Any HAMtards here or anyone interested in HAM radios? - Updated info on page 4

May be very useful in the near future.

I'm an operator, had mine on at 3 am.

"Before breakfast club" and Breakfast club.

1 am ct till 8 am. 3973 khz.

I am defiantly interested, would like to get licensed but need to look into how to go about doing it. A few years ago I bought a cheap little baofeng handset off ebay for $25 and enjoy listening in on emergency services. I do not transmit on it but think it would be useful to be able to.

Literally waiting for the antenna guy to show up now to fix the old mans 40 foot tower. HAM radio people become very important and it is a tremendous skill to have.

Moonraker

I have a box full of QSL cards in storage back in the US. 40, 20 and 10 meter bands. I also used to participate in Field Days for 2 meters and above. We setup our radio tent at 9,000 ft in the Sierra Nevada mountains. We even setup EME station using 1.2 GHz with quad helixcoil antenna.

My most memorable contact was with a HAM astronaut aboard the ISS on 2 meter band HT. I even got his QSL card.

Last Edited by Agent MIB on 09/19/2019 09:25 AM

I’m a hammy

I need to spend more time with it though. I got my license and my little rig but never tried to do more with it.

podcasts and video links:
[link to hamradio360.com]

Get over to NC Scout's site at [link to brushbeater.wordpress.com (secure)]

Lots of good stuff there. Guy was an Army RTO and pretty much knows everything. Lots of resource links at that page, too.

I'll have to check that out. I'll post more here when I get home from work.

I am about to go full retard into this and get my Ham license.
Comms is a big deal that is overlooked by most when they are imagining their TEOTWAWKI fantasy lol.

I currently just have a Baofeng UV5R EX I use to connect to local repeaters and listen, but plan on learning as much as I can and upgrading as I learn. Any info shared by those who know will be GREATLY appreciated because I still don't know shit lol.

I wish people would use ham radios potential more than what they do. So many just get a license so they can play Mr. Emergency Guy , or something to show their prepper buddies.

Ham radio can be used for learning about electronics from one end of the spectrum to the other. You are literally manipulating the fabric of our existance and communicating through it. And basically can use small bits of sand to do so.

And ham radio is not capitalized as HAM.

had my novice license back in the late 1960's ... often wonder how that world has changed ... I hear there's no more CW now?

Plenty of CW being used, just not tested for it.

How's the antenna? I need to get my dipole back up, had tornado's come through the area not too long ago, so some nasty winds took out the tree it was suspended from.

I've always wanted to get into ham radio but the initial cost of a transciever always made me hit the brakes...where can one get a good used piece of equipment plz?

Yes, but I haven't for years.

I built a repeater, my own receiver and transmitter from components even designing my own cavities and PCB's.

I'll not state the band, call sign, or location [doxing fears] and ran it with an ACC controller and auto patch for years.

I loved the voice that ACC gave it.

Last Edited by Louis in Richmond on 09/19/2019 07:21 PM

Well, initially with a technician class license you'll be restricted primarily to more of your local bands like 2m & 70cm. All you really to get started there is a handheld, and if you're trying to be budget conscious you can buy a cheap chicom radio like a Baofeng for $25 brand new. You can't go wrong with one for the money. It will give you 2m & 70cm plus the FRMS channels(think of the little walkie talkies hikers use), and you'll also be able to listen to the analog police bands.

I'm far from being any sort of expert on HAM radio, but I've seen a few people who were curious, so I figured I'd help out where I can. I currently have a general class license which which allows you to operate on all of the amateur bands, but there are portions of the bands that you can't transmit on unless you have an Extra class license. Honestly unless you really want to get into the engineering aspect I don't really see that big of a motivation to go out and take the test for it. From what I have heard the test for the Extra class is pretty difficult.

If your brand new to the hobby, and want to learn about the basics your best bet options are to find to find a club in your area and Youtube. Yes there are books out there that will give you really information, but you'll learn more from the other two options. If you can find a club in your area you'll find people who are more than willing to teach a noob. Hopefully the club will have operators who are into more than just contestiing. The easiest way to find a club if you don't know anyone that's licensed is to go to [link to www.arrl.org] The benifit of find a club as well is that it is normally the clubs that operate repeaters and or reflectors. There are a ton of awesome videos on Youtube as well that will cover testing, how to operate a specific radio, building antennas, or pretty much what ever you're curious about.

Before you start operating though you will need to get a license. The first one you'll get is the Technician class license, which will allow you to legally operate on the 2 meter and 70cm bands. Those are the two that are used by the majority ham's for communicating locally, you can communicate across the world on those bands if you use some of the digital modes, but that uses a combination of the internat and radio. Don't worry about those for now, because in a SHTF situation in your AO the repeaters in your area might not have internet. I know I said that the best way to learn the hobby is youtube and finding an elmer at a local club, you will want to at least get the manual for the technician class license. You'll get sample tests on a cd with the manual. After you've started to get an idea of whats going on, dig in to the sample tests, and just keep on doing them until you are getting at least an 85%. You'll need to find out where to take the exam, ask at the local club, someone should know. There are HAM in a day class's, but if they charge more than the test fee, dont bother. The HAM in a day class you'll be given a printout of all the test question and answers and you'll literally just be trying to memorize the test, which you can do on your own for free with the manual.

