Amateur (Ham) Radio BS and Callsign Thread!

I had a chance to test the APRS.fi data retention policy. They held onto my last bits of data for 2 years, 2 months before it disappeared off their site. I was fine with that...

What bothers me most is perhaps the U.S. Government sucking that data up and accumulating it for eternity. Legally, they could keep it forever. And potentially use it against the licensee, although I've never heard of such a thing happening. But the potential is there.

 

I'm not excusing this with what I'm about to say, but if you carry a Cell Phone, they have a far easier source of higher quality data. Unless the battery is removed from the phone anyway.

 

I bet they would/are doing the something with Spot data. They can not be trusted, they want a backdoor into everything out there. Those sneaky bastards.

 

Certainly possible.

Possibly true.

But stepping back and looking at the big picture, there is an enormous difference when someone voluntarily speaks, or in this case electronically announces their location in a public manner, vs. location data that should be constitutionally protected, and accessible only by law enforcement with a search warrant issued from the judiciary.

 

So hopefully i get my tech license on monday and since I am not really wanting to spend money on a unit for my truck right now, should I get a handheld radio just to learn on? Can I use it in my dorm room? What the best one for a decent price? Or can someone give me a starting point to research some radios?

Thanks

 

I've got myself a BaoFeng UV5R to begin with. Yes you can use it from your dorm. Less than $30. I'm I'll graduate to something more expensive later on, but for now, this works. I even programmed the frequencies my company uses at work and use it often.

 

Good luck on your Tech!

Some loaded questions, hard to answer without more info.

-HTs are a great and cheaper way to get into the hobby. With a few accessories you can make them work great. Add a mag mount to your roof, a better rubber duck antenna, etc. You can get a BaoFeng for like $50+, people either hate them or love them. The are good and bad because they are cheap. The staple best HT is a Yause FT-60, runs about $150, 4/5 hams at any event seem to have one. I have one and thinking about buying a second one (depends on how cheap I can get some sliders next month). You can easily start spending more and more on HTs, but a good mobile rig starts around $300, so you spend too much on an HT and you could get a decent mobile. Another reason to start with an HT, is they are always good to have around. Camping, working an event, monitoring while outside your truck, etc.

Dorm room.... you near the top? You have an outside room? windows? balcony? You allowed to to put anything outside?
-You can build a cheap J-Pole antenna, put it in a pot on the patio, give you great range. And you can run a cable into your room.
-- http://www.kk4ice.com/?page_id=20
-- http://k0bet.com/jpole.html

ham.com has great reviews on everything ham
gigaparts.com hamradio.com universal-radio.com are great places to buy a radio. See if you have a ham store in your city, nothing beats putting your hands on something.

Google for a local club in your area, might have loaner radios. Your college might even have a club, several do.

 

Thanks for all the info!

I think I will start with one of those boafengs UV5R2+ seem cheap and I'm not looking for anything high performance right now. Just something to start with. Then I will save for a mobile unit on the truck. I am on the very top of my dorm, 5th floor, cant put anything out the window though.

Not sure if there is a ham store, but im taking my test (and hoping it will be easy lol) at the local club so maybe they have some advice or radios i can buy

This one has alot of good reviews
http://www.amazon.com/Warranty-Dual...&qid=1453959543&sr=1-2&keywords=baofeng+uv-5r

 

http://www.2wayelectronix.com/Dual-band-2m-70cm-Slim-Jim-Antenna-with-16-or-10-rg-58-DUAL-16.htm
I have heard great things about and hope to grab one soon myself for the baofeng.

 

Yes I set up us mobilinkd app.
Here are some screenshots. .

 

Try changing the digi-path to "WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1" no quotes. If that still doesn't work, try upping it to "WIDE1-1,WIDE2-2"

That basically changes how many "hops" your transmission makes between you and the internet gate. When you add the WIDE2-1 or WIDE2-2 terms it tells the digipeaters to forward it more times.
You can read about that here: http://wa8lmf.net/DigiPaths/

San Diego has so much activity that I actually had to decrease mine to just WIDE2-2, I think, or maybe even WIDE2-1 so that I wasn't causing too much traffic.

 

I just signed up for a basic course at the end of Febraury to get my license. I think the course should be pretty easy for me as I'm a Journeyman Red Seal Electrician and already familiar with the math and circuitry.

Now I just gotta start researching what I want to install in my rig.

