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bkt

bkt

Awesome Friend
Neighbor
HCL Supporter
Joined
Dec 8, 2017
Messages
2,445
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QTH: FN13ff
If you regularly watch Julian/OH8STN you know he always opens his videos with <the topic> "...and I'll tell you all about it." His latest video starts with "...if you stick with me, I'll teach you what I know". That set off alarms. This is not just-for-fun, this is not amateur nonsense. This is life and death.

Anyway, I recommend you watch this. It doesn't solve any problems. It introduces problems and gives some hints for solutions. HAMs here will already have a pretty good idea of what they can do, but it's up to HAMs to get others set up.

(I need to order a couple IC-705's....)

 
As a reminder, should you want to practice, NVIS Radio Day is coming up, might be your chance to practice "close" HF comms.

The page contains links to antenna plans.

https://arrl-ohio.org/SEC/nvis_day.html
Our ARES group has the plans in place for VHF repeater down scenarios
 
bkt said:
but it's up to HAMs to get others set up.
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Something I work on from time to time, but most just don't play along. I guess they will wait until the proverbial poo hits the oscillating device to act..................................sigh.
 
Curmudgeon said:
Something I work on from time to time, but most just don't play along. I guess they will wait until the proverbial poo hits the oscillating device to act..................................sigh.
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Keep at 'em. I convinced a few friends to get their tech licenses, my son got his license and convinced several of his friends to also get theirs. That's at least something. To really reach out, though, Techs need to use HF. 10M is the best they've got for SSB. Anyway, it's a start.

If anyone has suggestions on rigs that can do 10M that don't cost a great deal, please let me know.
 
An Icom 718 is almost reasonable, and covers the HF bands. Easy to build a 10 meter dipole also.

I do like my 718.

Band CoverageTransmit Frequency Range
160 meters1.800-1.999 MHz
80 meters3.500-3.999 MHz
40 meters7.000-7.300 MHz
30 meters10.100-10.150 MHz
20 meters14.000-14.350 MHz
17 meters18.068-18.168 MHz
15 meters21.000-21.450 MHz
12 meters24.890-24.990 MHz
10 meters28.000-29.700 MHz

Here is a sampling of 10 meter radios, I DO NOT vouch for the vendor or the radios, do your due diligence.

https://www.walcottradio.com/10-meter-radios-c-377_502_584.html
 
bkt said:
Keep at 'em. I convinced a few friends to get their tech licenses, my son got his license and convinced several of his friends to also get theirs. That's at least something.
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I do, but I always get "well if the SHTF I won't need a license anyway".

While that's true, will you know how to use it? I almost got my General without any study, after I passed the Tech exam they let us try the General and I only missed it by a couple questions. I have my General now as I went back and got it but I still have a lot to learn.

I keep telling them to at least go for the Tech license, man it's easy peasy to pass it, and then they can at least use the radio and learn.
 
I'm looking to get back into shortwave myself as a listener. I miss the old "patriot" and pirate shows of the 90's.
WWCR had great stuff back then, so did Anarchy America and Texas Radio. Podcasting just ain't the same.
 
I’ve been championing radio comms for two decades (2 meter, GMRS, CB) to friends, family and co-workers. I’ve gone so far as to purchase extra radios myself and put them in the hands of people that show a fleeting interest. I live in a part of the country that very seldom experiences any severe weather or other wide spread disasters. Consequently, people tend to regard me as a bit of a paranoid prepper and see no reasonable cause to invest any effort, time or money in developing a comms setup or (heaven forbid) a network. I have the gear, but other than my wife, there’s no one to communicate with.

I keep a half dozen dual band HT’s and a few UHF & VHF J-Pole antennas stored away if the day ever comes when my neighborhood needs emergency comms. I guess if that happens I’ll be holding school on how to use them. Until then, I’m the odd guy that lives in the middle of the block in the house with all the antennas on the roof.
 
Rosco said:
I’ve been championing radio comms for two decades (2 meter, GMRS, CB) to friends, family and co-workers. I’ve gone so far as to purchase extra radios myself and put them in the hands of people that show a fleeting interest. I live in a part of the country that very seldom experiences any severe weather or other wide spread disasters. Consequently, people tend to regard me as a bit of a paranoid prepper and see no reasonable cause to invest any effort, time or money in developing a comms setup or (heaven forbid) a network. I have the gear, but other than my wife, there’s no one to communicate with.

I keep a half dozen dual band HT’s and a few UHF & VHF J-Pole antennas stored away if the day ever comes when my neighborhood needs emergency comms. I guess if that happens I’ll be holding school on how to use them. Until then, I’m the odd guy that lives in the middle of the block in the house with all the antennas on the roof.
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You might see about hams local to you. RadioQTH - Zip Lookup is a great resource. Not all hams are active and certainly not all of them are folks you'd want in your core group. But there may be some local to you who have a similar mindset and would be up for setting up a net.

