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xxldude

@xxldude

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CIVILIAN OPERATIVE
*No Firearms Sales*
YouTuber, Substacker, preparing you for tomorrow.
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The DM32. The minute man’s Motorola. For $50 bucks you get Analog, Digital, GMRS, Encryption, USB charging. But the software and the screen suck’

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The Internet completely Off Line. And the complete my Repeater Book. “The important parts of the internet “

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Packing the toys for my class tomorrow at the Chattanooga Ham Fest 0900

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I picked up the amazing Ham Fest deal. $75 HF Radio a Tru-SDX with cables and battery for $75 bucks. You can do voice with these but I use them for JS8CALL. The @thetechprepper has mastered this radio and called it the resistance radio

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47 Mile VHF Simplex “Radio to Radio” no repeater. This was done with 110 watts and a Comet GP9. It’s critical to know where and how you can transmit and receive in your Area of Operation “these are weekly test for us”

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Don’t mind me… I’m just throwing parts together and seeing what happens… Truthfully this little 4.75in 300 blackout (using a barrel from KAK) is one of those builds that’s so weird I love it. Mostly from spare parts I had lying around and a cheap(though very clear) Cabela’s 1-8x LPVO that I removed from the ARPK. (For those that read this, that is your first spoiler for a coming ARPK update post.) #300blackout #kakindustry #appalachia #suppressed #entrystock

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ATAK for the Poors.

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I’ve been messing around with the Trivec-Avant AV-2055-3, a collapsible, directional UHF SATCOM antenna originally designed for military communications.

The antenna is designed to operate around 240–318 MHz, using right-hand circular polarization (RHCP) with a rated gain of approximately 10.5 dBic. Its collapsible design makes it an interesting piece of equipment for portable communications, field deployments, and experimentation.

I was curious whether it had any practical applications outside its intended frequency range, particularly on amateur radio bands.

Using my NanoVNA-F V2, calibrated at the antenna end of the coaxial cable, I measured the following:

* 2m (146.600 MHz): 1.71:1 SWR
* 1.25m (223.500 MHz): 1.43:1 SWR
* 70cm (435.000 MHz): 1.29:1 SWR

Interestingly, extending and collapsing the antenna elements produced relatively minor changes in SWR at several frequencies.

Although, I want to make clear that low SWR doesn’t necessarily mean an antenna performs well.

SWR tells us how well the antenna system is impedance-matched to the radio. It doesn’t tell us how efficiently the antenna radiates, what its actual gain is, or whether its radiation pattern remains useful outside the intended operating range.

This antenna was engineered for directional satellite communications, not conventional VHF/UHF terrestrial amateur radio. Its polarization, internal matching network, and radiation characteristics all play a role in how effectively it performs.

So, while these initial measurements are encouraging, they don’t establish that it’s suitable or safe for transmitting outside its rated frequency range. That requires additional testing, and any transmissions need to stay within authorized allocations.

Next up is some actual field testing to determine whether the AV-2055-3 offers any practical advantages over conventional amateur radio antennas.

Sometimes the fun is figuring out what equipment is capable of beyond what it was originally designed to do.

Comms for the common man.

#HamRadio #AmateurRadio #SATCOM #manpack #commsopen

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Sometimes you just want to see if you can build it yourself. Instead of buying a Kestrel, I wondered if I could DIY one.

Right now it’s running on an ESP32 with a BME280 and OLED display, giving me temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, dew point, wet-bulb temp, heat index, battery status, and 10-minute/1-hour/3-hour/6-hour pressure trends. I also built in custom rising/falling pressure alerts and storm-warning logic for use while hiking and hunting.

Adding GPS, an impeller for wind speed/gusts, and better waterproofing would be sick, but that isn’t where we’re at yet.

Either way, it works and I built it myself, which was kind of the whole point.

#kestrel #offgrid #backpacking #prepping #esp32

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Radios don’t have to be expensive. My buddy @corbinneville84 makes a man pack for the common man. With a Radtel 95. I actually love how simple this radio is. Guys times are getting sassy. Have an ability to comm.

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Using the Satcom and the PRC-1117 #manpack #hamradio #satcom

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For after the storm passes. Communication will be down. It’s critical to get comms up asap. Using a Jungle Antenna from @practicalcomms.us and a UV-50 pro man pack.

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