Thanks for the videos, Mike! For the ATAS power rating section of the video: From Wikipedia: A3j type of transmission means single-sideband transmission in which the carrier wave is transmitted at a power level more than 32 decibels below the peak envelope power. Similar to the ATAS, the Little Tarheel (which I have) is rated 200w PEP SSB and only 50w for "all other modes". Although I regularly push 100w FT8 through it.
I suppose I probably shouldn't have but I've pushed 80 to 100w FT8 through the ATAS in the past. I've never had any issues, but sounds like if I use it for FT8 in the future maybe I should use lower power, lol.
Email number 2 author: I made a contact from Kentucky to Utah using an EFHW that was still entirely on the winder and laying on my tailgate. Suffice it to say, your antenna setup does not have to be perfect. Mike's right. Just get it up!
I miss Gerry. He was my first contact along with one of the other regulars at the time on the Northville repeater when I first got my license in 2022. The man was the nicest guy ever and had a story for everything!
This is great, Mike, thanks! My ADHD perfectionism often prevents me from just doing something, rather than mindf0cking the project to make sure I've got everything square-rooted before I even lift a finger. I constantly have to remind myself that part of the fun is in addressing the spontaneous problems/obstacles/improvisations that occur in the process. I've procrastinated literally years at times before taking on an antenna project. So I really appreciate your saying (and I paraphrase here) 'dude, just build the f0cker!' Cheers!
I agree about the antenna not needing to be perfect to work. From August of 2023 to Feb 2024 I was using a 10 meter inverted V wire dipole with my G90 and was able to make contacts on all bands from 40 meters to 10 meters thanks to the internal tuner of the radio. It wasn't very efficient on the other bands, but I was being heard. I was very thankful my Elmer insisted on putting up the 10 meter antenna when we put up my 2m/70cm vertical in April 2023 just in case I got an HF radio before I upgraded to General. I upgraded to General first and then was gifted a used G90 as a congratulations for passing the General exam. I now use an 80 to 10 EFHW at the home shack and it works a lot better than the 10 meter antenna. Still I was able to play around on HF for several months with a compromised antenna.
I think the guy in the first question was asking about "ground" radials, not wire for the radiating elements. He said radials and when people say that they usually mean the ground radials. If that's the case, anything should work fine. I have seen people strip out old CAT 5 network cable and use it for ground radials.
In my experience, you can immediately tell if an antenna is starting to have trouble with the amount of power you're pumping out via FT8 by watching the SWR while transmitting. It will be fine at the outset and then start to climb. That said, this observation has been made only with transformer-and-whip or transformer-and-wire antennas (e.g. the CHA Hybrid Micro, if you put out more than its rated 20W digital for more than a few QSOs), so I don't know if "overdriving" the ATAS would have a similar presentation.
Hi Mike, In your video at 6.10 min you talk about putting up an end fed in restricted space. Well I can confirm that inverted-L configurations work well. I have a 23 meter long end fed (80-40-20-15-10) with a small coil (80m) and have only 16 meters of depth on my lot. I have a 10 meter aluminum mast in the front and a 10 meter fiber mast in the back. I go up 10 meters vertical and the rest of the antenna errects horizontally to the back resulting in a decent setup. My findings are that all bands are still as expected (according the resonant points when horizontal) and I came to find one extra benifit. The antenna is still decent directional but the vertical part seems to help the antenna to be a bit more omnidirectional on some bands. I hope this helps the ham operator not to hesitate to put up his antenna. In your video around 11 min. I used my ATAS 120 a lot of the time on CW with 100 watts peak. I had no problems at all. Continious carrier I reduce the max power to about 50%. 73 Phil ON4VP
Another option to the person who wanted to string an 80 meter EFHW into a small space: They could always cut a wire for 40 meters and tune that up, then attach a 110 μH loading coil and another ~3 feet of wire for 80 meters. That's the approach I took and it works really well. I ran the EFHW in a sloper configuration, diagonally across my backyard, which is relatively small.
I've always wanted to build a rhombic around my house/lot... just so I could sit in the middle of it and meditate during FT8 contacts..... Chanting Ohm .... Ohm silly ohmmmmmm... LOL I gave up on the OCD crisp straight lines rule a long time ago too! but the rhombic antenna is still on my bucket list.
