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What's New

Starting A New Company?

Then check out my new blog by clicking Should You Start A Company Today?

Also, check out my new Workshop for Start Up Companies by clicking Workshop!

Manuals

I've set up a page that has downloads of various manuals in Acrobat format.  All of these are for equipment I have owned with lots on Yaesu...but other stuff is there too.  Click Manuals.

Shack-N-Bag TM

Just added a new page with lots of photos showing my easy to "grab and go" portable station.  Click Shack-N-Bag for details.

El Cheapo AZ-EL Rotor System for Satellites:

Details on how to assemble my under $50 approach for my AA5FR El Cheapo AZ-EL rotor system for working the LEO (low earth orbit) AMSAT birds. Click Cheapo.

ATAS-120a Antenna

I have gotten so many requests for info and photos on the ATAS antenna, I've created a separate page.  Click ATAS to see!

New Band:

I have just made my first Six Meter contact in 40 years. Actually about 3 dozen as far away as Canada and Saint Louis. Since both of my rigs offer it and they are the first six meter enabled rigs I have had since high school, I decided to use the tuner and the same 80-10 Meter "AA5FR KindaSorta Dipole" and see what happens.  Getting very good reports up and down the east coast with 40 watts and working just about anything I could hear.. Now considering a moxon to maybe pursue Six more seriously.

New Shack Additions

Just bought the Kenwood TH-F6A HT to add to my minimalist lineup where less is more.  Great little radio in an incredibly small package.  Just added the Diamond CR320A Tri-band Mobile Antenna to the car to run this as an easy mobile. Covers the same 144/220/440 as the TH-F6A HT and works MUCH better than the cheapie MFJ dual bander mag mount.

Also, just convinced the XYL that an HF mobile mount is a good idea, especially for mountain topping (she is less convinced about using it while driving)!  That way, we can operate portable in the comfort of the car with the top down on the convertible. 

Just got the Comet CP-5 and the Yaesu ATAS-120A auto tune antenna.  Will also be using the ATAS for portable operation.  Update:  Just added the Diamond K-400C Mount for the ATAS as I was finding the Comet CP-5 not quite good enough.  See new test results now that I have installed the K-400. Will dedicate the CP-5 to the CR320A by clicking ATAS.

I have gotten so many requests for info and photos on the ATAS antenna, I've created a separate page.  Click ATAS to see!

Email: 

You can email me by clicking on my eyeball contacts (yep, really my eyes.)

   Click to email AA5FR

A Gift - Even If There Is Less Than A Zero Chance We Will Work Together

This is one of the ways that I am "paying it forward."

Zero cost.  Zero expectations - except that it is with my hope that it helps improve your life - and more quickly gets you from your current Point A to your desired Point B.

 Click for your free copy!

Click the Five Year Life Book Cover to download this 82 Question Pop Quiz. 

Don't even think about starting a company or new venture - or even a new romantic relationship without answering these 82 questions about your life - five years from right now! 

Make sure your personal life goals, your romantic goals and your new business goals are totally congruent.  Click the book cover to download your free Workbook with my compliments.

Follow Me On Twitter

Click To Follow Me On Twitter

 

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The AA5FR Equipment List

Equipment

  •  Yaesu FT-897D  and Yaesu FT-857D - Both are great little rigs that, while they don't do it all, do a LOT in an amazingly small space for the 897 and an incredibility tiny space for the 857.  There are several sites with excellent pages on these little radios.  Stay tuned for a separate page where I will give the links.

  •  SignaLink Model USB With Integrated Sound Card - radio interface for digital communications...a superbly engineered $90 gizmo that will get you quickly on PSK-31, RTTY, Packet, SSTV and other digital modes WITHOUT the need to buy a TNC or use your computer's sound card.  Also, no power cord or audio cables required...just the USB cable to the computer and the radio cable to the err radio.  Highly recommended.

