Amateur (Ham) Radio BS and Callsign Thread!

Same to you. I have a soft spot for the GX 470/460. I'm not entirely convinced that I don't want to sell my taco and pick one up.

 

1) love your rig! Im jelly!
2) I went hood lip mount because I plan to get a roof rack at some point and actually use it.

The only worries I have are tree limbs in the future but I figure once I go bumper and roof rack I will make some limb risers to help aid in that.

 

Just a heads up that hood mount potentially is blasting you with some decent RF radiation, depending on your antenna setup. ~50w of power directly to the face is potentially not great, long term. Obviously this applies for any antenna setup, not just the hood/ditch light mounts.

Just some food for thought.

 

Completely agree. You should examine the RF exposure limits you learned during licensing to make certain it's safe.

 

Turns out when I thought I fixed it, I actually broke it and now have a much higher quality coax and my radio is working much better.

 

I would disagree with others. If your main goal is to work rallies then you want to have the best comms possible. Good enough may not be be good enough when someone goes off and you are the guy trying to tell others what happened.

Just my experience working with East coast rallies.

 

Truth. I work desert races and my 42" antenna and Yaesu 8900 works really well, but people on baofengs, etc struggle to reach weatherman at midpoint let alone other recovery, etc on the opposite side of a 50 mile track.

 

Also agree. I try always to link up on lowest power setting possible; for my own safety, long-term maintenance of the equipment, and respect for neighboring repeaters.

 

Rad truck man.

My kid's a Hokie right now in the Cadet Corps....longgg way from the left coast. haha

 

Good for him! Which company is he in?

< Echo-14er here.

 

Highty Tighty Band Company...

So granted, our fam are all musicians, but he never played in marching band ever. A few little pick up bands here and there as a guitarist but not marching band. He goes to the corp and signs up for band. Now he's section leader (cymbals) I love it actually, but he's really surprised us going cross country and trying entirely new things. Not a lot of 18 year olds would.

 

As much crap as we gave our HT classmates, their schedule was no joke. Glad to hear he is doing well, you should be proud! Signing up for a school across the country let alone a senior military college is a big step.

ROTC or VPI Bn?

 

Systems engineering, AFROTC. His schedule is stupid. What about you?

 

I was VPI Bn. Got med dropped from the AF. If you've seen their brochure, Im on the cover. I was the Bn commander when we revamped the program in 2013.

 

Good write up here: @Nimitz
http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Technology/RFsafetyCommittee/hbkrf.pdf

 

I know it’s better to have a roof mounted antenna than the same antenna on an A-Pillar light mount, but what about a worse antenna being on the roof?

Right now I’m running a Larsen on an A-pillar light mount and getting pretty good results. Toying with the idea of a roof mount, but only running a SBB-1. I have a garage and not willing to worry about removing every day and don’t want any sort of moveable mount.

 

It all depends on the topography where you're at. Up here in the Northeast, 1/4 waves are popular as the higher radiation angle helps hit the repeaters that are usually on hilltops. I run a cheap Nagoya 1/4 wave that has a spring mounted on a bracket that I made which is sandwiched between the 3rd brake light and cab.

Now if the topography is relatively flat, a 1/2wave would probably be better.

 

I'd gamble it actually works better. It has a better ground plane on the roof.

 

Truth. When I have my handheld running a 1/4 whip, I can cover maybe 10 miles on a good day. When I unscrew the whip and screw it to my adapter for my 1/2 wave, I get much better results in the salt flats of UT. In town I run a 1/4 whip to fit in the garage better at hit the repeaters 4-5000 feet above me on the ridge line.