Greetings, K9MRD,

One small point, if I may.  The letter "N" in north Korea is alway lower case, never upper case.

north Korea, or nK

I believe this is to convey disrespect to the dear leader, Kim Jung Il.

73
Jack

Hi,
First, many thanks for your highly informative replies, and especially for all the hard work being accomplished on this web site.


Yes, I got licensed gen. 3 weeks before code went away, but due to my job and travel I haven't been on the air much.

"Who said you had to be just on 20 meters?" My Ventenna is now set for 20M; I have a Cushcraft MA5B on order to replace it
http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/340

I ordered the MA5B about 2 months ago, dealer reports that Cushcraft is having serious problems with one of its "jobbers," causing a long delay in the shipping of this particular antenna. The earliest the MA5B can be shipped from Cushcraft is about 3 weeks from now.  

Given the reputation of the MA5B, I should get more for my 100w, that is, if the MA5B ever arrives.  The 26 lb MA5B is probably the heaviest antenna I can use on a pole without having to get a lattace tower.

"Contests?"  I'll gladly support anyone who is engaged in contesting, otherwise I prefer just to make distant contacts.

; local Ham store has it, I'll p/u a copy.

DX Summit spot?  Guess I do need to read the book.



Then I have a serious problem I didn't know about.  The feedline is LMR-400 with a 1db line loss.  Another ham told me to switch to Heliax Hard Line, but that's $4/ft. From TX, I worked LAX and a mobile in TPA who reported me to be 5 x 7.  Maybe I have a robust 1/2 watt.  

The Cushcraft MA5B beam should help me to improve my ERP deficiency, if it ever gets here.



Yes, thanks.  I would like to reduce my power below 100w and let the antenna do most of the work; the MA5B is supposed to have max gain at 20M besides being directional.

RE: CW, This morning I had breakfast with an extra; he gave me some rather discouraging news about going CW; he told me that unless I can copy 30 wpm, that I'll get no DX contacts.  Well, my speed is around 5 to 10 wpm, mostly 5 wpm, so I'll have to find time to build up my speed.

WA4DOU,  I put up a 20M YO YO antenna as an inverted V, and it worked pretty good; then I moved it to a new pole and got the top of it to 34 ft, the noise went to S-8.  Switching back to the Ventenna eliminated the noise.  All that will be OBE if and when the Cushcraft MA5B arrives.  I could put up a lattace tower, by XYL says hell no.  So I have a tripod mounted pole awaiting the arrival of the MA5B.  Then there's the $$$.

Thanks much for the replies,
Jack

Greetings,

Preface: Not talking contests, and I did a cursory search for the topic and found 1 related link.

QTH is Texas, I do 100w max to a Ventenna Hfpd at 34 ft, 20M. Low time Gen class licensee (w/cw exam), and I avoid contests.

Many members of a local radio club have commented on the formidible kilowatt curtains, namely,
The California Kilowatt Curtain
The East Coast Kilowatt Curtain

that both are barriers to central US hams attempting to work overseas DX. This is not my inference, many hams around here have brought up the subject and shared their experiences at trying to penetrate these kilowatt curtains.  

The prevalence of these "kilowatt curtains" is partially substantiated here, http://www.eham.net/forums/DXing/675?page=1

My own limited experience attempting 20M DX includes inability to complete a contact with HI due to full legal limit stations situated on the CA coast.  I almost contacted Sydney (the distant station had part of my call sign) until the kilowatt curtain prevailed and that was the end of that.  

"So what's your point?"

The point is, that
-- The Kilowatt Curtains are real
-- East/West coast stations are at a competitive advantage vis a vis oversea contacts.
-- I'm switching to CW, maybe I can sneak thru, under, or over these invisible barriers.

And, yes of course, I have to acknowledge that every ham has the right to live on the East or West coast and operate full legal limit.  

What if, for one frequency during 1 short time period, the curtain could be opened?  Naw, never happen.

73,
Jack

Hi Mike, thanks for replying.  Yesterday I loaded System Leopard onto an external drive, performed all the updates, then rebooted to that drive.  

Tried Echomac from there, results nil, even though firewalls were off, everything was wide open.  

There must be something elusive that other Mac users are doing, maybe some obscure Unix command that must be performed via the terminal.  

My next step is to take the situation to a Mac forum, such as macosx.com and get their opinion, since it must be similiar enough to VOIP programs.  If that doesn't work I'll have to send my login and password to a non-ham engineer to allow him to diagnose what step(s) are needed.  

Again, it isn't my Motorola Net-Topia DSL/Router to blame, since I physically took my Mac to the ISP and plugged straight into a T-1 line.  

73/Jack

Hi Dan and G6KIZ,

I figured it out after I posted the query; hence, I should have spent more time prior to bringing it to the Elmers forum.  

I had the Clarifier detuned, thus bringing my receive frequency somewhat away from transmit.  So in the future I need to use the clarifier for its intended purpose and not for a "bandspread" function.

Thanks much for the replies and 73!!!

Greetings.
FT897D Transmit/Receive frequencies are different on 3 HF bands.
 