  •  Timewave ANC-4 - I use two Timewave ANC-4 for noise control. It is an amazing device worth its weight in DXCC certificates. Since I live in a high rise condo, the RF noise is immense at most times.  The Timewave ANC-4 Noise Canceller does an excellent job of eliminating this noise.  Generally, it will take a S-7 noise floor and reduce it to zero.  BUT you do need the right kind of noise antenna.  I plan on adding a new page here at my site for the Timewave ANC-4 that will discuss the device and its set up in more detail.  Stay tuned!

    Note: One of my ANC-4 nose cancellers just died. I sent it back to Timewave for repair for a flat $50 cost that they said will cover any repairs that are needed to bring the unit back to spec.  I am very pleased to say that they were successful.  Apparently, the eBay owner who had this unit before me had performed some very poorly done mods to the unit that allowed RF to burn up several components since he had hampered the RF sensing circuit.  In spite of all of that, Timewave spent considerable time and effort, replaced a dozen parts and returned the unit to me.  It is now performing flawlessly.  Bravo to Timewave!

  •  Four computers - with the main one being a 2.67 GHz Quad Core HP d5000t with six gigs of RAM and three TB of hard drive space.  Also using four 19" LCD screens, plus two notebook screens and especially love the main monitor - a 37" 1080p Sharp Aquos hi def computer monitor (it's also a TV!) on my U-shaped desk that surrounds me (I need this many for my businesses).  The Aquos makes such a great monitor that so greatly enhances my work productivity that I rarely use it to watch TV...instead, I use Media Center windows on other computer screens to watch TV (mostly tuned to CNBC and CNN during the day.)  I run three of the computers in dual screen mode which successfully adds to my information overload!  Photos will be forthcoming. 

    Also have a cable modem to the wired outside world, an obscene 8.2 TB (8,200 Gigabytes) of hard drive space, Slingbox Pro (which is amazing), Edirol UA-25, several Audio-Technica microphones and a JK Audio Innkeeper 1X digital hybrid telephone interface (for my radio interviews, teleseminars, and web audio), yada, yada, yada.  These computers, etc. are just the ones sitting on, or under, my desk in my office and doesn't count the other three throughout the house!

    I am a management consultant for start up companies with virtually all my clients worldwide coming to me via the Web and with my office either in our beachfront home or our mountain top home...hence, the need for so many computers.  That, and being a TOTAL geek at heart!)

 Software

  •  Ham Radio Deluxe with Digital Master 780 - absolutely amazing software - and it is free - and newly upgraded with even MORE great features!  A genuine standing-ovation and heartfelt thanks to Simon Brown, HB9DRV.  Bravo Simon! It is THE best ham software I have seen in my 45 yeas of being licensed and is probably as good at what it is suppose to do as just about ANY commercial software that I have used.  This is such a full featured piece of software, you almost (ALMOST) don't need anything else: Cat, logging, satellites, DX clusters - and the PSK31 program, with its Super Browser, is the best I have seen for this digital mode (MixW is still better for virtually ALL the other digital modes.)

  •  FTBasicMMO - As great as HRD is, it only does memory management for the FT-817 and not the FT-857D and FT-897D.  As a result, I bought FTBasicMMO from G4HFQ Software.  After getting Simon's fantastic software for free, I was somewhat miffed to have to pay JUST for memory management.  However, for $18.50, it is a steal.  It is worth every penny, or farthing, for what it does.  The cherry-on-top for me is that it also throws in memory management for my Kenwood TH-F6A!  This one program will let me mix and match between all three radios I own along with checking for dupes and sorting the data about any way I want and does a great job of importing and exporting CVS files.

  •  Satscape - freeware satellite tracking software that does a good job of tracking all the AMSAT, and other, birds. Occasional crashes but worth every penny.  Note:  I just discovered the exceptionally GREAT satellite tracking inside of Ham Radio Deluxe and am now solely using it.  Once again, Simon has proven himself to be a software god.

