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890	5730	Hey folks, this is AI0J here with Ham Radio Village, and today we're going to go over
5890	12050	a demo of a sort of basic ham station setup. We're going to cover both VHF, UHF setups,
12050	16790	portable setups, handheld setups, as well as sort of a base station setup. So we've
16790	21790	got a bunch of things to go through here. You know, let's start with sort of the most
21790	26270	basic and very likely the first radio you may have as a ham would be like a handheld
26270	31850	radio like one of these. The Baofengs are also very, very popular. They're like $35
31850	37530	for an entry-level radio. I have a couple upstairs. These are great, you know, handheld.
37570	41770	You don't have to worry anything about them whatsoever in terms of external hookups. They
41770	45670	come with their own little antenna right on top, affectionately called the rubber ducky.
46270	51010	They have a self-contained battery, you know, power button inside, pretty straightforward.
51790	55410	You turn it on, it's got a button just like a walkie-talkie you probably had when you
55410	61590	were a kid. Push to talk, you're good to go. Simple. So not much to hold a lot to talk
61590	64910	about there. Definitely if you're starting out, it's a great place to go. A technician
64910	70390	license will grant you all the ability to use these on the VHF and UHF bands. You're
70390	76110	good to go there. This is a very similar model to the other one. This does DMR, which is
76110	80790	one of the newer digital modes. That's from Anytone. But it works other than that, you
80790	86970	know, the same sort of way. Push to talk, simple. As you move up, you may decide to
86970	91910	get something more what they call a mobile station. Sorry for the camera movement here.
92450	98950	This is optionally designed to go into a vehicle, which is why it's called a mobile. It's not
98950	104070	super portable, but it's also not super heavy either. You could definitely put that in a
104070	109370	backpack or something of that sort if you didn't want to affix it into a vehicle. Has
109590	115570	a separate detached microphone in this case. You know, this one is corded. You can actually,
115570	119390	this radio actually even has Bluetooth because it's fancy. So you can even use a Bluetooth
119390	126010	headset like it's 1990 and look all cool. This one also is VHF and UHF. It's got a very
126010	131310	cool color screen on here. You can change channels, things like that. I know it's a
131310	135730	little hard to read that on the live stream there. But you know, you can program this
135730	141310	with your computer. It uses a USB cable. You hook it up and you can program it to have
141310	145090	all the channel memories, you know, with fancy names, things like that. These have been around
145090	152050	for a long time, mobile radios on VHF and UHF bands. The older ones obviously aren't
152050	156510	quite as fancy in color screens, but they work just as well. Technology wise, you know,
156510	161810	in terms of radio power and transmitting, they all are going to work the same, more
161810	169250	or less, in the VHF and UHF bands. One thing to note is these also almost always need external
169250	174170	power. So you can see this has a cable coming off the back for power. Almost all ham radio
174170	181410	equipment runs on 13.8 volts, which is standard for a vehicle to provide. So it makes it really
181410	186590	nice and easy to use a standard 12 volt system that you would have in a camper, an RV, car,
186590	195720	maritime, any of those sort of setups. And you get to use 12 volt batteries. So, not a whole lot
195720	200680	to say about those. The antennas that you use for VHF and UHF on a mobile, again, those are not
200680	204920	integrated into the unit. So you would have something separate. You can get very small ones
204920	208760	that can, you know, attach to the side of a vehicle and be fairly discreet. Or you can go
208760	215060	large and put like a big mast on the side of your house, for example. If we slowly pan over here,
215060	221960	past that HF radio there, that large white stick right there is actually a giant VHF, UHF, and
221960	228080	actually that one's 220 as well. So that's about a good, I think, eight feet long or so fully
228080	233240	assembled. That's actually in two sections right there. That's probably in the larger end of a VHF,
233240	238140	UHF. Most, I'd say, most typical home installs probably use one that's literally about half that
238140	243880	size, so about four feet tall, which is actually the VHF, UHF I have installed currently outside.
244620	250080	Yeah, the comment, good Lord, absolutely. That is a very large antenna, but still generally small
250080	259460	in terms of ham radio antennas. All right, we're going to slowly pan back over. Yes, in the city,
259460	263280	you know, giant antennas are definitely out of reach. You know, your landlord is probably not
263280	267780	going to be very happy of you sticking, you know, eight foot pole at the side of a window. But there
267780	272520	are actually a ton of resources online about stealthy antennas. There's actually a whole
272520	276920	books written about having stealth antennas for two meters. There's actually some really
276920	282000	great ideas where you can use some copper pipe and you'd make a planter out of it. And so it
282000	286040	looks just like a normal planter and your flowers growing on it. It's actually an antenna. Your
286040	293320	neighbors don't even know you can put that out in the patio. All right, so those are pretty simple
293320	300200	VHF and UHF radios. You know, as you get higher in license and you, you know, maybe get your
300200	304580	general license or maybe you're, you know, love math and you wouldn't got your extra license.
304580	310620	First off, congrats. You're going to want to get into the world of HF radios. Now here's actually
310620	317360	an HF radio that's, that's fairly old by today's standard. This, I think, dates back to late 70s,
317360	326460	80s maybe. It's made by ICOM. This is a full HF radio can go from, you know, really lower bands,
326460	332600	like 160 meters all the way. I think this one does up to, to I think 10 meter.
