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Quoted: True, but they're coming after licensees first which was my point. I have other concerns. This was just one. View Quote Lol, so they are coming to take your radios for no reason? Pro tip: If you have bought anything gun related in the last 5 years with a credit card, you will get that knock long before someone with a ham ticket. |
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Quoted: Hate to break it to you, but your address is already on the Internet. Google even has pictures of it available to everyone with an internet connection. Plus there’s satellite imagery available to all for free. Plus, don’t believe every story you hear on arfcom. View Quote Yes it is, but not in regard to confiscating something I consider a potential tool reserved for SHTF. If I cheat on my taxes the IRS shows up. Totally different subject. |
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Quoted: These are interesting implications to consider. It's a lot of valid points. Short of a natural disaster that doesn't break the repeater network (is that what it is? super ignorant on the subject), what is the value in HAM? It can be used to triangulate to you, the .gov licenses it so they know, and...isn't it unencrypted chatter? I guess I'm not aware of the value props with the downsides, but I haven't yet hit the info portion of the site for it, just see a few threads in GD View Quote View it has a hobby. It is unencrypted by law. Law enforcement must have the ability to listen in. |
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If you are going to get licensed - you better hurry before they start the $35 fee.
Incidentally, radio coms isn't something you can easily learn once all the instructional videos are no longer on the internet...or the internet gets shut down. |
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Quoted: You didn't read my post then. I don't want to talk around the world. I want to listen and I have that ability (working on HF...have the receiver). Getting a license adds nothing for me. I feel that transmitting (getting a license) leaves you open to government scrutiny and liberal doxxing just so you can talk about weather conditions in your AO. View Quote Sorry to rain on your parade, but even WROL, if you haven't tried and failed and tried again numerous times BEFORE WROL, you aren't going to be successfully talking to anybody on HF. The idea of having a license beforehand is so you can go through those growing pains and learn how to do it. It's not like downloading an app and suddenly you have full access. Without a license pre WROL, nobody on the airwaves will talk to you. Trust me, they will know. Without that practice it will be too late post WROL to learn. |
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The gov will shut down the internet before going at the amateur radio service for getting the signal out.
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Quoted: Yes it is, but not in regard to confiscating something I consider a potential tool reserved for SHTF. If I cheat on my taxes the IRS shows up. Totally different subject. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Hate to break it to you, but your address is already on the Internet. Google even has pictures of it available to everyone with an internet connection. Plus there’s satellite imagery available to all for free. Plus, don’t believe every story you hear on arfcom. Yes it is, but not in regard to confiscating something I consider a potential tool reserved for SHTF. If I cheat on my taxes the IRS shows up. Totally different subject. Who the heck is talking about tax cheating? You’re whining about people being able to find out where you live. People can already find out where you live with a simple google search. |
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Quoted: How long would you have to broadcast in one place for them to get a bead on your location? View Quote Long enough on their repeater to know you are there, then long enough to determine a general location. Then long enough and often enough for them to zero in on you. It is nothing like the animal collars that transmit constantly. Those are somewhat easy to find. Unless you are transmitting almost constantly over a long period, they aren't going to find you without a lot of work. |
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Quoted: And the excuses they make up for being too fucking lazy to take a simple test. View Quote 100% all it is. IT'S TOOOO HAAAAAARD!!! |
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If you are worried, just use 80 meters at night. There are no rules being observed and if the Karen's could find them, they would already be off the air.
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Hopefully this has been covered already, but get a PO Box and use that for your license. All the FCC requires is a MAILING ADDRESS, not your home. Gives you a little bit of extra obscurity so you don't get random dudes mailing you, right @patchouli
Edit: I see he covered the weirdness he has experienced already. |
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What's funny is this morning I literally listened to a conversation about the weather.