Unable to find cause either through the numbered menu modes or the MFx modes (A,B,C keys); obviously I mis-set something and/or am not following an elusive procedure.

Xmit/Receive frequency disparity is persistent on 20M; While in VFO-A, the transmit frequency falls 4.5 mhz below the receive freq; in VFO-B the transmit freq is 5 mhz even below the receive freq.  

40M, transmit is 1.28 mhz above receive frequency
17M, transmit is 13khz above receive
30M, 80M, 160M, 17M, 15M, 10M, 6M are normal (simplex).

Tried a lot of stuff, with the book open, to track down the cause, obviously I'm barking up the wrong tree.  

Will much appreciate hearing from another Yaesu owner who can point me the right way.

Appreciate all the hard work being accomplished in the eHam forums.  

73/Jack

Ham Radio made the news on the Slashdot website.
The followup comments are just as interesting, where the experts of Slashdot discuss the status of today's amateur radio as well as its future.  I'm amazed I'm the first one posting this.

The entire article with followup comments:

http://slashdot.org/articles/07/12/05/2350233.shtml

Hi WB6NGC,
Thanks for keeping up with me.

I got in partially.  I went to Echomac preferences and reduced the station information from the long default to less than 23 characters.  Tried Echo Test, echo audio, node 9999, nothing.

Went to the sound control panel, made tested my sound input, it works fine, made sure sound output was ok, closed sound control panel.

For the first time, echomac (lower left) presented number of stations online.  Growl preferences, for the first time, indicated connected or disconnected.  Then I got connected to Echo audio, it showed the ip number, for the first time, in the connected to box.

However..., Push toggle to transmit went gray and would not allow transmit.  Previously, during unsuccessful attempts to connect, the push to transmit would turn red or off, but made no difference.  

Lil Snitch became an unintentional notification system of network activity; in these cases, Snitch presented me with a 4th option to allow both the IP and the port simultaneously (which it didn't do before).

Presently, further attempts to do echotest are unsuccessful.

Am I supposed to check the Busy check box in every attempt?  I've been trying both ways.
Thanks
Jack

"Stealthy, Versatile, and Jam Resistant Antennas made of Gas...
it vanishes when you turn it off."

Amateur uses?  Homeowners Assn. officials will never know.
Computer uses? File sharing potential; turn it off when the MPAA lawyers show up.

Entire articles:
http://www.physorg.com/news114098443.html
http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/07/11/12/2116207.shtml
 

Yes, I am a Lil'Snitch user; I set up Lil'Snitch to allow EchoMac to use any port and any protocol; later I tried it with Lil'Snitch filtering off.  Unfortunately, for me, results were still nil.

I haven't tried it with System Leopard yet, I have it installed on an external firewire drive; I'll boot to it, try Echomac with it and see what happens.  If that fails, I'll install System Leopard on another external using a regular install (not an upgrade).  

After that, if that fails, I guess I could get the ISP engineer to monitor my data stream.  It must be someting improper with my network settings; I even tried a wi fi connection on a neighbor's house to an unsecure wireless router (yeah, I know, slap, slap), using a MFJ-1800 yagi antenna.

Do my various settings (my previous message) look ok to you?

Thanks again,
Jack

Hi WB6NGC, my typo, it was pointing to 1922.168.1.2
Since last QSO on line, I physically took my Powerbook (MacBook) pro over to my ISP.  Then I connected directly to a T-1 line without the use of my router.  

Signs and symptoms were the same; I could receive the list of stations but could not connect.  Tried several while the engineer watched and no results.  

I switched over to Parallels and ran EchoLINK under windows xp; same signs and symptoms, no connect.  

It would appear that my router is not to blame; this leaves 2 Macs that won't connect, so the only thing to do is to re-look all my settings.

The first thing I did was go to the echo link website and make sure my account is valid and pw is correct.

Looking over Network settings:

Location Automatic, Built in Ethernet, Using DHCP, 192.168.1.2,
Configure IPv6 is automatically.

PPOE: Not used
Appletalk: OFF
Proxies, Manually, none being used
"Use Passive FTP Mode (PASV)" is checked.
Ethernet is Config Automatically

Sharing, Services, Personal File Sharing ON
Firewall: Personal File Sharing ON

Specified Ports:
Port Name: Other
TCP Port Number 5200
UDP Port Number 5198-5199
Description: Echomac 5200

Port Name Other
TCP Port Numbers 5200
UDP Port Numbers 5198-5200
Description: Echomac

Note: Also tried other variations of the above.

Internet Sharing is set to OFF

Any assist will be most appreciated.  
73,
Jack

Hi N7IOH and WB6NGC,

Thanks much for your replies.

RE: The Netopia Router (Motorola), in their manual, regards "pinhole" to be "port forwarding."  W7IOH, I don't use the website login, "SCUBA," I use my real callsign and password as assigned.  

WB6NGC, I do have ver 1.16 running (not running), and firewall off, repaired permissions, performed all the diagnostics that the Onyx program provides.  I tried using windoze XP  under Parallels on the MacBook Pro with Echolink, and experienced the same problem.

I travel a lot, so I tried numerous hotel routers (hard wired and wireless) with the same problem, although Jim advised that hotel routers typically forbid any kind of port forwarding.

