2M/70cm antennas are pretty reasonable compared to the HF antennas discussed in the other thread. Figure 1-6' instead of hundreds. I have a small ground plane radial I made with a so239 chassis connector and a few welding rods and a run of coax that I run up on a telescoping tripod. You could get an adapter to use a portable as a base station using a larger antenna but you are limited by the 5W put out by the HT, instead of the 50W you could get by an actual base station.

There are tons of radios ranging from 150-500 which would make good base stations, it just depends on what functions you want. I would have to check which of those, if any, come with shortwave capabilities.

Depends on what you want to do.  A good mobile (car) radio will work better.  To me it is more of getting a commutations system.

Threads like these make me think I should do something with the license I got in 2014.

Sir, I have zero issues with reliability or waterproofing with my 'illegitimate' cheaper batteries...and  even if I did - I can shitcan a bunch of them for the $62.50 difference in price.

I'll go with having 6 spare battery packs for every one of your 'legitimate Yaesu branded' batteries.

You do realize they all come from the same chinesium battery factory?

As long as you have a quality radio, antenna is more important than the radio.  

No way around that.

This.

It’s been a niche hobby for decades.  It’s not a plug and play, great for novices, easy to get started thing.

If you’re not willing to devote some time learning the technical bits then it’s not going to be a very successful endeavor.

Thanks for sharing! Scribed

DX Engineering has some VX-6r units left in stock...or so it appears.

Is this better than a hunting walkie talky like a Motorola or Midland? Realistic range?

I am more worried about waterproofing for the radio being compromised

Do they still seal well to the radio?  Gasket there? Is the pack built physically well?  Brand?

For TX, sure...but for guys who just want DC to Daylight RX...they're hard to beat.

Attached File

I have a Kenwood TH-74 and it is an awesome radio. My son has a Baofeng that the local club gave him after he passed his Tech exam. Handy Talkies are okay. If power goes out they'll burn up batteries pretty fast. There limited in power.

Mobile Radios may be a better first radio if your licensed and intending to actual talk on the radio. Most go up to 50 watts and are meant to be used in a vehicle and/or run off a 12v power supply in your home. I have a kenwood mobile set up as a base station with a diamond brand antenna on my roof.

The next thing to run out of stock will be radio's.

From side by side comparison with the factory battery which came with the radio...I cant tell the difference. Like I said, I'm pretty sure they come from the same factory.

I couldn't tell you the brand off the top of my head, but they came from an online battery wholesaler. Try Google.

How do they work?

I found out that cheap Chinese knockoffs of my Alinco batteries were absolute shit compared to OEM. Maybe they've gotten better.

The Yaesu ones are made in Japan, at least mine are.

You are right though, you still break even if only 1 out of 6 of the cheap ones work. Thanks for the recommendation

Where to buy it?
Im not ordering from Amazon.

dxengineering say shipping on 1/26.

Vx5r is better imo, you get 6m too. Just dont try ti use it with the shitty stock ant.

Is the vx 7R better?

For 2m / 440cm the VX6R is a great radio.
I've had one for many years and its a solid choice for anyone with a tech license.
Definitely requires reading the manual, but once you get familiar with the menu its fairly intuitive.

I have an Extra license and have worked the world over on HF...but funny enough, I just picked up a set of FRS radios for the family.
For local comms they are easy to use, will span several miles easily, are compact, dont require a license, and I can let my 9 year old play with them when I dont need them for something. I am using them to get her familiar with radio function and protocol...and its a great way to keep the family in contact in the area.

Could be.

The main attraction behind the VX-6 for me is the wide band receiver.

When the Fort Mcmurray forest fire took place in 2016, I used my scanner to monitor the RCMP. I followed the progress of the fire and armed with this information, I chose to drive north.

Thousands of people drive south through walls of flame. It was an absolute miracle that no-one died driving south on the highway. Take a look at the cars driving through the fire.



