HAM Radio Discussion

[rbeau30]

I've got two of these, used on multiple vehicles, easy to mount or move to another vehicle. No holes. No leaks.

http://www.diamondantenna.net/k400photos.html

This is what i have.

[kawiracer14]

CALL SIGN PROCURED! The last time I checked a website this often was when I was waiting for Texas CHP.

[hatidua]

curious what compelled many of you to get into

A number of events over the past decade or so...

I used to spend half of each year in South Florida and managed to be there for the many hurricanes of 2004. Cell towers were knocked out and many of us in the town I lived in communicated via marine vhf (every waterfront home had a boat and every boat had a radio). Marine vhf isn't kosher when inland so the wife and I got our ham licenses and a pair of Yaesu FT-60 handhelds that will still do their full 5W with the AA battery packs.

[rbeau30]

I listen to the 146.670 (http://www.repeaterbook.com/repeater....Pf2dwWBZ.dpbs) repeater daily for traffic, while scanning all the others on the other side of my radio. If anyone wants to chat around 0800L and 0830L or 1700L and 1730L and test out their radio programming skillz.

[kawiracer14]

I listen to the 146.670 (http://www.repeaterbook.com/repeater....Pf2dwWBZ.dpbs) repeater daily for traffic, while scanning all the others on the other side of my radio. If anyone wants to chat around 0800L and 0830L or 1700L and 1730L and test out their radio programming skillz.

I may hit you up on that Monday... need to memorize my call sign!

[Brian]

Yeah about as far as I've gone so far is to put the little baofeng on scan and see what I can pick up. Not much is coming in well yet, but it could be the antenna or the time of day. Either way, I haven't had a chance to put any effort into it yet. Heck it took me 10 mins to figure out how to turn on the fm radio. Ouch.

So is it fair to say the only time you're actually likely to pick up any regular traffic to listen in on is during daily commute times?

[Irving]

Yeah about as far as I've gone so far is to put the little baofeng on scan and see what I can pick up. Not much is coming in well yet, but it could be the antenna or the time of day. Either way, I haven't had a chance to put any effort into it yet. Heck it took me 10 mins to figure out how to turn on the fm radio. Ouch.

So is it fair to say the only time you're actually likely to pick up any regular traffic to listen in on is during daily commute times?

145.145 has traffic all the time.

[kawiracer14]

I hear traffic in the am and PM commutes and during the nets. W0tx.org has a list of all the statewide nets.

[cstone]

I got my call sign yesterday, so about 10 days from test to showing up on the ULS site. Pretty good by government standards.

Now to start studying for the Extra

[streetglideok]

145.145 has traffic all the time.

Can't remember, is that a CRA repeater or a Colorado Connection repeater? I believe that is one of the linked system repeaters up there.