 

I changed my digi-path to WIDE1-1, WIDE2-1 then went mobile this morning, still don't show up on APRS.FI

 

@gray223 First off I'd like to say Congrats in advance on getting your Tech License!

What I'm about to write isn't meant to discourage you from getting into the hobby as quickly, and as cost effectively as possible. What I'm about to write is advice I think many new hams need to hear, and regularly don't.

HTs in general are a pretty big compromise when it comes to Ham Radio. They max out at 5w, where most mobiles 5w is the lowest power output. The antennas are universally crap on HTs. This can be fixed by putting a better magnet mount antenna on a cookie sheet, or the top of a fridge, etc. And BaoFeng radios in particular have some of the worst receivers ever put into ham gear.

I'm not saying a

$18 UV-5R VHF/UHF Dual Band Radio 144-148MHz 420-450MHz Transceiver

UV-5R or similar is a bad thing, just understand that they are NOT the Toyota of handheld radios. They're very much the Fisher Price My First HT of radios.

The recommendation I would make is going to cost more than the HT by two to four times ($200ish) once you add the antenna, and mount. However I'd highly recommend looking into buying something like a Yaesu FT-2900r, or if you can find a used FT-2800r to put in the truck. If you want to use it as a base station, a small switching power supply, and a J-Pole (which doesn't require a ground plane, and can be made with some 300ohm twin lead) will make a fantastic base station, even inside a dorm room.

I think a lot of new hams purchase HTs, and more specifically the BaoFeng radios because of the price, and then have a less than stellar introduction to what Ham Radio is, and quickly fall out of the hobby as a result.

 

Thanks for the advice! Really appreciate all the help. I realize that one of the HT is going to be nothing spectacular at all. But being new to the hobby, i mean completely new, never been around a ham radio or even talk about a ham radio, i think its just something to learn on. How everything works, how to use it properly etc. I have no reason to get one in my truck as of now, cause it spends 90% in the parking lot and going no where.

I don't really have a reason to make like a base station or anything like that...yet. I'm just not into it that much, well because I haven't started with anything. And I really don't see myself going to that way anyway, will I get that much into it? Possibly, but that time is a little ways away.

This is buy no means going to be a main hobby, I have so many hobbies I know this one isn't going to be one of the main ones, if that makes since. I will spend alot more time hunting, fishing, and playing sports then ever on a ham radio.

 

Do check your local major city, and or college campus and see if there's an amateur radio club. Also check to see if there are any local nets.
If the answer to any/all of the above is "yes" go to the club meetings, and or check into the nets.

Find a local, or better still a group of locals willing to be an Elmer/Elmers. This will help expose you to more, and help you with any questions. If you ever get stuck I'm very willing to help. just send me a message!

 

I'm going to agree with you 100% Lars. The Baofengs are useful for truck to truck on the 4x4 trail when the group is moving is a single file line. But I'm going to add that I've had a lot of Handheld and mobile radios back when I had a little bit of a gadget obsession. The Yaesu FT-1900 or FT-2900r are both great entry level radios. If you want a dual band radio go with a Yaesu FT-8900r or a Kenwood TM-v71A. If you want an HT then look at Yaesu FT-60 for dual band or FT-270r for a mono band.

There are other models and manufacturers but the above mentioned models are great radios that you absolutely can't go wrong with.
I have a few baofengs too but they are just toys and the receive audio quality is annoying.

 

Overland Radio Gear: (VHF/UHF only in this segment)
Radios for Overlanding fall into two major categories. Handheld Transceivers (HTs) and Mobile Radios.

Handheld Transceivers are effectively "Walkie Talkies" and can run from as inexpensive as $35 per unit for a Baofeng UV-5R all the way up to several hundred dollars for a top of the line Yaesu/Icom/Kenwood digital HT, like this Yaesu FT2DR. HTs typically offer several power settings, with Low being ~ 0.5W, medium being 1-2W, and high being 5W. At 5W the radios tend to get hot while transmitting a lot, and the batteries don't last long. (It's worth noting a CB maxes out at 4W in the United States...)

Mobile Radios come in three major varieties, and then have a host of options. The three major types of mobile VHF/UHF rig are:

• Single Band (usually 2M)
• Dual Band (usually 2M/70CM)
• Dual Band CrossBand Repeater (usually 2M/70CM)

The single band radios are exactly what they sound like. These radios operate within a single band, which usually means 2M, although they don't have to. These usually, but not always, output between 5w on Low Power and upwards of 75W on High.

