@@dadsrcworkbench1322 Yep. I'm just using plain old FM over 2 meter VHF. I can't afford SSB equipment for this project, and I'm not even aware of any SSB handhelds that are currently in production. So far, every typically-HF mode I've tried over VHF has worked amazingly well.
@@TerminalElement yeah I don’t believe there are any 2m SSB HTs natively. The 2m rigs aren’t cheap. You should look at the UVK5 HTs. I have one and can do SSB on it…..
@@dadsrcworkbench1322 I have the RA79, which I think is the Retevis version of that. That requires some modification of the board and flashing new firmware, right?
I'm guessing you got a nice little troposphere ducting situation going on. When a temperature inversion happens the warm air mass wedges itself under a cold air mass. Normally, this happens around thunderstorms, or facilitates the rapid build up of the thunderhead. That's not a guarantee, just something that happens hand in hand. Anyway, the space between the air masses makes a great duct for 2 meters, 1,25 meters, 73 centimeters, microwave, and 6 meters I listed that last because 6 is it's own thing - even though it's VHF, it has times where it propagates like HF, and 6 meters doesn't get as much of a boost from ducting; it's a weird band that has it own fun ways to operate. The tropoducting is like a defined superhighway, and stations tens or hundreds of miles apart are able to work each other like the're next door. From my house n Connecticut I've worked stations in New Jersey and down to DC with 5 watts on FM simplex on 2 meters. How does that work? Think of how an extruder works. You have this larger pipe that funnels down a pipe that is a fraction of the diameter. The same amount of force is used to move the material from the larger pipe through the smaller pipe. Same thing with RF energy - you get you signal going through the duct, that energy has to go somewhere. It shapes your signal like how a Yagi antenna would, only more on the extreme. Now, add to this you are doing digital communications, where the sound card is doing digital signal processing, the signal doesn't have to be even out of the mud for something like FlDigi to process the signal and eliminate the noise. Radio is so cool. 73 -Chris ds N1WKO
Certainly possible! I'll continue testing over the coming weeks and report back with my findings. I'm guessing that if this remains consistent, then it's not ducting. The SNR has been waxing and waning substantially since yesterday, but it has continued to work with low power with this garage sale quality setup I am running right now. I did try FSQ at 50 watts and was unable to reach home, which leads me to believe that JS8Call is just a superior mode. We do have a land feature called the Purcell Trench that runs longitudinally through N. Idaho which may facilitate N-S communications, however this is parallel to where I am transmitting and not a direct shot to my home. If it is traveling down that trench, it's bouncing around mountains because I have nothing remotely resembling line of sight.
Oh, on the topic of 6 meter, I tested 6 m alongside 2 meter, because I couldn't find much solid information on how well it functions as a VHF band, and surprisingly I got worse performance with 6 meter. Of course this could have been attributed to antenna gain since I was using 1/4 wave on 6m and 5/8 wave on 2m. I didn't try it with JS8, though. Maybe I will run that test again sometime. I just tried again with my laptop this afternoon (pi just died) on half a watt, and was unable to make it. I am however making the trip with 2 watts at normal speed. It is not infrequent that signal strength drops off during the heat of the day in the summertime (performance is more consistent round the clock in winter). Any ideas why? Could this be an indicator of some type of recurrent ducting? I'm having difficulty finding sources for this knowledge on VHF behavior.
@@TerminalElement Buy ARRL's antenna book. Despite the common narrative VHF and UHF are not line of sight like everyone says. These frequencies use Troposcatter (en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropospheric_scatter) for reliable coverage out to several hundred miles with the right equipment. That book goes into great detail if your interested.
I've just started experimenting with FLdigi/FSQ on a pair of Quansheng K5(8) HTs. Will give JS8Call a go too. What length and type of coax are you using to the Slim Jim antenna?
I'm confident that you're right. We have a land feature called the Purcell Trench, which was carved by glaciers longitudinally through North Idaho. I suspect that radio signals are bouncing down the trench, around all the 3-7 thousand foot mountains. Signal strength doesn't change with precip or humidity, but for some reason, the heat of the day in the summer correlates with weaker signals. Half a watt through a $30 antenna was a massive surprise. I even drove about 10 miles further north after this test and still made the trip on half a watt.
