Posted: 3/18/2012 8:59:02 AM EDT
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Well my daughter an I took the tech licence yesterday and both passed.
So now in search of a couple of radios to get started. Probably want to start off with a handheld's. Joining the local club also. Then later on a good base ( I have a 120-ft telescoping tower that i need to bring back from Wyo). Then would like to set up units in vehicles, four-wheelers etc. Suggestions on all would be appreciated. Already ordered study guide for the genera. |
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Congrats! And both of you study for the General!
For either base or vehicle, for 2 meters, power is not an issue. 50 watts vs 65-75 watts is meaningless in your vehicle, and even more meaningless for a base station. Antenna is everything, and the higher the better. It's all about antenna, not power. So, when choosing radios for your vehicles, don't even consider power. Many here, for mobile, like the Comet SBB-5 or SBB-5NMO (same, but NMO mount). I have a short (14") 1/4 wave Diamond for around town, as the longer (38") SBB-5 tends to catch on overhead limbs from trees in the median of the boulevards here. A simple matter of unscrewing the short Diamond antenna, and screwing on the longer Comet SBB-5... 30 seconds, when going out of town. The better Comet does make a little difference, giving me a few more miles before losing a repeater. At home, higher antenna (25' or so), I just don't need the full 50 watts. I keep the radio set at 5 watts for the repeaters within 15 miles, and for those further, 10 watts or 25 watts. I use a B-Square Engineering J-pole, as it is omnidirectional and stainless steel. Cheap, only $40. Some guys use a similar J-pole from Arrow. Both of these antennas also work well on 70 cm (aka "440"). We simply have no 70 cm repeaters in our region. There are a few, but not reached from home, and even where they are, seldom used. My base rig is the Yaesu FT-1802M, which has since been replaced in the Yaesu lineup with the FT-1900R. The 1900 has two front panel buttons switched in position, and 5 more watts (55 w vs the 1802's 50 w). In my vehicle I have a Yaesu FT-2800M, since replaced in the Yaesu lineup with the FT-2900R. Again, two front panel buttons switched in position, and 10 more watts (75 w vs the 2800's 65 w). Both are meaningless changes. And in fact, knowing what I know now, the much smaller 1802/1900 would have worked just as well for me in the vehicle and been easier to mount. 50 w (FT-1802M) vs. 65 w (FT-2800M) makes no real world difference. For my local conditions these radios serve me well. If you have good 70 cm activity in your area, you should buy a radio capable of both 2m and 70 cm. D-Star and Wires are both proprietary systems usable with those brands of radio only (Icom and Yaesu). I don't know about you, but if I can only use that to talk to others only on the same brand radio, well, that sucks. I wouldn't let D-Star and Wires even enter the decision making process on buying a radio. But hey, that's just me. One thing good about the Yaesu 1802 at home, and 2800 in my vehicle, is that all of the buttons and such are in exactly the same layout on the front panel, work the same way. I have programmed both with the same frequencies / repeater labels, etc, differing only in the power settings, so that I can go back and forth between radios easier. |
Congrats 
If I were doing what you are doing I would buy the same mobile for each vehicle and the same handhelds. If I was doing specifics then I would do the Kenwood TM-281A for all vehicles and Wouxun UV3d for all handhelds. The handhelds are certainly inexpensive enough new to avoid buying used (unless half price lol). They run 5w on a fully charged battery. The next thing I would do is make sure all the antenna connections coming into the radio are the same. Simple enough for the mobiles and I would SO-239. For the handheld there is more flexibility even. On my wouxun UV2D (yes 2, the 3 is the same with a different body, possibly different firmware but I haven't read of any real operating differences) I installed an adapter that changes the female SMA to male BNC. Then I have a short adapter cable (mostly for stress relief) that goes from BNC to SO-239 for my house antenna which is an Ed Fong base station dual band J-pole antenna (user 'antennas_iqn' on ebay). He is actually a Cal-something (Poly?) professor for this type of stuff. This way I could even plug in a mobile to the house antenna with no adapter. I'm not familiar enough yet on mobile antennas to speak about that but I have heard much satisfaction with using the NMO mount on the body. |
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Congratulations to the both of you. Both of my sons and I passed our Tech tests in 1995. They were 12 and 14 at the time. We have used ham radios when back packing, boating/ fishing and four wheeling. In my opinion the Yaesu FT-60R is one of the best buys out there. It is a dual band radio (2M & 70CM) with only one band in the display and usable at a time. It still uses a NiMh battery which is about half the price of a Lithium Ion battery. And a dry cell pack that runs the radio at full power is available for only twenty dollars. A rugged little radio and hard to beat for the price. As far as mobiles go there are lots of good 2m mobiles out there for under $200.00. Personally I don't have a single band mobile in any of my rigs. I like the capablity of a true dual band mobile (Has both bands showing in the display). When we travel we can monitor a 2M repeater frequency and chat vehicle to vehicle on 70CM. Most of the dual band radios you can monitor 2M on both bands or 70CM on both bands if necessary. One of the biggest benefits of the true dual band mobile is being able to set the radio as a cross band repeater. Walk away with your vehcile in x-band repeat and use your low power hand held to communicate through your vehicle radio which has a better antenna and higher transmit power capability. More info on x-band repeating in the link below. Mobile radios that do x-band repeat are the Yaesu FT-8800/Ft8900, Kenwood TM-V71A and there are a few others out there. Hope this helps.
http://n5fdl.com/davids-blog/2009/5/25/experiments-in-crossband-repeaters.html |
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I got my tech in November. My set up is as follows, and it works extremely well.
