Amateur (Ham) Radio BS and Callsign Thread!

The ARRL publishes a Ham Radio License Manual. It has lots of good information including how to use the band plans. It's also good to remember that band plans change from state to state and sometimes from one end of the state to another. Utah's simplex frequencies are spaced 20khz apart but Colorado is spaced 15khz apart. If you are from Colorado and decide to operate two steps of from 146.520 with 15khz spacing, you will cause interference for the people who are at 146.540 and 146.560. There are lots and lots of things the test doesn't teach you (as you know) so it's important to keep learning.

Amateur radio is about experimentation, emergency communications, volunteering, and a community of nerds hanging out doing nerd things. It isn't just to talk to a guy on a trail. I don't want to steer people away from amateur radio if they are truly interested but if they are only getting licensed to talk truck to truck five miles away, that's not what it's for. And when that happens, other people who aren't licensed end up getting a radio to talk to them and you end up "rogue" like @Key-Rei mentioned. Rogue operators don't understand courteous operating and what their transmission is actually doing. I've heard a guy in a semi truck transmitting simplex with a tone into a repeater input, talking to his buddy a few miles away but his transmission was tying up a repeater system from northern Arizona to northern Utah.

Rant over.

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Totally Agree!!

Its a public service to the community than a hobby. Especially when its hurricane season in the southeast. Helping do checkpoints for public events. etc.

 

When discussing amateur radio licensing I compare operating without a license to not following TREAD Lightly guidelines. Losing frequency privileges is just like having a trail gated and closed due to abuse.

 

The problem with GMRS is that it's so limited, at least in Canada it's restricted to handhelds and 2W. No external antennas allowed and a handheld in a metal box doesn't work super well, especially out West when you get into the mountains. CB is better but a lot of people choose to go ham for the versatility (a proper ham can also receive on the logging/construction channels used here).

2m is the new CB and it's unfortunately not uncommon to have 3-4 groups sitting on the calling frequency chin wagging in some areas. The advent of cheap baofengs has probably not helped this.

 

Restricted ha FCC limits Amateurs to 1500w PEP........ but i know people that run 5000w its only illegal if you get caught.

 

Give this book a try. https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/no...r-tests-given-between-july-2018-and-june-2022

 

What's a band plan?

I thought you would just test get your radio license and then could use it freely (as long as following speech protocol and not squawking emergency frequencies) you have to get additional sub licenses for different frequency bands? What's this like cable now?

No wonder people go rouge.

Well that and CB is hardly more than racial slurs and political complaining anymore it seems.

 

When you got your driver's license, could you then drive anywhere you want? No, we have traffic laws, markings, lanes, signs, etc. to keep things organized. It wouldn't be very good if you decided to go the opposite way on the freeway, or cut across four lanes of traffic during rush hour and no blinker just to pull in to McDonald's. Same with frequencies, modes, and privileges. If the 600,000 licensed amateur radio operators all tuned a frequency willy nilly and did what they wanted there, the would be endless interference and you wouldn't be able to find anyone to talk to.

We have communications between handheld radios on the ground and satellites that pass over for 15 minutes at a time, those frequencies are published so they don't get interrupted.
Repeaters have separate input and output frequencies so you need to keep both of those free for every repeater. Repeaters are linked together over radio so that's another frequency for each repeater pair.
Then there are people who bounce signals off the moon or off the particles coming of meteors. Those are really weak signals and a voice signal would obliterate it so it is kept clear.
There's FM packet used for messaging, email, position reports, and chat services.
There are digital voice channels.
There are analog FM voice channels.
There is a space for the kid who wants to use amateur radio to control his model airplane. Sure would suck for someone to transmit on that frequency and crash his plane.
There are people sending morse code.
There is AM and SSB voice.
And there's a lot more. Each mode takes up different amounts of frequency space and they don't play well together. And how would you know where to find someone on the radio if you didn't have a plan of where they would be?

Yes, there's organization, yes, we are up tight about being licensed and using the frequencies well. There's millions of dollars worth of infrastructure in every state for the 2 meter band alone (VHF) that people invest their own money in for the use of other hams. When people get on the air that aren't licensed and mess up that system, some of us get ticked.

 

Only illegal if you get caught.

 

Super Smash Brothers has it's own voice channels? Hell yeah I'm IN!


But for real I get your points, still, a welcoming community is a growing one, and an exclusive and egocentric community gets you...

Well, ever heard of League of Legends?

 

We are very welcoming, just letting you know the purpose of a amateur radio. Yes, it can be used for 4x4... and a LOT more. My only real gripe is the people with licenses encourage others without to use ham radio to chat on the trail. That's not okay. If you, @Key-Rei , get your license, will you continue to chat with other rogue operators?

 

Yes, and encourage them to get a license and operate correctly. I'm still working on my friends but they have fell out of wheeling..

 

I'll let people with softer tones speak.

 

Uh... I don't know any rogue ops, and I'm not one either.

My HAMmy in Jax is who got me interested, then I found out you can use it for truck to truck, and CB sucks.

I would like to get my license for the practical uses but I'm not planning on setting up a 30 foot antenna in my back yard in my spare time just for shiggles.

I wouldn't mind using it to help people during natural disasters such as hurricanes we get from time to time.

Is there any good "do all" transmitters and antenna setups I can hard mount in my rig?

By "do all" I mean one unit that can do UHF VHF CB and whatever else there is.

 

At least when I looked there was no do all radio. I don't believe it's legal anyways.. but that's not stopped off-shore manufacturers before.

 

Most mobile radios are dual band (VHF and UHF.) If you search for dual band ham radio you'll find lots. Lots of mobile antennas are also dual band. I run a TM-V71A in my tacoma and a TM-D710G in my 1992 pickup. CB can't be combined with ham radio as it is a different part of the spectrum and has different hardware licensing requirements. You would have to have two radios to do what you want (and two antennas.)

 

Figures.

 

Yeah, exactly, not going to lie, I don't feel like I'm old enough to enjoy that quite yet.

 

I'm 32