By the way, you just described me. A bunch of 2m/70cm HTs and several spare antennas (mostly roll-up slim jim j-poles) specifically for other people.
 
bkt said:
You might see about hams local to you. RadioQTH - Zip Lookup is a great resource. Not all hams are active and certainly not all of them are folks you'd want in your core group. But there may be some local to you who have a similar mindset and would be up for setting up a net.
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Thanks for the input. I'm familiar with many of the HAM ops in the area and I check into various nets. I represent the local CERT group on the weekly CERT net.
It is a case of mindset. Most HAMs in this area are retired (75+ years old) military or law enforcement... big on rules, traditions and technical advances, but marginal on social skills and vision. I've tried to light a fire a few times. They're club and radio-tech oriented (radio for the sake of radio), not community, communication application or response oriented. Many cannot get out well. so they suppress activities that require being in the field.

The local CERT group has six great professional-grade HT radios and they keep them locked up. They used them once without training. The people fumbled with them and the leadership decided it was too much bother. I'm the only HAM in a membership of 40+. The town bought the team an very nice dual band base setup a few years ago, but the radio room is kept under lock and key gathering dust. I participate in the CERT net using my own gear. If we had a major event, I have no idea if the town-purchased gear would even work. They're preparing to be unprepared. Practicing to fail.

Sorry for the rant......
 
I need to get off my behind and get my license so I can spend time and money on this. I used to love doing the military version of this back in the day.
 
Sometimes, while driving a big rig nationwide, I'd pick up ham signals from WAY OFF... be in the Midwest and pick up some ham operator in El Paso, lol. Dunno how or why, that's all beyond me, but nevertheless, I'd pick up the signals on my CB, which was peaked & tuned but otherwise a stock Cobra 29 LTD WX. Can't recall if the radio was in 'weather mode' when I picked up the signals... too much has happened since those days, it's all a blur, lol. :oops:
 
Wingnut said:
Sometimes, while driving a big rig nationwide, I'd pick up ham signals from WAY OFF... be in the Midwest and pick up some ham operator in El Paso, lol. Dunno how or why, that's all beyond me, but nevertheless, I'd pick up the signals on my CB, which was peaked & tuned but otherwise a stock Cobra 29 LTD WX. Can't recall if the radio was in 'weather mode' when I picked up the signals... too much has happened since those days, it's all a blur, lol. :oops:
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Back in the day it was called skipping. a CB with a powerful linear or booster box (illegal as hell!) could "skip their broadcasts off the ionosphere in times of low solar activity. When I was a kid, my dad ran a 50' mast and a "red box" he could regularly talk to California and Illinois from Tennessee.
 
CB is still in the HF range - under 30MHz. It's 11 meter wavelength, and with the right conditions and a good groundplane, you can reach out. I unexpectedly made contact with a trucker in Kentucky while I was home in NY on my Midland 75-822 5W CB.

The image below is a WSPR map of contacts I made one night. WSPR is Weak Signal Propagation Report and this was on 40 meters at 5 only watts. This can only be done by bouncing a radio signal off the ionosphere.

1651660847729.png
 
Yeah, I know the frequencies are different, and a driver with a CB can't usually reach out to a ham operator, while I heard ham operators aren't supposed to slum around with CB operators, but I'm sure you know more about it than I do. With the right atmospheric conditions, I know a CB radio can pick up some weird signals, lol. When I said "El Paso" earlier, maybe I should've said Juarez... there was a gal down there with a big ol' radio, a 'base station' at the very least, and of course anyone down there isn't gonna give a rodent's posterior about FCC regulations. I always figured she was on a ham radio, maybe I was wrong... but I recall hearing her way up in northern Ohio, which is a considerable distance from Juarez. Pretty sure her signal was "bouncing" off some clouds or some sort of atmospheric layer. :rolleyes:

Somehow this reminds me of a time in West Texas when I glommed onto a 90-m.p.h. parade of trucks with big ol' chicken radios... figured I was safer that way, since those radios had far greater range than mine. Anyway, some hand told us two bears were rolling up on our back door, but they turned out to be NM State Troopers heading home from Katrina... no jurisdiction in West Texas. The two hands ahead of me were joking around: "I'll take the first one and you take the second..." The bears must have heard this, so they sped up to about 115 m.p.h. and blew past while we were doing 90, lol... nowhere but in the separate reality known as 'OTR Truck Driving' does stuff like this happen. I told those drivers: "You KNOW those bears will be WAITIN' for ya at the state line!" The reply: "We're jumping off in El Paso, so they can wait till the cows come home!" Luckily, that was my destination as well, lol. Funny what one remembers from the old "trucking daze..." :oops:
 
Are "Boosters" AKA Leniers still illegal I wonder?
I considered at one time starting a low power FM station. some "Good old boy" ran one on CB for years when I was a kid until he either died or got busted. he'd play all kinds of that horrible Satanic heavy metal you just don't hear in the south, crack dirty jokes and drop F bombs all over everything. it was great! Illegal as hell, but great!
 