So far, 1300 POTA contacts with my ATAS120 in my Ram pickup in a month. Grounding straps are the key to performance. I have continuity from the tailgate to the hood and everything in between. I get a lot of 59's on 50 watts for the most part. Don, K1DLA
I have heard the Yaesu sales rep state that all Yaesu HF rigs should be transmitting no more than 50 watts on FT8. I have used both my FT991A and FT891 with full power FT8 and they have performed fine. I keep ALC deflection at the lowest level. My ATAS 120 handles 100 watts of CW all day. But those windings and that coil form look too vulnerable for a continuous 100 watts. Good advice Mike, as usual. Thanks.
It's kind of W.T., but I keep my DX Commander paraphernalia in an empty Yuengling 12-pack box. The lunch box is a great idea. I run an 80m EFHW out of my shack. It runs ~50' east, then ~80' north. I have it up in trees, as far as I can throw a weight ...so, 30'-40' high. It works great. However, I noticed that its east-west (broadside to the end of the wire) propagation is WAY better that the north-south propagation. I can hit Europe and the west coast with no problem at 100W, but I struggle to hit Texas to Florida from Zone 3. I guess the bend in the wire makes a bunch of weird nulls and spikes that favors east-west. I don't have an ATAS. I have a glorious assortment of hamsticks for mobile/cold-weather POTA from the truck.
All radio transmission modes have a FCC designator. A3J is AM (Amplitude Modulation), double sideband, full carrier. Having said that, there's no way I would be running 120 Watt carrier AM into a ATAS 120A. Seems like the manual is the only place they reference A3J. Everywhere else list SSB, CW power.
I think you should use lower power for full duty cycle modes. FM. RTTY. And I would include FT8. Also LDG and Wolf River Coil have lower power inputs for digi modes.
I did some RUDEimentary math below: digital is a 100% duty cycle..... CW is 50% so likely... and this is my intuition speaking.... half of 50% is 25% ... so simple math is : 120W / 2 / (2) = 30W @ 100% duty cycle.... AND before we get all exponential on my ass... I used fingers and toes...
Modes: Some of them USE OLD NEW Pure carrier A0,F0 N0N Morse telegraphy (by ear) A1 A1A Modulated CW Morse A2 A2A AM voice A3 A3E SSB, suppressed carrier A3J J3E SSB, reduced carrier A3R R3E SSB, full carrier A3H H3E Television A5 C3F RTTY (F.S.K.) F1 F1B RTTY (A.F.S.K.) F2 F2B FM voice (Narrowband) F3 F3E, 20 Packet Data/Teleprinters with Audio Sub-Carrier 20F2 20K0F2B
Regarding the comment on routing an EFHW antenna, my personal homebrewed EFHW is 138ish feet long and I have it strung in a horseshoe-like shape thru 3 trees and at varying heights and it works out very well. It tunes up everything from 160m to 6m with a 1:1 match on all bands.
The amount of power an antenna can handle is dependent upon the "duty cycle". Duty cycle is the amount of time the transmitter is actually transmitting. The following are reasonable estimates of duty cycle SSB - 33% CW - 50% Data - 100% To stay within the margin of safety of the ATAS-120 that would roughly equate to SSB - 120W CW - 60W Data - 30W It does not mean you can't run more than 30W on data. As you exceed the 30W level, the components will begin to get warm. The longer the transmission, the warmer things get. Could you run 120W on Data for 15 seconds without damage. Probably. Could you do it for 1 minute? I don't think so. The difference between 30W and 60W is 3db. 3db on FT-8 makes little to no difference, so why risk it?
@@TravelinHam you bet 😂 considering I already opened it up and adjusted the ball bearings and cleaned the coils.. I doubt my warranty is still there.. But I think my use case is kind of extreme anyway.. being a truck driver I probably already put 160,000 miles on that antenna.
Mike Technical Writing and Technical writers, i.e. the people that write the technical documents and manuals. An art form onto itself. They have all gone the way of the rotary phone. Now days the technical writers may have not even seen let alone touched the equipment they are writing about. The only thing you can be sure of is the cautions and warning. That's driven by the liability issues.
One of the problems you run into with anything made overseas is the "lost in translation" effect. God help me, some of the Chinese manuals version of Chinglish is absolutely horrible. I could probably get more pertinent information about a radio product from reading a toothpaste tube than I could the Chinglish radio manual.
I can’t wait to get an ATAS. I was fortunate enough to receive an FT-891 from a fellow ham. Always love your content and your insight. ❤ KF0QNM PS: Give your kitty chin scritches from me.
OK, folks. Why aren't hams opening up a book or two and just READING to find out the answers to questions that have been asked for a hundred years? RTFM people!
A is AM. 3 means voice. J is the variant of AM voice where you get rid of one of the sidebands and the carrier. This was all on the test when I got my license, young whippersnapper.
