Amateur (Ham) Radio BS and Callsign Thread!

It depends on how the infrastructure is setup. If it's a point to point fiber connection and the cable is laid underground, there's little to zero possibility of it failing in that type of natural disaster. Not to say if some large unknown fault showed up causing a big earthquake that shifted the earth 2 feet shearing the line or a giant sinkhole the size of an intersection.

At Santa Clara County ARES/RACES we have several methods of making it work. Point to Point wifi, Fiber link, Traditional Repeater link via xband repeat. The lesson taught is to not that IRLP sucks, it clearly serves a purpose, but also to not depend on any single method of linking repeaters, but learn the skills to be flexible.

 

No form of communications is 100 % immune to natural or man made disaster. That's why there needs to be a backup plan in case the backup plan fails. The group that's designated to carry out the backup plans should also have their 2nd stringers warmed up and waiting on the bench too.

 

Just curious if anyone has trouble with static with their handheld inside the vehicle? My friends have some static inside their tacoma, and nothing but static inside their f150, but not in my tacoma..

$19 Baofeng uv-5r VHF/UHF Dual Band Radio 144-148MHz 420-450MHz Transceiver

Baofeng uv-5r w/stock ducky antenna and battery, not plugged into vehicle.

 

Signal quality will always suffer whenever it's not a line of sight situation.

With that said, it's extremely suspect if it works in the Tacoma but not in the F150. It's possible that they're using some sort of switching power supply that causes a crap ton of localized interference.

Can you, in detail, describe the system setup?

This mean vehicles in the system, distance/orientation, all non-stock equipment running in each vehicle. Can they transmit, but not receive, what time of day, what was in the area near the vehicles?

 

The f150 is stock and the Tacomas are similarly modified with lifts and armor. The confusion of the matter is you can hold the radio out of the window of the f150 and the static is gone. The radio is tuned to simplex 147.555 with no one in the area transmitting (verified by other radios). When the radio in the f150 is receiving static the other radios are silent. Changing the squelch doesn't change the result of static.

 

More...

 

It's possible that the OEM window tinting used a metallic vapor coating. That can block or severely in hibit RF.

The stock antenna is terrible for transmitting and receiving, that and squelch doesn't actually work on the uv5r.

But if the radio is freaking out within the cab, something is obviously generating some signal. Really cheap USB chargers will create a lot of interference in 2m band, just change the frequency or try something in the 70cm band instead.

So yea, like I asked prior, is he running any equipment in his vehicle that didn't get installed at the factory? This includes usb chargers.

 

wtf. They should totally limit the amount of callsigns you can change over time and impose a fee. That sort of abuse is super retarded. People should also be required to provide proof that they own and operate a radio to even get a vanity call.

 

The tint is something I hadn't thought of but might have if he just couldn't recieve transmission, or if there was increased static on recieve.

Probably, he doesn't live near me to check. I could understand a USB charger if the radio was plugged in to charge in the truck but it's not. Like my ebay rock lights creating interference on my cb when turned on.

Thanks for the input. I'm already having him try other freqs.

Is there documentation of the squelch not working somewhere?

 

Didn't look through the other posts in detail about answering your question but the stereo system, especially if there is a sub in the truck with an amp, that will mess with the squelch. Other random electronics can set it off too. My fathers new Dodge is ridiculous for random RF. The head unit, amp, 110v inverter all screw with the squelch on the mobile radio in the truck. I did my best to 'deaden' the spurious RF in the cab.

 

I've modified the squelch steps using chirp. It really made a difference in the ability of the radio to not open up every couple of minutes. Take a look here, it's pretty straight forward to program. http://www.miklor.com/COM/UV_Squelch.php

 

Thank you for that, I'll give it a shot!

 

It could be the Baofeng radios. They don't have very good noise rejection.

 

wowwwwwwwwwww, that's a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge difference.

 

Yea, it's almost like having a radio that isn't $30.

 

#almost lol

 

if you plug in an MC-60 microphone and a motorola speaker it will almost not sound like a Baofeng too

 

passed the technician exam today! Yay! Now to wait for my call sign and to start looking for a good antenna to mount and where since I have a Prinsu Cabrac with a large plano rifle kit that takes up the entire middle section of it. And now to read through all 133 pages of this thread!

 

Congrats. Passed both tech and general about 2 months ago, just running a handheld right now, but the last of what I need to get my mobile up and running should be here in about 3-4 days.

 

Howdy everyone, helping out a friend (I'm still working on my license). He's got a T4R that he'd like to put a HAM set up in, but he's having some issues trying to work out the antenna situations.

Would it be better to have a single long antenna on the rear? A long in the rear and short in front? Only a short in front?

He's got a cargo rack so roof options are limited.

I have some vague notion of CB radios from work, but when it comes to HAMs we're both not very knowledgeable.

Please and thanks!