KN4YBA-About

This site is dedicated to document my journey into Amateur Radio. I received my Technician license (KN4YBA) in November 2019 and my General License in February 2020, and finally my Extra in March 2022.

For radios, I operate the Flex 6400 for HF, ICOM-9700 for VHF/UHF/SH, and Yaesu 991A as a backup radio, and Rfinder M6.

I do live with an HOA so between the HOA rules and my wife’s rules I am forced to use my attic for the emplacement of all of my antennas. My attic gives me ~15 feet in height and I have managed to install a Diamond Antenna X300A Dual Band Base VHF/UHF antenna and tri band 144/446/1200 8’. In addition, a Jetstream JTBM270 UHF/VHF Dual Band Yagi antenna. The Yagi antenna is controlled by an RCA VH226F antenna rotor. I have two Ameritron remote antenna switches with controllers I built based on the schematic provided by Ameritron. The RCS-10 gives me 8 ports for HF antennas One unused, 6, 10, 17, 20,40, 80, & 160 Meters and I control it with a USB switch connected to the Flex 6400. The RCS-8V provides me 5 VHF/VHF ports. I have also built my own controller with use of a lan switch.

All of my HF Antennas are of the Inverted V horse fence design using American FarmWorks HDT500W2-AFW 2 Inch PowerTape with 14 highly conductive aluminum wires aluminum stands due to the low resistance. I started off with a test with stainless steel and determined the steel measured a much higher resistance than the aluminum.

I have been successful with adjusting the lengths for each of my antennas to ensure the lowest possible SWR with them being installed within my attic. To help on SWR and what a huge difference it made, I my MFJ-939 auto turner directly in the attic before the antenna switch.

My HF radio is the Flex 6400. I love this thing. I have been able to integrate my Ameritron RCS-10 to the Flex using the USB setup in selecting which antenna to use depending on the frequency/band I have selected on the radio. The MFJ-939 auto turner does automatically tune with my selection of tune on the Flex SDR software. One thing I noted although it does tune the SWR down to a usable limit, I wired a separate switch to the MJG turner button that permits me to fine tune the antenna. Say the SWR came down to 1.5, I can press the fine tune to get the SWR down to 1.1 to 1.3.

To start in my planning for remote operations I purchased 2 Digital Logger switch. One is used to close the remote connection that will power up the Flex radio, and several internet switches for overall control of the radio power supply, antenna switch, and antenna switch.

For all of my power up and power down of my radios I use web switches. I never actually touch the Flex, ICOM-9700 or my Yaesu radio and operate each with software as remote radios. With Flex I use SmartSDR, ICOM-9700 I use the ICOM Remote software, and for the Yaesu 991A I use MFJ 1234 OS with a Rasberry Pi4 as a server.

When operating from my Ham Shack I interface all audio from the radios into a 12 channelMackie ProFX Series, Mixer. I use a Mechanical Lan switch to direct PTT and Mic audio to the specific radio I am tranmitting. Everything audio output (Ham Radios, TV, & 2 Computers) in my Ham Shack is rounted to this same mixer to a Fosi Audio TB10A 2 Channel Amplifier Stereo with output to high quality Polk speakers or Remote Audio MDR7506HSC-S headset with mic. The inputs are from a boom or my headset mic.

Last Updated March 5 2024