I found this video today (it’s been on YouTube awhile) offering more technical info on the #ANFLR9 #ElephantCage #antenna than you’ll find anywhere without doing a lot of reading. The presentation includes this graphic, which is the first I’ve seen comparing the size of an #ElephantCageAntenna to the size of the U.S. Pentagon: https://youtu.be/4sgAGWPNSUQ
Should I go with a quarter wave vertical or half wave vertical on 17 meters (18 MHz) this summer?
Monday is January's #FullMoon — the #WolfMoon.
It's now exactly 2 #lunar cycles to the #TotalLunarEclipse on 2025 Mar 14, the Night of the #KrononautMoon, and our invitation to #TimeTravelers to come visit or send us a #quantum #signal. (To be followed by 2 more Total Lunar Eclipses in the next year!)
Here's our extended version #Checklist for the Night of the Krononaut Moon, a celebration of Time Travel. (Original post located here: https://me.dm/@KronoMoon/113610202533882675).
Coming our way next on 2025 Mar 14 #UTC 07:00, 2 months from now.
#Observe the #Moon & #stars that night, wherever & however you like, with friends & colleagues or on your own. Local #times flexible.
#Connect with the #cosmos & with your #past & #future #selves. Send a #signal to #beings in the #future(s). #Candles & safe #campfires are good; #music & #dancing are good; #radio #wave #antennas are good. Be experimental!
Click & share many #photos of the #Moon, with you (and your #family / #pets) under it — what we call a #Moonsie — and any nearby #UFOs. Share your #images with @KronoMoon & @KronoMoonPhotos.
#Enjoy a deepened #moment of #peace, #love, #authenticity & #meaning, with other #Mastodonians around the #world & #beyond — wherever you are.
I borrowed a NanoVNA from @mathias and tested my Meshtastic antennas...
The one shown here (with a 915MHz sticker) appears to actually be okay! It was an AliExpress find.
(For anyone smarter than me, does this look good? SWR of 1.225 acceptable?)
The antennas that ship with the Heltec V3 boards seem to be pretty bad at 3.998. (Well, they do come free with it.)
"Revolutionizing radio tech: 3D printing is set to transform the industry! From antennas to RF components, the ability to print complex shapes and materials opens up new possibilities for customization, cost-effectiveness, and innovation. With faster prototyping and on-demand production, the future of radio is 3D printed!" #3Dprinting #RadioTech #Innovation #Customization #CostEffective #RFComponents #Antennas #google ##huggingface #perchance #chatgpt #aiart #artbasel2034 #michaelpaulino
I'm trying to trim (tune) a 40 meter end fed half wave antenna. This SWR reading was taken from where the feedline would connect to my radio. The EFHW is approximately 68 feet (I knew I'd want to trim it down) with a 1:49 unun.
I was expecting for the minimum to be low and then I'd trim it to get it at 7.1mhz. It just doesn't look as I expected so not sure where to go from here other than cut a foot off and see what happens.
Any general thoughts or advice?
FINALLY got to try my little MTR3B - works like a charm 
Several QSOs on 30m from my vacation QTH a couple hours north of Kristiansand /Norway.
Antenna is a dual band 20/30m, with #sotabeams mini-traps.
Got decent reports with my 4’ish watts TX power, tomorrow I’ll try 20m as well 
May is here and so are higher temperatures (finally! 
) I love my little yard, being outside and testing a new #SOTA antenna in the sun is a win-win situation
Coming Thursday I plan to activate OZ/OZ-004, this time on the 2m band. Last time I was there, carrying a radio, was February 2016. It was really cold and really wet and I managed just two QSOs before I had to wrap it up for the day.
This time I’m hoping for more, I know that some of the locals will be listening for me
It’s #sensorsunday 
A field strength meter can be really handy when testing antennas and they’re simple to build: a couple germanium diodes, a capacitor, a good old analog uA meter and a potentiometer to adjust the sensitivity.
This unit was just $20 and it seems they repurposed a PCB originally intended for some other application
To use it, start by adjusting the sensitivity to its minimum setting, key the transmitter at its lowest power (1W will certainly do) and walk along the antenna and measure the field strength along the wire or structure.
I’ll do a future post demonstrating it on a trap dipole , W3DZZ style
Came across this beautiful microwave link station in #norway, a site which operates in a very special way: the signal is aimed towards a reflector in the mountains and from there it is bounced towards its destination 
It’s not uncommon to do this, but it’s the first time I’ve ever seen one, real life
While visiting sites like this, it’s always a good idea to look at the installation - in this case the waveguide feeds, the dimensions of which reveal the operating frequency area, likely between 8-12GHz.
@eniko@peoplemaking.games I love how this whole conversation about the importance of #hashtags for using #mastodon is almost completely devoid of any hashtags, especially about #art, #photography etc.
One would think #addinglotsofhashtags would be helpful for the visibility of this #advice, but #whoknows?
Maybe we should have a day of #HashTagGames about the most #interesting hashtags for people to follow.
Also, does anybody know if we can follow hashtags on #Calckey outside of the #Antennas function?