This ebay Pi that I have with me just DIED! And I don't have a spare Pi with me. But I recall the settings I had were (I'm using digirig): rig - none; RTS checked; Port - USB 0; and then for the sound cards I used the ones labeled Alsa PnP input and output. For notifications I used the Alsa AV jack (bcm2835 I believe), although I don't have any speakers plugged in.
Don't forget also you'll need to have a method to set the Pi's clock to within 2 seconds of the receiving station's clock for JS8Call to work. I'm using the Chrony app with a USB GPS adapter, and that has been very robust (setup instructions in the Pi checklist). For testing purposes, the pi should update the clock adequately from the internet.
I'd love to try out SSB on VHF, but I don't have two rigs capable of this. If you have the ability to do a modulation comparison with digimodes on VHF, please share your results! All I know is that JS8Call is rocking my world on 2 meter FM!
I would honestly love to see a full breakdown of the whole system. This looks beyond promising. Also, I'm down for whatever it takes to keep me from taking a laptop out with me to play radio.
"Faraday Defense NX3", but I can't recommend it. It failed tests with the Mission Darkness app after about a year. Also, ironically, the Mission Darkness bag I previously owned failed after a year. Any suggestions for something more durable?
![ประสบการณ์ จ้าง Developer ที่ผมจะไม่มีวันลืม [ภาค1]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/bzivN4KDg-k/mqdefault.jpg)
Might want to build yourself a DigiPi. Less cables, small package running most digital modes.
Amazing performance with JS8call. Thanks for sharing.
Send me a link. I'm interested in fewer cables.
Thanks for the update. .5 watts and 45 miles, that's insane.
I am having difficulty wrapping my brain around this. I don't know how this is possible.
@@TerminalElementwhat is your home station radio and antenna?
I’m impressed with that on FM. Imagine it could be greater on SSB
No doubt! I need some VHF SSB equipment to test this.
I had no idea you could do this with FM.
You can do JS8call over VHF? I’ll have to give that a shot. I have used it over HF.
Just need upper side band. Give meteroscatter a listen while you're at it, quite cool.
@@neil7340 yeah that’s why I was questioning VHF. I assuming FM not SSB.
@@dadsrcworkbench1322 Yep. I'm just using plain old FM over 2 meter VHF. I can't afford SSB equipment for this project, and I'm not even aware of any SSB handhelds that are currently in production.
So far, every typically-HF mode I've tried over VHF has worked amazingly well.
@@TerminalElement yeah I don’t believe there are any 2m SSB HTs natively. The 2m rigs aren’t cheap. You should look at the UVK5 HTs. I have one and can do SSB on it…..
@@dadsrcworkbench1322 I have the RA79, which I think is the Retevis version of that. That requires some modification of the board and flashing new firmware, right?
I'm guessing you got a nice little troposphere ducting situation going on. When a temperature inversion happens the warm air mass wedges itself under a cold air mass. Normally, this happens around thunderstorms, or facilitates the rapid build up of the thunderhead. That's not a guarantee, just something that happens hand in hand. Anyway, the space between the air masses makes a great duct for 2 meters, 1,25 meters, 73 centimeters, microwave, and 6 meters I listed that last because 6 is it's own thing - even though it's VHF, it has times where it propagates like HF, and 6 meters doesn't get as much of a boost from ducting; it's a weird band that has it own fun ways to operate.
The tropoducting is like a defined superhighway, and stations tens or hundreds of miles apart are able to work each other like the're next door. From my house n Connecticut I've worked stations in New Jersey and down to DC with 5 watts on FM simplex on 2 meters. How does that work? Think of how an extruder works. You have this larger pipe that funnels down a pipe that is a fraction of the diameter. The same amount of force is used to move the material from the larger pipe through the smaller pipe. Same thing with RF energy - you get you signal going through the duct, that energy has to go somewhere. It shapes your signal like how a Yagi antenna would, only more on the extreme.
Now, add to this you are doing digital communications, where the sound card is doing digital signal processing, the signal doesn't have to be even out of the mud for something like FlDigi to process the signal and eliminate the noise.
Radio is so cool. 73
-Chris
ds N1WKO
Certainly possible! I'll continue testing over the coming weeks and report back with my findings. I'm guessing that if this remains consistent, then it's not ducting. The SNR has been waxing and waning substantially since yesterday, but it has continued to work with low power with this garage sale quality setup I am running right now. I did try FSQ at 50 watts and was unable to reach home, which leads me to believe that JS8Call is just a superior mode.
