The problem is that radios are a whole nuther discipline, if not a lifestyle. Most of us could buy a HF (not Harbor Freight, I gather) radio and not know what to do with it.

Radio guys are like pilot guys or base jumper guys ... they've done if years and it's something you don't just buy one and do.

I've had a VX6 and 5 for years. They are great little radios. I'm sure the 7 is the same way. Granted I rarely use them any more as I've moved to Moto gear. But, I want to get new batteries for them so they stay in service.

You're right and that's what most people don't understand. Sure in some situations it can be that simple but for the most part it's something that takes some knowledge.

Dammit.  USPS show my radio delivered yesterday but it's not there.  I hope it wasn't stolen.  

Yes through either ordering one with the appropriate SMA connector, or putting something like a SMA to BNC or SMA to SO239 adapter on it. I have pretty much changed over to BNC adapters on all my HTs because i use them as a handheld, a mobile in the car with a mag mount, along with going in radio pouches where I have a different antenna on my equipment.

It can be.  It's stupid easy to pick up VHF/UHF radios and use simplex or repeaters.  Receiving HF is not much harder.

Because they programmed the CPU to allow it.

It's probably using an SDR based receiver architecture, and if it bypasses the filtering and possibly the tuner then it can, at least in a fashion, receive almost anything.

The downside is that in such an instance the receiver is wide open and very subject to interference. The antenna isn't going to perform worth a crap over much of that range.

The SDR dongles that I keep recommending to people who are looking for receivers have some filtering that can help with those issues, and in some cases are higher performance components. If you expect to actually hear anything on whatever frequency you'll also need an antenna that's suitable for that frequency.

My Home made antenna I just got done installing up in the attic.
My GP5 comes on Tuesday.

If you're planning on connecting/disconnecting much, do this. SMA connectors are only rated for something like 100 mate/demate cycles, and that's not counting the center pin rotating as it does on these kind of antenna mounts.

Looks like a crackdown on hams is about to start.

https://www.ar15.com/forums/General/Baofengs-and-other-radios-are-terrorist-tools/5-2416207/

I figured as much with the small, limited antenna that most handheld have.
Thank you for your response.

OFFS

@arowneragain

I've only played with it a little, but I think what you do is hit the ETM button. It then scans and memorizes all the stations it finds. When it's done, you can scroll through them with the tuning wheel.

Yes, going with the SMA to BNC adapter, then when i order the slim jim i will specify wanting the BNC male on the coax end of antenna...

2 nights ago i couldn't spell ham radio, now I are one...  

Thanks

Icom IC-718 on the way.

For me, it's something that's always interested me. I loved to play with CB's as a kid.

I also have specific people to talk to and to help me through growing pains.

In class now, and will take the Technician exam ASAP, no later than March.

You need General to make much use out of an IC718, so keep at it.

The problem is more in the TX than the RX.  There are small all band transceivers - but...  When you want to deal with a handheld - you have both limited power and limited heat disbursement.  You have to stay low power.  Low power works well with UHF/VHF.  They are line of sight bands - there is no need for extreme power because it will not add much usable range most of the time.  Now if you use an better antenna, then a little extra power might be good - and you get into the mobile radio area.  They don't work off a tiny battery, they can use bigger heat sinks - so they can run a little more power, but still be relatively small radios.

Now HF base stations can take advantage of more power.  They are using taller antenna and trying to talk around the world by bouncing signals off the ionosphere.  These bands are not limited to line of sight.  That said, more often than not they will not bother with UHF/VHF - which can only really use so much power before they blast out the repeaters.  For repeater work, a second mobile radio is often added to the shack.  Benefit of this is it can be monitored at the same time as the HF radio.

Now back to the but...  There is a type of radio that can often have a lot of functions and more bands - QRP (low power).  They can do fine reaching the local repeaters (abet having a bit more power might help in rare circumstances).  But they are power stingy and power starved on HF.  Using them for HF contacts is basically a game.  It is a game with a practical purpose - you don't want to carry a car battery on a hike to the top of a mountain to get to a great location for a portable antenna.  But the vast majority of the time, a full sized rig will make more contacts - unless you really need to transmit from the top of that mountain.
---
To me QRP radios are very seductive.  Until you remind yourself that for the most part, transmitting on HF with them will be a hell of a lot more frustrating than with a full power rig.  The only place they will kind of shine with transmitting is short range single bounce.  But even then, if you are trying to bounce off a lower part of the ionosphere - you still are bouncing off a layer 80 miles away from you - so the shortest transmission would be 160 miles.  Do you really want to only have 10 watts to transmit 160 miles - you probably will only make contact in CW or other slow SSB pulse code modes.    

---
Yesterday evening was hard for me to maintain self control.  Damn I wanted to order a 705.  But typing the a paragraph above put it into perspective for me.  It is probably a great "scanner"  But for UHF/VHF it is basically a high quality handheld that is sold without an antenna.  As an HF rig - it is severely compromised.  Sure, SSB uses a narrower bandwidth than FM, so the 10w output is about 2x as efficient as a 10w Handheld - but to reach out 160 miles, it is probably either going to need to cut that bandwidth much narrower (like CW) or need a directional antenna.  Other than playing a game or climbing a mountain - why would I want to complicate myself with an artificial 10w limitation.  If I really want to go low power - I can always tune down a full power rig.

And yes, still working at convincing myself...  

Yep. I need the Tech first. One step at a time.

I'm ready for the test now. March is the first seat I can find.

Unless there's a way to sit for both at the same time?

I took them both back to back two days ago at an in-person testing site.

I will definitely check on that. Thanks.

You can take both at the same time. Pass tech and then they will let you take general if you wish.

