Wyoming B.S. Thread

Awesome. Thanks.

And on the topic of antenna tuning. I am curious if you tuned the STI-CO 'flexible" antenna on your rig? The documentation says it is 23" tall and Dan told me Steve cut his down to 20 9/16" When you get a chance, would you measure yours for me? I have one coming in the mail.

 

Well you(as a company) selling radios have no way of knowing that the person buying the radio has both licenses. Though I suppose they also don't know if you have any license...

So yeah..idk? All legal mumbo jumbo.

GMRS radios can transmit up to 50w just like a HAM so that doesn't fly.

I don't have one. I need to get them but haven't. Im sure Dad ran Dan's through is fancy meter to tune his. I am goign to Powell tomorrow though and can look at his.

 

Well if the onus is on the consumer to stay legal I don't think it's a concern then. If you're licensed for both who cares what hardware you use to operate them as long as it's compatible with the standard and not going to introduce interference or something. Either way it sounds like you have a GMRS, or you will after some soft core modding haha.

 

Yeah well. Government!

Yeah I'll be able to participate it seems like.

 

Yeah see if it was just up to the government to enforce I know it wouldn't be a problem cuz they don't do shit. It's all the sad old dudes that sit around monitoring random channels while they wait for their kids to never call them that'll actually turn you into the government.

 

Yeah, makes sense. Though, the Midland is easy to just mount up under the seat and never look at again, because all the controls (I mean, all of them) are on the mic. Still, always nicer to have one unit for a bunch of other reasons, too.

You can probably program the Icom to have GMRS names for those memory channels too, which will be nice.

For all of this, it's usually in the law that you have to use a device for what it was "designed" for, which is why you don't see cross-over devices for sale on places like Amazon or the ham radio sites. I don't know where it is for US, but I just ran into this in BC, Canada with their FSR RR channels. It's essentially like GMRS - in that our hams can already tune, but are limited so they don't transmit - and specifies what channel to use on each forest service road (b/c they have logging trucks that have the right of way, so you call out your KMs as you move either direction).

Here's what they say in Canada: "The licensee must comply on an ongoing basis with Radio Standards Specification RSS-119, Land Mobile and Fixed Equipment Operating in the Frequency Range 27.41-960 MHz, as amended from time to time. The use of amateur, marine or user programmable radios is strictly prohibited."

lol

Every time we are on a trip and hear someone over the simplex monitoring frequency, all the old dudes are ever talking about is their ham gear and the plain chicken breast they are having for dinner.

Yep, thought I mentioned that: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/wyoming-b-s-thread.146555/page-2626#post-30199230

 

If he did want to put it in the ashtray spot he could, there is a submodel of the Midland GMRS you have with a faceplate and a regular mic that would fit

 

Nice.

I should also mention - for your comment of enforcement...

I knew about the "don't use hams" thing when we were up in Canada, but when I realized that I could tune the ham (I didn't realize it was receive only, so I was also trying to broadcast), that's exactly what I did. When I posted my story about the trip on my site, one of the first comments I got was about radio usage: https://adventuretaco.com/headed-north-unexpectedly-wet-1/#comment-46036

It was from a guy at 4WDABC (their big 4WD association, which is in general a really great organization), but just goes to prove your point about enforcement being from "the old guys sitting around listening."

Turns out my Kenwood wasn't actually transmitting, so all the KMs I called out were never heard and I wasn't violating any laws (hahaha, joke was on me), but I thought the whole things was rather amusing.

 

This is why we should always check in on our parents, to make sure they're not becoming the old-timey equivalent of internet trolls.

 

My dad needs something to do when he gets to his second retirement.

 

It was real windy but luckily tucked in there it wasn't bad. Ended up moving at 3am as I was under a dry waterfall and if a flash flood rolled down is have no warning. And the rain was coming down good. Went to a wide spot in the wash and all was good. Really cool area. Currently standing at ground zero for the atomic bomb

 

that is cool! Is there a special event going on? It seems like that is a lot of touristas.

 

@turbodb

I received the STICO antenna today. It looks like I could have just ordered the mast only (-M). That's all I really needed I think.

The part number I ordered for $99 came with all this other stuff.



Also, it came with a cut chart to use to tune The antenna to the right length for the frequency you want.

 

Community recreational theatre?

 

So the site is on the white sands middle range, so it's a military base. Two days a year they open it up to the public. Took 2 hours waiting in line to get through the security gate... But was still cool to see. I did find it quite odd there though, people, families posed with the obelisk that marks ground zero, all cheers and smiles. Almost like they didn't really understand what it represents. For me it was quite a sobering place.

 

Ill bet this leads to an epic camp spot...

 

I don't understand how we can go there and its not radioactive.

 

Who said it wasn't radioactive? The Geiger counters were popping off a bit.

It works out to time of exposure. There was a sign there that explained an hour at the site exposed you to 0.5-1 milirem (I think that's the unit) of radiation, which is about 10x higher than background radiation levels elsewhere. The average American is exposed to something like 200 milirem annually from various sources(X-rays, the sun, flying, etc). Hell I'm exposed to more I'm sure from the sun being that it's always sunny and the elevation here leads to higher dosage.

Anyways if you do the math, of the average persone is exposed to 200 annually, if you spent an entire year at the site you would be exposed to 4380-8760milirem. So yes it is radioactive