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Keithinatlanta
Senior Member
Username: Keithinatlanta
Post Number: 1011
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, July 03, 2014 - 7:18 am: | 
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Good Thursday morning everyone. I am curious.
Do any of you ham operators ever use the
70 cm band or the "T" band? Thanks.
Keith in Atlanta
CEF 150 |
Tech237
Moderator
Username: Tech237
Post Number: 1800
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, July 03, 2014 - 10:47 am: |
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Often Keith. Apart from the local repeaters, we use it for ATV, simplex and occasionally foxhunting.
Tech237
N7AUS
God made me an athiest, who are you to question his wisdom?
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Press_man
Advanced Member
Username: Press_man
Post Number: 782
Registered: 5-2008
| | Posted on Thursday, July 03, 2014 - 3:46 pm: |
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70cm low power on a directional.
73 Pressman
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Revpo
Advanced Member
Username: Revpo
Post Number: 691
Registered: 7-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, July 03, 2014 - 8:41 pm: |
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I have it in the YAESU and a dual band antenna on the roof. I have it programmed to a repeater which is wide coverage from 75 miles NORTH of INDIANAPOLIS to Southern Indiana, and it has a lot of activity, I made a few contacts on it, but that has been it.
DOCTOR/795/CEF 795/CHNL 13
73
REVPO/DOCTOR/CEF 795
Wavin a hand from the cornfields of INDIANA
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Starface
Senior Member
Username: Starface
Post Number: 3307
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Friday, July 04, 2014 - 10:56 pm: |
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A lot of our 2 meter and 70cm are linked together and I will move to 70cm if out of range for the main 2m and still get around the big county I live in. so it's useful.
George
KI4NBE
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Possum_lodge
Junior Member
Username: Possum_lodge
Post Number: 44
Registered: 5-2014
| | Posted on Saturday, July 05, 2014 - 12:41 pm: |
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2 meters tends to be the band of choice.
The repeaters and the handheld radios usually has more range - since there is less path loss involved and less loss in the feedline.
Noise is inverse the square of the frequency - hence the higher in frequency you go, the less noise you have to deal with. This is the reason why the T band is so desirable to the cell phone people.
By 2024 the President of the USA has mandated that everyone vacate the T band and those frequencies are to be sold to the highest bidder - Broadband etc... You get my point.. I wouldn't waste a lot of money on anything involving 440 or the T band.
It does offer you the option of running low power - a couple of watts to get a mile or two of range simplex from a cheap handheld radio.
Locally, most of the 2 meter repeaters are being linked together in a system called the WAN - wide area network, due to inactivity on the local repeaters.
Other than one or two local nets on those repeaters, the repeaters sits there empty 99% of the time. No one to talk to - since most people do not like listening to the WAN and they don't like being told what they can or cannot say on the local repeaters.
Two meters simplex 565 is the most common rag chew frequency here. It is occupied by unscrupulous CB radio people that bought their licenses back in the early 90's when they were afraid that they were going to get caught free banding on 10 meters.
There isn't any intelligence involved with that group, they don't usually identify except when they sign on and off and they don't talk about Ham Radio type stuff. Mostly what was on the television last night, doctors appointments, their previous occupations - truck drivers, coal miners, loggers, and their families.
For them, 440 would involve buying a dual band radio and putting up better coax.
Most of them uses a ICOM 746 Pro - because it did all HF along with 2 meters - kind of reminds them of the CB radio - since one radio does it all.
When they bought them, the Icom 746 Pro sold for about $999.00 - $1200.00
In places like Texas - 440 is very popular since one Two meter repeater covers as much as 100 miles and the availability of a good pair of Two Meter frequencies is almost non existent.
A club or group can put up a 440 repeater, use it to talk 40 - 50 miles and not have to worry about interference or not being able to get it coordinated.
Amateur Radio is a fraternity, a group of like minded individuals. When a buddy group forms, that group can only survive as long as they assimilate new members into the group. Those that do not, no matter how much money they have, it will eventually die - due to it's membership dying off from old age and maladies.
