Amateur (Ham) Radio BS and Callsign Thread!

Thank you so much for all the helpful information. I happen to live in Dallas so maybe I will get a little more use out of the Yaesu, since I don't think I care too much about being able to text through the tablet. There is a Ham store over in Plano that I need to go over and visit.

I've heard of the APRSdriod app before. Looks like a good one to get

 

Congrats!
AK4SZ

 

@Bastek the nice thing about gmrs for guys who don't want to do ham is there's no test and better equipment is coming out. BTECH just came out with a gmrs radio that is almost half the cost of Midland. It's in the 70cm range to the antenna is significantly smaller than CB. And also, you can get a 50w righ compared to the CB 4w/12w

 

Well, I finally put the G5RV dipole to the test yesterday evening. Big difference in clarity when compared to the vertical I had. I was on for 45 minutes and every contact I made was on the first try - Russia, Greece, Italy, Brazil, Dominican Republic, and the Canary Islands. All on 100W, 20M.

 

Thanks. Ok, that makes sense, as long as people will actually make the shift towards GMRS from cb. Kinda seems like most folks out east/NE have and use cb.
I have GMRS licence, and I'm thinking about picking up a radio of some sort, just not sure if it makes total sense to install another mobile radio (and have 3 in the taco), or just get a couple of walkies (do they even make decent GMRS ht?)

 

Anyone here using a QYT radio?

 

Well with a gmrs HT you're limited to 5watts. The mobile has 50w.

Here's a GMRS HT. You could always just get a PL to SMA pigtail and connect it to mag mount. I'm not sure the real would performance between 4w of CB vs 5w of 70cm GMRS is, but I have me guesses.

We just did a trip in Maine. We ran 14 trucks and but one had GMRS. We ran gmrs primary and CB for backup.


And us ham guys had our own party line hahaha

 

What do you have for a connection protocol that allows you to use tnc kiss and aprs-is? Would be interested in that

 

The big difference that you are going to see is in clarity. GMRS is FM (technically narrow band FM) while the CB is AM. The FM is going to sound better than the AM on the CB. You are also going to get better penetration (heh) through obstacles like trees and shrubary with the GRMS (UHF 480MHz) vs the CB (High Frequency 29 MHz). Neither is going to go over mountains.

I know I'm partial, but ham is where it's at. The 2m FM (144 MHz) is just great for most everything that we want to do outside. Catch it on the right day and the 2m can skip off the atmosphere and go for quite the ways.

And I've just realized that I'm in the ham thread, not one of the others. But I've typed it all out, so you guys are going to read it. So there.

 

Haha nailed it @foy1der

 

If you use a Windows tablet with APRSISC/32 linked to your cell phone hotspot, the software has a particular setting that allows data received to be sent to aprs.fi if you have registered with aprs.fi and have an ID number to enter. With APRSDroid it's not so clear. Change the communication protocol to aprs.fi and enter your registered ID. Then go back to KISS. With an ID it can send info to aprs.fi. It's been a while since I've played with the details on these. APRSDroid iGate function may be wrong. I just turn on my setup and use it now. I'd have to play with it again to check things out.

 

APRSdroid will not gate. APRSICCE/32 definitely works as an igate.

The APRS-IS server software is open source. I keep wondering about compiling it on an RPi B+, along with direwolf connected to a radio for a personal APRS-IS. Setup the wifi on the RPi to create a WLAN. Then you could connect to your own APRS-IS with a variety of devices, such as APRSdroid, APRSISCE/32, SARtrack, or others as they come along. This does not help you gate at all. Unless you configure your APRS-IS to sync with the cloud APRS-IS via a mobile data link. But it would make it simple to swap out laptops, tablets, and phones with a variety of different software solutions. Since you never have to deal with the RF interface to 144.39.

 

Almost all of this is wrong. CB (11 meters) does reflect off of the ionosphere, most frequently during sunspot maximums. I've worked DXCC on 10 meters. So it will "go over mountains". Nothing "skips off of the atmosphere". "clarity" has nothing to do with mode. CW is "clearer" than SSB or FM or AM.... UHF is absorbed by trees, buildings, etc easier than VHF because the wavelength is smaller. This is just high school physics....

I typed it. You read it. So there.

 

I do believe the context was trail comms.

 

Ok, but RF propagation isn't bound by context. It's just physics....

 

Sure.

But no one is using skip to talk to their group on the trail that might be spread out over a couple miles on a mountain side with trees.

I've never had an instance with obstructions around where I couldnt make contact with VHF but could with CB.

Frequently I would have contact with VHF when CB ran out of string, and for many more miles.

In the real world application 50w of VHF has outperformed 4w of CB in areas where reception can be challenging.

 

Started doing some training with my local SAR group. Currently the only radio I have is my Icom 2730 in my taco. Our 911 dispatch broadcast on 154.8825. I know i wont be able to transmit without modding my radio, but right now I cant even figure out how to tune to that freq. Closest I can get is 154.880 or 154.885. Radio wont let me input a 7 digit freq or 154.882. tried on FM and FMN. We get paged out from our phones and are supposed to respond to the station where we check out radios and dispatch from there. It would be nice to be able to listen in on details while en-route to the station. Especially when they forget to cancel the page and you don't know till you get to the station.

Any ideas on setting the freq or should I be looking for a separate stand alone radio for SAR? Already looking at picking up a

$190 Yaesu ft-60r DualBand Handheld 5W VHF/UHF Amateur Radio Transceiver - Dual Band

Yaesu ft-60r as a HT for when I am away from the truck and may not have cell coverage.

 

May not be possible. See if you can force FM-N mode. You may be limited to 5k resolution.

 

Maybe you can program it with a PC cable and software? You should still be able to hear what's transmitted without the 4th decimal place resolution.