Many of the older HTs like the Motorola HT220s and the Bendix-King sets
have simple screw-in studs for the antenna connections. Is there _any_ way
to adapt these for a BNC connector without major surgery? I could readily
make a connector that screws into the antenna mount and has a BNC on the other
side, but where does the ground come from? Did anyone ever made a commercial
solution for this? Is an HT220 really a boatanchor? Have you ever had to
carry one cross-country?
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

In article ,
(Scott Dorsey) wrote:

Many of the older HTs like the Motorola HT220s and the Bendix-King sets
have simple screw-in studs for the antenna connections. Is there _any_ way
to adapt these for a BNC connector without major surgery? I could readily
make a connector that screws into the antenna mount and has a BNC on the other
side, but where does the ground come from? Did anyone ever made a commercial
solution for this? Is an HT220 really a boatanchor? Have you ever had to
carry one cross-country?

Scott-

I do not know if there is an easy way to get to the antenna's ground
terminal, but had a related thought. Some of those old HTs worked with
a separate speaker-microphone that had an antenna mounted on it. You
may find a better antenna connection through the speaker-mike connector,
since it would be a co-axial connection there.

Fred
K4DII

Fred McKenzie wrote:

I do not know if there is an easy way to get to the antenna's ground
terminal, but had a related thought. Some of those old HTs worked with
a separate speaker-microphone that had an antenna mounted on it. You
may find a better antenna connection through the speaker-mike connector,
since it would be a co-axial connection there.

I have seen photographs of HT600's (Genesis series) radios where the center
wire of the coax was connected using an appropriately threaded brass bolt to
the antenna socket, and the ground (coax shield) provided by a smaller bolt
in the hole that holds the programing cable or other accessories in place.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM/KBUH7245/KBUW5379

One of the purposes of Hamfests is for people who has surplus equipment, to sell that equipment to help other hams out.

Sometimes you can get some really good deals there.

You need to forget about the walkie talkie idea.
Somewhere along the line, someone forgot to tell you - this is called HAM RADIO / NOT HAM WALKIE TALKIE.

For even a 100 something dollars, you can buy a brand new Yaesu mobile 2 meter rig with 50 watts of transmit power and a new microphone, which is programmable.

For some stupid reason, people have lost sight of what AMATEUR RADIO, is really all about.
I hear all kinds of cries and complaints, where people thinks that the government and others should support their HOBBY.

After all, this is a HOBBY.
Much like GOLF, or Baseball or stock car racing.

You wouldn't expect the government to purchase you a set of golf clubs and you wouldn't expect the government to buy you a set of tires -

But for some reason, when HAMS gets a license, they refuse to spend any money, and if someone gives them something and it works, even just a little, they refuse to spend their own money to buy something better.

You are going to need to get away from the walkie talkie mentality, and the hitting the one or two local repeaters and thinking that it makes you a ham.

Even just in my situation, I put up a Diamond V2000 antenna above the roof of the house and I bought a Yaesu 8900R transceiver and I entered in over 100 repeaters and I can talk 6 meters, 2 meters and 440 Mhz as much as I want.

Even though it is not HF, I can make contacts 100 miles away.

This is something you cannot do with a walkie talkie, even with a mobile external antenna.

Unfortunately, the ARRL and the clubs are afraid to tell their members this stuff, in fear of loosing members.
They coddle and nurse maid these hams until finally they are so brain washed, they believe that what they are doing is still ham radio.

There is a whole big world out there.
Everything from 160 meters up into the GHz bands.

Out of the 700,000 plus ham radio licenses, there might be 100,000 actual ham radio operators.
Out of that 100,000 - probably 65% of them only holds a Technician class license.

That means that out of this whole country, there might only be 40,000 actual ham radio operators that operates on the HF bands.

That's not a lot of people in the grand scheme of things.

And it seems like most of those that are not hams, are either waiting to retire from work and graduate from the walkie talkie band, as soon as someone dies and leaves them something.

We are printing all kinds of licenses, but I don't hear a lot of new voices on the radio.
One reason for this is the fact that most of those 650,000 licensees only has a walkie talkie, and they wait until the one day a week when their club or local group has a net, where they can check in and say their call sign and say NO TRAFFIC, AND SHUT THEIR RADIO BACK OFF AND THINK THAT THEYARE REAL HAMS AND THAT IF THERE WAS A EMERGENCY THAT THEY WOULD BE OF SOME USE TO THE HAM RADIO COMMUNITY.

