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My club, purportedly uses HAM radios. I bought two and took a test... and now have two radios that I have no idea how to use. Any advice before I have 5 radios that I have no idea how to use?
HAM Radios?
- Thread starter majordude
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Yeah, we all started just like that!
Ask someone in the club to tune both radios to the club frequencies. Maybe they use only 1, or several like one for LCO, one for away pad ops, etc?
Then practice talking and listening, with the club folks.
Try using your two radios at different distances apart, in the car, standing on the bumpers, etc. figure out what the limits are. You'll likely get 3 to 5 miles on flat ground.
Look up the frequency and PL tone of a repeater near your home. Tune in to that, call it, give your call sign and say "listening. Anyone on the air here?". You'll probably hear back from some local folks.
Ask if there are any regular "nets" on the repeater. Tune in to one of those, listen, gear what's going on.
If there's a club associated with the repeater, or not, consider attending a club meeting. Usually that is a great way to meet people, and get some good advice!
Maybe you'll enjoy all that, maybe not, but you can say you tried.
Ask someone in the club to tune both radios to the club frequencies. Maybe they use only 1, or several like one for LCO, one for away pad ops, etc?
Then practice talking and listening, with the club folks.
Try using your two radios at different distances apart, in the car, standing on the bumpers, etc. figure out what the limits are. You'll likely get 3 to 5 miles on flat ground.
Look up the frequency and PL tone of a repeater near your home. Tune in to that, call it, give your call sign and say "listening. Anyone on the air here?". You'll probably hear back from some local folks.
Ask if there are any regular "nets" on the repeater. Tune in to one of those, listen, gear what's going on.
If there's a club associated with the repeater, or not, consider attending a club meeting. Usually that is a great way to meet people, and get some good advice!
Maybe you'll enjoy all that, maybe not, but you can say you tried.
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Where are you located?
I’m guessing somebody at your launch will help you get comfortable with the radios. Reach out to your club management and ask for help.
And you can find a local amateur radio club at the https://www.arrl.org/find-a-club site. My experience is that ham radio clubs are welcoming to new people.
I’m guessing somebody at your launch will help you get comfortable with the radios. Reach out to your club management and ask for help.
And you can find a local amateur radio club at the https://www.arrl.org/find-a-club site. My experience is that ham radio clubs are welcoming to new people.
First, ask your local club to see how they use ham radios. It could be several different ways. Ask someone there for help.
If you’re actually interested in ham radio, find a local ham radio club and ask for help getting started. Otherwise the following description could simply confuse you.
There are two common ways to use handheld radios. The first is called simplex mode and the second is through a repeater, referred to as duplex.
In simplex mode you transmit and listen on a single frequency to at least one other radio. You push the Push To Talk (PTT) button when you want to speak and you let it up so you can hear what others are saying. All radios must be within range of each other and on the same frequency. I suggest not using a so called “privacy tone” (PL, CTCSS, DCS, DPL, etc.) at first.
Based on your brief description I am pretty sure you got your Technician class license. That’s great, but you are limited to specific frequencies that you can communicate on and if you got something like a Baofeng UV5R it’s easy to tune to a frequency where you’re not supposed to be. Ask your local ham radio club about the “band plan” for your state or download and print out one from ARRL.org. Google can help. The band plan tells you where you’re allowed to transmit.
If you’re in a conversation you are required to identify yourself by simply saying your call sign at the beginning of the conversation and at the end. If it’s a longer conversation you are also required to identify yourself at least every ten minutes during the conversation. I just say my call sign before letting up on the PTT.
The other common way to communicate with a handheld is using a repeater. That’s more complicated but gets better range.You transmit to the repeater which retransmits your signal to achieve greater range. You transmit on one frequency and receive on another. The repeater retransmits on one frequency everything you transmit to it on another. When the repeater transmits at the same time as receiving that’s referred to as full-duplex. Repeaters usually require PL or CTCSS tones, or a digital equivalent called DPL or DCS.
I really enjoy ham radio. I hope you will too.
This is me. But I only have 4.
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Supposedly.Ok so 'HAM' was the call sign of the first amateur radio station. I looked it up.
Its origins are surrounded by myth and controversy. Some say that "HAM" is a shortening of "Amateur." Some point to the HAM callsign. Nobody knows for sure. We just kinda go with it.
73 de W5NNH
For those getting started and struggling with programming "handhelds", there's a free program called "CHIRP" that works for a lot of radios... just requires a computer interface cable for your particular radio(s).
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FWIW, for the usage that most rocketry clubs do with HAM radios, you really need to know very little - how to set the frequency, how to turn it on/off, adjust volume, and how to talk.
The average radio has a myriad variety of settings available....most of which you won't use if you're just using it to communicate with others at a launch.
-Kevin
The average radio has a myriad variety of settings available....most of which you won't use if you're just using it to communicate with others at a launch.
-Kevin
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If you've got FM VHF/UHF radios, get a list of repeaters in your area. Find out if your radio can be programmed with CHIRP. Find out if there's a programming cable required (you may already have that part in the box the radio(s) came in. Program repeaters into the radios using CHIRP if that will work for you. REPEATERBOOK.COM can probably tell you what's in your local area.
Ham came from Railroad Telegraphers for people with bad Fists on Morse Code. When Wireless came about, the professionals called the amateurs Ham Fisted, and Hams.
Ham also meant a bad actor, he is hamming it up...
Ham also meant a bad actor, he is hamming it up...
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We just say QLF. "Transmitting with Left Foot" or QLF? "Are you transmitting with your left foot?"
I heard that HAM came from the term Home Amateur.
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And this, along with all the other apocryphal origin tales, is why it is not a settled thing. Nobody knows for sure where it came from. There's as many stories of its origin as there are supposed uses for the rettysnitch and the wouff-hong.
The Ham historians have pretty much proven it came from the Rail Road.
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Which ham historians are these you're referring to? If so, I'd like to read their findings and how they came to that conclusion. Not saying you're wrong, just need to overcome over 50 years of hearing different stories as to its origins.
This is the Ham Historian I am referring to, has full write ups on just about everything going all the way to the original ARRL forming. It's like his calling. You want to know anything about any change in Ham radio from before spark to now, he can dig you up the documentations, he has copies of it all.
You want to know how the real issue on how incentive licensing happened , he can give you blow by blow items on the issues at the time being debated etc...
https://www.qrz.com/db/N2EY
Anyway most every one on the "Zed" agree on the Rail Road Ham Fists as that is a fact for many years well before wireless was invented.
A friend posted this on Facebook... I got rid of mine well before this could happen.
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Hey.... The Baofeng is the best $20 ham radio you can buy. I've had mine since November of 2015, and I've dropped it, kicked it, thrown it, dunked it in water, tied string around it and thrown it over a tree so we could put up a dipole, and basically done just about everything to try and kill it -- and it refuses to die.
Still using the original battery -- and I have to because I had to glue the battery in after many crashes into concrete. But it still works. I carry this radio every day, and I'm *still* looking for a good (name brand) one that's just as indestructible.
Still using the original battery -- and I have to because I had to glue the battery in after many crashes into concrete. But it still works. I carry this radio every day, and I'm *still* looking for a good (name brand) one that's just as indestructible.
