Amateur (Ham) Radio BS and Callsign Thread!

3rd'd the TM-V71

 

Tm-v71a.

Short and simple of it is it works well with the whole intent of what we use it for. Your maps and data are now integrated. Download your maps ahead of time, link it to you phone or tablet. You now have live APRS date on a realtime map.

Things I do with APRS off my phone with a keyboard.

• Text message
• Active map with live telemetry
• Change info in beacon (freq, message)
• Quickly change my skips
• Aprs satellite messaging quickly* (non macro)
• Very clean layout of packets received on a timeline.

I use aprs droid with a mobilelinkd device. Zero issues.

 

50.125 is kind of a SSB calling freq on 6 meters. 50.10 in Europe be nice and shift to another freq after you make a contact.

 

Correct.

There's many takes on this. You are right. It is the calling freq. With that said 6m around hear has seen 3x the action since this net started because folks leave their 6m rigs locked on the calling freq. So if by chance the turn their rig on thursday night, they might see the activity they wouldn't have know was there.


So far, I'd say the majority of folks who jumped in on this action turn the rig on in the background for a few, leave it on the freq, and shut her down. Overall in our neck of the woods it seems to have helped keep the band in use.

But you are 100% right. Make contact and qsy is what is normally practiced.

 

So droid psk works well eh?

 

Yaesu 8900 fits like a glove in the pen slot.

Edit: This was the older 7900 model before I upgraded

 

I see a 2 meter antenna called the compact antenna for 2 meters. About 7-10" long.

Anyone have one who can report on how it works, either good or bad?

 

Compromise, size vers. efficiency really can't be a whole lot better than a rubber duck.

 

I would stick with a 19" 1/4 wave at the minimum. Anything below that seems to have dubious results as well unless very narrow frequency banded.

 

When 6 is hot it's a real issue mostly all the bands right now are pretty flat I usually just leave it on 50.4 AM we have a few that show up and if I'm just listening and it gets some DX to it then I go down the band looking for DX contacts on SSB. The group that gets on SSB around here is usually on 50.135. I have an amp and a long boom 6 ele beam so I often get to be the channel master on 6! In the 28 years as a ham I probably have over 60 countries on 6. DE N3LYT.

 

If you have an 80m wire you should join our Sunday morning net! Dave's dork den.

 

Icom 5100. Very solid dual band dual transceiver with excellent audio quality.

 

I actually love antennas. A loaded antenna that short will give less quality results than almost anything else. Calculate the wavelength of your most common frequency and try to get something optimized around that. These are Men Toys, bigger is better.

 

Could you listen to FM radio with this antenna hooked up to a head unit?
https://www.amazon.com/Larsen-88-13...ywords=larsen+88-136mhz&qid=1576694579&sr=8-1

 

Ok, so I'm looking at getting another HAM setup. I had a Kenwood TM D710G in my 1st gen. This was back when you had to have a separate GPS input for the APRS stuff. I liked the radio for what it was capable of doing, I didn't like it for how unwieldy it was to use. I felt it was difficult to operate while driving without giving it some serious attention. I eventually got the hang of it for about 75% of what I used it for, though it wasn't ideal. My wife (also licensed) never got the hang of it and wouldn't mess with it other than pick up the mic to talk with others in our group. I had and used it for a couple of years til the truck got broken into and it was all stolen. Thankfully I'd fused everything at the battery since the thieves just cut all the wiring (even the mic). They got the radio but didn't burn the truck down and, thankfully, insurance covered the loss.

Now I'm looking at putting a radio in my 2nd gen as that's becoming the travel rig more so than the 1st gen. I still want to go dual band. I'm on the fence with APRS. It was handy for family to keep tabs on where I was when I was out wandering around by myself, though it wasn't perfect. I don't currently use much tech when traveling (my maps are paper and I carry a compass), and I'm almost always traveling as a solo vehicle, so I'm not entirely sold on needing it. I did enjoy listening to whatever repeaters I picked up in the areas we were traveling through and had a couple of good discussions with other users.

This leads to a couple of questions. I'm going with a 2m/70cm dual band. I'm still a few months out on purchase, but I've got it narrowed down to the Icom IC2730A or the Yaesu FT8900R. If I decide to go APRS then I'll probably give the Yaesu FTM100DR a shot. Are there any warnings with any of these three radios? I've gotta admit, I'm not a fan of white displays, especially at night, but I figure I can put an orange tint over it if it bugs me too much. It looks like all three displays are roughly the same size and are detachable. I'm not sure where I'll put the radio itself yet. On my 1st gen I'd built an overhead console that held everything but that got destroyed and I don't really want to go that route on the 2nd gen. I will also probably need to figure out a place to install a couple of speakers.

The area that I'm having trouble with is the antenna. On my 1st gen I did an NMO mount through the center of the roof and ran a Larsen NMO 2m/70cm antenna. It worked great and my first feeling is to with the same setup on the 2nd gen. The problem that I have now is that my roof setup changes depending on what we're doing as a trip. I frequently carry a canoe though, which means that a center mount is out of the question:



There is plenty of real estate on the canopy to the right of the canoe, but the majority of that is in the process of being covered by a solar panel. The roof racks are not always installed, so a rack mount is out, though I may be able to do something mounted off of the roof rack track somewhere along the passenger side. I'm leaning towards a hood mount on the driver's side forward of the A-pillar, but I also plan on having the CB antenna bumper mounted on the driver's side and I'm not sure if that would be close enough to cause issues. Anyone got any ideas or recommendations for antenna placement with my setup?

 

I have the FTM-100, and I'm a little dissatisfied with it. While it has APRS, its not dual receive. So it can't monitor a voice channel and APRS at the same time. I generally like YSF mode. It's much more simple then DMR.

 

You could use a lip mount bracket on the edge of tge roof rack

 

That's another Christmas vacation project. Get pskdroid working with the KX2.

 

Look at ditch light mounts. I have one on the passenger side for CB and one on the driver side for ham

 

Ez pz. Neat little mode. Plus, almost everyone confirms contacts.