Any Amateur Radio BFCers Out There?

[ktrout]

And no one uses marine VHF on land, arrr.

A few years ago I crossed the US on a bicycle. In some places WX was the only thing I could get on my VX-7R. I still get a little wistful when I listen to it.

[swordpoint9]

I use 2 M or 6 M mostly 73's !

[gnaruki]

Nice thread. I've been working out a CB network around my work place neighborhood in case of disasters. The CB network is for people in the near vicinity and on top of the CB network there is a group of hammers that can reach out further to government services and other areas beyond CB reach.

[Enochian]

The Yaesu VX8DR is a great radio, but way over priced. The cheap battery that comes with it needs to be replaced with the high capacity battery. Plus I never use the 6 meter or 220 bands. I would recommend the dual band (70cm and 2 meter) Yaesu FT-60R which is well built with a great battery life for only $169.95 vs $450 for the VX8DR.

I also use the Yaesu FT-450D with a Buddipole deluxe in a vertical configuration or a GRV5 wire antenna if there are trees to hang it on for HF operation. The setup easily hits most of Europe under the right conditions. There is also a 440 / 10 meter repeater system located on the Empire State building in New York that has great coverage. Digital modes are fun too.

If you're in New York City on September 11th, 2012, tune to 449.225 (PL: 82.5Hz). A few hams met up last year and we plan to do it again this year.

[JITW]

[ktrout]

LOL. How about those Lambda Mus?

[db36046]

By all means, get your license. In US, the FCC does monitor the frequencies for abuse and fines for operating without the license are currently running in the neighborhood of $10,000 per violation. Each day of illegal operation is typically considered one violation. If FCC doesn't snag you, other Hams will detect you and turn you in; it's called self-policing and is necessary to keep the bands assigned to Amateur Radio available for Hams. Pirates are not tolerated. Hams are particularly good at Radio Direction Finding and they will find you.
The license is not that hard to get; you can get a copy of the self-study book at your local Radio Shack store or online from arrl.org and in about two to six weeks of study you can pass the test. The tests are handled by local Hams and they are typically very helpful. They want you to pass the test.

There are small CW only single band HF rigs that you can stick in a backpack and run off a small battery for when you're way out in the boonies and need to stay in touch. They cost around $150 and with a piece of copper wire for an antenna you can have world-wide communications from anywhere.

As mentioned by other posters, for VHF/UHF, the Yaesu VX series are superb. You can even adapt a homemade directional antenna to one of these and do LEO satellite digital and voice communications using about five watts of power, as well as using them for local tactical communications or wider area comms through a repeater. You can set up a simple interface on your computer at home and have world wide communications via VOIP from your handheld as long as there is Internet available at your base station. If you are in a civilized area there will already be such gateways available locally and you don't have to build your own interface.

Study the book, take the test, get the license. What you learn in the course of study will get you going with a lot of stuff you've only heard about in SciFi.

Drawbacks? Main one is you are only allowed to communicate with other licensed Hams. In an emergency, of course, anything goes, but you may have to defend yourself afterward to whatever authority is in charge in your country.

[db36046]

Very funny, JITW.

[thewalrus]

If you want a really cheap VHF/UHF handheld that has a decent set of features, this is $50:

https://www.google.ca/search?q=UV-5R+pl ... =firefox-a



It's not a $400 Yaesu, but it's also not even a hundred bucks... The feature set and performance is remarkably good. You can get pairs of them for $95 on eBay. One of the fun things you can do with them without a licence is use the FRS frequencies for local communications within a few km.

[russlits]

after seeing 25 in the thread, I got my hopes way fucking up there.