334140	337840	And, you know, this is much more fully featured HF. You start to climb in price. Unfortunately,
337840	343040	I know everyone, you know, the, the question is always, oh, hey, I want an HF radio, but I don't
343040	347640	want to spend a couple hundred dollars. And that's, that's hard to do. It is possible. Usually you're
347640	351880	probably going to look at something like a kit radio for that and not so much something pre-bought.
351880	356900	You can also buy things like this that are older and used, and you get a good deal. I think this
356900	360600	was my first HF radio I bought when I got my general license. I paid a few hundred dollars
360600	367280	for it from another ham. Definitely be careful buying used equipment. Ideally, if you could get
367280	372460	to, you know, a swap meet or something in person, which I know is a little difficult right now,
372460	376660	where you can actually test the radio, plug it in, make sure it works. You know, it doesn't
376660	380740	immediately just like, you know, let the magic smoke out of the box when you power it up.
381880	386340	A radio like this, you know, still fully can work on everything today, even all the new
386340	390800	digital modes that are available and very, very popular. You can use this with that. It's no
390800	396700	problem. You can actually, even this radio, you can actually even control with a computer to set
396700	401580	frequency and transmit and all that sort of stuff. You can actually still do that, even with this
401580	405740	older radio. Some older radios you can, some of the older ones you can't. It definitely depends
405740	411680	on the make and model. So, of course, do your research. Now, if we pan over here, we can see
411680	420200	what I'm currently using is my day-to-day HF radio. And that is this right here. This is the
420200	427060	newer ICOM. This is an ICOM IC7300. Very, very popular radio right now. If you are getting an
427060	434740	HF and you can afford the around a grand on sale price tag, like it's a great radio. The feature
434740	439220	set you get for that is pretty good, in my opinion. You know, almost as good as some of the
439220	444020	much more expensive radios. This is a newer design. The actual innards of how the radio
444020	448620	works. This is a move to an SDR architecture, whereas this other one that we were just looking
448620	455700	at is a classic super heterodyning radio. So the actual method of working has been upgraded
456380	460760	with a newer technology. You have a lot more availability in terms of, you know,
460760	466000	digital filtering and things like that to pull weak signals out of noise. And so it's nice.
466000	471680	Interfacing with a computer on the newer radios is also a lot easier. Almost all newer radios
471680	476840	have a direct USB port. And so you just plug it into USB and you'll get an audio device. You'll
476840	482000	get a microphone and a speaker output. That's how you send audio to and from the radio. And then
482000	486820	usually you get a virtual serial driver as a virtual serial port that you can use your software
486820	492680	to control the radio with. And we'll talk more about that in a minute. And so with this, again,
492680	497780	you need separate power. You know, again, it still runs on that 12-volt system, 13.8, you know,
497780	503360	nominal, perfect, perfect world voltage. So yeah, you know, you can run it. You don't need,
503360	506680	you don't need wall power. I'm actually not running any of this station, any of this equipment
506680	510280	you see here. None of this is running off of wall power. This is actually all running off of a giant
510280	515960	battery that's behind there. And then it actually gets charged by a solar panel that I have sitting
515960	521100	outside. Just a small 100-watt panel sitting outside just charges all day when I'm not using
521100	525440	it. And the battery keeps me going. So that's kind of nice. You don't even have to worry about
525440	533020	that. You may know some stuff next to it and be wondering what these magic doohickeys are.
533100	537380	So, you know, you definitely need the radio. You definitely need a power source. The next sort of
537380	541800	thing you're going to want to look at is either you get away with either one of these. You don't
541800	546560	necessarily need them. This bottom unit here is what's called an antenna tuner. And so what this
546560	552340	does is this actually helps if your antenna is not perfect, you know, at whatever frequency you're
552340	556520	trying to operate it, it'll actually try to match that. Now, it's important to note that antenna
556520	562600	tuners are great at matching, you know, whatever you have for an antenna to your radio so your radio
562600	567400	is happy, but you're going to lose power. If your antenna is not good, you know, if your antenna is
567400	571920	not resonant, the tuner will make it match, but you're actually just going to be wasting a lot
571920	575940	of power in the form of heat into the antenna tuner. So you always want to get your antenna
575940	582580	as ideal as possible. This actually is a built-in power meter, so when you're transmitting, you
582580	586700	could actually see how many watts you're sending out the door, which is useful.
588220	593580	And a lot of radios have antenna tuners built in, especially the larger desktop units.
593660	598780	Oftentimes, the standalone ones can deal with worse antennas than the internal ones. They can
598780	605520	accommodate much, much higher, you know, mismatches. Again, your trade-off is, of course,
605520	609180	you're going to put a lot of power into the tuner just to get a small bit of signal out if it's not
609180	616620	very matched. And then finally, this piece back here... let me turn the light on. It doesn't
616620	623020	really come up on camera. This is a standing wave meter, an SWR meter, and a power meter all in one.
623080	628520	And so this will actually just has a very old-school analog instrument. Let me see if I
628520	636400	can get it up close here. Sorry for the reflection there. So you can see it's kind of got two needles
636400	642040	there. It's what's called a crossed needle display. And so when you transmit these meters,
642040	647240	these needles will come up. The one on the left is actually the power that you're sending out,
647240	650800	and the one on the back is actually telling you how much reflected power you have, how much is
650800	655260	coming back. Ideally, if you had a perfectly resonant antenna, you'd have no power coming
655260	659880	back and you'd be sending all your power out the door. That's what you want. So you want to see
659880	664280	generally this needle on the right down to the bottom and the other one at your power level.