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I need help - but y'all knew that already right?
My old bronco is in the shop getting spruced up. It needs a new antenna whip for the CB. The CB mount isn't just a bolted bracket into the side of the rig. It's a chrome piece with a 3/8" bolt piece protruding from the top onto which the whip is screwed. The piece below is what is left of the old whip. The 3/8" is the ID. (When I had a new muffler put on, they raised it and broke the previous whip.) Anyways, the auto parts shop had whips but were too narrow. The little 20 year old fella helping me didn't know anything about them. Does anyone know where I could get a 4'-5' whip with a 3/8" port? I've looked on line, but difficult to tell.
Thanks!
IMG_4729.jpg
IMG_4728.jpg
 
LadyLocust said:
I need help - but y'all knew that already right?
My old bronco is in the shop getting spruced up. It needs a new antenna whip for the CB. The CB mount isn't just a bolted bracket into the side of the rig. It's a chrome piece with a 3/8" bolt piece protruding from the top onto which the whip is screwed. The piece below is what is left of the old whip. The 3/8" is the ID. (When I had a new muffler put on, they raised it and broke the previous whip.) Anyways, the auto parts shop had whips but were too narrow. The little 20 year old fella helping me didn't know anything about them. Does anyone know where I could get a 4'-5' whip with a 3/8" port? I've looked on line, but difficult to tell.
Thanks!
View attachment 89810View attachment 89811
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Give me a chance to look something up for you
 
LadyLocust said:
I need help - but y'all knew that already right?
My old bronco is in the shop getting spruced up. It needs a new antenna whip for the CB. The CB mount isn't just a bolted bracket into the side of the rig. It's a chrome piece with a 3/8" bolt piece protruding from the top onto which the whip is screwed. The piece below is what is left of the old whip. The 3/8" is the ID. (When I had a new muffler put on, they raised it and broke the previous whip.) Anyways, the auto parts shop had whips but were too narrow. The little 20 year old fella helping me didn't know anything about them. Does anyone know where I could get a 4'-5' whip with a 3/8" port? I've looked on line, but difficult to tell.
Thanks!
View attachment 89810View attachment 89811
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You mentioned this was for your Bronco, so I assume you'll be doing some off roading. If not this may not be the best. But it is flexible and should survive pretty well. It also has good reviews and rating.

Wilson Flex Antenna

This one is much more rigid, but have been in use for years.

https://www.amazon.com/Firestik-KW-...ocphy=9013386&hvtargid=pla-378114274994&psc=1
 
Bacpacker said:
You mentioned this was for your Bronco, so I assume you'll be doing some off roading. If not this may not be the best. But it is flexible and should survive pretty well. It also has good reviews and rating.

Wilson Flex Antenna

This one is much more rigid, but have been in use for years.

Amazon.com: Firestik KW-3BK 3' Kw Series Cb Antenna - 300 Watts Black : Electronics
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Thank you! I will have to try to look at them in the morning - my computer isn't loading the pix. The pages load so the links are fine. We just have sketchy service here at home.
 
LadyLocust said:
Thank you! I will have to try to look at them in the morning - my computer isn't loading the pix. The pages load so the links are fine. We just have sketchy service here at home.
Click to expand...
I sent a couple options, just depends on your intended use. One word of caution, don't pay any attention to the distance measurement. Your local terrain and conditions will play a much larger role
 
bkt said:
I unexpectedly made contact with a trucker in Kentucky while I was home in NY on my Midland 75-822 5W CB.
Click to expand...

I was sitting here scanning the bands on my Galaxy base, and stumbled across a couple truck drivers talking about the loads they were hauling. I was curious so I called 'break channel' and one of them answered right up. Since I didn't recognize the roads they were talking about, I asked where they were. Utah, they were both on their way to deliver at some plant. They were coming in so strong and clear it was as if they were a mile away.
 
Bacpacker said:
I sent a couple options, just depends on your intended use. One word of caution, don't pay any attention to the distance measurement. Your local terrain and conditions will play a much larger role
Click to expand...
We have that issue here a lot since it's mountainous. Walkie Talkies are the same way. They can say a 35 mile distance but not if there's a mountain in between.

@Curmudgeon That's awesome! So your radios can communicate with CB radios? (I am ignorant re. hams etc.) Or were they using a different type?
 
LadyLocust said:
We have that issue here a lot since it's mountainous. Walkie Talkies are the same way. They can say a 35 mile distance but not if there's a mountain in between.

@Curmudgeon That's awesome! So your radios can communicate with CB radios? (I am ignorant re. hams etc.) Or were they using a different type?
Click to expand...

Hills can cause problems, unless you are on top.
 
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