This is what I'm going to try to do.

Do this. I wish I had known that was an option. I failed the General test miserably, and here I sit as a Tech almost two years later, finally getting around to studying ...again.

Gonna try a Zoom test which seem to be more available.

However they recommend not trying until you can consistently score 88% on practice exams, I can not yet.

Alright gents, I ran out and bought a Tecsun PL-660 because of this thread. So far I've only been able to set the time on it.

Tell me how to do something cool with it. Someone mentioned a "40/80M regular weekly net". How would I go about trying to listen to that? How do you find people talking? Do I just start turning dials and hope for the best?

By comparison, the Baofengs made a lot more sense to me. Using Chirp I programmed all my local repeaters, some simplex, and am able to monitor a few Fire/Law freqs. I guess the difference with the Baofengs was I knew what I was looking for and who would be talking. With the Tecsun I really don't know what it's capable of or how to find HF users. Is there a "Repeaterbook of HF" type website (obviously it won't hit repeaters, but you know what I mean)?

I just need to be able to show my 10 year old that this little silver box does something, anything...

If only someone offered an amp that was designed to work with the 705 and was portable.

There's always WWV, 2.5, 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 MHz. It's in Ft Collins so you might be able to get all of them all the time if you're close enough.

Canada's time station (CHU) transmits on 3.330, 7.850 and 14.670.

Best of luck. The general test is not really harder than the tech test. Just different info.

I heard the Canadian station last night. On 3.330.

I've already posted this before in this thread, but if you listen to WWV, the male voice is from Colorado and the female voice is from Hawaii. Just so you know what you're hearing. It's a good way to check propagation. The other day I could hear Hawaii like it was next door and could not hear Colorado on 15.000 at all.

If you're going to listen to the ham bands, know that 14mhz and above are going to be USB or upper sideband and 7mhz and below will be LSB or lower sideband. That's not so much a rule but a guide. You'll also find guys running AM. In 28mhz and 50mhz you'll also find FM.
The lower portions of the bands typically are reserved for CW and digital modes. You can adapt your radio to your computer and use software to decode both.

Got me off my butt to finish my general this week. Also, I forgot that dxengineering is very close by - ordered an HF unit Saturday with the free shipping option and it randomly showed up yesterday

I was thinking what if the 7100 and the 705 had a baby - The 7100 is long past due for being upgraded...  But the face of the 7100 is designed to be used as a mobile radio and the 705 is more of a portable.

Hell, I could probably find a 2"x2"x4" amp on the shelf in the garage from my father's CB days.  But baby amps were never that fun...
In all honesty they gave me a bad taste for amps - the ones we had were not all that great.

It's a bit heavy at 7#, but the Elecraft KXPA-100 will work with other manufacturers QRP rigs.

https://elecraft.com/products/kxpa100-100w-amplifier-with-optional-internal-atu

They are an easy check of current propagation conditions as well as a way to learn about propagation.

Within whatever range the ionosphere currently supports, higher frequencies for longer distances, lower/shorter. Daytime the range of frequencies goes up, nighttime it goes down.

Chirp question - so, last night I pulled my channel list off my radio then couldn't do it again.

It worked fine this morning. I think the radios were just overheated last night. Lesson learned.

So anyway, I uploaded the channel list to both radios this morning. NEITHER of them picked up the station names. How many characters am I allowed there for the Baefong channel list? Maybe I put too many characters and lost all the station names.

Also, the second radio had an error message that the file had transmitted but the radio had different firmware than the radio the channel file was created for (the first radio). Can I just ignore that error? The channels appear to be there.

Most of the baofengs have a limit of 5 characters for channel tags. They're chinese.

8 characters at a minimum, 12 or even 16 would be much better. The Japanese can't figure it out either.

Thanks! I think I tried to use 6 or 7 characters. That probably explains it. Thanks again!

Nothing to add except:

-  this thread convinced me to finish my technician license so I can study for my general (I test on Sunday)
- I'm testing through the Greater Los Angeles Amateur Radio Group ( glaarg.org).  Online testing, $10 per test.  They waive the fee for vets, full-time students, minors, active military, and first responders.  And one fee for multiple tests during the session.  
- my Yeasu 981 gets here tomorrow  ,
- and these two videos by elcope:



Reminded me of one of the coolest music videos I've seen in a while:

That video is cool as hell, my Physics teacher was a cross between Tesla and mad scientist and had us doing all kinds of shit that is now almost certainly illegal today.

I was playing around with my new GP-5ssb tonight and was able to get in a station from Chicago, one in Florida and one where they were speaking French, so I'm guessing Canada. So that was kind of cool.  I suppose now I have to throw some speaker wire up some trees and see what happens.  Thanks.

Late last night I was hearing (on my 7300) Spain. Didn't get to make the contact though. You never know what you're gonna pull in. I think it's fun.

Going back to the beginning of this thread, where are we on the "exponentially worse" timeline that Ben mentioned? (not trolling, just looking for an update if possible)

+1 on glaarg.org online testing. They were organized and easy to deal with. You can even schedule your zoom test with them via hamstudy.org.

Got my call sign a day later.

I'm guessing today will wind up being an inflection point, but I've been wrong before.

Thank you. A quick glance at that time period looks like a candidate for its own thread.

Here toy go

You sure about that? My UV-5R is 7 characters. My Yaesu VX-6 is only 6

Either way, mine flatly refuses to accept programmed channel names now.

I will try again tomorrow.

It wont accept them on chirp, or will not display them and instead only show the freq? If its showing freq, that is a setting you need to adjust for channel A/B. They can show freq or name as desired.

In Chirp make sure Settings->Basic Settings->Display Mode(A) & (B) = "Name"