In a similar scenario in an Australian forest fire, many people died trying to leave town fleeing a forest fire.

So take it from me, a good radio is your most important survival tool in an emergency.

The ICOM IC-R6 is another excellent radio. It is a wideband receiver that costs less than $250. This little gem will receive from 100 KHZ to 1309 MHZ!!

Any suggestions for a 12v vehicle mount (detachable) system? Something to move from vehicle to vehicle or bring inside with me?
Please not too expensive, my budget has been getting it's ass kicked.

If you need a transceiver, just get a simple 2 meter mobile radio.  Then get the ICOM IC- R6 portable receiver

There is a Kenwood dedicated 2m mobile receiver that sells for $150. US. It is the Kenwood TM 281. I bet if you looked you could probably find good used 2m mobile radios for $100 or less.

I bought one.  
Thanks for mentioning it.
Not sure it was actually in stock at HRO.com

I will agree with this mostly.  2 issues is there are some cheep Chinese radios that may be complicated enough to operate that they could piss you off - and cheep radios might not have all the features you might want.  (Such as digital modes - essentially computer assisted Morris code.  You can get much better range with an analog code than with voice in HF).

The other is QRP radios.   (CB radios used to have 10 code - Amateur radios have Q code.  QRP is "Shall I decrease transmitter power?") .  QRP refers to a specific subset of the amateur radio hobby. The theory behind the game is in a SHF situation, you might not have watts to burn (you are working of a small battery and a small solar panel to keep it charge while remaining portable).  So people invented games to perfect the skill of communication while being very energy frugal.  In the normal world where energy is easy to get (say a bigger less portable solar panel charging a 12v deep cycle battery).  Artificially limiting yourself to 10 watts are less is only beneficial for games (I want to hike up a mountain and see how much of the world I can talk with using as little power as possible), or when you can not afford more power.  QRP players might also intentionally limit themselves to digital code or moris code - because those allow you to communicate with less power.

FWIW take the KX3.  It is an all band HF with an impressive set of features (and a couple very nice optional features). .  It is 3.5"x7.5"x 1.7" (not much larger than most handhelds) that weighs 18oz - but it transmits at a maxim of 12w (or less).  It is essentially a great good Short Wave radio that can TX as well.  Please understand I am not recommending it (accept to game with), as it cost more than most full power full feature radios.  But for it's game, it might be the superlative radio.

The main reason I was mentioning QRP is there are (Chinese) QRP radios that might not be much more expensive than a decent Shortwave and be fairly feature rich.  Just understand that QRP is mostly like trying to fish with artificial bait.  It can work, it can be fun - but 9 times out of 10 live bait is easier and more productive.

I can't think of a single detachable mobile rig.  Again you need to look at your use case and what you want out of it, but you can even use an HT and just connect it to an external antenna and have an 80% answer.

I had a fixed VHF radio on my boat. I also had a handheld VHF. I bought an adapter so if I desired I could hook my handheld VHF to the boat antenna. Is this the type of thing you are talking about?

Thank you.  Yes I was wondering if that radio can be programmed to listen to FM radio stations.

Yes.  The mounted antenna is going to be many times better than anything you would put on a handheld radio.  The mobile radio just gets you more transmitting power.

Yes, the VX6 is a good radio. But I think the reception capabilities are being overblown. What modes does it receive on?

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VX-7R owner here.  Very capable radio.

Do they still have the muffled audio because of the waterproofing?

I have a VX5. I haven’t used it in years.
I forgot what all I did by removing some solder pads, but the radios can do more than you think.

Not the Yaesu radio I would choose. But still a good radio. Yaesu VX8DR is my preferred hand held. I have two of them and they work wonderfully.

Or get the battery adapter and plug it into a larger car or motorcycle battery.

What would be a good portable for someone w/ tech and general?  What about a mobile that can be brought into the house?

