Colorado B.S. Thread

Well..there's a shit ton of you know how to use them (i don't... Hoping to learn someday). But use of repeaters so you can reach help from distant corners of the earth. Aprs for tracking other rigs in a group while out of cell service. Ability to send messages and pictures over the radio.

And even with just using radios on simplex (no repeaters), the clarity is not comparable to a cb as well as the distance you can communicate.

When we were in Moab, i was talking to @Wulf and someone popped on and said "we can hear you over here" dunno who it was or where they were, but we were in the Gemini bridges area and i realized the radio was on 50w. I turned it to low power so i wasn't beaming messages to the ISS any longer.

And as i said.. I don't know much about the fancier uses of ham. Really would like to find some good info/website/YouTube on the information pertaining to the off-road use of ham.

Most material geeks out quickly on building radios and engineering stuff which i have little need or interest in.

 

More and more of us are getting ham! I still have my cb but prefer using my ham.

 

I’d say it depends on where your at.
Personally my cb is stuffed in the glove box but the antenna stays home. I did just get a powerful ham radio and going to hardwire it into the truck. Yes it’s more complicated, but in an emergency you can reach a repeater and someone will be listeneing.

This last run we just did today we ran ham. Never had a problem and cound be spread out and still hear and communicate easly on very low power

 

Luck of finding random person.. Cb. There are endless ham channels, and I'm not sure if there are specific frequencies that are used more than others. I know 146.460 is used a lot, not sure if that's for any social reason though.

I got my license and purged all the info so... Not much technical knowledge here.

 

They'll always have a new deal and they'll NEVER forget you.

 

For example, on one run i only had the handheld baofeng. I got off 70 at the 6 exit east of Idaho springs. Others continued east. I could hear them until they were near the buffalo on 70 while i was deep in the canyon walls, then climbed up whatever road goes around centennial cone on the west side. They were using a mounted unit pushing 50w... They couldn't hear me, but i could hear them. That's a good distance with a ton of mountains in between.

 

From talking to @Gramps he was saying that when there our running trails he’ll have the radio set 146.460( or similar) and have the other side of the radio on the National 2m call frequency in case someone out there needs help.

 

Figured there was a standard emergency channel. I keep my second channel on our emergency frequency if I'm in the area. I need that super sweet excel file.

@Gramps

 

It’s just an over glorified tw co channel list.

Unless you like nascar


@Gramps that file did program easily and correctly to the radio right away. Thank you again for it.

What’s y’alls thought on a second antenna port in the roof? When I get around to doing the first one think it’s worth wile to add a second one for later?

 

Was KE0MQO (assigned to a Jason) with you all today? I took a peek at Google Maps APRS and saw that c/s in the Yankee Hill area. It exited out St. Mary's. I wondered if it was someone on this run.

On the ham topic, think I need to add a HT to the Christmas wish list just to start dabbling in it, and eventually get licensed and maybe a vehicle mounted setup that can do APRS.

 

@mountainmonkey

 

Yes, that was me. APRS side of the radio was running on 10w today.

 

Yes, that’s his sign and he was with us, dident realize he was beaconing.

That what I did, start with a HT to see how I liked it. And with its local popularity it’s nice. APRS is one of the main reason I got a mobile radio. Just like today, the wife was at work then home, if I dident make it home she wound be able to look up my call sign and see the last location of the truck.

 

Yep... I forgot your name.

 

I do enough solo trail running/exploring that I'm definitely interested in leaving bread crumbs. I probably should consider myself lucky all these years.

 

Ditto... Hence an aprs capable unit and a Garmin inreach both finally purchased.

 

Not to turn this thread into the HAM thread, but just a quick question... if you had your APRS running, would your radio have noted/detected/reported Jason's signal? I've done some reading, but is hurts my head... and I think I vaguely recall this as a capability.

 

I've also done a little reading on the Garmin Inreach... nice tool to have.

 

Yeah as you can see the beacons that were picked up don't follow the trail perfectly, but it damn sure would provide enough info for SAR to narrow a search area significantly if needed.

Yes, the whole time I was beaconing I was also picking up beacons from other radios within range. My particular radio also shows me their direction and distance from me as well as their call sign, what frequency they’re monitoring, etc

 

If you had your tablet running, yes you could pick up and map his location from your rig. But i think that would be as long as your radio setup had enough power or reception to get that info from the towers that can handle it.

At least that's what i understand. I tried it once using the 5w baofeng and didn't have much luck getting a tower to blast out my location other than when i was in the city.