Radio: Wouxun KG-UV3D $120ish HT Antenna: Diamond SRJ77CA $30ish Mobile Antenna: Larson 2/70 NMO (I got this for free from my uncle...) Mobile Antenna Mount: Comet RS720NMO ($60ish with the 13' of cable needed) Base Antenna: N9TAX Slim-Jim Roll up J-Pole ($30ish) That set up gives me an antenna in the 3 places I need one. All the antennas end in the proper connector for the radio (SMA-Female). With just 5W, I can get into every local repeater, and my signal report is "crystal clear". I've been told it sounds like I'm talking into a high powered base station. I highly suggest this set up, as I've had amazing results with it. |
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Quoted:
Congrats! And both of you study for the General! For either base or vehicle, for 2 meters, power is not an issue. 50 watts vs 65-75 watts is meaningless in your vehicle, and even more meaningless for a base station. Antenna is everything, and the higher the better. It's all about antenna, not power. So, when choosing radios for your vehicles, don't even consider power. Many here, for mobile, like the Comet SBB-5 or SBB-5NMO (same, but NMO mount). I have a short (14") 1/4 wave Diamond for around town, as the longer (38") SBB-5 tends to catch on overhead limbs from trees in the median of the boulevards here. A simple matter of unscrewing the short Diamond antenna, and screwing on the longer Comet SBB-5... 30 seconds, when going out of town. The better Comet does make a little difference, giving me a few more miles before losing a repeater. At home, higher antenna (25' or so), I just don't need the full 50 watts. I keep the radio set at 5 watts for the repeaters within 15 miles, and for those further, 10 watts or 25 watts. I use a B-Square Engineering J-pole, as it is omnidirectional and stainless steel. Cheap, only $40. Some guys use a similar J-pole from Arrow. Both of these antennas also work well on 70 cm (aka "440"). We simply have no 70 cm repeaters in our region. There are a few, but not reached from home, and even where they are, seldom used. My base rig is the Yaesu FT-1802M, which has since been replaced in the Yaesu lineup with the FT-1900R. The 1900 has two front panel buttons switched in position, and 5 more watts (55 w vs the 1802's 50 w). In my vehicle I have a Yaesu FT-2800M, since replaced in the Yaesu lineup with the FT-2900R. Again, two front panel buttons switched in position, and 10 more watts (75 w vs the 2800's 65 w). Both are meaningless changes. And in fact, knowing what I know now, the much smaller 1802/1900 would have worked just as well for me in the vehicle and been easier to mount. 50 w (FT-1802M) vs. 65 w (FT-2800M) makes no real world difference. For my local conditions these radios serve me well. If you have good 70 cm activity in your area, you should buy a radio capable of both 2m and 70 cm. D-Star and Wires are both proprietary systems usable with those brands of radio only (Icom and Yaesu). I don't know about you, but if I can only use that to talk to others only on the same brand radio, well, that sucks. I wouldn't let D-Star and Wires even enter the decision making process on buying a radio. But hey, that's just me. One thing good about the Yaesu 1802 at home, and 2800 in my vehicle, is that all of the buttons and such are in exactly the same layout on the front panel, work the same way. I have programmed both with the same frequencies / repeater labels, etc, differing only in the power settings, so that I can go back and forth between radios easier. This is a good write up - but it doesn't work where I live, and for my uses . . . what you want to accomplish and the kinds of places you will be using are a big part of what we (and maybe you) can't know until you think it out, or even try it. We live outside of a small town, which is WAY out of a large city. So we have almost no UHF traffic. But UHF might still be useful if you're working radio while temporarily away from your nearby vehicle. If UHF is important, get dual band or VHF/UHF in the car/home/handhelds, as was suggested. Power is also a much bigger deal when you are away from the city, especially in parts of the west where repeaters can be much harder to connect to due to terrain. When you're in a hole relative to the local terrain (as we are at home with a very short tower), average power doesn't cut it for hitting close repeaters over and behind the hills. At the same time, i agree that you should also get/carry the best antenna you can find for mobile and portable (HT/backpack) . . with your tall tower, you're going to have good base coverage, but you still want high gain to cut back on electrical power when you don't need RF power. In ARFCOM tradition, get the best of both - high power AND gain. Unless you're getting the HTs for hiking or close repeater use, I'd suggest you look at getting mobile radios first. Several of us have box mounted our mobile to use as base and mobile. Mobile radios are generally a bit easier to operate, too. With an HT and 5W, when you're on the wrong side of a large city or outside of a smaller city you can hear but will have trouble being heard, even with a mobile antenna. Even more so when on foot, unless you stop and put up a roll-up antenna (something good to carry if using the HT for hiking/wilderness travel). Congrats! The General test is not much harder than the Tech, so if you're thinking of HF for that tower, go for it! |