Anyone here into ham radio?

[Lebowski]

I bought a Baofeng BF-F9 V2+ and a 16" whip antenna for it for myself for Christmas, it's something I've been wanting to get into for a long time. Currently reading "HAM Radio for dummies" and trying to get prepared for a license test so I can properly use the things. I know this is a very basic and bottom floor entry level setup, but was wondering if anyone here is into ham radio?

I've got access to 30' boom that I plan on mounting on my back porch and attaching a 6' Diamond x50a base antenna on it in the coming month as I've got some hills around here and am hoping to get better distance on that setup. I'm new to all of this and am hoping to learn a lot this year. Anyone in southern Indiana into this? There are no radio clubs near me that I can tell so it's sort of hard to find people local who are into this. If you're in south (eastern) Indiana or in the Ohio valley region let me know and we can test setups or something. I've yet to find any frequencies with actual chatter on it, only NOAA weather stations and the frequency the local school district uses for bus drivers. Police, fire and EMS are all on trunked systems I can't access and doesn't appear that any local repeaters have people chatting on them from what I can tell.

My goal is to have a 50 mile range at least, which would have me hitting repeaters in Louisville, outside of Cincy down into Frankfort, KY and up to Columbus, Indiana. Unsure how realistic that goal is though....

Eventually I'll replace the radio with something more appropriate but it'll work for now I s'pose.

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

You'll definitely need a better antenna than a whip for any distance, and it has to be for the band(s) you're actually using. Your X50A looks like what you want, and the elevation will go a long way as well, but 50mi is probably more than you'll get. Your radio covers 2m (144-148MHz) and 70cm (420-450MHz), which are the most commonly used by new techs. Keep in mind, even with your license you have to stay inside those limits for transmit. Your trunked stuff is typically in the 800-900MHz range. They're putting it other places as well, but you need to be able to track it anyway, so no joy. I'm surprised you're not catching any chatter, but I don't know how the terrain around there is going to affect you. You're not legal to squawk a repeater without a license, so you'll just have to listen. I bet there are some clubs not too far away, though. Just have to keep researching. We used to have to do this stuff without the internet

 

[Lebowski]

Well, with the 16" whip antenna inside my house next to the Ohio river in Madison I could pick up the NOAA weather stations located in New Albany and one in Seymour. New Albany is 40 miles and Seymour is 30 miles away (straight line distance). Those are the two nearest NOAA repeaters as far as I know according to this: NOAA Weather Radio - County Coverage for Indiana

Granted they didn't come in perfect clarity and there was a lot of static depending on where I positioned myself and the radio, but I could still hear the weather forecast... though right now I can't seem to pick up either station so... IDK. 162.475 and 162.525 are quiet right now. I'm not sure if they're broadcasting or not but I thought they did around the clock broadcasts.... same with 157.100 which I was previously receiving Ohio River coastguard info on but it's now silent.

 

[Lebowski]

Well I can pick up the NOAA weather station in Owenton, Kentucky (162.450) which is 32 miles SE of my location right now. It comes and goes but I can get the weather from it. That's with just the Baofeng and the NA-771 antenna inside my house.

Would the x50a mounted on a 30 foot boom really not make much of a difference in range considering the distances I am able to achieve with just a 16" whip antenna on a handheld radio?


EDIT: Looking at the weather map it's snowing in New Albany and Seymour right now, which may explain why I can't pick up the weak signal I was able to receive earlier when the weather was clearer? It's not raining or snowing between me and Owenton, KY which may explain why I can pick up that signal 30+ miles away?

 

[Spear Dane]

Hi Lebowski,
I have an Extra, been hammin for 12 years. Sitting here right this second listening to my Flex 6300. I JUST got my tower setup finished a couple days ago.
I have that same Diamond sitting 40 feet up, being outside and up a ways makes ALL the difference in the world. I found a club that seems to have it's stuff wired tight down in Jeffersonville. You should email one of these fellows and tell em your story. They will know the local scene and can advise you further on club (and TESTING) in the area.
If I can be of any other help to you then PM me.
CluYesb Officers

You are correct about the snow. At VHF and up moisture in the atmosphere begins to attenuate RF (Think Doppler Radar) until at satellite freqs a good rain/heavy snow can do away with your signal altogether.

 

[cobber]

Ham Radio for Dummies won't be much of a prep for the Technician exam, if that's all you're using. (I'm taking the first exam in February.)

I put a 16" Nagoya on my Baofeng UV-82HP, and haven't noticed a performance boost over the stock 'rubber duck'. Maybe mounting it on a 30' mast would help.

Do you have a list of local repeaters? Someone in your area should have posted one, or if not, go to Radio Reference dot com. There is also a free Android app in the Google store that works fine. If you haven't seen it yet, Miklor.com seems useful in the absence of a local club. Also arrl.org.

Are you using CHIRP to program, or manually entering stations?

 

[Lebowski]

Amateur Radio Ham Radio Repeater Map using that tool to find repeaters near me, no traffic or static coming from any of them.

I've got CHIRP installed on my PC and laptop, but have been a at-home Linux user for over a decade. Just need to find the proper drivers for my radio and I can use it to program it, right now just doing things manually.

I'll take a look at the links. I'm also using https://hamstudy.org/ to take practice tests and to study for my exam as well.

 

[cobber]

Amateur Radio Ham Radio Repeater Map using that tool to find repeaters near me, no traffic or static coming from any of them.

I've got CHIRP installed on my PC and laptop, but have been a at-home Linux user for over a decade. Just need to find the proper drivers for my radio and I can use it to program it, right now just doing things manually.