We do have a land feature called the Purcell Trench that runs longitudinally through N. Idaho which may facilitate N-S communications, however this is parallel to where I am transmitting and not a direct shot to my home. If it is traveling down that trench, it's bouncing around mountains because I have nothing remotely resembling line of sight.
Oh, on the topic of 6 meter, I tested 6 m alongside 2 meter, because I couldn't find much solid information on how well it functions as a VHF band, and surprisingly I got worse performance with 6 meter. Of course this could have been attributed to antenna gain since I was using 1/4 wave on 6m and 5/8 wave on 2m. I didn't try it with JS8, though. Maybe I will run that test again sometime.
I just tried again with my laptop this afternoon (pi just died) on half a watt, and was unable to make it. I am however making the trip with 2 watts at normal speed. It is not infrequent that signal strength drops off during the heat of the day in the summertime (performance is more consistent round the clock in winter). Any ideas why? Could this be an indicator of some type of recurrent ducting? I'm having difficulty finding sources for this knowledge on VHF behavior.
@@TerminalElement Buy ARRL's antenna book. Despite the common narrative VHF and UHF are not line of sight like everyone says. These frequencies use Troposcatter (en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropospheric_scatter) for reliable coverage out to several hundred miles with the right equipment. That book goes into great detail if your interested.
I've just started experimenting with FLdigi/FSQ on a pair of Quansheng K5(8) HTs. Will give JS8Call a go too. What length and type of coax are you using to the Slim Jim antenna?
It's made by N9TAX (search his call sign) and it's the longer model which I think has 16' of coax. Good luck on your experiments! Share your results!
Just a note, if there are mountains in the area, you could be reflecting off of mountains. Does the signal vary widely when it rains?
I'm confident that you're right. We have a land feature called the Purcell Trench, which was carved by glaciers longitudinally through North Idaho. I suspect that radio signals are bouncing down the trench, around all the 3-7 thousand foot mountains. Signal strength doesn't change with precip or humidity, but for some reason, the heat of the day in the summer correlates with weaker signals. Half a watt through a $30 antenna was a massive surprise. I even drove about 10 miles further north after this test and still made the trip on half a watt.
I can't get the pi link to work. Really hoping to try and attempt setting this up this weekend
This ebay Pi that I have with me just DIED! And I don't have a spare Pi with me. But I recall the settings I had were (I'm using digirig): rig - none; RTS checked; Port - USB 0; and then for the sound cards I used the ones labeled Alsa PnP input and output. For notifications I used the Alsa AV jack (bcm2835 I believe), although I don't have any speakers plugged in.
Don't forget also you'll need to have a method to set the Pi's clock to within 2 seconds of the receiving station's clock for JS8Call to work. I'm using the Chrony app with a USB GPS adapter, and that has been very robust (setup instructions in the Pi checklist). For testing purposes, the pi should update the clock adequately from the internet.
Let us know if you get it running!
Oh. I'm dumb. I thought you meant your link between your pi and your radio. Let's try this 1drv.ms/w/s!AuIoxuDtXACEgXTx8YgX4OYeKefG
@@TerminalElement thank you for this. I'll work on getting this setup now lol
I thought in order to get the benefit of js8call on 2 meters it had to be SSB & not FM?
I'd love to try out SSB on VHF, but I don't have two rigs capable of this. If you have the ability to do a modulation comparison with digimodes on VHF, please share your results!
All I know is that JS8Call is rocking my world on 2 meter FM!
I know techprepper is using SSB +js8call + yagi antenna with some amazing results as well
@@BobBob-il2ku I think he's on HF mostly. I can often see his station early mornings on 40 meter.
I want to go back to the PSK-31 days. Computer to computer link establishment is boring.
Tell me what you like about PSK-31.
I would honestly love to see a full breakdown of the whole system. This looks beyond promising.
Also, I'm down for whatever it takes to keep me from taking a laptop out with me to play radio.
Start at video number one on this playlist!
What kind of faraday bag was that int the bottom left of the desk scene, covered by the screen capture?
"Faraday Defense NX3", but I can't recommend it. It failed tests with the Mission Darkness app after about a year. Also, ironically, the Mission Darkness bag I previously owned failed after a year. Any suggestions for something more durable?
@@TerminalElement an old microwave oven ;)