Thanks to whomever made this thread for me.
The radio service is really Amateur Radio. Ham is an old slang term from the early days of telegraphs where a new operator would be called a "ham" or a "plug". It has nothing to do with pork products.
Most of us are old white guys. More and more women, blacks and latinos are joining these days, but it's still mostly us. Believe me, we're always happy to have more ladies in the groups!
One of the fastest ways to get involved in the hobby is to find a local ham and pick his brain. Beware, we're not a red-pilled crowd for the most part so don't go 100% QAnon with every ham you meet.
Look for houses that have various types of antennas that are out of the ordinary. If you see a tower with an antenna on it, you've found a ham operator.
Look for cars with antennas on them and license plates that are alphabet soup with letters a number and more letters.
American Radio Relay League: https://arrl.org
Repeater lookup: https://repeaterbook.com
General website: QRZ.com
FCC License database: http://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/UlsSearch/searchAmateur.jsp
Most hams use voice for communication. How far your voice goes and who can hear you will be discussed in another topic on frequency bands.
Many use Morse Code which is abbreviated as CW for "Continuous Wave." which is a technical term for the type of wave sent. This is the most reliable, long-distance method, but few use it for conversations. Also, it is NOT required for an entry level license.
Packet radio is a way to send data over radio. It dates back to the 1980s. It's a point-to-point protocol calle A.X25. It's limited to 1200baud at VHF and 9600baud at UHF. On shortwave it's quite slow.
Packet is the transport for APRS which is a mode that many use. I don't do digital modes because I don't mix computers and ham radio except for my logbook.
There are other modes that are digital, but for SHTF, voice is going to be your best mode. Stick to basics for now.
Most people are familiar with channels. TV channels, CB radio channels, etc. Most radio services use channels because it's easier to tell someone to go to channel 5 instead of "meet me on 146.52MHz."
The image shows our authorized bands. These are the range of frequencies we use to communicate. When you're tuning a ham radio, it has a big knob that allows you to sweep across the band you've selected more or less continuously.
The reason we have bands and not channels is for flexibility. Most of us put popular frequencies into memory channels for convenience. This is especially true on the 2 meter and 70 centimeter bands.
Some people still have older radios that have a tuning knob for AM and FM radio. This is a similar concept.
Local communications are mostly conducted on the 2-meter band. This is the "go-to" band for local communications during disasters.
2 meter and higher bands are line-of-sight. This means that the 2 antennas must "see" each other for the most part. This restricts the range depending upon terrain, antenna height and power levels.
The radios used here are from handhelds, to mobile radios to base stations. Most hams have a handheld, but they're not very powerful and we usually have a 2 meter radio in our car with an outside antenna. These stations work well.
To overcome the distance with line-of-sight, we use Repeaters. These are automated stations set up on high towers and buildings. They listen on 1 frequency and retransmit the signal on a frequency 600kHz apart. This is called "duplex operation." When you press the transmit button on the microphone, your radio will shift to the repeater's input frequency. Everyone listens to the OUTPUT frequency.
https://repeaterbook.com has repeaters in your area. I suggest you find your local repeaters and print them out on paper because during SHTF, you may not have the Internet!
We also use single frequencies. I have a set of handheld radios for my neighbors for SHTF. We'll use a single frequency to talk to eachother as we man the roadblocks to our neighborhood.
This is referred to as "simplex" operation.
The 2-meter simplex calling and emergency frequency is 146.520MHz.
Many of us use 70cm band at 440MHz. It works like 2m. Very few of us use the 220MHz band. It's not worth buying a radio for this band.
If you can afford it, a dual-band 2m/440 radio is the way to go. I recommend a mobile radio instead of a handheld. You also need a decent antenna.
I'm working on getting all of this out for you guys. stand by!!!
Nellie and her crew were using DMR radios. I recommend staying away from digital voice because there are a number of different standards. They are difficult to program and the protocols are manufacturer specific.
I attended an interoperability seminar on this and it was confusing as hell. Stick to normal voice over local repeaters and simplex.
If you want to get into digital in a non-shtf scenario, have fun.
I'll fill some more in a bit. I need to run out and do some things to prepare for the tropical storm. I'm near Houston.
You're not quite correct.
The repeaters are not a "network" in the conventional sense. We do not rely upon them in the way that you're meaning.
