Miracle Antennas

For some years now I have hosted Yahoo Groups on Sub-9kHz amateur radio, VHF AM and Miracle Antennas. Yahoo is effectively ending its groups, so new groups have been created at .io . As an example see https://groups.io/g/miracleantennas.

To migrate a group costs $110 in the first year, whereas starting a new group is free. Of course you lose the message archive, photos and files unless these are manually transferred when a new group is created.

Yahoo Groups closing

It has been on the cards for ages, but Yahoo is closing its groups. Some have migrated to .io although this is not free ($110 for Premier Membership in first year?). I created several amateur radio related Yahoo groups and I propose to close these. Some groups have migrated, although none that I host.

Yahoo oddity

Recently I had great difficulty approving members of my VHF AM Yahoo Group. I was using Firefox, which I'd been using for years. Changing to Microsoft Edge and I had no problems at all and they were approved in seconds. I am using Windows 10. I wonder if anyone else has had similar issues? Odd.

Miracle Whip Yahoo Group

It is some while since I last used my Miracle Whip antenna, although I still moderate the Miracle Whip Yahoo Group which has nearly 1500 members.

Some of the SPAM I intercept is amusing.   More often than not these are to the group owner and promise me all sorts of sexual favours. I think they think the group is another sort!  How wrong they are. Most messages are filtered so it is rare for these to get to the group. As soon as seen, they are deleted. The group has a low tolerance of SPAM.

For those who don't know the Miracle Whip and its derivatives is a small, self contained QRP antenna. On the higher HF bands with a counterpoise it works quite well. My best DX using it indoors was with the FT817 to Argentina over 11000kms on QRP SSB. This was on 10m. It works as well as a 56 inch whip will do if well matched. Do not expect miracles!

See https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/miraclewhip/info .

See http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/hamantht/miracle.jpg. The image is theirs and is linked here. The image is not on this site.

CB to ham

From Steve G7VFY:

Good use for old CB's.

There is a Yahoo group, CB to ham.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYoI2Q7O3zU

Stephen Walters

G7VFY

I've left the Yahoo KX3 group

Since its early days, I've been receiving posts from the Yahoo KX3 Group, which is a group for people interested in this Elecraft radio. It was generating a huge number of daily posts: this month people have posted 1590 messages already! As it is now rather unlikely that I will purchase a KX3 - I simply cannot justify £1200+ for a fully loaded, if excellent, QRP transceiver - I decided today to leave this group.  That still leaves plenty of other Yahoo group messages to read.

I'm not sure how others read Yahoo Group messages, but I always choose

"Web Only - Don't get notified of the latest happenings. Read messages only on the web."

I'd be unable to cope with several hundred, possibly thousands, of additional emails from groups each week. This option is always available when you join a Yahoo group, or you can do it later by editing your group settings.

A very sad day

Do you get days when everything goes wrong? Today was one of these for me.

A few weeks ago I suggested, after a long 5 day outage, that the RSGB LF-reflector migrated to a Yahoo Group. In my experience Yahoo groups are great: messages, files and photo storage and a great way to share and archive information with others of like mind. In over 15 years I have rarely had problems with any of the groups to which I belong.

After a few weeks, the group leader G3WKL decided to make the move to a Yahoo group having "taken the temperature" of the original group members. Then the "fun" began: a few people objected and started a flame war and I was centre stage of the hate, in particular from one particularly nasty and forthright individual. I could name him but will not stoop so low.

My intentions were good: I wanted to let people know that all they did with the original Blacksheep mailing list could still be done, but so much more too. Things like archiving of messages, 100GB of both file and photo storage etc.

The resulting avalanche of nasty and ill-informed posts, many of which were directed at me, has frankly sickened me. My faith in the hobby has been shattered by the bad feeling and unkindness of a few ill-informed individuals.

Amateur radio is usually a friendly and helpful community but in the last few days I have seen an altogether different and darker side of it, one which shames the community.

To be honest, I have never been nearer to throwing in the towel and taking up another hobby. This is indeed a very sad day.

New LF Yahoo Group

After some debate, the old RSGB LF-reflector is now migrating to a new Yahoo group at http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/rsgb_lf_group/ . If you have an interest in the VLF/LF/MF amateur bands such as 8.97kHz, 136kHz, 472kHz and 500kHz then you may want to join. It is sure to become one of the most useful resources on the web for up-to-date information as well as a valuable archive of schematics, photos and ideas.

Miracle Whip Yahoo group

Many years ago now I started a Yahoo group for people interested in the Miracle Whip and similar antennas. Amazingly the group now has over 1200 members.  Opinions vary about the effectiveness of the MW - in my opinion it is a compromise antenna that is inferior to many simple whip antennas - but it is easy to tune and with a counterpoise or reasonable ground does allow DX contacts on all modes when conditions are decent. See http://groups.yahoo.com/group/miraclewhip/ .