@@hamradiotube - A web search for "A3J emission" indicates that A3J is an old designation for "SSB, suppressed carrier." The designation has since been replaced by J3E. Some websites breakdown each letter's designation. Do I pay attention and have this stuff saved in my head? NO. I'm not that edumacated, nor do I care that much! But that's what the reading tells me. My practice is to operate at 100W SSB and 50W in digital modes with the ATAS-120A. 👍73! -Scott, KE4WMF
and does an antenna need to be straight to work.... if straight = success then mankind would have expired a long long time ago. Just put it [ ] and it will work....LOL just being 7200 KHzish... hehehehehe
Weak signal mode implies low power. If your neighbor in town is using 500 Watts on FT8 your weak signal reception for half the cycle is going to be non-existent.
So you are saying only power can create a weak signal? How about propagation condition, antenna characteristics, QRM, etc? Many other things lead to issues where more power is needed. Weak signal does not mean low power.
Thanks for the videos, Mike! For the ATAS power rating section of the video: From Wikipedia: A3j type of transmission means single-sideband transmission in which the carrier wave is transmitted at a power level more than 32 decibels below the peak envelope power. Similar to the ATAS, the Little Tarheel (which I have) is rated 200w PEP SSB and only 50w for "all other modes". Although I regularly push 100w FT8 through it.
That use to be on the test as well
I suppose I probably shouldn't have but I've pushed 80 to 100w FT8 through the ATAS in the past. I've never had any issues, but sounds like if I use it for FT8 in the future maybe I should use lower power, lol.
Email number 2 author: I made a contact from Kentucky to Utah using an EFHW that was still entirely on the winder and laying on my tailgate. Suffice it to say, your antenna setup does not have to be perfect. Mike's right. Just get it up!
I miss Gerry. He was my first contact along with one of the other regulars at the time on the Northville repeater when I first got my license in 2022. The man was the nicest guy ever and had a story for everything!
This is great, Mike, thanks! My ADHD perfectionism often prevents me from just doing something, rather than mindf0cking the project to make sure I've got everything square-rooted before I even lift a finger. I constantly have to remind myself that part of the fun is in addressing the spontaneous problems/obstacles/improvisations that occur in the process. I've procrastinated literally years at times before taking on an antenna project. So I really appreciate your saying (and I paraphrase here) 'dude, just build the f0cker!' Cheers!
I agree about the antenna not needing to be perfect to work. From August of 2023 to Feb 2024 I was using a 10 meter inverted V wire dipole with my G90 and was able to make contacts on all bands from 40 meters to 10 meters thanks to the internal tuner of the radio. It wasn't very efficient on the other bands, but I was being heard. I was very thankful my Elmer insisted on putting up the 10 meter antenna when we put up my 2m/70cm vertical in April 2023 just in case I got an HF radio before I upgraded to General. I upgraded to General first and then was gifted a used G90 as a congratulations for passing the General exam. I now use an 80 to 10 EFHW at the home shack and it works a lot better than the 10 meter antenna. Still I was able to play around on HF for several months with a compromised antenna.
I think the guy in the first question was asking about "ground" radials, not wire for the radiating elements. He said radials and when people say that they usually mean the ground radials. If that's the case, anything should work fine. I have seen people strip out old CAT 5 network cable and use it for ground radials.
In my experience, you can immediately tell if an antenna is starting to have trouble with the amount of power you're pumping out via FT8 by watching the SWR while transmitting. It will be fine at the outset and then start to climb. That said, this observation has been made only with transformer-and-whip or transformer-and-wire antennas (e.g. the CHA Hybrid Micro, if you put out more than its rated 20W digital for more than a few QSOs), so I don't know if "overdriving" the ATAS would have a similar presentation.
Great mailbag monday as usual
Hi Mike,
In your video at 6.10 min you talk about putting up an end fed in restricted space. Well I can confirm that inverted-L configurations work well. I have a 23 meter long end fed (80-40-20-15-10) with a small coil (80m) and have only 16 meters of depth on my lot. I have a 10 meter aluminum mast in the front and a 10 meter fiber mast in the back. I go up 10 meters vertical and the rest of the antenna errects horizontally to the back resulting in a decent setup. My findings are that all bands are still as expected (according the resonant points when horizontal) and I came to find one extra benifit. The antenna is still decent directional but the vertical part seems to help the antenna to be a bit more omnidirectional on some bands. I hope this helps the ham operator not to hesitate to put up his antenna.
In your video around 11 min. I used my ATAS 120 a lot of the time on CW with 100 watts peak. I had no problems at all. Continious carrier I reduce the max power to about 50%.
