What would be the recommendation for a "newbie" operator? How do you get involved, setup, what radio to use, etc?
What would be the recommendation for a "newbie" operator? How do you get involved, setup, what radio to use, etc?
What would be the recommendation for a "newbie" operator? How do you get involved, setup, what radio to use, etc?I'd recommend if you don't have any other radio, get a Baofeng UV-5R clone.
Re: Radios..
By: Charon to All on Thu Jan 09 2014 04:37 pm
What would be the recommendation for a "newbie" operator? How do you get involved, setup, what radio to use, etc?
What's your interest?
For Example:
Do you want to *talk* (with your voice), or communicate with morse code (oft called "CW"), or type/read text?
Do you want to communicate with select individuals or random people?
Do you want to communicate with people near by or far away?
Do you want to communicate with a lot of people (like in a group discussion) more of a one-on-one type conversation?
The cheapest way to enter the hobby is probably with a UHF/VHF hand-held rad (often called an "HT" or handy-talky). I have this model and am quite please with it: http://bit.ly/1agLVkM
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Re: Radios..
By: Charon to All on Thu Jan 09 2014 16:37:47
What would be the recommendation for a "newbie" operator? How do you get involved, setup, what radio to use, etc?I'd recommend if you don't have any other radio, get a Baofeng UV-5R clon
If you have the money, possibly a D-Star compatible 2 meter/75cm hand held
Once you get your General License, you'll want a HF rig. I strongly
suggest a modern all-band/all mode MF/HF/VHF/UHF radio with a good
antenna, and a tuner if the radio doesn't have a good one built in .
(Most radio's that have tuner's built in don't have near as good of a tune
as an external tuner). The rest of the questions will need more informati
How will you use the radio? Home, Vehichle, hiking?
Any restrictions on antenna's at your residence? What kind of vehichle?
How much $$$ do you have available?
What time of day will you primarily be using the radio?
Are you wanting to chase DX, Rag Chew, Digital, or what?
Hiking and outdoors mostly. I need something durable, that has the capability to communicate between 10-25 miles. Also, would I need, andO.k. your general license can be had the same place you get your tech license. Look on ARRL's website for testing locations near you. To legally talk on ham bands you'll need a license. Tech license is good for 2 meters, 75 cm, 6 meters, and a teenie weenie portion of 10 meters. A 2 meter hand held will work simplex in that range, and potential for farther range if using a repeater. If you plan on getting your General class license, and want longer range, I'd suggest something comparable to a FT-819 or FT-857D. (Yaesu)
most importantly, where do I get a "general license"?
Re: Radios..
By: Charon to KF5QEO on Sun Jan 12 2014 14:44:21
Hiking and outdoors mostly. I need something durable, that has the capability to communicate between 10-25 miles. Also, would I need, and most importantly, where do I get a "general license"?O.k. your general license can be had the same place you get your tech license. Look on ARRL's website for testing locations near you. To legally talk on ham bands you'll need a license. Tech license is good for 2 meters, cm, 6 meters, and a teenie weenie portion of 10 meters. A 2 meter hand held will work simplex in that range, and potential for farther range if using a repeater. If you plan on getting your General class license, and want longe range, I'd suggest something comparable to a FT-819 or FT-857D. (Yaesu) Sorry, you'll find ham's tend to get used to one company and don't tend to worry about other companies much afterwards. So like if I got the modal # right, the 819 is a low powered version of the FT-857D which I have.
Now, let's assume for a moment you get your General license. The hand-held will clip on your belt, strap it on your wrist, or put it in your pocket. It'll reach the repeater or talk upto 25 miles on about 5 watts max.. It usually will only work on FM, which is great when you are in-range, horrible when not. Remember the old FM stations? They where so clear, but as you go away from the tower, they was harder to pickup than the AM stations? Same principal. O.k. Now enter the FT-897. If you pack you some wire and a car battery, or solar panel, and the FT-897 (most folks will make a go-box to ca everything, and perhaps put it on a dolly for easy hiking!) Since the FT-89 runs on lower power, obviously the battery last longer. The 857 can be made run on lower power, as well as the less power you use the less it drains the battery. (So just turn the power down when on trips) The big difference is 897 will be less than I think 15 watts max, where as the 857 is 100 watts ma Obviously more watts can transmit further.. With the 857 and 897, it'd be easier to an extent to hang an antenna in the trees, or use a vertical pole better reception. But the hand held has the advantage of being easier to us it while walking around. The FT-857 cost about $980, the FT-819 cost about $800, and the Baofeng UV-5R Hand-held cost about $50.
With the Hand Held, you can talk on 2m and 75cm and have the range your look for depending on trees.
With the other 2 you can work other bands. On 20 meters, I can talk from Central Mississippi to California, Florida, and Michigan.... With 40 meters can reach Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama. 80 meters I can reach the entire state of Mississippi. 10 meters allows me to reach the various islands near cuba and California.