664280	669340	But, you know, this will tell you if you're not doing that. So especially if you don't have a
669340	673780	tuner, you definitely at least want a meter like this so that you can see if you have a problem
673780	680500	and go, oh, I need to go adjust my antenna, things like that. So let's keep on moving back here. So
680500	687000	you can actually see some power distribution back here. So this is a power distribution block. You
687000	690480	obviously don't have to have anything as fancy as this. You can twist wires together with wire nuts
690480	696920	to start. That's totally fine. Or you can get a bit more fancy. Excuse me. And yeah, use something
696920	701340	like this. You'll notice these connectors back here, these red and black connectors are called
701340	708300	Anderson Power Pole. They've kind of become the de facto standard across Amradio. They're not
708300	715540	required. Each radio manufacturer kind of puts their own connector on their radios. So typically
715540	720220	you'll just take that, adapt it to Power Pole, and then you can connect that to your power
720220	725640	distribution. It is a standard for the radio emergency services groups, the areas groups. They
725640	731200	have standardized on Power Pole and pretty much the entire community has standardized on
731200	734420	these. And you can actually get the tools and you can make these connectors yourself.
735480	738440	Yeah, they're pretty straightforward. Let me pull one out real quick.
743120	746460	Yeah, so you can see kind of the edge there, you know, it's just a red and black.
746460	750720	Very, very simple to have sort of a spring-loaded tongue in there. The cool thing about these is
750720	755760	these are genderless. So there is no male connector, there is no female connector.
755760	760700	The Power Pole connectors will just plug into each other. Pretty awesome. There goes the radio.
762540	766440	So really, really recommend doing that when you get a chance. Again, it's not something
766440	771100	that you have to urgently do when you first get your radios and set up, but it's something you
771100	775900	want to do, especially for a long-term installation. It also makes it really nice when you go out into
775900	780980	the field and, you know, you're like, oh, hey, I need to plug in this. Anyone got a spare battery?
781440	784820	Almost everyone is using them. So you can go, oh, yeah, I have one. And you don't have to,
784820	788220	you know, try to finagle some connectors or jury-rig something with some duct tape and
788220	797080	baling wire. Not that we've ever done that. So in HF, the antennas are much, much bigger.
797900	802820	We are inside. My antenna, of course, is outside. So, you know, you have a lot of options for HF
802820	807640	antennas. There are, you know, of course, Yagi antennas. You know, a lot of people, of course,
807640	811500	in their mind have a big picture of, you know, the hammer operator is, you know, the giant Yagi
812540	817100	antenna on a, you know, 200-foot tower with a big rotator. And there are certainly hands that
817100	822420	have that, and I'm jealous of them. But you definitely don't need anything that complex.
825220	829380	So, you know, you can get away with just literally a random wire. It's called a random wire
829380	836180	antenna. And you just can put out a random length of wire and get a good ground, plug it in. You
836180	841220	would want to tune it with that. A very, another very popular starting antenna is what's called a
841220	846760	dipole, which is literally just two pieces of wire, equal length. And the cut is specific
846760	851060	lengths for whatever band you're trying to tune in. You throw that up, you know, in the air as
851060	855080	high as you can get, throw it up in a tree or throw each end up in a tree, run some coax cable back
855080	860340	to your radio, and you can be good. And it's really actually pretty small.
861780	865860	I'm looking on the back of the radio just to go over some connectors you might see.
870790	875810	I'll go pan real quick. So this is the older radio, but the newer radios are going to be
875810	882210	very, very similar. So this right here is called the UHF connector. This was, if anyone has done
882210	887730	CB in the past, this was the CB connector as well. That's pretty much what all desktop radios
887730	891830	are going to have for an antenna connection. The Ham Radio Hobby is pretty much the only one
891830	895970	that uses this connector anymore. It's actually a little outdated, but for whatever reason,
895970	901870	the Hobby has stuck with it. On mobile rigs, sometimes you'll see this. Sometimes on mobile
901870	908190	rigs, you'll see a BNC connector as well. And you can, of course, make adapters to all these. I
908190	912750	actually have one right here. You can actually see this is a small little adapter. You can plug it
912750	921090	right in, and then you can use a BNC antenna. Again, there's no sort of exact standard in the
921090	926630	field. You know, my personal recommendation is using BNC connectors on all your antennas that
926630	933790	are portable and using UHF or connectors for everything in your house for HF. And then just
933790	939090	carrying a bag of adapters. Another connector you might see is an N connector, which is slightly
939090	943690	different than the UHF. Of course, not quite compatible. Again, there are plenty of adapters.
943710	952090	You can pull this out. You can actually see here on this device here, this is a UHF connector
952090	958870	on the left, and this is an N connector on the right. So N, you generally only see at VHF and above.
959810	961590	Not so much for HF.
963790	966450	Moving on again, sort of power connectors you can see.
1040940	1046160	Hey folks, this is AI0J here with Ham Radio Village, and today we're going to go over a demo
1046160	1053020	of a sort of basic ham station setup. We're going to cover both VHF, UHF setups, portable setups,
1053020	1057840	handheld setups, as well as sort of a base station setup. So we've got a bunch of things to go through
1057840	1064980	here. You know, let's start with sort of the most basic and very likely the first radio you may have
1064980	1070980	as a ham would be like a handheld radio like one of these. The Baofengs are also very, very popular.