73 Phil ON4VP
Best day of the week!
Another option to the person who wanted to string an 80 meter EFHW into a small space: They could always cut a wire for 40 meters and tune that up, then attach a 110 μH loading coil and another ~3 feet of wire for 80 meters. That's the approach I took and it works really well. I ran the EFHW in a sloper configuration, diagonally across my backyard, which is relatively small.
Or put the full size 80m efhw up as a half square. Only takes 66 ft of space and still works great on 80
Mike, I won a FD2020 lunch bag during a raffle and my DXCommander has lived there ever since. 🙂
Good Point. Yes, I know A3J = SSB, but that doesn't answer how much power this antenna can handle for FT8, or CW!
I've had my End Fed (Random Length) long wire in a Zig Zag - (Letter Z like) Pattern.. it worked very well.
I've always wanted to build a rhombic around my house/lot... just so I could sit in the middle of it and meditate during FT8 contacts..... Chanting Ohm .... Ohm silly ohmmmmmm... LOL
I gave up on the OCD crisp straight lines rule a long time ago too! but the rhombic antenna is still on my bucket list.
@@kicktree "Rhombic Antenna" Sounds Interesting.. I Never Tried one.. (Maybe me to now 😊👍) Good luck with Yours .🍀
For the guy with the 60' deep back yard, you could run the antenna wire on a diagonal It should fit as long as your lot is 60' wide.
I love my ATAS
DX 10 wire is brilliant, 😊
So far, 1300 POTA contacts with my ATAS120 in my Ram pickup in a month. Grounding straps are the key to performance. I have continuity from the tailgate to the hood and everything in between. I get a lot of 59's on 50 watts for the most part. Don, K1DLA
Is that a banana on your floor or are you just happy to see me?
I have heard the Yaesu sales rep state that all Yaesu HF rigs should be transmitting no more than 50 watts on FT8. I have used both my FT991A and FT891 with full power FT8 and they have performed fine. I keep ALC deflection at the lowest level. My ATAS 120 handles 100 watts of CW all day. But those windings and that coil form look too vulnerable for a continuous 100 watts. Good advice Mike, as usual. Thanks.
SSB, suppressed carrier, A3J, J3E
It's kind of W.T., but I keep my DX Commander paraphernalia in an empty Yuengling 12-pack box. The lunch box is a great idea.
I run an 80m EFHW out of my shack. It runs ~50' east, then ~80' north. I have it up in trees, as far as I can throw a weight ...so, 30'-40' high. It works great. However, I noticed that its east-west (broadside to the end of the wire) propagation is WAY better that the north-south propagation. I can hit Europe and the west coast with no problem at 100W, but I struggle to hit Texas to Florida from Zone 3. I guess the bend in the wire makes a bunch of weird nulls and spikes that favors east-west.
I don't have an ATAS. I have a glorious assortment of hamsticks for mobile/cold-weather POTA from the truck.
This past Sunday with my 891 and atas-120. 3 hours pota ft8 and 4. 60 watts. 150 plus contacts.
Never saw any smoke
See, Ape said I if I am triggered, I should go watch cat videos and here I am 🤠
Hahaha!!!
The DX10 is brilliannt
All radio transmission modes have a FCC designator. A3J is AM (Amplitude Modulation), double sideband, full carrier. Having said that, there's no way I would be running 120 Watt carrier AM into a ATAS 120A. Seems like the manual is the only place they reference A3J. Everywhere else list SSB, CW power.
A3J is an emission class designated by the FCC. The letters are used to describe the type of modulation and the modulating signal. 73
I think you should use lower power for full duty cycle modes. FM. RTTY. And I would include FT8.
Also LDG and Wolf River Coil have lower power inputs for digi modes.
I did some RUDEimentary math below:
digital is a 100% duty cycle..... CW is 50% so likely... and this is my intuition speaking.... half of 50% is 25% ... so simple math is : 120W / 2 / (2) = 30W @ 100% duty cycle.... AND before we get all exponential on my ass... I used fingers and toes...
Funny… I was just wondering myself how much power ATAS 120 would handle on digital modes. Perfect timing! Let us know if you hear anything from Yaesu!
I wouldn't hold your breath on hearing anything from Yaesu but I'll sure let you know if we ever get a straight answer.
@@hamradiotube Yea, I thought the same thing. I won't run it anymore then 50 watts on a digital mode anyway. Thanks Mike!
Lets put 3K through it and see what happens!
