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General advice for a 2nd floor shack set up (1 reply and 1 comment)
Hi,
I'm living on the 3rd floor of a apartment...
For VHF/UHF i use a Diamond V-2000: 50, 144, 432 Mhz and works also on 70 Mhz with the help of the internal tuner of the Icom IC-7300.
With this antenna I worked USA, Caribbean area, Canary islands... during sporadic E-season coming up (between May & September) on 50Mhz and Europe and Canary Islands on 70Mhz, all in FT8.
I have also a 5 element LPDA (log-periodic antenna) from WIMO in Germany, on a camera-tripod on the balcony working on 144 & 432 Mhz and can be used vertical & horizontal. Can work 300-400 km in SSB and 600-800km in FT8... even worked sats with it...
On HF I use hamsticks, mobile monoband antennas, from Moonraker, with quite good results, do mostly digital: RTTY, FT8 FT4, WSPR... and can work the world...
I'm not the loudest signal on the band, but with patience and persistence much is possible...
I would not bother much about earth, I don't have one, although MFJ sells a 'artificial Ground Tuner' which could help...
Good luck, hope you will enjoy the hobby as much as I do!
73!
Jef
ON8NT
JO11RC
Belgium
Very helpful, cheers!
I'll have a look at the V-2000, the extra bands may make sense - I only really get one chance to put a roof vertical up as I'll need to get someone in to do it and have everything thought out and ready.
My ladder is not long enough on the side of the house to reach the chimney stack and the roof is pretty steep and long - the Starlink Dishy installer did mention it was a long roof and his roof ladder wasn't long enough) - no way I'm going up ;) . Not sure if Belgium is like the UK or US in terms of defining "floors"? My "2nd floor" in the UK would be the 3rd floor the US way.
I will probably try FT8 as that appeals to me - lots to decide once I've got the Full exam out of the way this week! 73.
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Hi, I'm in the process of gathering ideas for a setup for when I've passed the final exam and treat myself to a base/non-portable system - I've got a Yaesu FT5D HT that I've been listening on for a few weeks. I was thinking of a separate 2m/70cm mobile radio and roof vertical antenna (something like a Diamond X300N maybe?), and then an HF system which I'm totally undecided on, and then figure out that appropriate antenna system.
I'm revising for the Full now and the whole idea of a PME system and what to do with the RF earth on a 2nd floor (effectively a converted attic room) has me a bit confused and though it seems "done to death" online, I've not yet seen a discussion with a definitive UK answer one way or another. The RSGB document is sufficiently vague to not say "what to do".
So the question I suppose is - How would you "best" set up a shack that is ~10m up on the 2nd floor, and what would you do about RF ground? And secondly, how would you set up a shack with the minimum work that is safe but may not be "optimum"?
I've got one room in the house available for this, and no ability to locate to the ground floor but within reason and budget I can do what I like.