Official Colorado HAM and cheese thread

Thanks guys! I’ll let you know what I decide and when I get my license.

 

Ok hammers..

What's the suggestion for a mounted unit? I know there's the Kenwood 710, yaesu ft-8900 that are commonly referred to.

Not sure if ill have a use for aprs since it seems like there isn't much coverage around here (unless that is not a problem with a higher powered mounted unit).

For some strange reason I'm a bit gun shy about Chinese electronics which is my main hesitation about a Yaesu.

And are there "go to" antennas for a setup?

 

Just for a bit of piece of mind on Yaesu, the brand has been around forever and is one of the top HAM radio brands available.

For antennas, my 5/8 band TRAM whip on am NMO mag mount has been great. Tunes near perfectly and has great broadcast/reception.

 

Good to know. i was thinking it was baifeng quality. And since i get shocked by my two handhelds....

 

I am over at Brians right now and we looked at his new FTM-400 and the FT-7900R from Yaseu and both are manufactured in Japan.

 

Here's my APRS coverage with a true mobile unit during this weekends shenanigans. You'll have to decide how remote we were compared to your typical adventures.

 

So what radio are you running...or aprs setup? When i tried aprs with handheld baofeng and aprsdroid on the tablet, i would get a couple pings while in golden then a random one here or there. Nothing like your map.

I understand what aprs is but not dstar, and looks like it's Kenwood if you want aprs or icom if you want dstar. Is there a good site with an explanation of dstar?

 

Yaesu, Kenwood, Icom and Alinco are the big players in amateur specific radios. It's generally a safe choice using anything made by them. You can use commercial radios, mainly talking about Motorola, Hytera, Bendix or Vertex Standard brands, which are usually a step up in quality (as in basically bulletproof being what the cops, fire, government use) with the downside of being less intuitive to get programmed. The main ham radios are supported by Chirp or have a fairly low cost or free option from the manufacturer. To program Motorola radios requires a license or subscription to their software, which is about $300.

APRS is useful, I like having it. But I recently moved to a dedicated solution rather than an integrated one because the good dual band radios that have APRS built-in are basically two. The Kenwood TM-D710 and the Yaesu FTM-400. Unless you plan to get into the hobby, though, I would suggest sticking to those radios if you just want position beacons and minimal APRS. If you don't want to do any APRS then there's more choices of good mobile radios that aren't as expensive.

The Baofeng and TYT are Chinese companies. Yaesu, Kenwood, Icom and Alinco are Japanese. Yaesu does have a Chinese factory that makes their mics and the FT-1900 I think is made there. But I wouldn't worry about anything they make, it will be high quality.

Antennas, I like Larsen, Tram is fine, Comet or Diamond are usually OK. I run a dual band Larsen NMO2/70 that's worked great for years.

 

Ironically when we were looking at the boxes yesterday it said our mics were made in Taiwan. Not that it makes any difference.

Gigaparts has the Yaseu 7900R (the radio I have) right now for a sweet price of only $269.99. But it sounds like Brandon does want some good APRS functionality so that would lead you to other radios like the Kenwood or the FTM-400 from Yaseu. @thefatkid just got an FTM-400. I am waiting to see how his setup does for APRS.

 

I had an FTM-350 for many years, which was similar to the FTM-400 without the digital modes and no touch screen. It doesn't have a true TNC built-in but for beaconing, sending & receiving messages, driving a tactical display it'll do what you need.

 

Yeah not even sure I am gonna get that far into HAM. Right now my radio is only on for trips. So I am kind of just sitting here with popcorn watching thing develop.

For everyone on here doing APRS is it really just the hobby or are there good reasons to run APRS daily? I am curious to hear why you guys use it.

 

I am running the kenwood d710 with a 27” comet antenna on a hood hinge mount. The above map shows the coverage when sending out beacons at 10W. I don’t know much about dstar except that it’s a digital mode of communication I think. Pretty sure dstar is common with Icom radios.

 

HAM is a hobby and APRS is just another thing to do with that hobby.

I'm not going to run APRS daily. More of a trip mapping and text function. If enough people run it in the group it could be used for remote/primitive location services like finding a camp if you're coming in separate from the group.

 

Sending messages over the air is handy and might be easier than using voice to communicate perhaps GPS coordinates. You can guide people into camp or figure out where part of the group went wrong on the trail. You can also send Internet email and SMS to someone's phone across gateways other hams have set up if you don't have cell service but can raise an APRS digipeater.

 

So what i read about dstar was you could make phone calls or do internet stuff through it. Any idea what exactly that capability is or means?

 

I think the real value in APRS is when you're out in the middle of no where and people have access to your track (If Repeater) to find you if something happens. Also can use it to meet up with someone else in range if you can receive their signal.

Running APRS every day, even if you had a commute not sure of value unless your boss is tracking where exactly you are...

 

I think most important thing for APRS is getting a dedicated or Dual band radio to do it, otherwise that transmission is going to walk over the net.

 

@Littles this is what you said yours was doing

 

Yup. Same issue with mine.

 

@thefatkid

What made you choose the Icom radio? Still debating back and forth with the stuff and found a video of using an older model to get internet over the radio. It seems like if I wanted aprs, there would be a way to get that, and i'd use the other dstar features more than aprs. Have you messed with any of that stuff?