QST: Blog Of K3RRR

Ham Radio On The Cheap: 2014 Edition

Looking at what I consider to be a barebones ham shack setup, that strikes a balance between cost, utility, and minimizing frustrations of getting on the HF …
Video Rating: 3 / 5

August 9, 2014/1 Comment/by

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Mike Parks says:
August 9, 2014 at 2:04 PM

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General Info – K3RRR

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-.- …– .-. .-. .-.
K3RRR.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Visit My Web Site
@K3TripleR ~~~~~~~~~~~ Follow Me On Twitter
YouTube.com/K3RRR ~~~~ Check Out My Videos
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Name, QTH, Grid:

My name is Robert and I currently live in Killeen Texas about 40 miles north of Austin in EM11db.

Grid Map shows my location and the other 26 hams in my sub grid. Click for bigger photo.

Rigs / Antennas / Etc.:

Here’s a list of my very modest station at Kilo Three Triple R with links to pages with more information about many of the items (coming soon!):

Home Station: Icom 9700 for Satellites and D-Star and VHF/UHF. Icom 7300 for all things HF including mostly FT8! Icom 705 for HF, DSTAR, portable and mobile operations.
Antennas on HF: 135′ EFHW antenna – 80m through 10m at 40′. 65′ EFHW antenna – 40m through 10m at 35′. 6m dipole at 17’made from leftover BuddiPole parts
VHF / UHF / Beyond: Diamond D-130 Discone antenna with 25-1300 MHz coverage at 20′.
Satellite Antenna Array: AMSAT LEO Pack 16 element 436 MHz 436CP16 and 8 element 144 MHz 2MCP8A with AZ / EL Yaesu G-5500 computerized rotator with Fox Delta ST-2 controller.
Antenna for Portable Satellite: Handheld Elk 2M/440L5 Dual-band Log Periodic antenna (used with ICOM 705, Kenwood TH-D74a or BaoFeng UV-5R.)
Mobile Station: For HF, my Icom 705 has shared custody between my Subaru Forster SUV and my home shack. This gives me all mode / all bands 160m – 70cm mobile rig as needed that includes D-STAR, touch screen and waterfall. HF antenna is a 40-10m Wolf River Coils Silver Bullet Mini with a Diamond dual-band antenna for VHF/UHF. I also use my Kenwood TH-D74a which does surprising well as a mobile radio using the same Diamond dual band antenna – with the added benefit of also having DSTAR and APRS. Likewise, I use my Anytone 878 UV Plus DMR radio. The mobile setup also includes a dedicated mobile openSPOT3 hotspot for DMR that allows transcoded operations for any of the three radios – I am usually on the AMSAT, WW 91 or Nationwide talkgroups on DMR and for D-STAR where I usually hang out on 30C or 1C.
HT: Kenwood TH-D74a added to the shack for 144, 220 and 440 amateur bands D-Star, broadband receive, etc. / Anytone 878 UV Plus radio and a BaoFeng UV-5R (3 of them with 2 in the Faraday Cage.) 136-174/400-480 MHz Dual-Band – BaoFeng is mostly for monitoring and throwaway high-risk operations.
Other: Dual LDG Z-11 Pro II Autotuner for both home QTH EFHWs – And Elecraft T-1 for portable operations with my ICOM 705. I am also the happy owner of the amazing Joplin Amateur Radio Club Antenna Launcher.
SDRs: SDRplay RSP2 and Three NooElec RTL2832U USB Sticks – used with the wideband Diamond discone antenna.
Computers: Main Computer: Homebrew Eight Core, 16 Thread i9-11900 @ 5.3GHz / 64 GB RAM — Ham Radio Computer: Six Core, 12 Thread i7-8700 @ 3.7GHz / 48 GB RAM— Triple monitors: Main 65″ LG 4K HDTV with dual 43″ 4K Sceptre HDTV – Apple iPad Pro.
Software: Windows 10 x64 / PstRotator for Sat Tracking, Rotator control and rig control / Ham Radio Deluxe / Digital Master 780 / HRD Logbook / WSJT-X for FT8 with JTAlert / UZ7HO Soundmodem Software Packet-Radio TNC, etc. / UISS for ISS and APRS contacts / etc. etc. etc.

Interests:

Everything! Including my Wonderful Wife Jan (absolutely my #1 favorite way to spend my time), digital photography, mountain hiking, sailing, biking, scuba diving, computers, writing, helping startup companies start and stay started and, of course, for fifty-nine years, ham radio!

Previous Calls:

WN4LEJ – Novice
WA4YFH – General
WB5KFI – Advanced
KD5SB – Advanced
AA5FR – Extra

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New From K3RRR!

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Seen Any Bad Links, Missing Photos, Typos, Etc.?

I'm in the process of migrating my old AA5FR.com site to this new site to reflect my new K3RRR.com call sign. As I go through the process, I am also developing several new pages that describe my current antennas and other things of interest such as EMP threats.

If you see any problems with bad links, bad grammar, missing photos, typos, any stupid errors, etc., I would greatly appreciate your reporting those to me so I can fix them ASAP.

Also, any other thoughts, ideas, etc. are also always appreciated!

Just click on my eyeballs below!

73 de Robert

Ham Radio On The Cheap: 2014 Edition

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