Each repeater station is independent, though they may be linked together to form networks. We have a system here in TX called the Saltgrass Network.
Due to the nature of repeaters, they are placed on tall things - buildings or co-located on TV and other broadcast towers. They use a local power source and some have battery backup.
The point is that they are not essential for communication as one can always use simplex and then have other stations relay messages.
Because each repeater is its own separate station, there is no centralized network to fail like the Internet. I've written a lot about how when the cabal fucks with DNS, it makes the Internet trivial to control.
I suggest that you learn much more about how our gear operates than drawing conclusions such as these.
Here are some images related to repeaters.
The repeater consists of a transmitter, a receiver and a control system. It is linked to either 2 antennas - one for receive and one for transmit each having its own coaxial cable OR
A single antenna for both with 1 coaxial cable and the signals split in a device called a duplexer. The duplexer keeps the transmit power from going into the receiver.
Because the really good coax to go up tall towers is expensive, most repeaters use duplexers.
Some use separate antennas and a duplexer to give better isolation.
Repeaters may be linked to other repeaters using radio or networks such as the Internet.
We communicate over longer distances using Shortwave radio. This is referred to as HF for High Frequency and is defined as the frequencies between 3 and 30MHz. The 1.8MHz 180-meter band is included in this for convenience.
HF is generally done with a separate radio from 2m-440. There are some do-it-all radios, but they're not so common - especially older radios.
Because of the frequencies involved, HF systems require physically larger antennas except for magnetic loops. Very few people use magnetic loops because they're finicky to tune properly. I've used them.
The go-to antenna is a 1/2-wave dipole for 80m connected to an "antenna tuner" and then to the radio. This is a wire antenna 65' long with a break in the center where there is an insulator and then coaxial cable from the center is brought from the antenna down to the radio "shack." We tend to try to put these up as high as possible. I've used a slingshot to fire squidding line or other small line over trees to pull up ropes with which to then pull up the antenna ends.
I have a Kenwood TS-590SG as my primary radio and an older, but excellent TenTec Omni-6+.
Most ham gear is capable of being powered by 13.8V DC power. Commonly called 12V, but I want to add caution here as many try to run radios off a car battery and that doesn't work very well for very long.
If you're using a HF radio and transmitting with 100W, you'll soon drain the usable power from a car battery or marine battery and the radio will begin to act weird and shut down.
But, what this means is that you can use a wall power supply for home/base use or you can put radios in your car. With the engine running, you can transmit. Though I have a HF radio in my car, it doesn't work very well and is not recommended. In cities, there is a lot of electrical noise that makes mobile operation more difficult.
This being said, you can LISTEN a good deal of the time on battery power. You can use a generator and the wall power supply and you can plug into an inverter.
If you have a LiFePO4 12.6V battery, you can operate directly from it.
My solar battery system is configured for 24V. I use an Astron DC-DC converter to give me 14.1V for my radios and they love it.
13.8 is the nominal voltage of a car power system with the engine running. Full recharge voltage on a car is 14.1V.
This Astron box has a WIDE input voltage range of 22-32VDC and a rock solid 14.1V out (named 12V).
They also have a 4812 model if your solar system is 48 volts.
I created this <grin>
These radios are popular because they're cheap. IMO, the Baofung is NOT legal on ham bands because it's a commercial radio that has not had FCC type acceptance under part 97.
The problem that everyone has with the Chinesum radios is programming them. You can't program them from the front panel and you need a computer.
I would stick with known ham brands:
Icom
Kenwood
Yaesu
Alinco
These radios are made for the bands we use and are type-accepted. They usually have reasonably good manuals for manual configuration through the front panel.
Many radios have a clone feature through an audio jack with a m-m mini phone cable.
Even the old Icom IC-2AT is an excellent and simple radio from 1982 and can be had for cheap.
I like CW and do a lot of operating in it, but for SHTF with new hams, not so much.
HF voice on 20m is going to be a lot more effective for most people.
Most people are familiar with the terms AM and FM as they relate to car radios. This is a terrible misnomer that causes confusion for people getting into radio.
AM means Amplitude Modulation and is the easiest and first method of sending voice over the radio. It is a method of MODULATING a radio wave to convey voice waves. We refer to it as Ancient Modulation.
