Cb or ham

How are the new sat phones? 10 years ago we had them in the ambulances and they were pieces of shit.

 

Much better now. I have used one for a number of years for deep wilderness fishing trips and surf trips in the middle of nowhere where there are no phones, cell or internet.

 

Have you used them in a moving vehicle? Ours crapped out at around 30mph or less forget about 130mph.

 

I've run both before and will never go back to a CB. In this rig I've opted to forgoe a cb completely.
Get a baofeng and chirp. I have all the FRS, GMRS and MURS programmed in and switch to channel mode to punch in whatever frequency the guys are running that day. The FCC switched up the rules recently on the power and equipment rules for the free to play channels. When riding with a group in simple and running 1 watt on simplex I never get to worried about the fudds and their threats to track me down. I'll get my liscense soon if I keep riding with guys that prefer the ham bands over the free bands. I've been liscensed under different public safety liscenses for ages so I never went and took the test but managed the radios for the last SAR team I was on. The problem with the Ham bands is every time I went to ask a question the old jackasses would gang up and remind me why I don't want to deal with them. Really the ham community is going to kill itself off with the way they treat people who are new. They always worry about their bands disappearing because people are using them unliscened but what they end up doing is driving the next generation away and they will loose them anyway. The ham community is the worst group I've ever ran into about embracing new users and guiding them to the right way of doing things.

 

Actually the groups we have around here really embrace new users. Of course they are a younger group also and not a bunch of old guys that are set in their ways. Everyone in the club here is open to helping new people and anxious to here them on the air once they get their callsign. They have solder classes and informative meetings every month. Really a great group here.

 

I wish that was my experience. Last 3 places I've looked into it the youngest person looked 80 and they all treated you like some kind of shitty kid on their lawn. I've got more experience with radios than most of them combined.

 

Maybe the old timers don't like us younger guys because we don't sit around on HF and CW all the time. lol

Hate to hear of your experience there. I've been told we're kind of a odd group here that most everyone will talk to anyone that comes on the repeater and they are very active in this area. One guy said you will notice when you go to some areas traveling that some areas won't even talk to you if they don't know you. Guess here they just push for a more open and engaging experience for hams.

 

Ham radio isn't going anywhere. There are more licensed hams now than there have been at any point before. When I got my ham license in 2008, I was probably one of the younger guys on my local repeater system. Now there are more and more young people getting licensed. It's no longer an old mans' hobby. Although there are still plenty of old men on the air. I've never experienced any hostility to newcomers.

 

Jealous of your guys experience.
I'm gonna look into it again now that I live in Utah. Really just need to find a place to take the test. If I could just do it online that would be great. Ridiculous it's an in person in this day and age. I can get a masters online but not a ham liscense

 

They are all getting into packet around here now and setting up digipeaters. We can communicate over RF with the computers plugged into the mobiles without using internet. Some pretty cool stuff out there to learn about. We even have a PBBS set up to sent emails and announcements on.

 

just curious what mount is that for you handheld ham?

 

I dont care about any of that. Just after trail comes. May look at aprs but really dont have a need for it.

 

It's a modifed one I had in my jeep.
https://jeepuniq.com/collections/universal-fit-mounts-and-holders

They make ball mount ones but I already had this so I added a ball to it

 

Haven’t tried to use it at speed. Primarily have it for emergency communication. Many of the remote rivers I fish you are lucky if you can go 15MPH let alone 30.

 

Ham tastes better! But honestly, it really depends on your usage. If everyone else around you uses CB, then use CB. Ham will get you more range and better clarity though, but it requires an operators license.

 

Heh. I'm in my mid-40s and when I took my my technician (ham) test, I was maybe the 2nd youngest guy in the room. The dudes were talking about turning their (WWII) hospital beds into antennas during wartime recovery and laughing at obscure jokes about radio frequencies like someone farted.

That being said, take the test. It's like 5-10 bucks. There's a few really good sites that have all the test answers, so you can literally practice the actual test until you're consistently passing, then go in and take the real one. That's what I did. Got myself a cheapie Baofeng with a mag-mount roof antenna and I get good enough range to stay in contact with my buddy on the trail.

And of course you can have both (with external antennas) for around $100.

 

I took my class with Steve Whitehead from the Utah County Ham club. Taught it on a Saturday at BYU. Really good teacher. Look up the Ham Whisperer on Youtube as well. Good channel to learn the material

 

You can use APRSDroid and a baofeng cable to make an HT APRS capable. Works pretty well in the valley.

 

@Joe23
@tacoma16

 

Use the ExHAMiner to practice the questions;
https://wp.rac.ca/exhaminer-v2-5/
until you are getting above 90%

then find an examiner;
https://apc-cap.ic.gc.ca/pls/apc_anon/query_examiner_amat$.startup