Radio Waves: DW Launches “Sudan Now” on Shortwave, Mayor Saves AM Station, Tape Measure Turnstile Antenna, and Where Does AM Go From Here?
A big hello and welcome to all the new people who've joined #blahajzone the past couple of days. It's great to have you here!
Our admins are @ada and @supakaity.
Ada leads the front of house and moderation side of Blåhaj Zone, while Kaity leads the back-end and maintains Hajkey for us & a small group of other instances.
Our server runs a fork of Calckey that we call #Hajkey (pron. hi-key). We'll soon be merging our code with #Iceshrimp. A summary of the features unique to Hajkey.
Here's the link to our Community Documents such as our Community Guidelines, Terms of Service, and Privacy Policy.
If you're wanting to migrate from a #Mastodon account, here's a step by step instruction guide for moving to Blahaj.zone.
We also have a #Lemmy server available for signups at https://lemmy.blahaj.zone and a #kbin server that's soon to be open, for those looking for #Reddit - like communities. They can also be interacted with from here or other places in the Fediverse.
I'm neither a mod nor admin here, but am happy to help if I can. I've written this about how the five main timelines work and this popular post about #Antennas.
If you haven't already, please take the time to post an #introduction. Here's my #intro here and I've attached a #selfie with #eyecontact
I look forward to getting to know some of you more.
Kind love xx
Jo (she/her/they/them)
#Fediverse #FindAServer #Migration #Feditips #Welcome #Firefish #Misskey
I've begun to revise and expand my post on the Calckey #antenna feature.
When I'm done I'll post it as an edit, so those who have it bookmarked already will have access to the updated information.
#Fediverse #Calckey #CalckeyTips #CalckeyTutorial #JoinCalckey #Antennas
Update on my search for an alternative long-text #fediverse software:
Misskey
I stopped using my #Misskey account first, mainly because #Calckey was the better option between the two which are otherwise rather similar. Misskey also offers only rudimentary account transfer functionality, i.e. import / export data but no account transfer.
From my point of view, at least some account transfer functionality is absolutely essential in the spirit of the Fediverse and I don’t want to be locked into a particular instance, even if it is a reliable one, as I may want to switch to self-hosting at some point.
If you like Misskey, I can recommend misskey.de, maintained by #libranet.de grand master @alfred.
Calckey
Calckey is interesting and quirky, and it has implemented suitable account transfer functionality. The team even work on cross-platform post/toot import which is great. In a somewhat strange move this was deployed into production today, largely untested and broke the calckey.social experience for quite a few users.
The developers are generally very enthusiastic, committed and present in the community which is a great thing.
One other issue, at least in my considerations, was the emoji and #mfm (Misskey Flavoured Markdown) overload - it’s just a little too much if you’re beyond 40, it’s blinking and jumping and rotating and 90ies animated gif-ing everywhere. This functionionality is really being used extensively and whilst you can switch it off in your settings, so the interface will be much quieter, it feels like you shouldn’t, as it is a major part of the Calckey community DNA and people actually want this…
I also noted that the software is a bit beta, updated often, and the deploy method into production seems very progressive (post import function, looking at you…). So if you need a stable, reliable and distraction-free environment for (semi-)professional use or long-form debate, Calckey is probably not the first choice.
I did like the #antennas function, however, which was more usable for me than following single hashtags on #Mastodon or save searches on #Friendica. It is possible to save thematic antennas with multiple keywords and read those as a separate consolidated antenna feed which is convenient and a good way to discover content and users.
I may keep my account for a while to follow the Calckey journey and for the days where I feel like I need more rotating emojis, but won’t use it extensively.
I am on the flagship instance calckey.social and I want to shout out to @atomicpoet who is ever present and the greatest advocate for Calckey.
Friendica
So after testing extensively over the long weekend, I like Friendica the most, although its plethora of functions can be bit of a usability challenge, but it is very powerful and usable for my specific purposes.
I keep discovering functionality which makes this platform the best for my use case. And don’t get me even started on the thread view - this is by far the best, most readable and well rendered implementation of threads I have seen across the #Fediverse applications I have tested, ideal for long-form debate.
There’s also a mobile app in development, shout-out to @hankg to put me on the TestFlight. This looks very promising and will be key to bring more users to Friendica - and also keep them there, using it with a well-designed, simplified interface. So far, and for me, the web browser on a PC or a tablet seems to be the best option if you want the full Friendica experience.
So, I will stay on here for long-form writing, groups, debates and keep my #Mastodon account in parallel. I may consider self hosting Friendica and #Pixelfed at some point in the future but this remains to be decided.
With my Friendica account, I am on venera.social, a reliable server run by @alfred as well.
Feel free to connect on Friendica or Mastodon, if you wish.
Thanks for reading!
PS: Please note - no character limit and basic markdown formatting, that’s what I am here for. 
I'm excited about #calckey's "#antennas" which seem to be an enhancement of #Mastodon's "#filters". The cool part is you can use boolean logic in search terms, and you can also search *for* terms which works like Mastodon's hashtag subscriptions. #activityPub #fediverse
2025 Mar 14 