1070980	1076800	They're like $35 for an entry-level radio. I have a couple upstairs. These are great, you know,
1076800	1081800	handheld. You don't have to worry anything about them whatsoever in terms of external hookups. They
1081800	1087080	come with their own little antenna right on top, affectionately called the rubber ducky. They have
1087080	1092900	self-contained battery, you know, power button inside, pretty straightforward. You turn it on,
1092900	1097440	it's got a button just like a walkie-talkie you probably had when you were a kid. Push to talk,
1097440	1102620	you're good to go. Simple. So not much to hold a lot to talk about there. Definitely if you're
1102620	1107520	starting out, it's a great place to go. A technician license will grant you all the ability to use
1108180	1113920	these on the VHF and UHF bands, so you're good to go there. This is a very similar model to the
1113920	1119520	other one. This does DMR, which is one of the newer digital modes that's from AnyTone,
1119520	1125580	but it works other than that, you know, the same sort of way. Push to talk, simple. As you move up,
1125580	1130800	you may decide to get something more what they call a mobile station. Sorry for the camera
1130800	1138120	movement here. This is optionally designed to go into a vehicle, which is why it's called a mobile.
1138580	1143700	It's not super portable, but it's also not super heavy either. You could definitely put that in a
1143700	1147860	backpack, something of that sort, if you didn't want to fix it into a vehicle.
1149200	1155560	Has a separate detached microphone in this case. You know, this one is corded. You can actually,
1155560	1159400	this radio actually even has Bluetooth because it's fancy, so you can even use a Bluetooth
1159400	1166380	headset like it's 1990 and look all cool. This one also is VHF and UHF. It's got a very cool
1166380	1171680	color screen on here. You can change channels, things like that. I know it's a little hard to
1171680	1176840	read that on the live stream there, but you know, you can program this with your computer. It uses
1177000	1182460	a USB cable. You hook it up and you can program it to have all the channel memories, you know,
1182460	1188560	with fancy names, things like that. These have been around for a long time, mobile radios on
1188560	1194000	VHF and UHF bands. The older ones obviously aren't quite as fancy in color screens, but they work
1194000	1199940	just as well. Technology wise, you know, in terms of radio power and transmitting, they all are
1199940	1207620	going to work the same, more or less, in the VHF and UHF bands. One thing to note is these also
1208020	1212460	almost always need external power. So you can see this has a cable coming off the back for power.
1213000	1220480	Almost all ham radio equipment runs on 13.8 volts, which is standard for a vehicle to provide.
1220600	1224220	So it makes it really nice and easy. You start a standard 12-volt system that you would have in a
1224760	1230760	RV, car, maritime, any of those sort of setups, and you get to use 12-volt batteries.
1234640	1239960	So not a whole lot to say about those. The antennas that you use for VHF and UHF on a mobile,
1239960	1244040	again, those are not integrated into the unit. So you would have something separate. You can get
1244040	1248020	very small ones that can, you know, attach to the side of a vehicle and be fairly discreet.
1248020	1252720	Or you can go large and put like a big mast on the side of your house, for example. If we
1252720	1259200	slowly pan over here past that HF radio there, that large white stick right there is actually
1259480	1266820	a giant VHF-UHF. And actually that one's 220 as well. That's about a good, I think,
1266820	1271220	eight feet long or so fully assembled. That's actually in two sections right there. That's
1271220	1277040	probably on the larger end of a VHF-UHF. Most, I'd say, most typical home installs probably use
1277040	1281660	one that's literally about half that size, so about four feet tall, which is actually the VHF-UHF
1281660	1287280	I have installed currently outside. Yeah, the comment, good Lord, absolutely. That is a very
1287280	1292720	large antenna, but still generally small in terms of ham radio antennas. All right, we're going to
1292720	1301910	slowly pan back over. Yes, in the city, you know, giant antennas are definitely out of reach. You
1301910	1305430	know, your landlord is probably not going to be very happy of you sticking, you know, eight foot
1305430	1311550	pole at the side of a window. But there are actually a ton of resources online about stealth
1311550	1316090	antennas. There's actually whole books written about having stealth antennas for two meters.
1316090	1320950	There's actually some really great ideas where you can use some copper pipe and you'd make a
1320950	1325150	planter out of it. And so it looks just like a normal planter and your flower is growing on it.
1325150	1332250	It's actually an antenna. Your neighbors don't even know you can put that out in the patio.
1332250	1337950	All right, so those are pretty simple VHF and UHF radios. You know, as you get higher in license
1337950	1343050	and you, you know, maybe get your general license or maybe you're, you know, love math and you
1343050	1347770	wouldn't get your extra license. First off, congrats. You're going to want to get into the
1347770	1354410	world of HF radios. Now here's actually an HF radio that's fairly old by today's standard.
1355290	1362790	This, I think, dates back to late 70s, 80s maybe. It's made by ICOM. This is a full HF radio. It can
1362790	1369830	go from, you know, all the really lower bands, like 160 meters all the way. I think this one
1369830	1376510	goes up to, I think, 10 meter. And, you know, this is much more fully featured HF. You start
1376510	1381570	to climb in price. Unfortunately, I know everyone, you know, the question is always, oh, hey,
1381570	1385650	I want an HF radio, but I don't want to spend more than a couple hundred dollars. And that's,
1385650	1389150	it's hard to do. It is possible. Usually you're probably going to look at something like a kit
1389150	1393270	radio for that and not so much something pre-bought. You can also buy things like this
1393270	1398530	that are older and used and you get a good deal. I think this was my first HF radio I bought when
1398530	1404250	I got my general license. I paid a few hundred dollars for it from another ham. Definitely be
1404250	1409110	careful buying used equipment. Ideally, if you could get to, you know, a swap meet or something
1409110	1414070	in person, which I know is a little difficult right now, where you can actually test the radio,
1414070	1417950	plug it in, make sure it works, you know, and it doesn't immediately just like, you know,
1417950	1422890	let the magic smoke out of the box when you power it up. But a radio like this, you know,
1422890	1428090	still fully can work on everything today. Even all the new digital modes that are available and
1428090	1433870	very, very popular. You can use this for that. It's no problem. You know, you can actually,
1433870	1437870	even this radio, you can actually even control with a computer to set frequency and transmit
1437870	1442530	and all that sort of stuff. You can actually still, still do that even with this older radio.
