Posted: 8/10/2013 6:55:45 PM EDT
| passed my tech exam today, now to find a radio to use. i have all sorts of suggestions from the cheap to the high dollar radios.. i am not leaving out used gear as an option. |
|
Congratulations! Welcome to ham radio!
While many will begin by recommending various HT's (Handy-Talkies) for a first radio, I will not. They are very limiting. Nor do I recommend a mobile rig. Yes, a mobile type radio, but not installed in your vehicle, but rather as a base station. In this way you can sit in the comfort of your home, have the manual before you, learn to operate the radio, and learn to BE an operator without the distraction of driving. DO NOT install a radio in your vehicle until you are very comfortable with both of these things. Talk to other hams in your area. Seek out a ham club or find a ham to "Elmer" you (Elmer = mentor), guide you along. Find out frequencies of repeaters in your area, their CTCSS tones, where the repeaters are physically located, their area of coverage, and amount of usage from hams that live near you. A repeater on a 20' mast in a ham's back yard might not be your top priority as compared to a club owned repeater with an antenna hosted on a tall commercial tower, rooftop of a hospital or other tall building, etc. We have several repeaters here. One shares the radio room with the Sheriff's Department, and has generator power available, and the antenna is up on their mast. Another in the next town over is on top of the courthouse, same thing, SO mast and generator. A repeater in the other direction has its antenna up on a commercial tower. All three give excellent area coverage. You don't necessarily need a huge tower in your back yard, though that would be nice. A roof top mounted antenna, or one up on a TV pole mast will work well. A directional "beam" on rotator is nice, but a simple omnidirectional antenna will certainly do a good job for you, such as a "1/4 wave ground plane", a J-pole, or Slim Jim. Find out if there are repeaters on the 70 cm band ("440 mhz") in your area, or whether there is or is not any 70 cm activity there. If not (none here) then you can save money by buying a 2m (144-148 mhz) single band transceiver. Don't be afraid to ask for help programming the repeaters. Continue studying and working toward the General next. It is not much more difficult and working the world on HF is a lot of fun. It's like taking the training wheels off. |
|
Quoted:
passed my tech exam today, now to find a radio to use. i have all sorts of suggestions from the cheap to the high dollar radios.. i am not leaving out used gear as an option. I would rule out used. Unless you know the owner. Theres WAY too much pieceofshit ham radio gear for sale and the rest is for 90% of retail cost. This is my opinion. If someone disagrees that's great but you wont change my mind, so dont try. The deciding factor to a new ham in my opinion as well also is strictly cost factor. Don't buy a CHEAP radio for a first radio. You may get something that pisses you off, only to have wasted your money. Buy the BEST damn radio you can with the money you can budget for it. In other words, if you can spend 300$ on a radio, look for NEW in that price range. If you can spend 900$, buy a 900$ radio. After you figure out what you can spend, shoot some brand/models at us and you will get great info here and, of course, a LOT MORE OPINIONS ! :) 
|
|
Congratulations! Welcome to our crazy, wonderful world.
First and foremost, start studying for your General class. When -- not if, but when -- you become tired of fooling around on the repeaters, you'll want something to expand your horizons. Second, search out your local radio club. They can be a big help getting you started, especially putting together a station. As far as a VHF rig, don't go overboard, nor low-ball your purchase. A mid-range mobile transceiver and power supply, coupled with a simple roof-mounted vertical antenna will get you started. Find out where most of the activity is, 2 Meters, 70 cm, or above before buying a rig. In some cases, just a 2 Meter transceiver will suffice. Either way, become fully familiar with your transceiver before even thinking about putting in in a vehicle. Save your money for an HF rig and dipole-type wire antenna to use once you pass your general. If you're in or near a large city, 70 cm will likely be most active. In more remote areas, 2 Meters is usually where the action is. If you were ever a CBer, forget everything you ever knew about radio operation. Ham radio is entirely different. Oh, and beware the Wouff Hong. And the Rettysnitch. |
|
To operate a mobile rig in your base station (home) you will need a power supply, as 95% of ham gear, HF or VHF/UHF, is designed to operate from 13.8 volts DC, the voltage of a charged 12 volt battery. A 50 watt 2m rig will require 12 - 15 amps, but for a few bucks more you can buy a 22-25 amp supply that will give you plenty of margin, and also operate a 100 watt HF rig when you upgrade to General. You can operate both rigs at the same time from that supply, not transmitting with both, but you can certainly monitor with one and listen with the other.
Keeping this in mind, the Samlex SEC-1223 is excellent, and the choice of many of the hams I know. It is rated 23 amps continuous, 25 amps surge. The difference between this and the 12 amp model is $15 bucks, so it does not make sense to not get the higher rated one. They have a new version that will not only act as a power supply, but also as a charger for a 12 volt battery. So you could have a big 12 volt gel cell in your station as backup power when the lights go out. I have two of these, and also the SEC-1235M, which is rated 30 amps continuous, 35 amp surge. There were discussions of power supplies in another thread. See that thread for more opinions. Now, a rig. For a base rig (home) you really don't need a lot of power, as you will have the luxury of a higher antenna, and antenna height is really where it's at as far as range at VHF/UHF frequencies. A repeater that might take the full 65 watts that I have in my vehicle to communicate with, with my base rig I can use that same repeater at only 10 watts. My antenna for the base rig is 25' up. If you don't have 70 cm activity in your area, and I don't, the little Yaesu FT-1900R (about $140.00 after rebate) is a good choice, either base or mobile. It is small, 55 watts. There are more powerful rigs with up to 75 watts power, but they will not get any more range than 50 - 55 watts. The difference would be less than 1 db, and just not noticeable. Don't spend any extra bucks buying watts. If you have extra dough, spend it on better antenna. If you want both 2 m (VHF) and 70 cm (UHF) then Yaesu FT-7900R (about $330.00) is a good choice. Antennas, any of these three will get you on the air and a good signal out at a bargain price: http://www.arrowantennas.com/osj/j-pole.html You want the first one in the list. http://www.w4cll.com/ijpole.html More about it. http://www.arrowantennas.com/gp/gp146.html Might as well get the dual band version, GP 146/440. http://www.b-squareengineering.com/jpole.htm Best feature, stainless construction, no corrosion problems. Similar in performance to the Arrow J-pole. All of these antennas may be mounted on a rooftop plumbing vent or TV antenna pole. All of these are inexpensive, easy to mount, and then all you need is coax down to the radio. |
Keep studying and work on the general and extra. Just upgraded today myself.
|
If you like to build stuff and have worked with copper tubing, here's a 2 Meter/70 cm "copper cactus" J-pole antenna: http://www.n7qvc.com/amateur_radio/copper.html
2 Meter only version: mcham.org/mcham/images/9/9d/J-pole.pdf At some point, pick up a copy of ARRL's Antenna Book. Lots of good info there that will serve you throughout your ham career. If you're in a (God forbid) HOA restricted environment, consider ARRL's Low Profile Amateur Radio. Plenty of ways in there to get around the HOA Nazis. ARRL bookstore: http://www.arrl.org/shop/Antennas/ |