Wyoming B.S. Thread

Happy Bday Ben. Hope it doesn't involve alot of school.

 

Ill be the $500 or whatever dollar richer loser at least .

 

Ham is more than CB.

You can talk further and clearer. There are numerous repeater systems built across the country. So you can almost always hit a repeater from anywhere. If you go into the HF (High Frequency, For Mike) then there is always contact with the outside world. That's my next step.

I will not argue the fact that it is more a way of life than just simply having a radio in your vehicle. It is what you make it. That is what is great about it. If you simply want to be a user and make contacts with other people or use it as another safety device, it can be that. If you want do experimentation and build your own systems and networks, you can do that too. This is why the FCC allows the ham radio community so much access to so much spectrum, because hams figure out how to make thing work and further communication. How do you think texting came about. You can also participate in ARES or MARS (Amateur Radio Emergency Services / Military Amateur Radio Service, again for Mike) This is the emergency responder/coordination side of HAM radio. It is what you make of it. The first step is to join a club get mentored or get licensed and learn here. If you have any geek in you this is a cool place to be.

I know you guys are worried about the cost and we're asking for you to go Dstar which adds cost. If you simply want to have the radio for 4x4 trips then just get a single band 2 meter FM radio. They can be had for around 150 and up depending on options or to start you can get a Boafang on Amazon for around 50. If you go Dstar then the most economical solution is to go to eBay and but a Icom 880H they are going for around 350, but you may find one cheaper. I have seen some stuff out there where you might be able to turn a regular analog radio over to Dstar but I'll have to do more research to confirm that. I do know if it is possible the radio with require a 9600 baud data port.

I know this is a lot to take in but like I said it's what you make it. There is a lot to learn but I like doing that. Also I'm still searching for a club name.

 

Im pissed. Finally getting myself ready to go to 35s... And then I find out I have to get new wheels too. Damn it.

 

Why do you need new wheels?

 

Probably to narrow.

 

Yes and no.

I can talk to my dad from here via DSTAR networks. We use our own repeaters locally each but the repeaters themselves are linked via the Internet.

If we make our own club we will setup two repeaters in wyo for sure that are our clubs and we can get one by you and mike or wherever there are members and have them linked to themselves too.

Basically we could talk on our hams any time we wanted to eachother.

Not too suprised.

But there are 35s in 16s and 17s..

 

Meh, I'd run 12.50's on a 7" wide wheel. It'll make them easier to clear because they'll run skinnier.

 

Wear like shit though. Have to run low pressure to make them wear half decent.

Offsets are usually wrong too so the tire would rub UCA and/or frame

 

Wheel spacers are cheap.

Though so are these wheels if you aren't too picky. That 4" BS will be a lot better than the stock 2nd gen BS.

 

The dstar net would go down if the Internet went down, but really the internet will never go down. Unless there is total 100% electricity shut down..but there are so many nodes to the Internet it would be very hard to shut it completely down.

But if say the net was totally gone, there are still many options.

The normal FM repeaters will still work so long as there is power to them still. So depending on a few things, you will have communication over a vast local area easily. Messages could be relayed at that point. That's where the emergency protocols come in. And people would setup cross and repeaters to makes large chains to have super long communications.

The radios themselves can be used to talk to people just like CBS but at much larger distances. There is already a national standard called 52 that people do this on all the time. It's 146.520mhz.

THEN there is HiFi. That's what dad and I are gonna get into next. Our current radios won't do HiFi so I'd need a new unit or a second one and antenna. But with HiFi you can talk to people around the world easily with no repeaters.

HAM is just a name, there are a million things it all encompasses. Using a lot of the tools availble. It would be easy to stay in contact with people in an apocalyptic type situation. Local ham clubs are used for many events and government uses all the time. Like the national weather service uses ham operators to chase storms and do reports for instance.

 

CBS are nice and still very useful. The hams just take it to the next level. We would really never be out of communication with hams. So we could get spread out more if we wanted...which I know isn't always possible or wanted. But it gives us options.

Hell we could do meets on the radios and talk there instead of here for a few hours even. Be kinda fun.

There is a ton is stuff. And I barely know half the shit my dad knows and he knows only the beginnings. It could merit some cool stuff for everyone. But I know people aren't all for it.

 

I could definately see how getting into HAM would be fun. Don't have the time or money but the inner survivalist in me wants one.

 

Yea mountain tops are popular.

However, my dad has build mobile hotspots that let you into the dstar net for very cheap. Using a rasberry pi board and DV dongle and cellphone.

It really depends on what you want to do..

I mean my dads and my radio in our trucks can be repeaters..

I haven't looked in your area but there very well could be dstar repeaters there already. There will be fm ones for certain.

Yea exactly. Like had I and my Dad known what we know today, I could have probably gotten a hold of him with just my radio when Frank died. But we were so new to it we didn't really know wtf we were doing haha

Yes actually...haha with dstar you can send data. Images, emails, whatever...just be very slow haha like dial up slow

 

I know when Marc and I were searching for you guys back at the SOS meet a HAM radio would have been handy. We finally got Ben on the CB but by that time we were already within a pretty short distance from your camp site.

 

Yes that would have been much more useful then. Could have know when you were just starting up the mountain and such.

 

For the repeaters most are on either a back up generator or battery back up with solar panels. The ones in our area are in the same shack on top of mountains as public radio or the sheriffs dept the other emergency radio stations. They piggy back those systems so the generator can run both systems. Now if the zombies come and everyhing goes to hell you'll want to have a HF radio.

 

Time to get a job. Ill be making a big purchase here soon .

 

Yes you can put up a mobile repeater that runs off of batteries and a solar cell. That is essentially what I'm building now. There are others that have a much lower power consumption. Most duel band radios can be turned into a cross band repeater also. So our trucks become a relay station basically.

 

Thanks Steve. More for my list.

1. Dstar
2. GPS
3. APRS - automatic packet reporting system
4. DPRS - digital packet reporting system
5. ARES - Amateur Radio Emergency Services
6. MARS - Military Amateur Radio Service
7. HF - High Frequency
8.