Sound functionality is normal on both Macs

Coffee - Yes

Getting a router log out of a netopia router is elusive; setting it up to provide a log is a "no go" so far.   Guess I need to go to the CCNA course in Idaho.

Port forwarding UDP 5198 5199, yes, Netopia calls it pinholes; TCP 5200 yes.
Tried UDP 5198 thru 5200, Netopia returned an overlap error, but allowed me to try it anyway, results: Nil

Tried my ISP assigned IP on manual instead of dynamic DHCP, made sure router pinholes were designated over to Mac IP, results: Nil

Checked my account with echolink - still valid.

If I ever get it to work, I'll post the steps/results here with graphics or video.

Thanks again, for your advice.
Jack

Hi Dick,
Thanks much for replying.
Yes 5200 pinhole TCP and 5198 also UDP.  Unable to access Netopia router log (if any).  Tried firewall off.  I don't use XP, I use System Tiger 10.4.6.

Here's what System Tiger's console log reveals:

2007-10-09 18:19:22.825 EchoMac[410] Error: echolinux exited with code 15
2007-10-09 18:19:40.903 EchoMac[410] Error: echolinux exited with code 15
2007-10-09 18:20:08.669 EchoMac[410] Error: echolinux exited with code 15
2007-10-09 18:20:57.747 EchoMac[410] Error: echolinux exited with code 15
(event handler):Object  (result of expression ValidateCall) does not allow calls.
(event handler):Object  (result of expression ValidateCall) does not allow calls.

Been trying lots of things, and lots of different hotel routers as i travel a lot (although I can't mess with those), and even some random wireless systems; so far, I can't get past just seeing the list of 3600 stations that are on the air.  Attempts to connect result in timeouts.

Thanks again for your thoughtful reply,
73,
Jack

Hi,  Unable to get echomac (echolink) to go beyond just listing the stations.  
So far:
I've tried 2 different Macs (newest version of System TIger) on more than a dozen different ISPs, both 802.11 wireless and hard wired and T1 with no results. UDP ports 5198 and 5199 are properly active under firewall of the router I use most of the time. Results: nil. On instances with a router, I established proper tunneling (Netopia calls it pinhole) of UDP 5198 5199 thru the router's firewall. Results: Nil

So far I've spent hours trying all sorts of combinations and settings trying PPOE, and absolutely nothing works.

Quote =AA4FX  "The application installed with no problems. Works well. No problems."

Sir, this is great for you.  May I ask, how did you get it to work?

The top message posted in the product review form states, "don't believe people who can't get it working."  Well please stand around and watch.  It does not work. Shall I make a video of it not working and post the video?  

Quote = MWILDING: "The solution: pick a machine, get its IP address and set up port forwarding on your router/bridge. "

What machine?
IP Address?  How?  With what?

QUOTE=Jim "I would check again that your router is correctly configured to forward UDP traffic on ports 5198 and 5199 to your Mac. "
I did.
Netopia, Expert Mode, Configure, Advanced, Pinholes,
Pinhole Name:Echomac1, UDP, Port Start 5198, Port End 5198, Internal IP Address; 192.168.1.0, Internal Port 5198, submit,
then the same procedure for 5199.
Submit, Restart, go back and it's still there.

QUOTE=Jim  "Simply making a hole is not enough.  It must reverse any network address translation it is doing. "

The pinhole is in place, but how do I do that the reverse NAT???

QUOTE=Jim "The EchoMac Help suggests using port triggering, because that is the most foolproof way of making sure you are forwarding to the right private IP address."

That's nice, but it fails to explain how to do it, it assumes the reader is proficient in port triggering.  

QUOTE=Jim  "If your router doesn't provide that feature, you will need to change the forwarding address each time you try a different computer on your LAN to make sure you are forwarding to the right private IP address."

What forwarding address and, how, specifically, do I do this?

I'm not trying to be disrespectful.  Congratulations to those who managed to get it to work.  I've spent a lot of long hours trying to troubleshoot EchoMac; there may be some elusive, missing steps that will make a difference.  Any clue as to what specifically makes it work will be much appreciated.  

Again, I mean no disrespect to anyone.

Thanks,
Jack

Hi WA5UHK,
 Yeah, it's mostly a sellers market - Examples.

Used FT817ND selling for as much as $50 to $100 ABOVE full retail.
Used FT897D selling at and as much as 10% above FULL retail.

And Yaesu only allows warranty to be passed if the buyer is a dealer.

These are bidders, running the prices up above full retail.  

I've been keeping an eye out for buddipole deluxe - other bidders are running the price up to full retail or to within 95 to 105% of full retail.

So, I back out; if an item is greater than 75% of full retail, I back off, but other bidders get into a frenzy.  I've seen bidders running the price on used (questionable warranty) MacBook (Powerbook) to 10% above full retail.  

I think it's bidders getting into a frenzy where priority is to beat out other bidders at any cost.  Naturally sellers are smiling.  But, I was told, before I got my tech/gen license, that hams all have high intelligence.  Guess that goes out the window on ebay. 73/Jack