Amateur (Ham) Radio BS and Callsign Thread!

^^ thanks useful info.

I'm gonna tie in my radio to my solar/SLA (200 W, 200 A-hr) setup.

 

665......Congrats on passing the test.

 

Thinking about getting a GMRS license too. Anyone use GMRS?

 

It's becoming more popular for offroading up here. 15w mobile with external antenna works well for that group

 

Guessing this may already be a topic of hot debate, but how much do you lose by going to a lip mount on the hood compared to a mag mount on the roof? Obviously the permanent hole in the roof is better due to ground plane and antenna height, but wondering if the ground plane is the driver or if the antenna height is. Thoughts?

 

I felt the same way after I passed the test. I joined the local club and the ARRL, the book the ARRL sends you with membership has a lot of information, I have more clues now.

 

While they may cost more, a ground independent multi-wavelength antenna like the Diamond SG7900 works fine lip mounted and they run circles around 1/4wave antennas. The SG7900 even works great on my motorcycle.

 

A couple good portables...

 

I would personally go with a bigger battery and ditch the solar. I have a 110 amp hour SLA that I use all weekend on field day with a 100 watt radio and when I run radio ops for rally races with 50 watt mobile radio. If you rely on the solar and its cloudy, you could be effed. FWIW a buddy has a 75 amp hour and also has no issues running all weekend.

 

You giving it away?

 

No

 

Any thoughts how the Diamond SG7900 would work mounted in the pickup bed or just behind the rear lights on each side?

 

Directional....

 

<Raises hand>

 

I really don't like hood mounts for a variety of reasons. Blasting 50+ watts into your face violates FCC exposure limits. Depending upon where you put the antenna, the A pillar will effect SWR and directivity. I can get on board with a CB antenna on a ditch light mount. It's only 5w, and at 27 mHz. An HF antenna on the front brush guard seems ok as well. But I'd never do 2m / 70cm on a ditch light. IMHO.

I'd definitely prefer anything on the roof. I'd much rather have a short antenna on the roof, then a compromised gain antenna. Drill the NMO. it's the right way to do it. Additionally it can be less destructive then a mag mount. Magmounts tend to leave a circle of scuffed paint. You can pop a plastic insert into an NMO and no one will question it when you sell it.

 

After ripping the NMO roof mount out of my 97 Tacoma in the woods I now mount them on the bed rail in the 11 with an aluminum angle guess what not a damn bit of difference TX RX. 10-80 2-440 and 220 in between. So much for the need of a massive ground plane the biggest issue in a mobile is ground loss. Looks like a trawler but I have no issue communicating with the world.

 

"blast 50 watts into your face".

Use only the amount of power necessary to complete communication.

If you need 50w of vhf/uhf, your antenna sucks.

A 5w HT next to your brain is just as bad, if not worse

 

Maineah.....Any chance you can post a picture of your antenna and how it attaches? Thanks!

 

Because I couldn’t stand to think @m603holden thought I was a pussy for not joining his HF net last month I took my General tonight.

Of course now I have to go up to HRO and explain to the XYL on Valentine’s Day why we can’t afford to go out to dinner ever again...But that dual beam Yagis gonna rock the truck bed, just have to figure out how to get under bridges...

 

There was always the Thursday night 6m net!


... But now there's the Dork Den in 80 as well. Haha. That's a fun one.

Wednesday night at 7pm is our repeater net. 146.850.

And if you do Facebook, there's our local fun group as well. SOTA stuff, cook outs, product releases, important updates in the hobby, ect