Amateur (Ham) Radio BS and Callsign Thread!

You don't need to provide excuses for that vest and bendy HT antenna. You don't answer to anyone!

But really, if you wore that stuff everyday, you'd be mistaken for a militia guy. Did you have a big knife too?

 

Lol, Nope. Big knives are pointless.

Though where we were, "militia" woulda fit right in

 

HPG and Abbree, noice.

 

I can not confirm as I have a FTM300 but I can confirm the 300 will not work. Both the radio and the FTM300 can see each other but will not connect. The 300 is actually newer than the 400 and has built in Bluetooth. Based on this I will assume that the answer to your question is no.

 

From what I understand, if your BT device has the ability to send commands (like the head units in our trucks do) then they are not compatible. It has to basically be a listen only BT unit.

 

Great looking setup, super clean

 

I’m looking to mount an Icom SP35 speaker and wondering where others have positioned their remote speakers? I’m leaning towards tucking it in the footwell area. Suggestions?

 

hose clamped to seat adjuster

 

Anyone try running chirp and a baofeng cable on a Surface Pro X with the ARM version of Windows 10 ? I decided to break out my old

$50 UV-5R Ham Radio Handheld Long Range (UV-5R 8Watt) UHF/VHF Radio with 2 Rechargeable Battery, Portable Radio for Adults with Earpiece, GV-771 Antenna, BAOFENG Programming Cable (3rd Gen)

UV-5R and update the load in it since it's a couple years old and from a totally different state. Last time I did this was on a standard laptop with Windows 7 and I had no problems. This time around I can't even get the computer to install the drivers or recognize the cable after I download what I thought were the right drivers.

 

might want to check https://www.miklor.com/ if they have any info. if not just program once by hand... its not that hard after you input 5 repeaters

 

Anyone using APRS much? Getting into balloon APRS and thought it would be possible to use a tethered one overhead as a backup to get out if I’m someplace remote… these LightAPRS transmitters are pretty cool! KC6OXY-9 and -11 soon.

 

@m603holden

The only reason I got into ham was so I could use APRS - and I haven't even done anything with it yet. My intent is when camping - beam off my location to either (a) other drivers coming into camp and need to know where to head (though this has been kind of mooted by using Gaia and sharing locations and routes ahead of time, hooray millenials!) and (b) when I have no cell signal but can get to a digipeater, at least my wife could look up my call sign and see where my camp site is. Also, with planning ahead, hasn't reeeeally been a need.

Where is -11?

 

APRS was a driving factor for me to finally get into HAM also. I recently used it on a trip to Colorado and it worked great except on the way home when I forgot to turn the radio on.

I don't know anything about balloon APRS though. Like hot air balloons?

 

Yours are all good reasons to use APRS. Never being a Boy Scout, we often go wheeling to remote places in the desert alone, and I use it to identify where we are for friends and family also, and in addition to using a PLB satellite beacon, APRS is another level of safety for us.

I am going to be getting into using it for a weather balloon also with my technology class this fall, there are small units like the lightAPRS board that are light enough that they are exempt from FAA permit rules for free flight balloons. Ours is going to be a solar powered one and only go out for a day, I’m planning on trying to retrieve it after it lands. Some people use a helium balloon and they last for months and can travel around the world. Some of them have been tracked circling the globe more than three times. They use a receiver mode and signal processing called WSPR (Weak Signal Propagation Reporter), which can receive very weak signals over thousands of miles. http://www.wsprnet.org/drupal/ It’s pretty cool with what amateur radio has accomplished!

APRS id’s use your callsign along with a secondary station identification number such as KC6OXY-9 for my mobile, or -11 for balloons, drones and aircraft.

http://www.aprs.org/aprs11/SSIDs.txt

 

I am a rookie still but I was given call signs -X where X is where you currently are. For example I am in zone 1 so my call sign is KC1ODP. If I was giving it out in say New Mexico it would be KC1ODP-5

That’s why I asked where -11 was

interesting. I looked into aprs for a total of like half an hour. Clearly if I did know that part of it I forgot.

Balloons are cool. I really only got into this for the applied use off road but some of the stuff people are doing is really cool to see.

 

That's not how SSID's in APRS works. The -XX indicates what kind of station. I.e. pedestrian, car, aircraft, etc. Here is the table:

-0 Dot
-1 Ambulance
-2 Bus
-3 FireTruck
-4 Bike
-5 Yacht (sail)
-6 HELO
-7 Aircraft
-8 Ships (power)
-9 Car
-10 Motorcycle (Was a satellite in older versions)
-11 Balloons
-12 Jeep
-13 Rv
-14 Truck
-15 Van

 

Interesting! I have always run a -9 suffix. Would -14 be more appropriate, or is that one for trucks as in semis?

 

I would think that is for semi trucks, but I could be wrong.

I'm also interested to see ambulance/fire truck on that list. Most agencies that do AVL systems don't it through APRS to the best of my knowledge.

 

theyll use those for parades and events IE Boston marathon.


Yes when you see “truck” it means semi or box truck almost exclusively. Same as “no trucks allowed” doesn’t apply to Tacoma’s or even full size pickups until you maybe get to HD.