/tech/ - Technology

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radios are cool as fuck. 
I want to put one like pic related to my car to listen to the police.

>>10197
That thing looks neat, but nowadays most public services like police or EMS (at least in the US) use encryption or digital modes to communicate. If you just wanna strictly-listen, then you're best off getting a scanner.

>>10196 (OP) 
>VE7KFM
mah nigga I have walked by his house, saw the antenna with my own eyes. Never met him.
If you're looking for lore, it goes deep. These are good starting points:
http://www.ve7kfm.com/
http://ve7kfm-karol.blogspot.com

>no mention of WebSDR.
You can listen for free at home at http://websdr.org

If you are getting your first ham radio, I recommend getting a Wouxun UV6D or a Baofeng UV-82, They are basically the same but the Baofeng comes with slightly better antenna IIRC. They cost like 20 € ~ 50 € and they are the best cheap handheld radios. Of course, you want to eventually get something like icom IC 7300 or Yaesu FT-710 , if you have the money.

>>10219
>If you just wanna strictly-listen, then you're best off getting a scanner.
This, or some kind of SDR Rx-only receiver (like DX PATROL).

Okay. it's been really fucking annoying trying to pick a mobile rig for a manpack-style go bag.

My dream broadcast setup, I want the following:
-an ideally-mobile rig I can just open up, screw the antenna on, and transmit just like that, powered from battery.
-I can transmit either via handheld PTT mic, or headset.
-If I want to, I can hook this rig up to external power, and switch transmit power to a higher setting.
-I can listen from UHF, all the way down to the low frequency bands (15Mhz and below), and I can listen to FM station broadcasts (108mhz downwards)
-I can transmit voice UHF or VHF.
-Use case is for vacation, PotA, DXpeditions, and SHTF just in case.

Naturally, this had me lean to the Yaesu FT-817nd or 818nd... The problem is. Those are not only discontinued models, they're discontinued because of component shortages, and I don't know if Yaesu will ever bring them back. To make matters worse, most of the US stock for 81(7/8)nd series has been exhausted completely due to the sheer demand.

Furthermore, it seems like that all strictly-VHF/UHF mobile rigs, no matter the manufacturer, will NEVER let you listen to the FM-radio broadcast spectrum (108mhz and below), despite the fact that most handhelds WILL let you listen to that. The exception, is the IC-705. It is the only one that actually gives me the level of spectrum-listen that I want, but it has way more features/gimmicks than I want/need, and is way too fucking expensive. 

I briefly-considered getting a hackRF w. Portapack, but getting to transmit voice on that is gonna be more trouble than it's worth, especially since 1. it's got a quarter of the power of my HTs and 2. it's more of a wireless/security tool than it is a ham radio transceiver. Looking into actual military manpacks, it's clear that they're FAR beyond the price range a consumer can afford, and they are absolutely beyond my price range just by sheer virtue of never dipping into less than quad digits in cost.

If there's a handheld model out there that has a PTT mic that allows you to change freqs on the mic itself, and has a wide recieve range, I might even consider just getting that, an amplifier, a battery and other shit. and shove that into a lunchbox or something similarly-manpackable... It's just annoying that all the mobile rigs seem so samey nowadays and yet lack seemingly-simple shit that handhelds have.

Turns out, that with the raspberry pi SBCs you can actually transmit FM signals.

https://github.com/markondej/fm_transmitter

The page even has a setup for a microphone and voice-transmit, but you'd need some extra hardware first.

-- an amp for the frequencies you'd broadcast on
-- bandpass filters (at least one, maybe two, one before the amp, and one before the antenna).
-- The antenna which is appropriate for the freqs you'd transmit on.

So far, doesn't quite look like you could make a pi run the level of shit a HackRF does. And it doesn't look like you're gonna be able to even get as far as a baofeng or other chinkshit HT goes without an amp. But at the same time it looks pretty fun. The link below isn't specifically ham, and is more for SIGINT and RF hacking, but can be a nice inspiration for those looking for a quick-install-SDR distro for pis.

https://github.com/joecupano/SIGpi

If you really want to, you could even get a microphone, an arduino, some parts, play around with it, and then make a PTT mic for the pi as well.

I'd really like to do this shit as well, but I'm so attached to actually getting the machine I want, that I get pissed off when things don't work out how I expect them to.

>>10277
piTX is pretty cool. Here is a video of a guy using it on the HF bands as a WSPR propagation node, and for the small amount of TX power it has it's pretty impressive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW3vQjGFFO4