  •  Various other packet, PSK-31, etc. software.  This list will expand as I test more the huge number of ham related software packages.

PSK-31

When I was active before, I was successful in obtaining Worked All States - Packet #3...the third person to ever get WAS solely operating packet radio and the first to get WAS packet for a single band (20 Meters).  Since that time, things have changed digitally with the advent of PSK-31.  It seems to be an amazing mode and I suspect that you will most often find me on the standard PSK-31 channels...especially since I am usually operating QRP or close to it. 

By comparing the small bandwidth of PSK31 and measuring its gain against a CW filter of 500 Hz; quickly reveals that a CW transmitter must put out 15 to 18 times more power than a PSK31 transmitter, just to achieve the same signal to noise ratio at the receiving station. In fact, you can have 60 PSK-31 stations in QSO at the same time using the same bandwidth as ONE SSB QSO!

This is the reason the PSK31 operating mode has gained so much popularity in such a very short period. The end result is that a PSK31 station can operate with reduced power and smaller antenna installations.

 

 

 

 

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Name:

Robert

QTH:

Clearwater Beach, Florida and Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Call is AA5FR/4 when portable in Tennessee.

Locator:

EL87NO - FL,
EM85HS - TN

IOTA - NA34 - FL.

Rigs:

Yaesu FT-897D, usually running only 20 watts. My main HF rig at my base station on Sand Key Island.

Yaesu FT-857D. This is my mobile rig working with the ATAS-120.  Amazing result with the two - my first three contacts sitting in my Florida parking lot:  Northern Ireland, Slovakia and Ukraine. 

I also use the FT-857D as the main component of my "grab and go" "Shack-N-Bag" for easy portable operations.

Typically using a SignalLink USB for all the digital stuff - especially PSK-31. Timewave ANC-4 for noise control. Both are amazing devices worth their weight in DXCC certificates.

Auto antenna tuners:  The battery-powered LDG Z-11 Pro for the often portable FT-857D and a LDG AT-200 Pro for the usually stay-at-home FT-897D.

Antennae:

Above auto tuners with "KindaSorta" HF dipoles at 110 feet (35 meters)

Arrow II dual band VHF/UHF satellite yagi.  Also use two Advanced Receiver preamps:  SP432VDG for 435 MHz and SP144VDG for 144 MHz - both of which greatly improve the reception for most satellite passes and compensate for the low gain of the Arrow II and the LMR-195 feedline loss.

Arrow J-Pole for 144/440.

Yaesu ATAS-120a for mobile and portable operations - which does a surprisingly amazing job for both.  Best DX so far: Mobile from the top of the Smokies to VP8, Falkland Islands - with 10 watts - even at the bottom of this sunspot cycle.  I have gotten so many requests for info and photos on the ATAS antenna, I've created a separate page.  Click ATAS to see!

Interests:

Everything! including my wife (absolutely my #1 favorite way to spend my time), digital photography, Photoshop, mountain hiking, sailing, biking, scuba diving, computers, writing, helping start up companies really get started and, of course, ham radio!

Previous Calls:

WN4LEJ - Novice
WA4YFH - General
KD5SB - Advanced
AA5FR - Extra

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Facebook

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There, you can post your own Profound List for free and let those who match your list, find you - Efficiently!

Click Facebook to check it out!

Email: 

You can email me by clicking on my eyeball contacts (yep, really my eyes.)

   Click to email AA5FR

Sunsets:

Click for a slideshow of my sunset photos:

Click for Sunset Slideshow!

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AA5FR - Another Creative Focus of Good-Man LLC Pox 3051 Clearwater Beach, Florida 33767
© All Content and Photography Copyright 2005 - 2009 by Robert Goodman. 
All Rights Reserved.   Email Robert@AA5FR.com   Last update: 06/10/09

Welcome to the  Ham Radio World of  AA5FR