The cheapest route to go once your licensed would be to buy a Baofeng off of Amazon, they're $25-$35 they're dual and typically have more juice than other hand helds. I think you can buy one with 8 watts. You wont get a whole lot of range on them but you should be able to hit a repeater in your ao depending on how far away it is.

If you really want something that you can use in your house or vehicle you'll want a mobile rig. You can buy a mobile dual band radio starting out around $100. Don't even bother with a mobile radio unless it does at least 50 watts. Check Fakebook for a local hamfest, it's basically a flea market for radio equipment, all though I've seen people try to sell everything else as well. Be careful that your not buying some ancient equipment, but you should be able to find a decent mobile rig for around $50 or so. To run a mobile rig outside of your vehicle you'll need a power supply, don't even bother unless it can push out at 25 watts. You wont need that much at first with just a 2 meter rig, but you'll eventually upgrade your license to a general so you can operate an HF rig. If you buy a small unit unit now, you'll need to buy the 25 watt ps when you upgrade. So save the money to buy a 25 watt unit. The next thing you'll need is an antenna, the best one that I've used for a base station (your house/office) is a simple J-Pole antennae, goto ebay and search for KB9VBR. KB9VBR invented the jpole antenna and it works like a champ. It's made out of just plain copper tubing and comes preassembled for $35, you can build your own I guess but by the time you buy everything to make one you'll be close to the $35 mark and you still have to assemble it. You'l want to buy some good coax cable as well, look for RG-58 or RG-8 coax. RG-8 is best but more expensive, RG-58 is alright at lengths less than 50'. It's not a must have to operate, but you will want to check out how the antennea matches to the radio, you'll need a SWR meter for that, but once you have everything setup you shouldn't need it unless you change the setup.

I'm not sure what the board policy is for posting links to products for sale is on the site, so I won't post any until unless the mods are cool with that.

If someone with more experience has anything to add or see's something that's not right about what I posted please chime in.

I'll try to answer questions if I know the answer.

What you don't want to post your address on here? Why not?

What's an ACC controler?

What a load of shit.ive been here over ten years and none of yall are real.a bunch of new names just show up today pushing amazon toys and pretending to be members.bullshit!

Well, thanks for bringing this up. I didn't realize that there was a probationary period for trying to help some people out. You've apparently been around longer than I have, so you must have something usefull to add. What type of radio would you recommend and where should someone go to buy it?

Since I moved to Philippines, I'd have to obtain local HAM license. Easy enough, I had updated to FCC General Class license before the FCC eliminated code requirements. I remember spending hours learning code that I even my dreams were in code.

I left all my gear back in the US in storage, expensive to ship cargo here. So I only took what I could carry on flight plus shipped two "balikbayan" boxes of computer equipment and assorted items not available here.

I remember using 2m packet radio and connecting station to station to see how far I could get. At time I was living in Sacramento, could connect to a 2m repeater on Mt. Frazier and connected to nodes into Arizona. Latency became an issue after that. During the 80's radio patches were nice to have before cell phones made them obsolete. Many times I used them to contact 1st responders or had OP within range of 2m/70cm bands do it for me.

Around 1988 on my bday, I was rear ended (40 mph) by a drunk driver at a stop light. When I asked for his license, registration and insurance info, he refused. So I pulled out my HT and had an OP contact CHP to dispatch a unit. The guy must've thought I was LEO since I had a HT and speaking with CHP/Fire dispatch. I could tell he wanted to run, but his radiator was smashed by my 4x4 tube bumper, so he wasn't going anywhere far.

Once CHP units arrived, one of them asked me if I had been drinking, I replied my friend and I had a soda at the bowling alley a few blocks away. The CHP officer said the guys alcohol breath was so strong, he though I had been drinking too. He consulted with other CHP officer and asked if my passenger or myself were injured. I stated I had a sore neck back of my head hit rear window, but was ok. The CHP officer said, kept repeating and tried to insist I had injuries and see a doctor.

Turns out later, I understood the CHP officer was trying to get me to state I was injured because the drunk driver had suspended license (prior DUI) and no insurance. In California, if a person is injured by a DUI driver, it goes from misdemeanor to felony.

BTW - I forgot to mention the fun of using meteor scatter during exercises on 70cm band. You only have enough time for code exchange before ionization trail dissipated.

Last Edited by Agent MIB on 09/19/2019 09:59 PM

It was the computerized controller for an amateur radio repeater.

Others can describe it better than I. [link to ah6le.net]

As for the other I have been doxed online before.

The person that showed up at my home spent months in the regional jail behind their unsolicited visit; yes it really does happen. That was when the county police told me to empty a weapon into the next one that shows up and they would take a report and remove the body.

Last Edited by Louis in Richmond on 09/19/2019 10:18 PM

ebay

Is it hallal ham?

Local hamfest or check craigslist. Usually the guys at the hamfests are honest about what they are selling.

I've seen Kenwood TS520's go for $150. That's a 100 watt HF transceiver. Old, but darn near bullet proof even for today.

yes
a real extra class ham radio operator here

what would you like to know?

How hard would it be to hookup one of the older hf rigs to a PC so you can run digital modes on fldigi?