My friend, 9W2AZV gave me the drawing for this 2 meter antenna, I haven’t tried building it yet. The antenna seems to share common design with a collinear antenna. I ran this schematic in MMANA-GAL and found out the antenna has a very nice flat radiation pattern which maximize the transmission reach.

Here’s the the antenna design:

Tags: amateur, amateur radio, antenna, collinear, hamradio

Tak-Tenna is a type of compact antenna which is suitable for those who has space constraints on erecting their HF antenna. It is small enough that a 40 meter Tak-Tenna is just about the size of a 4-element Yagi 2 meter antenna. Here’s photographs of 40-meter Tak-Tenna in action. Compare that to the typical 40-meter dipole or Inverted-V configuration ! Thus it has the advantage of space-saving and unobtrusive setup when compared to other design of HF-antenna.

Tak-Tenna is available in 3 models – 40, 20, and 10 meters, with the 40 meter model can be use on 40, 30, 20, 15, and 10 meters with a tuner.

Refer to this article: “The TAK-Tenna™ Review – A Limited Space HF Antenna Review” for further review on Tak-Tenna performance and advantages.

Tak-Tenna can be ordered from the official Tak-Tenna website

Tags: amateur radio, antenna, ham, hamradio, hf, radio, tak-tenna

Here’s a 12 Element UHF Yagi antenna that I designed for my friend, 9w2azv. He’s going to use that antenna for his client, that needs to hit a repeater 10 kilometers away from their location.

Here’s are the measurement for the antenna :

Polar Plot for the Antenna (E-Plane)

Polar Plot for the Antenna (H-Plane) at 2 Wavelength height

Here is the YagiMAX file : 10 Element Yagi 457MHz

Tags: antenna, design, hamradio, hardware, hobby

A seminar on APRS will be held in Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP) on 7 March 2009. Details of the talk as follows:

Name: Art Takahashi
Academic Qualification: Satellite Microwave System Engineer
Expert Field: Satellite communication engineer & Hamradio
Experiences: Hamradio licence holder about 40 years

Holder Radio Callsigns
PA0HMW,F0DKS,VK3PAT,VK3BFM,VK6MX,VK3EO,
P29EO,VK6MX,VK4GO,VK4GO/BD,JA1OGS
Working for NEC Japan Yokohama & Australia Papua New-Guinia

Professional Bodies Membership:
Rens & Rens , Stedehouwer NERG
The Netherland , Australia Japan

Title: A.P.R.S (Automatic Position Report System)

Synopsis:
Explain what is all about APRS, how it works and what do with it.
Main reason about my second visit is to Malaysia is to help radio amateurs in this country, to understand a other side of hobby. So they start building digital electronics project for the radio amateur hobby. (APRS)

Date: 7 march 2009
Time: 10:30 am ~ 1:30 pm the length from the seminar is depends about visitors interest.

Vanue: Lecture Hall, UniMAP Kuala Perlis.

Info Direction QRV: 9M2RMK 147.9800Mhz Shift -0.600 Tone 203.5
Info Direction on :
a) Wikimapia
b) Google Maps

Those interested to learn more about APRS technology are invited to join in the seminar. It’s free of charge!

Tags: amateur radio, aprs, ham, Ham Radio, hamradio, malaysia, radio, radio amatur, satellite, seminar, unimap

Radio Amateur Examination (RAE) results is out! Congratulations to those who have passed the examination! Heck even piju passed the test!

You can view the results here : RAE 2008-2 results from MCMC website.

Important Forms to download :

• Letter Of Reference (to be signed by two 9M license holder)
• Declaration of Secrecy
• Application for Apparatus Assignment
• Callsign Application Form

For those who didn’t pass, dont despair.. there’s plenty of time to study for the next RAE!

Tags: amateur, amateur radio, exam, ham, hamradio, malaysia, mcmc, radio, radio amateur, rae

MCMC (Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Comittee) has updated Malaysian Amateur Radio Apparatus Assignment and Callsign database, which can be viewed here – http://www.skmm.gov.my. The updated database include details of newly registered hams who’ve recently passed RAE 2008-1 examination in April.

Alternatively you could try the experimental AJAX web interface from ashamradio callsign project. Thanks to 9M2CIO for making the database available to use freely.

Tags: amateur radio, ashamradio, callsign, hamradio, mcmc

Woops, seems like the SSN (smoothed sunspot number) count for this month is equals to 0.

I only manage to make 6 contacts with DX station on 10 meter during September. Partly due to bad propagation, partly due to my busy schedule, which kinda limit my ham activities to Sundays and Saturdays.

I’ve been getting all sorts of questions about working 10 meter from fellow hams in my place. I advises them against it as the propagation right now isnt as great as couple months before

Plus, I’ve known quite few local hams that regret that they venture into 10 meter unprepared, as it requires a lot of patience and different skills to work with.

In another note, I would like to extend my warmest congratulations to those who has passed the 2008 Morse Code test, more details in 9M2MGL website

Tags: 10 meter, 28MHz, amateur, amateur radio, hamradio, Propagation

The Malaysian Amateur Radio Examination result is out, congratulation to those who passed the examination. You can view the result directly from MCMC (SKMM) website or download it from the local mirror.

Download :
RAE 2008-1 result (local mirror)

Tags: amateur radio, communication, malaysia, radio, rae, result

Don’t ask me :p

MCMC did assign me this callsign when I first licensed as an amateur radio operator, my first choice was 9W2HPZ.

For other “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” garments and shirts, please visit T-shirtstop.com

Tags: Funny, hamradio, humor, wtf

I took some time off to build my first HF antenna using the plan I’ve obtained few months ago. I chose moxon as my first 10 meter HF antenna as it is small and compact and it is directional, allowing me to focus it into a single direction for a pretty quiet QSO, without much interference.

The material I used in building this moxon are :

• Green ground (12 Gauge ?) wire, it has 7 copper wire inside it.
• PVC pipe (3/4″ diameter) as necessary to hold the wire in place, you can use other materials too, as long as it formed the basic dimension of moxon antenna

Antenna Plan and Results
I use the plan described in this post; 10 Meter Band Compact Directonal Antenna and started building it immediately. The result of the antenna can be seen here :

Performance
Although I build it only as a temporary antenna (thus its flimsy), it performed rather well when compared to other types of popular 10 meter band antenna in my place (Delta Loop, Inverted-V) as the antenna is directional and it does not requires the use of transformer balun.

I’ve managed to make contact with 12 stations in 6 days since it has been erected.

Some tips working on 10 meter band

• Use a good low loss cable such as RG-8 or Belden 9913
• Make sure you know where you point your antenna, the direction of your antenna is crucial if you ever to make contact with distant station.
• The propagation is pretty good during daytime between 3pm – 8pm by my observation, use that time window wisely.
• Use directional antenna like Moxon or Yagi as they allow you to focus your transmission to a certain direction and eliminate excessive interference on the band.
• Be patient

That’s it and good luck!

p/s:
I wouldn’t recommend PVC pipes if you are planning to erect a permanent antenna as they are flimsy. Use aluminium pipes or copper tubes as they are more durable and offers best performance.

Tags: 10 meter, amateur, amateur radio, antenna, hamradio, hf, moxon, yagi