Just diy a dipole or even take a long wire, string it outside your house.

ATU/antenna tuner is needed if you want to transmit, not needed if you want to receive.

Here is how you build a dipole.

piju is the expert here about antenna. You should ask him. But hey, get that long red/black/green AC wiring cable you could get from any electrical shop and shove it to the centre connector for a start

Insulator? Just about anything that can isolate the wires. Some people use chopping board, cut and drill holes, some people just used wood. Buy 3M stretchable tape, you can get it from any electrical shop to water proof the connector or else, water can seep through your 50ohm cable (RG58, you can get it from Jalan Pasar for RM6-8/meter).

Join one of the field-day activities and you can see/ask what they're using for their antennas. During our last outing at Sri Iskandar, we had a big A4S yagi antenna, but we couldn't tune it to anything other than for 10M, so, we decided to go with EFHW (End fed half wave) a simple wire with a tuner and we got a pile-up. For my last IOTA outing with Piju, we used a two element yagi and it was a good setup too.

This post has been edited by wiraone: Aug 28 2014, 11:39 AM

They're not ham.

ARC X-Treme Communication is going to have a full day talk on What is next after RAE.

Event : What's Next After RAE ?
Date : 20 Sept 2014 (Saturday)
Time : 0830 - 1730
Venue : SK Setiawangsa, Kuala Lumpur.
Price : RM 30 /head

Topics covered:

1. WHAT IS AN AMATEUR RADIO?
2. WHAT HAMS DO?
3. HOW TO BECOME AN AMATEUR RADIO OPERATORS?
4. CALLSIGNS
5. SOCIETY IN AMATEUR RADIO
6. AMATEUR RADIO BANDS
7. QSL CARDS
8. PROPAGATION
9. OPERATING MODES
10. AMATEUR RADIO ACTIVITIES
11. GUIDE TO CHOOSING YOUR 1ST RADIO
12. CONTESTING / JOTA / IOTA / SOTA
13. DIGITAL MODES
14. APRS
15. EMCOMM

Please contact Mohd Nasir Alwi bin Mohamad Ali/ 9W2NSV at 0126454515.

They're from a commercial entity, known by many as a 'pre-amateur'. The frequency was assigned by SKMM, so they're a legit. Another one if you go up on 143.XXX, you could find another one of the same frequency which the users are using some sort of callsign and some lingo which sound like ham lingo but they're not.

This post has been edited by wiraone: Sep 3 2014, 05:44 PM

Since they're not operating in amateur frequency ranges, I have nothing more to comment.

Go to Wave Communication at Tmn Sri Gombak, beside the MRR2. They've all the antennas that you would like to have there.

http://www.nooelec.com and while you're at it, get that hackrf too

This post has been edited by wiraone: Sep 8 2014, 07:16 PM

No idea about Baofeng, but some China made handies are as you said, slow in opening the squelch and causes problem in decoding the signal. What you can do to minimise them is to turn off any power saving features on the handies. I do know that 9W2SVT is using China made handy for his setup. So, not all having this problem.

More info on Baofeng problem's with packet:

http://illruminations.com/2014/01/15/baofe...dio-adventures/

But, toward the end, there seems to be a solution given.

http://larr-project.blogspot.com/2014/01/e...-detect-in.html

Good luck!

Bangang!

Wait until you guys really hooked into working DX on HF, you'll forgotten what expensive mean to you. Haha.. it is just like playing golf

RG6 is a 75 Ohm, RG58 is the cheapest 50 Ohm feedline. RG58 is the same as the network 10-baseT coax cable we had ages ago to interconnect our PC, now can only be seen in certain shops. You can buy it from One Comms too, no idea how much per meter now though.

I'm not good in antenna design, wait for piju to come in and explain all about the feedline and the impedance and on how you should feed your radio. Our radios are normally feed by a 50Ohm coax feedline, so if you're using a 75Ohm feedline for transmitting, you'll have a mismatch and your power going out will get lost. Receiving should be okay though.

Read more about the feedline here:

http://www.arrl.org/feed-lines
http://www.jpole-antenna.com/2013/01/12/wh...for-my-antenna/

This post has been edited by wiraone: Sep 10 2014, 10:51 AM

No problem boss, there will be a next time. On the field day, I will not be available on that date, balik kampung, cousin getting married

On the homebrew antenna, be careful with your SWR, transmitting using handy is okay since you're transmitting on low power. Some transceiver will change the transmit power when it sense a high SWR (2:1) to protect the final.

There will be another test for this year, no idea when it will be, probably Nov or Dec.

As what posted by Bahtiar, there will be a field day this coming Tuesday at Bangi, not that far from Cyberjaya. Feel free to drop by and ask questions there. There will be 9M2 with three alphabets that are well versed with ham radio too, so, don't feel that you're shortchanged by them there

On simplex or channel allocation, there isn't any that is specific by area. Usually the hams around the area will choose a simplex channel that will no interfere with others and make it their common channel for that particular area.

For ham radio, repeaters usually located at higher altitude, Cyberjaya tak dak bukit nor gunung, so, most of the repeaters are located at Genting. Download Repeater.My app for Android, it will help you finding the nearest repeater(s) to your current location.

SWL usually listen to shortwave, and not VHF/UHF If you would like to listen to QSO on VHF/UHF, just get yourself that SDR dongle with a good receiving antenna and you'll find many interesting frequencies out there that you could monitor and not only on ham radio freq. range.

You need AA to carry any transceiver, but heck, no enforcement done by the authorities, so nobody cares if you've AA or not

This post has been edited by wiraone: Sep 13 2014, 07:17 PM

This is new to me, on the monthly online test thingy. Do update it here on your progress amin, the last time they had few tests, I thought they were just for few occasions as trial-run. If they've this as regular monthly test, that will be a good news to us since we do not need to wait for the biyearly exams. It took ages to wait for the exam and to get the result too before.

For new comers to the hobby, a guide on how to choose your equipment:

http://www.arrl.org/buying-your-first-radio

http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Ham%20Radio...0Radio-2014.pdf