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Are there any active ham radio operators in this seedy joint?


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KG5GYL.  I was pretty active till the shed fire took out my antenna array.  I have not been able to get anyone to help me reinstall my HF rig since, Everything is just sitting there awaiting. You can see one of the masts in the background in this picture.  I had one of the radios Kenwood TS - 520SE in the shed as my outside the house radio retreat.  The fire was so hot and intense there was nothing left. Oh yeah... the Porsche 914 in the picture was a ongoing restoration project. I had just finished the transmission rebuild and swapped out 911 front end for the 914 front end.

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I just received my Technician Class license earlier this year. I'm KE8PHY. My oldest daughter is KE8PHZ. We both belong to our county's amateur radio club now and we both have inexpensive Baofengs that were given to us by a club member while we decide what we want to do. Right now, I'm thinking of getting a mobile rig. A home station may follow, but I can't say for sure. It will depend largely on which direction my daughter wants to go with things, and cost.

 

My daughter is more interested in the science aspect, and really wants to make contact with the ISS eventually. I'm looking at it from more of a camping and emergency preparedness. We both plan to take one of the Skywarn classes. Since my life looks like it may actually calm down some, I may look at ARES or something of the nature down the road.

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Doc Ward -  Hope you guys enjoy the world of radio  it is a lot of fun to catch someone in New Zealand or Africa or Canada on an HF rig.  My suggestion is buy the most antenna you can afford.  Good radios are more often chocked by a poor antenna than by an actual radio problem.

Those Boafangs are great for close range  2 meter work.

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11 minutes ago, Muleshoe Bill SASS #67022 said:

Doc Ward -  Hope you guys enjoy the world of radio  it is a lot of fun to catch someone in New Zealand or Africa or Canada on an HF rig.  My suggestion is buy the most antenna you can afford.  Good radios are more often chocked by a poor antenna than by an actual radio problem.

Those Boafangs are great for close range  2 meter work.

 

Interestingly, the antenna subject was discussed in this month's issue of ARRL's On the Air. They say pretty much the same thing. We're able to hit our club's repeater with no issue, it is a couple of miles away as the crow flies, on the opposite side of a ridge line that runs behind our house. I'm going to see if the holidays bring any radio equipment, then start searching in earnest after that for a mobile unit.

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If it weren’t for the ham radio, I would never have been born.  When my father was 15, he moved to a new street.  He found out the 16 yo kid across the street had a ham radio and went over to investigate.  The 16 yo had a sister.

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About every other ham radio operator I talk to speaks as if they’re the last line of defense and last line of communication should infrastructure collapse and we were faced with a distopian apocalyptic situation.

 

Is this true? 


I remember daddy have some sort of radio and we would tune in and hear folks in Canada. My grandfather did to and a certain time everyday he'd tune in to two guys that talked back and forth. I think it’s a neat hobby. My parents neighbor had a radio and big antennae about 50’ up. One time he had asked me about putting it at or above the tree line with my bucket truck but that never happened since my truck st that time only reached a little cover 50’. I can reach 70’ now. 105-110’ if I borrowed my buddies truck.

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50 minutes ago, Dirty Dan Dawkins said:

About every other ham radio operator I talk to speaks as if they’re the last line of defense and last line of communication should infrastructure collapse and we were faced with a distopian apocalyptic situation.

 

Is this true? 

 

Last line of defense? I would have to ask "against what?" Last line of communication? Probably slightly more accurate. It is fairly well documented that in disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and even, as I understand it, 9/11, ham operators were moving radio traffic when cell phones and land lines were non-functional because of system overload. I'm not exactly sure what a true "dystopian apocalyptic situation" would entail, but the term makes me wonder if people will be caring what others are doing, other than locally.

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14 minutes ago, H. K. Uriah, SASS #74619 said:

Do they still make you learn Morse Code?

 

Morse code is no longer a requirement for obtaining any class of Amateur Radio license.  However lots of people still learn it and use it on the air.

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19 minutes ago, H. K. Uriah, SASS #74619 said:

Do they still make you learn Morse Code?

No, but like Sedalia Dave said, many people still use it.  I plan on learning it soon.  We just moved to one of the highest points in Dale County, so I'm looking forward to installing a new antenna this spring and cranking up the old 2 meter.

 

K4PDI

 

73's

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2 hours ago, Dirty Dan Dawkins said:

About every other ham radio operator I talk to speaks as if they’re the last line of defense and last line of communication should infrastructure collapse and we were faced with a distopian apocalyptic situation.

 

Is this true? 

 

Yes it is.

 

Amateur Radio is one of the few volunteer organizations that actively encourages its members to have the ability to operate without relying on the local power company. Portable line of sight as well as over the horizon communications is our bread and butter. We even have an annual contest to see which individuals or clubs can make the most contacts operating off batteries, solar and generator power over a weekend.

 

Most HAMs have the capability to travel to a remote location with no commercial power and in less than 2 hours set up a fully functional VHF and HF station including antennas with the ability to operate there for days if necessary.