AM is rarely used on Ham anymore because it uses a shitload of radio spectrum or "band-width."
AM is used for:
-
Aircraft communications. This is because more than one station may transmit at the same time and the other stations can hear both transmitters. This is good for safety because it happens. 2 people try to talk at the same time. Other modulating techniques don't work well for this.
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Shortwave broadcasters still use AM. This is largely to do with the fact that receivers are simpler, cheaper and easier to tune in on AM. But it requires much more power and uses more spectrum.
For HF voice, we use almost exclusively Single Sideband or SSB. AM contains a carrier wave and 2 sidebands - an upper and lower sideband. In a ham HF radio, you speak into the microphone and an AM signal is generated internally. It gets split and filtered and only 1 of the sidebands is output as RF power. This means that it takes up much less space and goes further with less power and makes better use of the amplifiers.
It does require a more sophisticated receiver to pick it up. So, if you're looking for a shortwave receiver to listen to hams, you must get one with SSB.
By convention based upon old radio limitations, we use Lower SideBand (LSB) on frequencies below 10MHz and we use Upper SideBand (USB) on frequencies above 10MHz.
USAF uses USB on all systems. So, I listen to 11.175MHz for Skyking messages that are in USB.
If you're tuning your radio listening to us and you cannot find a tuning position where we're understandable, you need to switch the sideband mode to the other one (pro-tip.)
FM is used on the 2m/70cm bands for voice. FM means Frequency Modulation. It uses more bandwidth, but gives clearer speech and more reliable data transfer.
AFSK is Audio Frequency Shift Keying and is used mostly on FM for packet radio.
CW is Continuous Wave and is what we use for Morse Code. When I have my amplifier turned on and use CW, each pulse is FULL POWER at 1500W. This will get through when nothing else will.
The key to operating all of these is to get a radio and PRACTICE tuning. Do this NOW before SHTF. DURING SHTF is NOT the time to try to learn a new skill!!!!!
Take one end of your antenna down and tie a different piece of rope to the end insulator.
Tie the top of a pulley to the rope that goes up the tree.
Feed the new rope for the antenna through the pulley and attach a weight to it.
Pull the pully up high.
Now, when the tree moves, the weighted rope will allow the antenna to go back and forth.
This is a lot of bullshit.
Federal agencies do not own and run our repeaters. They're owned and run privately mostly by local clubs.
Most repeaters are not part of networks.
You don't know what you're talking about.
I need to sign out for a bit and hook up the auxiliary charger to my battery bank. This means shutting down my computers.
3 days without sun means the batteries are low.
Here is a suggested station for a newcomer to getting started in Ham Radio. There are lots of different options including used gear, but the combinations are infinite. This is intended as a 0-HF as quickly as possible.
HF Transceiver: Icom IC-718 $680
Antenna Tuner 1: Icom AT-180 $425
Antenna Tuner 2: Icom AH-4 $299
Power Supply: Samlex SEC-1235M
100' of RG-8X Coax: $35
MFJ G5RV Antenna: $60
If you use the AH-4, it just needs a long wire of random length. The G5RV will work with the AT-180.
You need only 1 tuner.
I chose the Icom tuners because they're automatic and because the integrate with the radio. There are cheaper manual tuners, but for a noob, automatic is easier.
A license is NOT required to purchase and to own amateur radio gear. You may purchase equipment and use it for listening all you want.
A license IS required to transmit. Of course, in TEOTWAWKI, all rules are out the window. Still, it's good to get some training and get a license.
HF radios require the General class license to get much of the use out of them.
The Technician (beginners license) is mostly 2m/70cm.
Compared to the cost for a set of golf clubs, the prices are not so bad.
The Icom IC-2300h is a great radio for the car or on the desk as a base station. It sells new for $200.
These are fairly easy to find. There are also 2m/70cm (440) dual band antennas. Quick way to go is to use a magnetic mount and route the cable into the cabin through a door seal.
The Diamond X300A antenna is a reasonable base antenna. Get it up as high as possible. It uses a standard UHF connector so it's easy to hook up.
Don't use RG-8X for this purpose as most of the power will be lost inside the cable. LMR-400 cable is what you want. $99.95 for a 50' cable premade is about right.
Glad I can help.