1442590	1445950	Some older radios you can, some of the older ones you can't. It definitely depends on the
1445950	1451870	model. So, of course, do your research. Now, if we pan over here, we can see what
1451870	1460690	I'm currently using is my day-to-day HF radio. And that is this right here. This is the newer
1460690	1467770	ICOM. This is an ICOM IC7300. Very, very popular radio right now. If you are getting an HF and you
1467770	1475050	can afford the around a grand on sale price tag, like it's a great radio. The features that you
1475050	1479570	get for that is pretty good, in my opinion. You know, almost as good as some of the much
1479570	1484330	more expensive radios. This is a newer design. The actual innards of how the radio works,
1484330	1489110	this is a move to an SDR architecture. Whereas this other one that we were just looking at is
1489250	1495730	a classic super heterodyning radio. So the actual method of working has been upgraded
1496430	1500770	with a newer technology, have a lot more availability in terms of, you know,
1500770	1506130	digital filtering and things like that to pull weak signals out of noise. And so it's nice.
1506230	1511690	Interfacing with a computer on the newer radios is also a lot easier. Almost all newer radios
1511690	1516850	have a direct USB port. And so you just plug it into USB and you'll get an audio device. You'll
1516850	1521490	get a microphone and a speaker output. Then that's how you send audio to and from the radio.
1521610	1526250	And then usually you get a virtual serial driver as a virtual serial port that you can use your
1526250	1529870	software to control the radio with. And we'll talk more about that in a minute.
1531430	1536250	And so with this, again, you need separate power. You know, again, it still runs on that 12 volt
1536250	1542710	system, 13.8, you know, nominal, perfect, perfect world voltage. So yeah, you know, you can run,
1542710	1546150	you don't need, you don't need well power. I'm actually not running any of this station,
1546150	1549350	any of this equipment you see here. None of this is running off of wall power. This is actually
1549350	1555090	all running off of a giant battery that's behind there. And then this actually gets charged by a
1555090	1559810	solar panel that I have sitting outside. Just a small hundred watt panel sitting outside just
1559810	1564810	charges all day when I'm not using it and the battery keeps me going. So that's kind of nice.
1564810	1571370	You don't even have to worry about that. You may know some stuff next to it and be wondering what
1571370	1575830	these magic doohickeys are. So, you know, you definitely need the radio. You definitely need
1575930	1580730	a power source. The next sort of thing you're going to want to look at is either you get away
1580730	1584990	with either one of these. You don't necessarily need them. This bottom unit here is what's called
1584990	1589790	an antenna tuner. And so what this does is this actually helps if your antenna is not perfect,
1590410	1595370	you know, at whatever frequency you're trying to operate it, it'll actually try to match that. Now,
1595370	1599950	it's important to note that antenna tuners are great at matching, you know, whatever you have
1599950	1605470	for an antenna to your radio, so your radio is happy, but you're going to lose power. If your
1605470	1610430	antenna is not good, you know, if your antenna is not resonant, the tuner will make it match,
1610430	1613830	but you're actually just going to be wasting a lot of power in the form of heat into the
1613830	1618050	antenna tuner. So you always want to get your antenna as ideal as possible.
1619950	1623350	This actually is a built-in power meter, so when you're transmitting, you could actually see
1623350	1626750	how many watts you're sending out the door, which is useful.
1628250	1634290	And a lot of radios have antenna tuners built in, especially the larger desktop units. Oftentimes,
1634290	1639810	the standalone ones can deal with worse antennas than the internal ones. They can accommodate much,
1639810	1647750	much higher, you know, mismatches. Again, your trade-off is, of course, you're going to put a
1647750	1653950	small bit of signal out if it's not very matched. And then finally, this piece back here... let me
1653950	1660250	turn the light on it. That doesn't really come up on camera. This is a standing wave meter,
1660250	1666930	an SWR meter, and a power meter all in one. And so this will actually just has... it's a
1666930	1673800	very old-school analog instrument. Let me see if I can get up close here.
1673800	1677220	Sorry for the reflection there. So you can see it's kind of got two needles there.
1677220	1682060	It's what's called a crossed needle display. And so when you transmit these meters,
1682060	1687220	these needles will come up. The one on the left is actually the power that you're sending out,
1687220	1690820	and the one on the back is actually telling you how much reflected power you have, how much is
1690820	1695260	coming back. Ideally, if you had a perfectly resonant antenna, you'd have no power coming
1695260	1699900	back, and you'd be sending all your power out the door. That's what you want. So you want to see
1699900	1704240	generally this needle on the right down to the bottom, and the other one at your power level.
