need for future amateur broadcasts as well.
Overall, i can really strongly recommend decoding weather satellites, if anything you get amazing images of your QTH and combined with WeFAX you can make your own weather predictions !