Modes: Some of them
USE OLD NEW
Pure carrier A0,F0 N0N
Morse telegraphy (by ear) A1 A1A
Modulated CW Morse A2 A2A
AM voice A3 A3E
SSB, suppressed carrier A3J J3E
SSB, reduced carrier A3R R3E
SSB, full carrier A3H H3E
Television A5 C3F
RTTY (F.S.K.) F1 F1B
RTTY (A.F.S.K.) F2 F2B
FM voice (Narrowband) F3 F3E, 20
Packet Data/Teleprinters with Audio Sub-Carrier 20F2 20K0F2B
A3J Emissions = Suppressed Carrier SSB
Regarding the comment on routing an EFHW antenna, my personal homebrewed EFHW is 138ish feet long and I have it strung in a horseshoe-like shape thru 3 trees and at varying heights and it works out very well. It tunes up everything from 160m to 6m with a 1:1 match on all bands.
I run 50w or less with no problem with my ft891
The amount of power an antenna can handle is dependent upon the "duty cycle". Duty cycle is the amount of time the transmitter is actually transmitting. The following are reasonable estimates of duty cycle
SSB - 33%
CW - 50%
Data - 100%
To stay within the margin of safety of the ATAS-120 that would roughly equate to
SSB - 120W
CW - 60W
Data - 30W
It does not mean you can't run more than 30W on data. As you exceed the 30W level, the components will begin to get warm. The longer the transmission, the warmer things get. Could you run 120W on Data for 15 seconds without damage. Probably. Could you do it for 1 minute? I don't think so. The difference between 30W and 60W is 3db. 3db on FT-8 makes little to no difference, so why risk it?
Pushing 100 watts on digital all the time.. Probably why I'm having issues now😅
Explain the situation to Yaesu and ask for a warranty replacement. Then I bet they mention what your a maximum power on digital modes should be!
@@TravelinHam you bet 😂 considering I already opened it up and adjusted the ball bearings and cleaned the coils.. I doubt my warranty is still there.. But I think my use case is kind of extreme anyway.. being a truck driver I probably already put 160,000 miles on that antenna.
Mike
Technical Writing and Technical writers, i.e. the people that write the technical documents and manuals. An art form onto itself. They have all gone the way of the rotary phone. Now days the technical writers may have not even seen let alone touched the equipment they are writing about. The only thing you can be sure of is the cautions and warning. That's driven by the liability issues.
One of the problems you run into with anything made overseas is the "lost in translation" effect. God help me, some of the Chinese manuals version of Chinglish is absolutely horrible. I could probably get more pertinent information about a radio product from reading a toothpaste tube than I could the Chinglish radio manual.
A3J is SSB
I can’t wait to get an ATAS. I was fortunate enough to receive an FT-891 from a fellow ham.
Always love your content and your insight.
❤ KF0QNM
PS: Give your kitty chin scritches from me.
Chin scratches have been delivered.
Do Yaesu radios limit power when using the ATAS and digital? 🤔
Tell Satan I said PSPSPSPSPS SLAYER!!!
No you can do whatever you want with the power from the radio to the antenna. Pspsps's have been delivered. Slayer! 🤘🏻
OK, folks. Why aren't hams opening up a book or two and just READING to find out the answers to questions that have been asked for a hundred years? RTFM people!
Uh oh. A sad ham
Lazy
LOL A3J=SSB which I am sure you know.
How does A3J = SSB?
A is AM. 3 means voice. J is the variant of AM voice where you get rid of one of the sidebands and the carrier. This was all on the test when I got my license, young whippersnapper.
@@hamradiotube - A web search for "A3J emission" indicates that A3J is an old designation for "SSB, suppressed carrier." The designation has since been replaced by J3E. Some websites breakdown each letter's designation. Do I pay attention and have this stuff saved in my head? NO. I'm not that edumacated, nor do I care that much! But that's what the reading tells me. My practice is to operate at 100W SSB and 50W in digital modes with the ATAS-120A. 👍73! -Scott, KE4WMF
and does an antenna need to be straight to work.... if straight = success then mankind would have expired a long long time ago. Just put it [ ] and it will work....LOL just being 7200 KHzish... hehehehehe
Weak signal mode implies low power. If your neighbor in town is using 500 Watts on FT8 your weak signal reception for half the cycle is going to be non-existent.
So you are saying only power can create a weak signal? How about propagation condition, antenna characteristics, QRM, etc? Many other things lead to issues where more power is needed. Weak signal does not mean low power.
Hey! I really like your shirt! Looks good on ya! 😁 KE8UTX
We haven’t met but thanks for the compliment 😊KB2GCG