Posted: 5/19/2015 9:27:38 AM EDT
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I am going to be loading my first mobile soon, but I am not set on how I should organize the memory.
In order of frequency? By county/region? By expanding radius from "home"? Separate block for races/ares/emergency etc? Other considerations? |
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I have a block of 2m repeaters, named by location, block of 70cm repeaters, named by location, too. They are alphabetical. When I have multiple in the same town, I sort by frequency. My simplex channels are a separate block. So are other channels including GMRS/MURS, etc. I use the banks in the FT-7800 and the hypermemories to make it quick to switch between all of them, and certain banks. I suppose I could think of another way to do it, but that's what I started back in 2008, and if I change now, my wife will get all confused.  |
| I name my memory channels by the repeater location and then sort them alphabetically. Although I always use Simplex as my Memory Channel 1. If I'm away from my normal stomping grounds I can quickly dial through to town/region closest to me and have pretty good odds of hitting a repeater. I've tried sorting them by repeater club names, or callsigns, but I always end up forgetting where each one is located and have to run through them by trial and error to find one that I can reach. If a 2m & 70cm machine are co-located, I always put the 2m in first (i.e. 2m = "Denver 1", 70cm = "Denver 2". This system works for me, but do whatever makes sense for you. |
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LA (Lubbock Area)
Home (Austin Area) Travel (Mostly the routes between LA and Home) Ironman (the UHF stuff we use for Ironman in Lubbock) New Mexico (the ones I'd use in NM occasionally) Colorado (the ones I'd use in CO occasionally) That's how I used to do things. Now I do things differently as I am currently only using portables with zones. Portables are as follows: VHF: Never had a need for one. Usually just use GP300's with a handful of channels. UHF: Lubbock, DFW, New Mexico, Roam, Ironman (GMRS and some commercial stuff is rolled into Lubbock) For mobiles I use the same model radio for VHF and UHF (64 channels each, no zones) VHF: I have a codeplug with the area stuff (ham, SO, FD) and the stuff I frequently am near. Most everything is grouped scan lists (Lubbock, Amarillo, MegaLink, Permian Basin). I also have a codeplug for travel with VHF interop, then common splits (I can cover 51% of Texas and NM repeaters with 25 channels) since I can change the PL's on the fly. No alpha tags on the travel codeplug, just keep everything CSQ on RX and change PL as needed using the Repeater Book app on my phone. UHF: I just don't dick with. It's set to what I use. |
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Since I drink the /\/\ kool-aide, I organize them by zones geographically.
Zone 1 is simplex frequencies Zone 2 is all of the repeaters where I live, with the closest ones getting the lowest channel numbers Zone 3 is the next closest geographic area I'm likely to visit (friends a few hours away, the next state over, etc). And so on. |
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I group mine with local and then groups by route -- probably what you'd consider expanding radius.
This way when I'm traveling, I just bring up the first route repeater, and turn the knob once as I make progress to the next converage area, then reverse when coming home, and never have to take my eyes off the road to do it. I also have everything named, so I know I can always just dial up the repeater I think will work best if I look for it. |
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Quoted:
I am going to be loading my first mobile soon, but I am not set on how I should organize the memory. In order of frequency? By county/region? By expanding radius from "home"? Separate block for races/ares/emergency etc? Other considerations? I put 146.520 mhz (National Calling Freq) in Ch 000 or Ch 001. Next, I put a simplex frequency we use locally for talking to each other in the next channel. I use "alpha tags", not frequencies. I don't care what the frequency is. Just need to know that Ch 003 is the repeater in town, and have come up with abbreviations for all of the area repeaters, in town, and over to, and including the large cities around. My abbreviations are apparently easy to understand as anyone dialing through my radios immediately knows which town, which repeaters from the 6 character tag. 146.520 is labeled "NATCAL". Third is the repeater here in town we use most. After that, by expanding radius from "home". Local repeaters you use most, then farther and farther from home. Finally, I have a section with the 2 m simplex frequencies programmed as channels. And naming these frequencies, I use SX for the first two characters in the 2m band. They replace 1 and 4 of the frequency. The next character must be either a 5, 6, or 7. Then the next three are the remainder of the frequency. By this convention 146.520 becomes in the tag, SX6520. 146.640 becomes SX6640. So I know it is a (a) Simplex frequency and (b) its frequency. For the 70 cm band I simply use the frequency. 446.000 becomes 446000. |
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I only do this on my 7200 and it's just a set of memories for each band for each mode 3.8 set to SSB 7.3 set to SSB 14.150 set to SSB etc same for Digi freqs for each band for JT, PSK. On the mobile it's just the local repeaters and FM and SSB call freqs. On the HTs it's just the local repeaters and NOAA, I need to add the SSB and FM calling freqs to those. |
| I don't organize the channels as much as I do the banks. Bank 1 is my favorites, Bank 2 is all repeaters in my area, other banks are various regions in the state, ect. I also name the channel by city or in the case of multiple repeaters, I either number them or use "city" VHF/UHF. |
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I have about 20 memory channels used in my HTs and mobile VHF/UHF. I only use two simplex frequencies 99% of the time. The "channel numbers" are set based on how often I use that particular repeater or a simplex frequency. I never use alpha numeric labels. It's easier for me to associate repeaters based on their frequency, not tags/ callsigns.
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I've been working on this myself and have come up with a plan that seems to work well for me. For my Yaesu 8800 I loaded frequencies off repeater book for Utah, WY, ID and NV then set up the banks. Bank 1 is the local listen to everyday frequency's listed by name with some adjustments so I know what they are, bank 2 is all of Utah with city name alphabetical so I can dial up a city quick. Same goes for bank 3, 4 and 5 as they contain WY, ID and NV frequency's listed alphabetical by name. If I happen to find a good frequency to use at a hunting or camping spot I will make a note of it and change the name or location the next time I go into the program so I can find it easer next time I go to that location. Bank 10 has the FRS/GMRS frequency's and weather stations listed so I can jump to 10 and get a quick weather report or monitor the FRS frequency's from the truck if I happen to be listening for someone in my party. My hyper memory keys are set so I can quickly jump between banks when needed.
Since I travel to AZ or WA to see the folks every once in a while I have other radio program files save in the computer so I can load my UT, NV and AZ program to the radio or load the UT, ID, WA program in depending if I am headed North or South. With only 500 channels per band there is only so much a guy can put on the radio at any one time but if I have the computer and clone cable its quick to dump on another set of frequency's. For the HT I load the most used local and hunting / camping frequency's then if I need to add something while I'm out and about I can just reference the hard copy paper record for my Yaesu radio to get the required frequency and repeater tone. I keep a hard copy list of radio frequency's in my radio bag, home, RV and pickup. |