1704800	1709340	But, you know, this will tell you if you're not doing that. So especially if you don't have a
1709340	1713800	tuner, you definitely at least want a meter like this so that you can see if you have a problem
1713800	1720500	and go, oh, I need to go adjust my antenna, things like that. So let's keep on moving back here. So
1720500	1727020	you can actually see some power distribution back here. So this is a power distribution block. You
1727020	1730340	obviously don't have to have anything as fancy as this. You can twist wires together with wire
1730340	1736940	nuts to start. That's totally fine. Or you can get a bit more fancy, excuse me, and use something
1736940	1741340	like this. You'll notice these connectors back here, these red and black connectors are called
1741340	1748320	Anderson Power Pole. They've kind of become the de facto standard across Amradio. They're not
1748320	1755720	required. Each radio manufacturer kind of puts their own connector on their radios. So typically,
1755720	1760240	you'll just take that, adapt it to Power Pole, and then you can connect that to your power
1760240	1765560	distribution. It is a standard for the radio emergency services groups, the areas groups,
1765560	1770860	they have standardized on Power Pole, and pretty much the entire community has standardized
1770860	1774440	on these. And you can actually get the tools and you can make these connectors yourself.
1775500	1778460	They're pretty straightforward. Let me pull one out real quick.
1783260	1786480	So you can see kind of the edge there, you know, it's just a red and black.
1786480	1790740	Very, very simple to have sort of a spring loaded tongue in there. The cool thing about these is
1790740	1795720	these are genderless. So there is no male connector, there is no female connector,
1795720	1800780	the Power Pole connectors will just plug into each other. Pretty awesome. There goes radio.
1802520	1806460	So really, really recommend doing that when you get a chance. Again, it's not something
1806460	1811100	that you have to urgently do when you first get your radios and set up. But it's something you
1811100	1815560	want to do, especially for a long term installation. It also makes it really nice when you
1815560	1820220	go out into the field and you're like, oh, hey, I need to plug in this. So anyone got a spare
1820220	1824840	battery? Almost everyone is using them. So you can go, oh, yeah, I have one. And you don't have to
1824840	1829100	try to finagle some connectors or jury rig something with some duct tape and baling wire.
1829220	1838900	Not that we've ever done that. So in HF, the antennas are much, much bigger. We are inside,
1838900	1843680	my antenna, of course, is outside. So, you know, you have a lot of options for HF antennas.
1843680	1847660	There are, you know, of course, Yagi antennas that, you know, a lot of people, of course,
1847660	1851540	in their mind have a big picture of, you know, the hammer operator is, you know, the giant Yagi
1852480	1857120	antenna on a, you know, 200 foot tower with a big rotator. And there are certainly hams that
1857120	1862420	have that. And I'm jealous of them. But you definitely don't need anything that complex.
1865180	1870480	So, you know, you can get away with just literally a random wire. It's called a random wire antenna.
1870480	1876700	And you just can put out a random length of wire and get a good ground, plug it in. You would want
1876700	1881640	to tune it with that. A very, another very popular starting antenna is what's called a dipole, which
1881640	1887440	is literally just two pieces of wire, equal length. And it cuts to specific lengths for whatever band
1887440	1891420	you're trying to tune in. You throw that up, you know, in the air as high as you can get,
1891420	1896070	throw it up in a tree or throw each end up in a tree, run some coax cable back to your radio,
1896070	1900350	and you can be good. And it's really actually pretty small.
1902070	1905870	Looking on the back of the radio, just to go over some connectors you might see.
1910870	1916410	Go pan real quick. So this is the older radio, but the newer radios are going to be very,
1916410	1922490	very similar. So this right here is called the UHF connector. This was, if anyone has done CB
1922490	1927910	in the past, this was the CB connector as well. That's pretty much what all desktop radios are
1927910	1931850	going to have for an antenna connection. The Hammer Radio Hobby is pretty much the only one
1931850	1935990	that uses this connector anymore. It's actually a little outdated, but for whatever reason,
1935990	1941890	the Hobby has stuck with it. On mobile rigs, sometimes you'll see this. Sometimes on mobile
1941890	1948250	rigs, you'll see a BNC connector as well. And you can, of course, make adapters to all these. I
1948250	1952770	actually have one right here. You can actually see this is a small little adapter. You can plug it
1952770	1961110	right in, and then you can use a BNC antenna. Again, there's no sort of exact standard in the
1961110	1966650	field. You know, my personal recommendation is using BNC connectors on all your antennas that
1966650	1973810	are portable, and using UHF or connectors for everything in your house for HF. And then just
1973810	1979110	carrying a bag of adapters. Another connector you might see is an N connector, which is slightly
1979110	1983710	different than UHF. Of course, not quite compatible. Again, there are plenty of adapters.
1983710	1991770	I'm just going to pull this out. You can actually see here on this device here, this is a UHF
1991770	1997970	connector on the left, and this is an N connector on the right. So N, you generally only see at VHF
1997970	2007350	and above. Not so much for HF. Moving on again, sort of power connectors. You can see, again,
2007350	2011710	all the manufacturers sort of do their own power connector on the radio. And this is a big,
2011710	2017110	scary-looking six-pin block. It actually just uses two pins, positive and negative. And then,
2017110	2022210	almost all desktop HF radios will have an accessory port of some kind. This one's an old
2022210	2026850	Molex. A lot of radios use a variation of a DIN connector. And in the manuals, of course, we'll
2026850	2032570	have all the pinouts. You often don't need to worry too much about these, unless you need some
2032570	2037290	of the signaling out of here. This older radio, if you want to pull audio out to use digital modes,
2037290	2041170	you can pull the audio off of this connector and not even have to tap into the microphone
2041170	2047070	connector on the front, which is nice. And most radios have some sort of control port.
