This discussion makes me want to get back into radio as well. I have a general class license. I got it over twenty years ago but still remember a lot, including CW which I loved. Back then I had a Kenwood 440 hooked up to a dipole, but I lived in a big house with tons of trees, so could just string it up. Now I live in a condo and know they would never allow me to put anything up. Do I still have any options? I would feel nervous about all that RF flying around, and wouldn't want to interfere with other residents, but I had a lot of fun on HF. Any idea?
I also have a triband Kenwood, tf215 or something like that, but I think I need a new battery pack for it. Have they made a truly accessible radio yet for the blind i.e. with real speech reading everything instead of just tones to sort of guide you? Come on manufacturers get out of the nineties!
Thanks and 73!
KA3TTT
PS I could probably go for my extra now that I've had trigonometry.hmm... one thing at a time.


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Re: Condo Living
By: Ascii Express to All on Sat Jan 18 2014 17:33:32

string it up. Now I live in a condo and know they would never allow me to put anything up. Do I still have any options? I would feel nervous about

There are definitely options, but which one is right for you depends on the particulars of your home. There's plenty of material to be read online about compromise-antennas for limited-space situations.

need a new battery pack for it. Have they made a truly accessible radio yet for the blind i.e. with real speech reading everything instead of just tones to sort of guide you? Come on manufacturers get out of the nineties!

I can't say that I've tried to use any of them, but there are "speech" modules available for a fair number of radios which, I understand, will read certain information aloud to the operator. I guess you'd have to make that among your first criteria when looking for a rig, so that you don't waste time considering equipment that doesn't have such an option available.

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echicken
electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com - 416-273-7230
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Re: Condo Living
By: Ascii Express to All on Sat Jan 18 2014 17:33:32

string it up. Now I live in a condo and know they would never allow me to put anything up. Do I still have any options? I would feel nervous about
all that RF flying around, and wouldn't want to interfere with other residents, but I had a lot of fun on HF. Any idea?
I also have a triband Kenwood, tf215 or something like that, but I think I need a new battery pack for it. Have they made a truly accessible radio

By Triband, I assume 2M, 75cm, and perhaps 220mHz bands? If so, many hams have used an easy to make J-Pole and hung it off the curtain rod in hotel rooms. Others have made a di-pole or random-wire and ran it in either the attic, or ceiling. One guy had a fence and concealed his antenna on the fence line. Others can make a fake attic vent to hide their antenna in. The nice thing about a 2 meter antenna is it's so small, you can fit it anywhere! Search the net for conceiled antennas and indoor antennas. There's a lot of options for a good antennas, as long as your not looking to work 160 meters. It'd get a little hard to conceal about 300ft of wire, and have it do any good.... When you get to doing 160 meters, you really just need to put it way up in the air.... Another thought is if they allow satellite dishes, Folks have used them for some of the higher frequencies. In fact, there's a youtube video somewhere that shows a guy buying a cheap TV Tuner adapter for USB, plugging it into his laptop and plugging the dish into it, running some software and using it for a Software Defined Radio to pickup signals anywhere from 40 meters to way up in the 900 mHz area!

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