Amateur (Ham) Radio BS and Callsign Thread!

I need to upgrade to general. That should be my to do next year.

 

I think the General test was easier than the Tech test. I started reading the material for the extra class and its a lot of information to consume.
Dave Casler ke0og has a youtube channel where he explains the test material in plain english. There's a section for each exam element.

 

That's good to know. I equated it with studying for the tech and general, but when I started looking at extra... boy oh boy, there is some learning that's needed. You can't just study it.

 

The way I I passed was just toke a much of practice and read the book which probably doesn't work everyone but in junior high school we had a class so I passed all three in one year of the class. The tech was definely the hardest to me!
Extra was the easiest. But out teacher had a hands on learning program for me.

 

The only difficult part of the extra is there is a lot of information to consume if you actually wan to understand the meaning behind the test material. There's probably a lot of stuff you'll never need to know about after you the exam.

 

Hey guys, great thread! I have an antenna mounting idea and I am looking for some opinions.

I have a 2 meter antenna mounted to the bed rail in the back and it works OK. I off road a lot on very tight overgrown trails, and I want to keep an antenna in that position for obvious reasons.

Problem: When I am not offroad, I would like to be able to reach out further.

Solution: A through the roof mount to take advantage of the ground plane with a switch in the truck so I can change the two antennas. When offroading, I was thinking of removing the roof antenna and putting on a rain cap.

What do you think? Will the rain cap hold up to the occasional branch brushing against it? It will be on top of the roof, so it shouldn't get hammered too much.

Thoughts?

Sean

 

A roof mount is gonna give you "superior" performance, but how much of an improved experience are you going to have vs your bed rail?

You should also consider your expectations. I see moving to roof vs bed giving you a lot less than what you expect as far as range. If you're generally running in the middle of the pack, you're probably gonna have a lot less wrt needs in transmitting and receive. If you want to reach out and connect to the other side of the planet in a dense forest, you should reset your expectations. And a lot of the issues people get these days aren't even from the antenna as much as it is from things that cause interference when your vehicle is running or running in ACC (USB chargers, inverters, other power supplies, blinkers, etc). Also in overgrown trails/dense forests, you're not gonna get much as far as range.

What about just using a shorter antenna on the trail and a longer antenna when on the highway?

An antenna switch is doable, but there's a several db loss going through multiple interconnects/adapters. Plus trail issues can be annoying if your junk fails on you. It'll be difficult to troubleshoot as the complexity your system increases.

 

Thanks for the input. Really what I am looking for is to be able to hit repeaters at greater distances when I am on the road. I plan on keeping the bed rail mounted antenna for trail use. I use a 5/8s wave right now and I can hit repeaters OK, as long as I am close. From what I read, I should see a marked improvement mounting on my roof with respect to hitting repeaters and on-road simplex. Am I mistaken?

 

If you already have line of sight between your antenna and the remote antenna, 5w can get you nearly as far as you need. 50w might be able to get you 100+ miles but LOS. lack of LOS and you'll have nothing unless it's just barely below the horizon. I mean, if I really wanted to, I could make contact w/ ISS at 249 miles during flyovers with my HT if I have an antenna with good signal rejection on the sides.

I have a TM-V71A on a 20" MR77 magmount and that gets easily 30+ miles across the freeway. I did the same w/ my IC-T70a. When the engine is off and my usb chargers are off, I get like 50+ miles in light brush. So YMMV. Roof mount is best, but not worth the complication of having multiple setups.

 

Have you ever tried a bed mounted antenna? With the plastic bed, there is about zero ground plane. I have to imagine that a roof mount would be much better.

 

I have thought about putting my 1/4 wave in the center of my roof. Right now I have a lip mount on the access cab door. I wonder how big if any difference it would be.

 

What length antenna coax cable have any of you used from truck cab to tailgate? I bought a 14' cable, but the shop where I had radio installed said the cable wasn't long enough. Radio is installed on the passenger side of the center console near glove box and antenna mount is passenger rear corner between bed and tailgate. I think they may have tried too custom of an install. I'll probably try going from bed, into cab under seat and up to radio.

 

My antenna is located in the driver side rear of the bed. The coax goes along the rail under the cab and up through the floor, coming out under the steering wheel and over to the radio in the console. My cable is probably 16' and just reaches. A standard 17 foot cord is probably perfect.

 

My antenna is mounted to the drivers side bed rail. I talk on both uhf and vhf repeaters and chat on simplex too. Line of site means a whole lot more than distance. There are multiple factors that determine you tx/rx abilities.

 

hello every one, I'm interested in getting a ham radio and the licenses required. where do I start. any one place better then the other?
thanks
bob

 

Welcome and good luck.

Get your tech license is relatively easy, they say about 14 hrs of studying and you should be good to go. There are tons of free options out there for studying. I suggest buy the book, ~$20, and then you are done pass it on to a buddy who might want to get licensed. Google your area for Local clubs to see when they are testing. I love QRZ.com for practice tests and studying.

As far as radios... you will hear tons of info and if you read this thread there is tons of info. IMHO I would start with a Yeasu FT-60, great sturdy radio and not too expensive. The Chinese radio are decent and some people like them, but they are cheap for a reason and should be considered a throw away radio.

-73s

 

I studied using the ARRL book, third edition I think. I studied by reading and following the designations in the text to the question s in the back of the book. When I finished reading the book, I kept going through the questions until I knew all 400+. I reread the book a few time too. I over studied, but I learned a ton. I studied for around 2 hours a day for 2 or 3 weeks.

 

Does anyone know where I can download a radio reference list like the one on this link?

http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?tab=reports&ctid=201&rpt=1

 

thanks for the information
this is going to be one of my winter projects. now if I can only get off the TW forms I'll get it done. haha

 

It's well worth your time to read the book and learn the material for the tech test.
Dave Casler has a youtube channel where he explains the stuff in plain english, his videos are a good companion to the book

https://www.youtube.com/user/davecasler