No problem, feel free to e-mail me at westlakegeek@yahoo.com if you have any other questions, or e-mail on your BBS I believe via kf5qeo@mainline (been a while since I did it that way). If money's a situation, I strongly sugest the hand held route. Another thought might be a 2m/75cm mobile radio that you could put in your car, when you go camping, use anderson power poles to remove it easily, then just strap on a small battery with a carrying strap and rig up a strap on the radio as you go walking, then use the radio as you go walking through your camping trip. The mobile would have more power and get out through the trees. You would have to rig up a 2 meter portable antenna, perhaps a rubber ducky to your back pack or something, or stop and string up a di-pole, or again use a vertical.. This is where a good 'go box' comes in handy, for something like this. In fact, it gives me an idea for my club's web site... ;-) http://www.w5wq.net/ -- I'm the secretary of the group. I think I may see if I can get them to put up some pictures of their go boxes.... I was looking today, as a tech, you can use 40 meters if you know morse code, or 10 meters in the really small portion, but again if you really want to make contacts with people, you want to get a general class license or higher. If you get a general class license, talk to someone about becoming a VE (Volunteer examiner) -- the guys who will test you on your ham license. If you are a General class VE, HamtestOnline will give you the class to become an extra for free. Well worth it! I did the general and tech off the info on the web, but the extra is a bit harder! Also, if money is really strapped but you still want to do HF, there's 2 more options.Thank you so much for the information.Hiking and outdoors mostly. I need something durable, that has the capability to communicate between 10-25 miles. Also, would I need,
Re: Radios..
By: Charon to KF5QEO on Mon Jan 13 2014 20:26:39
No problem, feel free to e-mail me at westlakegeek@yahoo.com if you have other questions, or e-mail on your BBS I believe via kf5qeo@mainline (been while since I did it that way). If money's a situation, I strongly sugest t hand held route. Another thought might be a 2m/75cm mobile radio that you could put in your car, when you go camping, use anderson power poles to remo it easily, then just strap on a small battery with a carrying strap and rig a strap on the radio as you go walking, then use the radio as you go walking through your camping trip. The mobile would have more power and get out through the trees. You would have to rig up a 2 meter portable antenna, perhaps a rubber ducky to your back pack or something, or stop and string up di-pole, or again use a vertical.. This is where a good 'go box' comes in handy, for something like this. In fact, it gives me an idea for my club's site... ;-) http://www.w5wq.net/ -- I'm the secretary of the group. I thin may see if I can get them to put up some pictures of their go boxes.... I wa looking today, as a tech, you can use 40 meters if you know morse code, or 1 meters in the really small portion, but again if you really want to make contacts with people, you want to get a general class license or higher. If you get a general class license, talk to someone about becoming a VE (Volunt examiner) -- the guys who will test you on your ham license. If you are a General class VE, HamtestOnline will give you the class to become an extra f free. Well worth it! I did the general and tech off the info on the web, b the extra is a bit harder! Also, if money is really strapped but you still want to do HF, there's 2 more options.Thank you so much for the information.Hiking and outdoors mostly. I need something durable, that has the capability to communicate between 10-25 miles. Also, would I need,
1. I highly recommend against! Get a 10 meter export radio. I picked up a ranger RCI-2950DX on e-bay, I think it was around $150. I could hear lots o places, but it lacked the internal tone encoder/decoder board to hit the repeaters in New York, where the majority of the action was. It can get you local and a little beyond on the right days, but bear in mind those days are super rare! Get the right one and it'll do 10 meters and 12 meter
2. MFJ sells a cheap 20m (other bands as well) SSB / CW Transceiver. I believe it's a QRP (low power) radio. Comes with a microphone, the dial is analog and kinda hard to read, look on MFJ and get the part number, then sea youtube and watch the demos online and see if you think you could put up wit it. I have to admit, it'd be a nice radio for hiking, but then again, you'd have to understand how the bands work if you used that one. You see, your probably wanting something to contact a local if you get in trouble. A 20 meter radio would have you generally talking across the entire United States The average person you contact would have no clue where the heck your at. B if your wanting to take advantage of the higher altitude, large trees, etc. it'd be fun to setup a station out some where and see who you could contact. You'd want to get a tuner too while you was at it with any HF setup. I've g a cheap manual tuner that works great if your antenna is resonnant on the ba your talking on. As far as the antenna's (since we're getting into hiking a all), you can make a dipole from wire or pipe. To make it resonnant on the frequency, use I believe it's 468 divided by the frequency in megahertz. Th gives you the total inches. Divide that by 2 and you have the length of eac wire. Take 2 wires that length, connect one to the center, the other to the ground, hang it in the trees optimally the length of one wire would be how h up you want the antenna to be to have optimum effeciency. If hiking it's a piece of cake to pack up a small radio, 150' of wire, a coax cable about 100 long, and a radio in a back pack. Then lug the battery in your hand... Tha or make a go-box where the battery's in the box the radio is mounted in the box, etc. and you just pull out the coax and attach it to the antenna, launc the antenna up in the air, and get on the air. Alternatives would be a vertical mounted on a Camera Tripod. But some verticals can be a bit to lug
If your taking a trip with afriend they can help bring some of the stuff, s that you can also have snacks while on the air....
BTW, I'm a VE for SMARC (Southwest Mississippi Amateur Radio Club) as well a their secretary.
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