Ham Radio 360: Workbench-12 Building the Antenna Analyzer

Hi Rory ! Brian ! Bryan ! And everyone else. Thanks for the interest and for listening. Cale said it very well. I will just add that on the Workbench, in general we shoot for an hour per episode but we have so much material, it always turns into two hours. We have surveyed our listeners multiple times thinking that the show is running long, and to my surprise, everyone's feedback was that its just fine as is. We try to minimize the filler and don't talk about what we had for lunch or repeat a reference to the inside joke. We try to give the listeners a lot of meaty content in a fun and practical way. All the feedback is taken well and we appreciate the time you all take to share your suggestions.
George

 

Keep doing what you doing Cale/wolverine. If you have some time to follow the podcast this is explained in great detail. If you have not had time for the podcast yes you may not know all the info. Basically a swr analyzer in a kit form less than 60$ for basic analysis.. Knowledge behind the build is very good. Give the podcast a shot and drink the red koolaid.. They really go the extra mile to fill in the blanks for the new ham. Kind of like Elmer in a podcast.. Btw I got in on the second run and all the other stuff is on the boat being delivered.. Good listening and 73

Prosise

 

Cale, Jeremy, George - you guys are doing great things for ham radio. Keep up the good work! My soldering iron is heating up as I type this, for an hour or so of play before I start my normal work day, and if not for the antenna analyzer project it wouldn't be. I already have a nice commercial antenna analyzer, but your show is inspiring me to experiment and learn a few new things, and in my book that's extremely valuable. I'm building this kit to enhance my technical skills and knowledge, it doesn't really matter whether it was an antenna analyzer, 40m qrp cw rig, or whatever. I'm interested to see what mods others make, what sort of add-ons or tweaks are made along the way. It's going to be fun! Tune out the noise, thank you for all the time you put into these shows.
Keith KR7RK

 

Well I guess opinions on forums are like...

Workbench folks,
Are there still plans to offer a full kit for sale?

Thanks,
Bryan

 

Ham Radio 360 crew. Keep doing what you're doing. You guys are a wonderful asset to amateur radio.

 

To keep the kit cost down I believe they indicated in the podcast that it would be broken up into parts. no click here for everything. But they have a page that has everything you need with links. If you want to second source the parts to save some cash the build parts are listed. I opted for some second source parts and have the kit down in the high 40$ range but will take a month on the slow boat. Good feedback on the thread and I am sure they will take all the input. Some appear to be in attack mode rather than I need some info mode. BTW, left the darn iron on overnight and have to replace the tip on the iron. Inside joke but is true.. What a bummer it was this morning when I saw the green led pulsing on the bench..

Prosise

 

No description at all about what it is, what it does, etc. Thus no interest from here

 

Don't buy it then, I got mine already but your disinterest means someone that is interested will get their board in the future. Thanks for your magnanimous contribution!

 

I have been following this project since long before I had heard of Ham Radio 360. I have been waiting for someone to supply a commercial PCB and/or kit. I missed the first batch but I pre-ordered 2 last night.

As for those hams who need information spoon-fed to them, get a grip. Sure, it might make it simpler if Cale just did all your research for you, but the project is well documented, has been discussed ad nausea on other sites (like the Yahoo group originally dedicated to the project), and simply just isn't that hard to understand in the first place. Put your big-boy panties on and order a board instead of writing essays on how someone else should be running their company.

 

We have no current plans to offer a kit, just the empty boards to allow the builder to source what is needed from the resources we've prepared (linked on page 2 of this thread).

Again, this isn't a capital venture, it's a Hobby Podcast build-along project that our listeners and the 3 of us will do together. If you would like to participate or learn more please see page 2 of this thread for every conceivable link I can provide-past that it will require you to listen to the shows to learn more about the 5 w's.


K4CDN

 

HR360 is one of my favorite podcasts (of any subject), and is doing fantastic things for our hobby. I humbly recommend an unbiased listen, if you can find the time. The guys put in a ton of work on our (listener) behalf and it really shows in the quality of the shows they put out.

And if the analyzer project doesn't hold your interest, I'll bet you will find something that will in their back catalog.

 

I hear both sides of the debate over whether I should sit through a 111 minute podcast to see if it is a project that I could make use of, but here is my $0.02.... I am a single father of three with a full time job. I don't have enough "free time" to even get on the air for a month or two at a time right now, so an almost 2 hour podcast is not possible. While on my work break I saw this project (which looks awesome), rolled through the 3 pages of comments here hoping for any information about it, then went to the referenced hamradio360.com... link, which refers me to a www.360workbench.com link, and even after reading all the documents on that web page, and the forum pages on that site, the closest information I can find about it is the comment "The theory of operation is documented elsewhere". Granted I don't have time to build this project right now anyway, but I would have bought it if I could have found anything at all about it that didn't require 111 minutes on the podcast. I love things like this, and everything I use I created with a soldering iron even though some of them were kits etc. With my kind of budget it is much better if I just make the toys since pre-built ones cost so much. Judging by the earlier comments, if someone could just put in a sentence or two about what the specs are on the final product, I think a lot of the commenters here would have exactly what they were looking for. Thank you for all that you do for Amateur radio!

73, WA7H

 

Thanks Cale, just ordered a board - I'll be checking out the podcast on my drive back and forth from/to work in the next couple of days.

I had all the parts in my possession, but the PCB will make this a breeze!

73
K5KDT
Kevin

 

Arduino-based HF antenna analyzer that works with the on-board LCD or with a computer. Very cheap compared to commercial offerings. Build one.

 

for those who are still in the dark:

The K6BEZ antenna analyzer will provide VSWR measurements for any antenna from 1 to 30 MHz. Frequency and VSWR is shown on the built in LCD display.
Data can optionally be sent over the USB cable to a PC running a program that will plot the VSWR on a graphical window display.
The analyzer can be programmed to scan any sub band and has built in ranges for 160m, 80m, 60m, 40m, 30m, 20m, 17m, 15m, 12m, 10m.

All of the Above was covered in depth in our initial conversation here