A dual band radio is virtually identical to the single band radio, except you can select between two bands. This means if you're in a small group, and if everyone has dual band, you can select which band you want to use. The 2M band is the most popular band in the world. If you're looking for a quiet place to talk within your caravan, you might choose as a group to move to 70CM for instance.

Finally we have CrossBand Repeaters. These are also dual band radios, but they have two receivers in them, rather than one. This means they act in many ways as if you have TWO radios at the same time in your vehicle. These include a special mode of operation though, that allow you to "connect" the 2M radio to the 70CM radio. Thus, anything received on the 70CM side will be instantly re-transmitted on the 2M side. And anything received on the 2M side, will be re-transmitted on the 70CM side. When coupled with an HT, this can allow you to use the HT on 0.5W on 70cm, but communicate with a remote station using the 50-75W 2M transmitter in your vehicle. (Ask me about "Red River Gorge" in Kentucky sometime.)

Another newer entry into the Mobile, and HT ham radio market is Digital radios. These all operate normal FM like the others listed, however they include some form of digital encoding. Right now there are no "standards" so each vendor has their own competing protocols. Yaesu appears to have the most widely adopted system with C4FM FDMA and their Fusion Repeaters. This is a fairly in depth discussion on its own, and I'd be happy to field questions to the best of my ability but won't muddy the waters here.

Like everything else in life, in many ways you do get what you pay for. I personally intend to pick up a few (5?) UV-5R radios to keep in a Pelican case in the truck for dire emergencies but wouldn't personally trust them as a primary radio. Ham radio is like a lot of hobbies. There are many different ways to participate and enjoy the hobby. I've hardly scratched the surface here. I, and I suspect the rest of the Hams on Overland Bound, would be happy to field any discussion on the hobby you might have.


Single Band 2M Radio


Dual Band 2M/70CM Radio


Cross Band Repeater


Yaesu Digital Cross Band Repeater

 

Here are some example mobile transceiver options. Each of these is a dual band radio. (2m and 70cm) Also each of these has a detachable, or detached control head. I'll add a note next to each with additional features.

Kenwood, Icom, and Yaesu are regularly referred to as "The Big Three". They are the ham radio equivalent of Ford, GM, and Chrysler. There are other brands, but if we're focusing on high quality, reliable equipment, these are the brands that are going to receive all of my attention.

• Icom
  • IC-2730a - Dual Receiver / Cross Band Repeater
  • IC-880H - D-Star Digital Mode Ready
  • IC-5100A - Dual Receiver / Cross Band Repeater / APRS capable / D-Star Digital
• Kenwood
  • TM-V71A - Dual Receiver / Cross Band Repeater
  • TM-D710GA - Dual Receiver / Cross Band Repeater / APRS capable
• Yaesu
  • FT-7900R
  • FT-8800R - Dual Receiver / Cross Band Repeater
  • FTM-100DR - Yaesu Fusion Digital / APRS Capable
  • FTM-400DR - Dual Receiver / Cross Band Repeater / APRS capable / Yaesu Fusion Digital

On the topic of Digital Modes. There are currently three competing standards. (Think VHS vs Betamax) or for you youngsters (BluRay vs HD DVD)

Yaesu has developed and released a system called Fusion. It's based on C4FM.
Icom has had a system called D-Star for the last 10 years.
Motorola Has a system referred to as DMR, or MotoTRBO.

If my Crystal Ball is tuned properly, I think Yaesu's Fusion system is going to end up being the winning technology for most average hams. I make no promises that this is correct. However looking at how unsuccessful Icom has appeared to be with D-Star, I think it's unlikely they're going to win the battle.

I think the EMCOM crowd is going to flock to MotoTRBO/DMR. In large part because many of the ARES/RACES Emergency Communications types also work with Police/Fire/Search & Rescus and are carrying Motorola radios already.

I didn't mention Motorola radios above in my list. Motorola builds some exceptionally high quality equipment. However it's all designed for use as Business Band Radios. They work fine in the Amateur Radio Service, and it's legal for a Ham to use them as such. However I think anyone leaning toward a Motorola, is already experienced enough that they're not looking for any advice from me.

 

^ Two posts I wrote for an Overlanding Forum on the topic of Radio gear.