I'll take a look at the links. I'm also using https://hamstudy.org/ to take practice tests and to study for my exam as well.

Once you see the materialfor GGeneral, Technician will seem like a piece of cake.

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

I stopped at tech back about 30 years ago because with only a month into it, 13WPM Morse was just a bit much I had passed the written up to advanced (there were 5 levels back then), and extra wouldn't have been a problem, but I'm an EE with a lot of RF background. I just never went back to it.

Your weather radios are coming in from great distance because NOAA is running hundreds of watts out the cable, and I'd reckon they have antennas with a pretty flat radiation pattern. NB: when you see "gain" listed for an antenna, it's not actually making the signal bigger as such, it's just redirecting the radiation from some directions you don't use to the direction(s) you want. Altitude will definitely help. If you can get line-of-sight, you'll have a much better signal than if something is in the way.

Atmospheric conditions and other things can play games with your signals as well that seem weird until you understand what's happening. I caught a traffic helicopter in Toledo at about 462MHz on a handheld with a duck one time, just standing out in my driveway. This was caused by a tropospheric duct, which is caused by a temperature inversion. I got about 7 miles handheld to handheld, each in a valley, in 6m band, due to a knife edge diffraction over a mountain. I've caught WWVH in Hawaii stronger than WWV in Colorado. I've heard of people in California having CB QSO with New Zealand. But from day to day, just stick with the basics.

 

[Lebowski]

Yeah, I later learned that I was getting the NOAA stations because they operate at a higher level than most amateur station repeaters.

Been playing with HamSphere a bit though in the mean time since there is nothing going on locally I can pick up. HamSphere - Virtual Ham Radio

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

Back in the 80s WA8VZY on 145.25 had crazy coverage, but he had some advantages. I don't know if it's still around. His output was max on 2m, and he owned an FM broadcast station so he had the antenna way up. He had satellite receivers in various places feeding in, so you could talk handheld to handheld over about the middle third of the state.

 

[AngryRooster]

Amateur Radio Ham Radio Repeater Map using that tool to find repeaters near me, no traffic or static coming from any of them.

I've got CHIRP installed on my PC and laptop, but have been a at-home Linux user for over a decade. Just need to find the proper drivers for my radio and I can use it to program it, right now just doing things manually.

I'll take a look at the links. I'm also using https://hamstudy.org/ to take practice tests and to study for my exam as well.

CHIRP has a Linux version. It's in the package manager for quite a few distros as well as here if not. Running Under Linux - CHIRP

As far as cables & drivers, Amazon has a good selection of cables that have the FTDI chip so no drier is needed. They work well in the Linux CHIRP. Plug & play

 

[Lebowski]

CHIRP has a Linux version. It's in the package manager for quite a few distros as well as here if not. Running Under Linux - CHIRP

As far as cables & drivers, Amazon has a good selection of cables that have the FTDI chip so no drier is needed. They work well in the Linux CHIRP. Plug & play

Yep, already got CHIRP installed. Just haven't gotten around to finding the drivers for my radio yet. Will look into that later.

Been trying to play around with SPLAT! ( SPLAT! A Terrestrial RF Path Analysis Application For Linux/Unix ) for creating coverage prediction maps based on location, type and strength of antennas within a specific area or region. I live down in a valley by the Ohio river so I'm trying to figure out what I could 'expect' out of a particular setup. Manpage is here if you want to check it out: http://www.qsl.net/kd2bd/splat.pdf

 

[cobber]

Any mobile users? What bands do you have in your rig? Favorite make/model?

Also, planning for an eventual purchase, what is a good commercial outlet? It seems like there's a lot of stuff not branded for the US market and FCC regs slipping in through ee bay and amazon. Plus a lot of Chinese junk being flogged.

Thinking I would like either a dual or quad band, at the same time, ease of operation would be important.

Testing for Technician and General next weekend.

 

[Spear Dane]

The 'Big Three' outlets are DXEngineering, Ham Radio Outlet (HRO) and Amateur Equipment Supplies (AES). HRO and AES also have a number of retail sites scattered around the country but none are in Indiana/KY. I have dealt the DXE and AES and find they both have excellent service. A great source of used equipment are the classifieds sections of eHAM and QRZ, standard caveats apply when dealing with people on the webs. Also ham fests can be great for picking up stuff however until you are a bit experienced I would go with someone who is and knows how to evaluate stuff.

 

[Sub2000]

What would be a good starter radio?

 

[hooky]

I picked up a Baefong UV-5R to mess with over the winter. Gotta have comms.

https://www.amrron.com/ has been a very useful site as has been https://danmorgan76.wordpress.com/

Lots of others for supplies and test prep.

 

[cobber]

I'm thinking about either a dual or quad band mobile for my car, and as a modest starter base station. I realize that adding 6 and 10 meters means more antennas. Also a power supply and other shack accessories.

This could quickly get out of hand...

 

[cobber]

Just passed the Tech and General exams last weekend. I was surprised at the number of takers who (claimed) to have just studied the night before. Seems like studying just for the test kind of defeats the purpose of getting licensed.

The Amateur Extra is next. Certainly a daunting exam, although I got 29/50 without having looked over the material. A good foundation for Tech and General will help a lot.

Be aware the ARRL Study Guide is a mess on the math, goes from 0 to 120 in a page, and 'reviews' concepts that were never discussed anywhere in the materials before. The question pool is about to change, so this will be a 'one way trip' in April...

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

Congratulations! Keep us up to date on your ticket and further exploits.