My question is - if the local repeater is blown down, who are you going to talk to? Especially in rural America where your signal might only travel one mile or less?

Go buy yourself a real radio and get on the air and talk to people from other places and if you don't have a General or higher class license, put your nose in the book and start studying and upgrade your license privledges...

On 7/12/12 5:24 AM, Channel Jumper wrote:
[... snip ...]

What the hell are you talking about? It's just a bunch of nonsense.

MM wrote:
On 7/12/12 5:24 AM, Channel Jumper wrote:
[... snip ...]

What the hell are you talking about? It's just a bunch of nonsense.


He is a frustrated stream of consciousness author.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stream_...rative_mode%29

On Fri, 13 Jul 2012, MM wrote:

On 7/12/12 5:24 AM, Channel Jumper wrote:
[... snip ...]

What the hell are you talking about? It's just a bunch of nonsense.

I figured he didn't know what the HT220 was, or its place in the early
days of 2m FM.

Michael VE2BVW

Channel Jumper wrote:

You need to forget about the walkie talkie idea.
Somewhere along the line, someone forgot to tell you - this is called
HAM RADIO / NOT HAM WALKIE TALKIE.

I need the walkie-talkie for when I climb the tower to adjust the HF
antenna and talk to the guy in the shack looking at the reflected power
metere.

For even a 100 something dollars, you can buy a brand new Yaesu mobile 2
meter rig with 50 watts of transmit power and a new microphone, which is
programmable.

That's worthless, it doesn't even have a 6146 in it. Real 2 meter rigs
have a 6146 on the output. I've got one in the shack to talk to the guy
hanging on the tower adjusting the HF antenna.

You are going to need to get away from the walkie talkie mentality, and
the hitting the one or two local repeaters and thinking that it makes
you a ham.

My walkie talkie doesn't have a crystal for the local repeater. If I want
to talk to the local repeater I need to use the Heathkit Lunchbox or the
aforementioned real 2 meter rig. The walkie talkie is for talking to the
guy on the tower adjusting the HF antenna.

Even just in my situation, I put up a Diamond V2000 antenna above the
roof of the house and I bought a Yaesu 8900R transceiver and I entered
in over 100 repeaters and I can talk 6 meters, 2 meters and 440 Mhz as
much as I want.

Even though it is not HF, I can make contacts 100 miles away.

Hell, I can make contacts 100 miles away with 0.1 watts out of a signal
generator into a key. In fact, I have 34 states so far doing this (and if
anyone in Idaho with a good 40M beam is reading this, I need some help
on the 35th).

This is something you cannot do with a walkie talkie, even with a mobile
external antenna.

Actually, I have an HF walkie-talkie made by Racal, and I _can_ make
contacts 100 miles away with it. 5W SSB into whip and so far I have
20 states on that (also looking for Idaho by the way).

Unfortunately, the ARRL and the clubs are afraid to tell their members
this stuff, in fear of loosing members.
They coddle and nurse maid these hams until finally they are so brain
washed, they believe that what they are doing is still ham radio.

That's nice, but what the hell does it have to do with my question about
antenna grounding for an HT220?

Go buy yourself a real radio and get on the air and talk to people from
other places and if you don't have a General or higher class license,
put your nose in the book and start studying and upgrade your license
privledges...

Real hams build their own radios, they don't buy them. Right now I am
trying to build an antenna adaptor for my HT220.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

(Scott Dorsey) writes:

Real hams build their own radios, they don't buy them. Right now I am
trying to build an antenna adaptor for my HT220.
--scott

I never thought I'd see the day where some lid would insinuate that
Scott wasn't "a real ham"

--NK1G

Hi OM Scott,

I suppose you need to connect the HT to an external antenna.

A friend of mine faced the same problem when he wanted to connect a Motorola HT to an external antenna.

I had a look and there was no way to get a ground connection out without damaging the radio.

The 'half-way' solution is to connect another rubber ducky to the coax cable from the external antenna and inductively coupling it to the HT rubber ducky.

Here's the link to how I checked it out to see whether it would work.

http://nandustips.blogspot.in/2011/0...y-gimmick.html

It does work after a fashion!

73

Nandu.