 

Two organizations, Amateur Radio Emergency Services (ARES) and Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES) work together to develop the protocols necessary to effectively and efficiently communicate locally, nationally, or globallyly when normal lines of communication are not available. We also show up prepared with a few days of food, water and shelter so that we don't use up critical limited resources.

 

When a natural disaster strikes the communications infrastructure is one of the first things to take a hit. What isn't knocked off line by the initial disaster is usually overwhelmed by millions of people all attempting to use it at the same time. Another little know problem is that most first responders cannot communicate effectively between departments. Direct communication between the police, fire, medical is all but non-existent. The PD or FD in town X cannot talk to the PD or FD in town Y and neither can talk to the state LEOs. They also lack the ability to directly communicate with the National Guard or Federal disaster agencies.

 

The beauty of ARES and RACES members is that they can communicate with each other and can do so at the drop of a hat because they practice it. They also participate in local disaster drills. Both ARES and RACES have well established protocols in place and their operators can maintain radio discipline. While phone companies can set up mobile cell towers in a few days; Amateur radio operators can set up efficient lines of communication in a few hours and our networks will not be overwhelmed because we are prepared.

 

One thing Amateur Radio shines at is that we can set up at a shelter and get messages out to loved ones anywhere in the world. HAMs excel at taking a significant burden off those running the shelter while at the same time improving the moral of those stranded there with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Besides the equivalent of delivering a telegram, many HAMs have the ability to interface their radios with a conventional telephone so that a person in a disaster area can actually speak to someone hundreds or thousands of miles away.  Nothing is as rewarding as putting a person who has lost everything in touch with their loved ones so that they can hear each other's voices. Its a feeling that cannot be described.

 

I personally know people that have made it possible for a surgeon in a hospital to talk directly to a medical professional in the middle of the ocean. The surgeon talked a Corpsman in the middle of the South Pacific through an emergency appendectomy saving a persons life. 

 

All of the above is not limited to the US. When a disaster strikes anywhere in the world HAM radio operators world wide spring into action providing effective efficient communication to those that need it free of charge. 

 

Another thing HAM radio operators do is volunteer as spotters for the National Weather service. Volunteers are trained and when called upon act as boots on the ground to provide accurate, first hand observations of potentially life threatening weather. More often than not when you hear the weather man tell you to take shelter immediately because a tornado or severe thunderstorm has been confirmed at location X. That confirmation originated from a HAM radio volunteer.

 

 

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3 hours ago, Chickasaw Bill SASS #70001 said:

I never could catch on to Code , and I thought going no code , Tech , was not proper 

 

  at one time , I was involved in the 27mhz mess , using SSB 

 

 never got around to getting my ticket , nor the EQU,

 

  CB 

 

I would say get your license, at least your Technician Class, and work at your pace to become proficient with CW / Morse. I decided to get mine at short notice, so didn't have time to study for my General, but when I took the test, once it was confirmed I passed the Technician portion, they had me go ahead and sit for the General. I failed, because I had not studied a bit for it, but had I passed, the cost would have been the same. 

There is plenty of literature available, practice tests, and even YouTube videos that act as seminars to get you ready for the tests.

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General class for a little over ten years.

Yes, Doc, by all means -- do take the skywarn training!

The National Weather Service depends on our boots-on-the-ground reports: they teach the Skywarn classes, and they'll tell you in so many words, "Yes we have radar, but radar looks at clouds.

"People don't live in clouds, people live on the ground, and we depend on YOU to forward factual information in the following format."

My 2m/70cm is programmed with every repeater in this county and most repeaters in every adjacent county: the weather usually comes out of the west, but not always.

Here in the Yankee North, storms get a running start and don't slow much until they blow themselves out:  I monitored many a storm as it approached, noting down in my log reports of grain bins being blown down the highway and the like.

I belong to the Lorain County Amateur Radio Association (LCARA) and we hold the Burning River Traffic Net, the longest running traffic net in this part of the country.

Formal message handling, coast to coast, via ham radio.

I've handled emergency traffic from more disasters than I can count, including Katrina and Sharon, which by the way sailed across the Appalachians and backhanded my county, hard: that's how I lost my 40 meter full wave loop that worked so well, darn it!

My favorite emergency traffic, which I believe was out of an Iowa tornado strike -- stripped of the header (address and checksum count) -- was, and I quote:

"It's a Boy!" 

Most of my activity is 2-meter phone, because HF has been so rat poor: when I'm on HF, it's on PSK31, 10 meters (hope springs eternal!)

73 de KD8NGE sksk

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My license expired awhile back.

 

 W1LEE

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Sedalia, that was a great explanation. I figured the military and police and fire would have all they needed. But like I said, I've talked to some HAM operators and they expressed a role in law, order, civil defense.  None were cocky or arrogant about it, maybe a little proud, and now I see a rightful earned sense of pride. Your explanation cleared a lot up. 

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11 hours ago, Arizona Gunfighter said:

My license expired awhile back.

 

 W1LEE

 

So what do you plan to do about that?

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