HAM Radio Discussion

[rbeau30]

I didn't take the General right after my Tech exam, which I should have. I got so much going on right now I have no time to study, but I should. my divorce 6 years ago, just got super ugly and I got so much on my plate. I would really like to see what the other bands are like, and get into HF a little.

I got my mount installed for a 10Meter antenna on my truck, just have to tune it and get a radio, I heard on the radio this mornign that 10 meter and 20 meter were good this past week.

[bogie]

I just put a comet SMA24 on my FT-60R giving me full strength receive from most of the front range repeaters. I was typically getting about a 4 or 5 signal with the stock antenna. I don't really transmit so I'm not sure how much that has improved. It would be cool to jump in on a net with you folks. Anymore progress towards this?

[rbeau30]

I just put a comet SMA24 on my FT-60R giving me full strength receive from most of the front range repeaters. I was typically getting about a 4 or 5 signal with the stock antenna. I don't really transmit so I'm not sure how much that has improved. It would be cool to jump in on a net with you folks. Anymore progress towards this?

I don't think this ever got off the ground. We would have to find a repeater that most of us can get to that would host us.

I listen to the 145.400- 100.00 tone and the 145.145 and 107.2 tone on both of my commutes. In the morning between 0645 and 0830 and then evening from 1700 to 1745 ish if you want to test.

[Irving]

Sounds like your To work commute time is twice as long as your From work commute time. Similar to mine.

[rbeau30]

Sounds like your To work commute time is twice as long as your From work commute time. Similar to mine.

Well. My commute is really only 15 minutes, but I go to work on a as needed basis. If I want to get anything done before folks show up I leave early. I have a P-8 school just to the north of me and an elementary school just southwest of me. Mornings can be very dangerous dodging the minivans full of soccer mom's who have more concern over texting/cellphone conversations and dropping kids off at the school than actual traffic laws.

[gnihcraes]

I can be on the air to test about any evening. Just let me know via pm and which repeater, I have most programmed on multiple radios.

[rbeau30]

Perhaps we should start by polling the folks who live in harder to reach areas, what repeaters they can get to. Then we know what repeater would work best for most of us.

Then we can informally meet there at certain times, and get a feel for when the most of us might be free.

Then we can ask the repeater owner/radio club to allow us to conduct a short formal net at set times.

We could also perhaps get a frequency plan set up for folks here. (If emergency arises, go to: ____ repeater, _____ freq simplex, ___ Channel GMRS (cobra/motorola/etc radios), or ___channel CB)

If we have a lot of folks in a certain area, we will probably have to break up the regions of colorado in separate groups. (Eastern/Western Colorado, etc)

Just a thought. This would be a valuable skill to practice for the folks who have recently gotten their ticket and have not actually talked much.

[bogie]

Perhaps we should start by polling the folks who live in harder to reach areas, what repeaters they can get to. Then we know what repeater would work best for most of us.

Then we can informally meet there at certain times, and get a feel for when the most of us might be free.

Then we can ask the repeater owner/radio club to allow us to conduct a short formal net at set times.

We could also perhaps get a frequency plan set up for folks here. (If emergency arises, go to: ____ repeater, _____ freq simplex, ___ Channel GMRS (cobra/motorola/etc radios), or ___channel CB)

If we have a lot of folks in a certain area, we will probably have to break up the regions of colorado in separate groups. (Eastern/Western Colorado, etc)

Just a thought. This would be a valuable skill to practice for the folks who have recently gotten their ticket and have not actually talked much.

I fall in that category of being new and not talking much. I listen a lot and most of the radio talk is out of my league and beyond my current scope of interest. I'll chime in if general talk is interesting but I would do so more if I knew some like minded folks from this forum were on a net. I would also join a repeater club if we found one that would host us. I'm up for simplex too but my transmit range is not so hot unless I'm hitting one of those high up repeaters. I'm thinking about buying a 50 watt radio for my loading bench and an outdoor antenna. Need to do a lot more research before I get that far.

[rbeau30]

I suppose we could pencil in a time where we just show up on a repeater that seems central to most of us and just chat.

I would however like to keep mention of "COAR15" away as much as possible... perhaps refer to here as just "the board" or something like that. Our Callsigns are publishe and so is our addresses. Last think we need is for someone listening with a scanner to put together our addresses with "ohh they are into expensive hobbies".

What I have heard that works well with three or more people is one person talks and names the next person to talk and so on. round-robin through the attendees.

[bogie]

Agreed.