In the 1970's and 80's the repeater was the life blood of most clubs. As the cell phones progressed, people were not as interested in going through the hassle of studying to get licenses, buying radio equipment, putting up antenna's, and having to share frequencies to talk.
Most younger folks were not interested in talking to strangers or old people and the old people were not interested in recruiting their family members into the Amateur Radio Service.
If it is free - like GMRS, they might go along with using a handheld - as long as they don't have to spend their own money to get the license / or spend a lot of money on the radios to use it.
GMRS - one license covers your whole family!
The folks on this forum are of a dying breed.
The only way that we have been successful in recruiting new people to radio has been by dumbing down the exams to the point of where a 6 year old can pass the exam and giving out licenses in boxes of Cracker Jacks and selling cheap / disposable radios - Beofangs and Wooshuns..
In my neck of the woods - GMRS / FRS is popular 2 months out of the year when people uses the little Motorola's for big game hunting, the rest of the time there is no activity, and no one desires to use it as a hobby.
CB radio on the other hand has gained popularity, since many people here are involved in the trucking and natural gas exploration industry and cell phones don't always work good at the location.
I could count the number of 440 antenna's installed on vehicles here in my county on one hand. Two meters antenna's on both hands, but CB radio antenna's - would be in the hundreds... |
Dale
Senior Member
Username: Dale
Post Number: 2097
Registered: 12-2002
| | Posted on Monday, July 07, 2014 - 5:43 pm: |
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in my area there are several reapeater groups
each town seems to have one.[about 50 miles or so]
there is 1 local group that uses ONLY 2m simplex
with there homemade 4 and 8 element quads.
cant get them on mty scanner very good though.
gmrs/frs is good around hunting time also. but
ive heard it busy lately as i live near state park
and think some campers are using them too now
dale/a.k.a.hotrod
cef426
cvc#64
454 [dx numbers]
38lsb
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Possum_lodge
Junior Member
Username: Possum_lodge
Post Number: 46
Registered: 5-2014
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 08, 2014 - 9:23 am: |
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I'm not sure why they would need a Quad antenna to talk simplex.. You can buy a Cushcraft Boomer - 13 element - 2 meter beam at a hamfest for $50.00 most any day of the week.
Might I suggest that you use a outdoor antenna with your scanner.
The key is to use low loss coax - RG-6 Quad Shield works fine for receive only applications and a old UHF / VHF television antenna can be repurposed for listening purposes along with a good antenna rotor.
For less than $80.00 you can also buy a television pre amplifier that will amplify the received signals as much as 26 db - to compensate for the line loss between the antenna and the scanner.
Another viable option would be for you to purchase a Diamond V2000 antenna and put it above your roof. You could even invest in some Belden 9913 and could use it to transmit Ham or GMRS depending upon your license.
The polarization mismatch between horizontal and vertical might be another reason why you are having a hard time hearing them.
If they are running horizontal and you are running vertical, there might be as much as 46 db of loss in the signal. As you have said - it is practically non existent.
I'm taking for granted that you are using a base station scanner and not a handheld and a rubber duck. There is a big difference between Public Land Mobile Radio Service - Police, Fire, ambulance - where the government puts up towers and repeaters, and amateurs - where each individual antenna is located on the users property - not everyone lives on the top of a mountain someplace. |
Dale
Senior Member
Username: Dale
Post Number: 2098
Registered: 12-2002
| | Posted on Saturday, July 12, 2014 - 10:30 am: |
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i dont have any license why i use scanner.
im not sure if there verticle or horizonal
on 2 meters.a couple of them are are50 miles
apart from one another. and closest one to me
is 15 miles i can somewhat hear him.i use a indoor
antenna that hooks up in back of scanner and extends to around 18 inches or about. got it at radio shack. i think im gonna need an outside antenna to pick a couple of those guys
dale/a.k.a.hotrod
cef426
cvc#64
454 [dx numbers]
38lsb
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Possum_lodge
Member
Username: Possum_lodge
Post Number: 52
Registered: 5-2014
| | Posted on Sunday, July 13, 2014 - 5:29 pm: |
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Yes, you are correct, you are going to need some type of outdoor antenna that is tuned to those frequencies to listen.