I have a Diamond antenna on the house and currently using a baofeng.  It would be handy to have a portable that I can swap between the house and car

Instead of buying a power supply can a radio run on a car battery that has a charger connected?  Is there a chance the battery charger would introduce noise?

Agree.

I fell down the ham rabbit hole a few years ago.
Before that I used FRS/GMRS for hunting, auto racing and car to car when traveling.
Saw some commercial radios and thought I need to find some better radios than the blister pack radios.
Started with a few baofengs and got my ham ticket.
I was always interested in how to increase range of the FRS radios and thought more power was the way to go.
Not so, power wasn't the answer.  Antenna and height was the solution.
Ham radio allows you to do that and have to say having 50 watts on a mobile helps also.

Getting into ham radio gets you to learn how all this radio stuff works and what will reasonably work for the communication needs you may have.

I now have a plethora of mobile and handheld radios (HT).
All of my HT's are MARS modded so I can communicate on comercial/FRS/GMRS and MURS if needed.
All of my HT's have AA or AAA optional battery packs.  Good if the power goes down and you have no way to charge the proprietary batteries.
The best part of ham HT's is the ease of changing antennas from small low gain easy to carry to longer higher gain and even external tower antenna.

Right now my favorite HT is the Icom 51A. Dual band and D-Star digital mode.
Super easy to use digital mode to either use a local repeater or your own mini repeater (hot spot) to talk all over the world.
You can also cable connect to an old unconnected smartphone and send text and pictures to other D-Star digital radios.
Also local simplex digital is essentially encrypted to all but other ham radio people and they will more than likely not be listening for simplex D-Star digital.

My other favorite is the Icom IC-T70A HD Sport.   Very simple dual band that uses AA batteries though a proprietary battery can be purchased.
Unfortunately they discontinued this radio.

With my HT and connected with cross band repeat (kind of a personal repeater) to a 50 watt mobile with a 30 foot high antenna, I have gotten to other people 15 miles away.

I have a 12 volt power supply for my truck which plugs into my VX-7r. I also have the hand micfor it and hook it to an external tri-band roof mount antenna.

The only change over required is changing antennas - which takes about 30 seconds.

There are many slide in mounts for mobile radios. Some, like this one even lock into place.

Not if you use the remote speaker/microphone.

All you really need is one of these and some wire.

I just got an FT3D. I think it is pretty muffled. I haven’t talked to anyone with it yet, but have talked to the nearest repeater and listened through my mobile radio. It was very quiet. (My voice) I need to talk to someone sometime and make sure. If it is as bad as it seemed on that repeater, I will have to get a mic for it.

I have the option, in my home shack and my fly away kit, of running off of a 12 deep cycle battery that can be charged with a float charger connected to shore power, or float charged using solar panels.

The only thing you really need to deal with is getting a reduced size coax connector to bridge between the standard size antenna plug an the mini plug on the handie talkie.

Can a transmission and reception amplifier be mounted inline with the antenna to boost both xmit and rcv capabilities?

There are little VHF/UHF amps you could add to an HT to get more power and increase your transmit ability, but at that point you're better served with a base/mobile 50W radio out of the gate.

And that would not improve your reception performance, that is all effected by the height and gain characteristics of your antenna on these bands.

Make no mistake Ham communications are tracked bigly, by the Gov and other hams, beware.

anyone mentioned baofeng yet?

I have two of the VX-6Rs, and I think they are a superior choice. Battery capacity is a bit limited, and I certainly wouldn’t rely on it as a primary shortwave receiver, but it has some capability there.

The biggest strength of these radios is the presence of the 1.25 meter band. Everybody and his brother has a radio that works 2 meters and 70 centimeters, but radios which do the 220 MHz band are not nearly so common. That gives you a default communication security if you have friends with the same capability. Not that you can’t be overheard, but it is far less likely.

Isn't the Ailunce HS2 all-band, all-mode SDR only about twice as expensive?

And not much bigger.