2047070	2054990	This is a serial port here. It has a phone plug style. Newer radios will just have a USB port,
2054990	2061250	which makes it super, super easy. And then, depending on your rig, you may have some
2061250	2065210	additional ports or some stuff here that, as a beginner, you don't really need to worry a whole
2065210	2070790	lot. You could actually have separate, basically, transverter boards. You could take a signal coming
2070790	2074310	in, process it through a separate piece of equipment, and send it back to the radio.
2074390	2078170	Not something you generally need to worry about as a new ham at all.
2080070	2084930	Following up on a question on Twitch, this is a not... I'm not sure I understand the
2084930	2088510	advantage of the power distribution block. Is it mostly for different connection types?
2088970	2093070	Yeah, so one of the things we do have to be aware of when we're dealing with any
2093070	2100050	power source is protection. And so, if we go back and take a look real quick, back at this block.
2101550	2106230	On this one, you'll actually notice that, above these, these are all individual fuses,
2106690	2110710	and they're actually all different values. So, when you're dealing with a big, large 12-volt
2110710	2115530	battery or a 12-volt source, if you touch the two wires together, you're going to put a lot
2115530	2119350	of current through that wire very, very quickly, and you could short things out, melt the wire,
2119350	2125370	cause a fire. All bad things we don't want to happen. So, an advantage of a big block like this
2125370	2130170	is you can actually have different level of fuses for each thing. So, like the ones in the left,
2130170	2133550	the one all the way to the left is the input, and that thing is at the 40-amp fuse, and then I think
2133550	2139670	it's 20-amp fuses for these larger HF radios, and then like the charging bases for the handhelds
2139670	2144050	are like, you know, 1-amp fuses. So, that way, you just don't have to worry about it. Again,
2144050	2148370	you don't necessarily need to go to that level, but you, at the very least, no matter what, if
2148370	2153670	you're literally just, you know, wiring your battery directly to your radio, it's very, very,
2153670	2157930	very important you at least put some sort of fuse in there. That way, if you have a short circuit,
2157930	2164130	it just blows the fuse, it costs you 30 cents, and nothing gets damaged. Great, great question.
2167410	2171970	So, yeah, so some other things to talk about. You know, the other really important sort of
2171970	2176570	thing for a ham station is most people have a computer attached.
2178670	2183390	Yeah, inline fuses on all the wires is also a totally valid option, nothing wrong with that.
2183990	2187810	You know, you definitely want to have a computer attached if you want to do any of the digital
2187810	2193090	modes. And, you know, any computer, a lot of the ham radio software is written for Windows,
2193290	2197570	a fair amount of everyone does XP, but it still runs on Windows 10, no problem.
2197570	2202670	There is totally software for Linux, and probably Mac is the least supported,
2202670	2207510	although I think there is a larger and more diverse set of software for that now than there
2207510	2214530	has been. The advantages of using a computer is not only just control the radio, so you can
2214530	2219530	actually say, okay, I want to use my computer and say, go to this specific frequency. I want to,
2219530	2223510	you know, have this generate the digital mode signals, things like that. You can also record
2223510	2229650	directly off of that. For VHF and UHF radios, especially, you can use your computer to program
2229650	2234750	memory, so you don't have to, like, try to program every frequency and offset, like with the two
2234750	2238850	knobs in the front of your radio, because that's just not very fun, especially if you want to
2238850	2244430	program a bunch of stuff. And not a whole lot to say about that, it does not have to be a very
2244430	2249150	powerful computer, you know, any laptops, totally fine, as long as you get some USB.
2250970	2256790	And so now I just want to talk about a couple accessories. Again, we talked about power a bit,
2256790	2263610	so let me pull this off here. And as I mentioned before, I'm running this setup entirely off a
2263610	2269870	solar panel and a large battery. There's a very, very large battery hiding here in the corner.
2269870	2276070	I think it's Duracell's largest AGM battery they make. But you certainly don't need anything that
2276070	2281330	big at all. You can use a regular, any 12-volt battery, things from, you know, even like a
2281330	2285910	motorcycle ATV. If you're going to be doing portable operations, something like a lithium
2285910	2291650	battery. Lithium is a lot lighter than that giant lead-acid battery. That battery is super heavy,
2291650	2296550	you know, this battery I can hold up with a finger, which is nice. The downside is,
2296550	2301350	of course, lithium batteries cost a lot more money than a lead-acid battery or an AGM.
2306550	2310530	And, of course, you don't have to run off a battery at all. You can absolutely buy any sort
2310530	2316470	of, you know, 12-volt supplies. This is the one that I sometimes use with my station here. This
2316470	2321650	is actually designed for an RV. This is an RV power supply, so it's actually designed to charge
2321790	2327770	a battery and provide 12 volts for a camper. It actually works really, really well. You can,
2327770	2332630	of course, get fancy made, you know, ones for ham radio that have, you know, very cool dials in the
2332630	2337790	front or gauges, you know, power meters, things like that. A lot of them even have
2338350	2344250	powerbolt connectors now on the front directly, which is convenient. But you don't definitely
2344250	2349350	have to go that route. Really, anything that gives you 12 volts is good or 13.8 nominal.
