Amateur Radio Operator – 9W2WTF
Good news! MCMC has announced the result of RAE 2011/1 (First series – Examination date: 15 June 2011) on its website.
You can get the result from http://rae.skmm.gov.my/, or by clicking on the screenshot.
Magnetic loop is an ideal antenna for Ham radio HF operation particularly because it is relatively small and portable when compared to other forms of HF antenna.
Here are some videos demonstrating the use of Magnetic Loop antenna
W2BRI has a page on how to build Magnetic Loop for HF operation.
MYCallsign – the Malaysian Amateur Radio Callsign Query Mobile Application has been updated, now it comes with a new spiffy logo. The mobile application can be installed on most Nokia, Sony-Ericsson, Motorola and Samsung phones. The application can be used to display information regarding an amateur radio callsign, such as handle (fullname), apparatus assignment (AA) and AA expiry date, and it is handy for recording QSO information in the logbook.
The application is licensed under the GNU General Public License 2.0 and is available for download at MYCallsign GoogleCode website
The new MYCallsign logo was created by Piju (9W2PJU – http://9w2pju.hamradio.my)
Take a look at this video shot on 3rd September 2010, where we can see that 9W2DI has managed to get contact from Macau, China on (28.495 MHz) 10 meter band! Apparently the 10 meter band is not dead like most people used to say. 9W2DI (Pak Din) is QRP hamradio enthusiast, you can see all his QRP video from his YouTube channel
Visit his blog for more information about his activities : http://9w2di.blogspot.com
Here is a plan for homebrewing a 2 Meter Square Dipole plan. The advantage of this antenna is that it is unidirectional, and it takes less space than the regular 2 meter dipole. The calculation included on the diagram below is for building the antenna using copper tubing, you should use MMANA-GAL or other antenna simulation software to come up with new dimension for other materials (aluminium, wire, etc).
Click on the diagram to enlarge it. Hopefully this will help you in brewing new antennas! Original plan taken from KOFF website
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:
One brave soul (9W2PJU)has made Garmin POI of ASTRA and MARTS repeater location available via Garmin by publishing the Garmin POI file on his website. Although from what I read, some people has complaint that the location information stored in the POI is inaccurate, IMHO the exact Amateur Radio Repeater location itself isn’t that important as the information that contains its frequency, tone and shift which can be use to access the repeater.
From my observation, the POI of the Garmin does not store the exact location of the repeater (probably for security reason) but the general location of the repeater is good enough for travelers to discover new repeaters and use them while traveling to unfamiliar places, keeping in touch with fellow ham operators.
Please refer to 9W2PJU website for the latest POI files.
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
Here’s the simplest antenna that you can build to transmit with your HT or mobile rig when you have nothing else to rely to. The configuration gives you a 3.5dBi gain and it is simple to construct when you’re at outdoor.
I built this antenna, specially for hitting repeaters during lightning storm, as my usual high mounted antenna might attract lightning.
This antenna can be built using any conductive wire. Though, for my configuration, I use thick copper wires with the length A = 0.525m and B=0.4815m. The A-B angle is about 100-110 degree. It gives SWR 1.0 between 145.5MHz – 145.8MHz and SWR 1.3 at 148.0MHz, the edge of 2 meter amateur radio band.
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