Please note that you do not need BOTH antenna tuners for the Icom 718. If you have room to put up a dipole antenna, use the G5RV antenna with the AT-180.
Get involved with your local ham club and get some training. Spend a lot of time listening. Don't be nervous. We all had to start sometime.
Sticking with Icom products at the moment.
The Icom IC-V80 is a good 2-meter handheld radio. What makes it good for beginners is that it is easy to program from the keypad.
For SHTF purposes, it comes with the BP-263 battery case. This is important because it allows you to use AA batteries to run the radio. In a grid-down scenario, charging becomes an issue with many battery packs. Over the long run, the NiMH battery packs on some radios will die because of one bad cell.
I run my handhelds on AA batteries and recharge them separately in a Tenergy battery charger. In this way, each cell is charged properly.
The Tenergy charger works off of 12 volts. This means you can use a wall-wart that comes with it, or a cigarette lighter cord or off of your shack's 12v (13.8V) power.
Many people forget flexibility in the recharging of batteries.
I don't recommend anything from China illegal or otherwise.
The purpose of this thread was to get anons who want to be hams from 0 to ham in the shortest amount of time and with as minimal complexity with gear that will actually work.
Q has given us 30 days.
By focusing on solid products and the lowest price points for a solid product, anons will get stuff that actually works.
Radios like the Baofeng are a bitch to set up and really require computer control to program. This takes a lot of time and expertise. A new ham will not have the expertise to program them properly. If we end up in SHTF, we may not have the Interwebs for tutorials.
Simpler is better for noobs. Solid gear with decent manuals are essential.
I have buddies who love their Baofengs, but they also bitch about setting them up.
Let's stay on topic with simple and effective gear.
Q-drop. I'll link stores later.
Spasibo - signed Russian Bot
Here are mine in order of preference:
Main Trading Company in Paris, TX: https://mtcradio.com
Ham Radio Outlet (various locations): https://hamradio.com
DXengineering (expensive and in OH): https://dxengineering.com
I don't think there is any point in avoiding another list. We're so surveilled it isn't funny.
Getting your license and getting on the air would give you valuable practice and interaction. IMO, you're gaining a lot more than any marginal utility of not being in the FCC database.
Bill, N4HPG, put out on his Twatter a drill for this coming Saturday - 9/8/2018 at 2300Z (6pm CDT), 14.295. Said he's going to run the QAnon StormWatch Net.
Ham Radio Net - name change. StormWatchNet was meant to refer to the Calm Before The Storm. The problem is that this is confusing with hurricanes and other weather events.
#PatriotNet is a better name because it's for patriots.
14.295MHz USB during the DAY
3.995MHz LSB during the evening
Suggested meet-up time on 3.995 is 2300Z
I suggest stealth antenna wire. Use dark insulators and black cord to pull it up. Here's some material that is very hard to see, but will handle 100w treated carefully.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Hidden-Stealth-Antenna-Black-Mil-Spec-Teflon-Stranded-26-AWG-135-foot-HF-Dipole/292572243092
Hmm, looks like TV
Patriot Net 3.995 LSB 2300Z 6PM CDT
I've tried Chirp a number of times and without much success. Sadly RT systems makes decent programming software, but you have to pay for and use their proprietary cables.
Give it a shot! That's why we call it Amateur Radio.
I think my issues with Chirp was because I'm a Mac/FreeBSD/Unix/LinuxFag
Bill, @n4hpg, got suspended on twatter. He was the dood posting the PatriotNet and other ham stuff for the normies.
You've got it more or less backwards. You need to start with what type of radio system will meet the needs of patriots.
If all you're interested in defending is a small area, GMRS is sufficient, but you'll be cut off from more news sources.
CB radio doesn't carry very far and without enough solar flux, it doesn't skip. CB is in the HF band of 27MHz. - just below the Ham 10m band. I've programmed all of the CB channels into my ham radio's memories for quick tuning as I've modified the radio to transmit anywhere.
For anything other than local, the only radio that counts is HF and this means Ham radio. Yes, there are marine radios that work in the HF bands, but they're channelized and not as easy to acquire as ham gear.
The conclusion is this: patriots should become hams, get some gear and learn how to use it proficiently.
This is the frequency for the NC/SC Tarheel Emergency Net when they activate. This 75m frequency is used for priority traffic.
https://charlotteskywarn.com/