2350150	2355830	One thing to be aware of, you know, I've seen a lot of people, you know, use old computer power
2355830	2360310	supplies, and that certainly can work. You do have to be careful with any power supply
2360870	2364350	on the electrical noise that they make. Some power supplies can be very noisy
2364350	2371370	electrically, and that'll make it much, much harder to tune signals at HF. VHF and UHF,
2371370	2375930	it's usually not an issue. But as you start needing HF bands, you become much, much more
2375930	2381290	sensitive to electrical noise. And that's actually why I try to operate off a battery
2381290	2385090	all at all times, because then there's just no line noise at all. There's no connection to the
2385090	2393650	grid. All right, so that pretty much covers what you need. A couple other nice things to have.
2393650	2398010	If you can have something, this is called an antenna analyzer. I'm just getting real close
2398010	2402750	here. Again, this is sort of a fancy one. You definitely don't need anything super fancy.
2405070	2409330	If you are part of a local ham club, a lot of times your club will actually have one that,
2409330	2412890	you know, you can take on loan. This is good when you're setting up new antennas,
2412890	2416930	especially if you're building antennas. This becomes almost essential.
2417150	2422890	You can plug your antenna directly into here and you can see if it tunes and see how good it is.
2422890	2428410	We can grab one real quick and test. Let me put this little adapter back on. So we can actually
2428410	2440470	pull the antenna off this radio or in my shirt here. All right, so we can actually hook up. This
2440470	2447010	is my antenna to the side and you can immediately see atop these needles change, right? So they're
2447010	2452310	infinite, right? We're definitely not getting anything. We connected it. And this works
2452310	2457890	similar to the way the other meter we looked at earlier. The difference is this is, you know,
2457890	2464350	you sort of connect it for testing. This one over here actually stays connected all the time and
2464350	2469830	you run your signals through that, whereas this you do not. So you can see here we can actually
2469830	2475350	adjust which frequency. I know it's a little hard to see that display. There we go a little bit.
2476130	2480170	But this one's just a nice little LCD display at the bottom where it shows the frequency that
2480170	2487630	you're trying to test. And then you can, you know, you can see as we move around and the band,
2487630	2492270	if we get to somewhere right in the middle of the 20 meter band, which is 14 megahertz,
2492270	2496370	you can see the SWR is really dropping down. It's still not perfect in this antenna. It's
2496690	2503470	a 1.5 SWR. You'd ideally want that to be one, but you can see it is tuning right here at 50.
2503650	2508250	So just a good thing that, you know, again, if you're building antennas, it's definitely something
2508250	2513670	worth the investment to buy. You know, you don't find anything quite this fancy. There are plenty
2513670	2519850	of things, plenty of options on the market. Again, used is totally fine. Ask around, you know,
2520290	2524770	if you have a ham friend in the area or a club, they might have one and you can just borrow it.
2524770	2528810	If you're using a commercial off-the-shelf antenna that you've bought, you can probably
2528810	2534630	get away with that one for a bit. But it is important to know with even a pre-bought antenna
2535190	2540450	that, you know, your installation conditions are going to affect that. So if it's not as high as
2540450	2545330	ideal or, you know, it's not in the right shape, you know, you may actually not tune as well as
2545330	2553770	you might think. All right, just looking at some questions. How much have you spent on all your
2553770	2559390	gear? I don't have to answer that question. I assume you're a plant for my wife. No, I mean,
2559390	2565370	you know, like any hobby, it can get expensive, you know, or, you know, you can try to be as cheap
2565370	2570970	as you want and do a lot of kit building, things like that. So yeah, I mean, it's been over several
2570970	2583870	years and probably, I don't know, several thousand dollars. I don't know. But yeah, yeah. I think
2583870	2588750	that's about it. I don't see any other questions in the chat. So thanks for tuning in. Hopefully
2588750	2594230	this was helpful. If you do have any further questions, we can... you can drop them in the chat
2594230	2597850	and I'll answer you. Oh, actually, we do have one coming in. Do you use a grounding block? That is
2597850	2604030	actually a great point I totally forgot about. No matter what you do, you definitely... system
2604030	2609150	grounding is very, very important, both for lightning protection and to keep our stray RF
2609150	2614810	currents in at bay. So yeah, that's a great question. So I do actually have a grounding
2614810	2622230	block. It's on the outside of this house here. Let me go back. Now if we pan up, we can actually
2622230	2628350	see my RF cable is going to a mysterious hole in the wall there. That actually goes to the
2628350	2633970	outside walls and outside wall in front of us. And I have an entrance panel there that has a big
2633970	2638930	copper sheet and actually has some lightning arresters mounted in there. So they do have a
2638930	2643130	full grounding block and there's... it's tied to the house grounding system, to the grounding rods.
2643130	2649230	Very, very important. You want good ground for your system and you want it to be the same ground as
2649230	2654090	your house. You do not want to have your home electrical ground and your antenna grounds be
2654090	2661670	different. That's just going to ask for trouble and or could be dangerous. So there definitely
2661670	2668530	is a whole bunch of resources on grounding. The ARRL actually has a book out in a letter
2668530	2672710	just called Grounding and Bonding for the Amateur Radio, I think is what it's called. And I highly
2672710	2678310	recommend that. It goes into very, very deep detail on how to design ground systems that are
2678310	2686030	effective and how to stay safe, things like that. All right, not seeing anything else. So if you
2686030	2690830	have any questions, I will be on Discord, on the DEF CON Discord. So feel free to drop in,
2690830	2694350	ask any questions and I'll follow up there. Thanks for watching, guys!