If you are interested in becoming a ham, it would be in your best interest in buying a good dual band vertical antenna now and some decent coax later.
I don't know where you live, but 50 miles seems like a far distance for your situation.
I would guess more like 10 - 20 miles.
The polarity would not matter, since all you are doing is listening, but most all FM work is done vertically. For that, you would want to invest in a Comet or a Diamond V2000 dual band antenna.
You can buy an adaptor to go from a F connector to a PL connector and a F connector to a BNC connector and use a good quality RG 6 television coax.. Belden is the industry standard right now, but I have had good luck using coax bought from Lowes in a rabbit pull box. Signal Quad Shield Coax...
Then you want to get the antenna as high up into the air as you can get it.
You can check their call signs by visiting the FCC data base or using QRZ.com |
Revpo
Advanced Member
Username: Revpo
Post Number: 700
Registered: 7-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, July 13, 2014 - 8:34 pm: |
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Your both from Pennsylvania , so get a challenge to communicate with each other when DALE passes the exam. An 8 year old passes the Technician exam I read all the time.
So DALE, study for a week or maybe two take the practice the online exams and go for it.
CEF795
73
REVPO/DOCTOR/CEF 795
Wavin a hand from the cornfields of INDIANA
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Possum_lodge
Member
Username: Possum_lodge
Post Number: 53
Registered: 5-2014
| | Posted on Monday, July 14, 2014 - 10:10 am: |
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Unless he is from central or western Pennsylvania, he is going to need at least a General Class License. The Allegheny Mountain Chain blocks signals from going east - past State College PA and south into Huntingdon PA. To the West, the repeater is not very robust in Sharon and the repeater sensitivity of the Franklin PA repeater leaves a lot to be desired. To the north, the mountain in Ridgeway PA stops most signals from traveling past - unless you can hit the Ridgeway group of repeaters.
The mindset of someone in Western Pennsylvania has to be to live on top of a mountain someplace and to have at least 50 watts FM and a decent antenna to enable someone to talk more than locally.
This means that a handheld radio is out of the question if you want to actually be a real ham.
As far as the exam goes, my group gives FREE exams through the Laurel Amateur Radio Club at least once a month, I am a VE for both LARC and ARRL..
My advice to someone with no communications experience beyond CB is to buy or borrow or go to the library and find the Technician Class License exam book.. Read the book, then study the questions on your own and then when you feel confident - start taking the online practice exams.
There is a lot that is lost in the translation if all you do is take the online exams until you can pass the test. Out of all the people that I have seen that has done this, not a single one of them has advanced and become a real ham on their own.
When I hear someone on the radio giving their Seventy Three's, I know that person doesn't know anything about amateur radio and is just mimicking what they hear everyone else saying.
When I explain to them that '73 is a CW term and that if you had to go to the bother of tapping out each and every individual letter it would take much longer and not express anything more, they tend to get offended.
The same holds true when I try to explain antenna's or how radio waves travels through the air or how coax works..
Everyone wants to talk, but no one actually wants to learn anything or be able to do anything.
Most new hams gets so caught up in FM repeaters that they forget that there even is HF out there that can allow anyone anywhere to talk to someone from someplace else, as long as you can find the right band to operate on and have a decent enough antenna to be able to hear the other person..
Most no one today wants to spend any money, or put up huge antenna's so they can talk, when they can do the same thing without a license with a cell phone.. |
Keithinatlanta
Senior Member
Username: Keithinatlanta
Post Number: 1019
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, August 30, 2014 - 8:19 pm: |
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Possum Lodge, regarding our last point about cell phones: I use mine on business obviously. And personal as well.
However, when it comes to radio, a big thrill is to make contact with someone via the radio. All I do is CB, but I have had fun since 1973 talking to people on my radio. It is a great feeling of accomplishment when you make contact with someone located somewhere else. It doesn't matter if it is two miles away, or a hundred miles away. That is part of the thrill of radio, because as you folks know, on the ham or CB, we just do not always make contact!!
Keith in Atlanta
CEF 150 |
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