HAM Alternative

What's the use case?

If it's emergency comms, why not just go for an inreach or PLB or something?

 

It was something just to build-up and also to be able to have an HQ type setup. Many options when you have a "radio box". If you ever go to the "Field Days" and say the RACES dudes are there, some will bring their radio boxes and they actually use them for drills when doing drills with fire and police. I used to "know" some people and they kept wanting me to come join their group, but they found out that I lived in the next city over.

Anyways, I guess not just for emergencies? Sorry about that.

 

Really meant for the OP, but really, buy gear for use cases.

FRS is good enough for inter vehicle comms, sat gear good for actual emergencies, meanwhile HAM stuff is.. well, volunteer dependent, needs everyone to in a group to have a license, etc.

 

Sorry OP, I just want to show some of my setup and maybe give someone some ideas or even improvement on my own?

That is my "pig-tail" port that routes to the inside of the cab. I usually have my handheld CB antenna there. Anyways...


I could be "outside" of the truck if need be, for whatever reason, and utilize the pig-tail. The pig-tail has a male BNC connector on it as BNC's are extremely common and so many adapters are available for BNC type connectors, which is why I chose it. That's one of my HAM radios.


That's my super old 800MHz Radio Shack PRO-66 scanner.

Just showing that I can go to the rear of the truck with the same pig-tail.


Sorry about the mess. I'm working on my cleanliness... trying to at least... HAHAHAHAHA, Anyways, that's my 800MHz narrowband capable non-trunking scanner. I plan on getting a handheld trunking scanner, but they're pretty expensive... one of these days. It's a Uniden Bearcat

$94 BC355N 300-Channel Base/Mobile Scanner, Close Call Capture, Pre-programmed Search “Action” Bands to Hear Non-Digital Police, Ambulance, Fire, Amateur Radio, Public Utilities, Weather & more

BC355N scanner.





So, just wanted to share my ideas to anyone that cares/interested???

Not my intentions to derail the thread.

 

My bad man!!!

I do agree that FRS is good enough for inter vehicle comms!!! We had to do a family trip going from Kali to Iowa to take care of some family business and make a trip while at it. Anyways, we took two cars and I had my sister have one of my Midland GXT800's and I was actually able to keep in communications with here at one point her being well over a mile ahead of me, believe it or not. Of course, it was pretty much straight line-of-sight and we were on CH8, but anyways... not too bad quite honestly.

 

My intention when I started this thread was to spark conversation among the Florida group so we could sort out and potentially standardize comms (whether that be FRS, GMRS, or HAM). I'd like to find a simple, cost effective all-in-one solution (or all in two in the case of CB + other radio) that would allow for communications among the group as well as back to camp if/when needed with the ability to reach out further for emergencies when there is no cell service. Space in these trucks is already at a premium without cluttering it up more with multiple single use devices. In the case of a PLB, I can't justify the cost of the device or the subscription for as infrequently as it would be needed.

 

In SoCal and even NorCal well pretty much all of California 99.9% of us all use Race/HAM radios for trail comms.

 

This looks cool but having done similar stuff by putting a right angle on and an antenna on the front or back of a mobile radio, I can tell you that 25 watts is going to be very sketchy. The RF being this close to the radio upsets things like microprocessors quite readily, resets them, shutting something down, locks them up.

There's a reason you don't see handhelds or radios with antennas directly mounted (like a Yaseu FT-817) usually going beyond 5 watts.

Also being physically close to a radiating antenna is bad for the operator. So be careful with something like this!

 

Tri-Band Yaesu VX-6R Submersible Amateur Ham Radio Transceiver (144/222/440)

Like everyone else here I've been looking for the radio that can do everything. I think this is as close as you will find. Worth the price considering I can monitor CB and GMRS w/o having to buy a CB and GMRS radio.

 

Looks good; didn't derail the thread at all.
Modern vehicles leave little room for any radio additions; anyway you can shoehorn one, and make it work, works. And my "Ugly Tape, Wire Mounting" (cleaned up now) looked bad also.