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I have my ticket but should I decide to go clandestine...I just lower the power, keep transmissions short and sterile, and omit my call.And of course never transmit from your QTH
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Quoted: Sorry to rain on your parade, but even WROL, if you haven't tried and failed and tried again numerous times BEFORE WROL, you aren't going to be successfully talking to anybody on HF. The idea of having a license beforehand is so you can go through those growing pains and learn how to do it. It's not like downloading an app and suddenly you have full access. Without a license pre WROL, nobody on the airwaves will talk to you. Trust me, they will know. Without that practice it will be too late post WROL to learn. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: You didn't read my post then. I don't want to talk around the world. I want to listen and I have that ability (working on HF...have the receiver). Getting a license adds nothing for me. I feel that transmitting (getting a license) leaves you open to government scrutiny and liberal doxxing just so you can talk about weather conditions in your AO. Sorry to rain on your parade, but even WROL, if you haven't tried and failed and tried again numerous times BEFORE WROL, you aren't going to be successfully talking to anybody on HF. The idea of having a license beforehand is so you can go through those growing pains and learn how to do it. It's not like downloading an app and suddenly you have full access. Without a license pre WROL, nobody on the airwaves will talk to you. Trust me, they will know. Without that practice it will be too late post WROL to learn. There’s no point in arguing any more. Ham is arfcoms newest gear queer item. People will buy them, use them at the most basic levels, and then think they know better than people who have been doing it for years. |
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Quoted: Slightly off putting for sure. I think I read this when you first posted it and it was the first thing that made me think about putting the breaks on getting my license. I don't need these zealots finding my home address. View Quote If the story is even true, that behavior is like .00001% of those with ham license. He is the one lucky person to get a stalker on his first contact. Kind of like winning powerball. |
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Gotta believe when the SHTF for real the government is going to round up all ham license holders first thing. Before anyone with a registered gun in places, before those with NFA items, before those with this and that. Before a ton of other crap.
I mean it's obvious they'll get the ham people first. Must round up mostly old people. Must round up mostly old people with umpteen medical problems. Must round up mostly old people with umpteen medical problems that rarely leave the house. I seen it. It will drop the spending on medicare. Most of the people that get fined anything major are people who have been off band, above power limits, and not using their callsign and doing it over and over and over for years. Many of them have had multiple warnings in person from the FCC before finally getting the hammer. |
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Quoted: You are looking at it wrong. Repeaters are fine for making a HT useful, in the same way that cell towers make cell phones useful. Good for yakking on your way to work and back, and discussing your latest back pain. A lot of people think they are useful for EMCOMM. Probably not in anything beyond small scale problems. Although, the first responder management have an overblown confidence in their over-complicated communication systems, which have been shown to fall apart pretty quickly when a tower or two fall over. Forget repeaters for any sort of SHTF situation. They probably won't be there, and even if they are, will either be locked down by their owners, or jammed solid with the owners of 10,000 cheap Chinese HTs. You really want the ham license to LEARN about radio. Learn what bands/modes/radios/antennas/power levels are actually useful for what. Even if you start off with a tech license (or even without) nothing stops you listening to the HF bands. Get a multi-mode radio (even if its only VHF/UHF) and try out SSB on the low ends of the bands. You might be surprised at how far the signal goes. Try again with a proper antenna (directional, horizontally polarized) and double the range. The HT is useful for car to car, for going down to the shops, for camping trips. It's generally useless as a reliable communications device outside half a mile in the city, and maybe 10 miles in open country. But learn those limitations yourself, and do it BEFORE you need to find out the hard way. View Quote You didn't read my post. I said the major chink in the armor was the repeater system going down. Same thing you just said. If I can pass a general level practice test and have the same knowledge without the government intrusion I'm all for that. HT is useful to 60 miles around here. I can receive from mountain repeaters in Colorado Springs all the way north to Boulder. I'm on the plains in the shadow of some 14k foot tall mountains. I've already been learning the limitations and I tried to outline some above. Then you came here to regurgitate some the same limitations I mentioned. |
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Quoted: So they are going to single you out of the thousands of transmissions at any given time, and will magically know that you moved a half mile since your last transmission? View Quote I'm sure they could if you gave them reason to. They can identify two identically built ships by the slight differences in how they sound. It's not unreasonable to assume they can also identify specific radios by the slight differences in the wave form they produce. And some people might be concerned with being pinpointed within half a mile every time they transmit. |
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Quoted: Do you really plan to use your call sign when you are doing something illegal? This is beyond silly. Your little $20 baofeng is going to be mostly worthless for anything other than you, your family and buddies. View Quote Being able to communicate with friends and family sounds kinda important? |
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Quoted: I've never heard the "you're going to be on a list" argument from anyone who didn't already have a drivers license, SSN, etc. View Quote How do you guys not understand the difference between a radio and a car? Sure the .gov can show up on my doorstep for all kinds of reasons, but radios won't be one of them if I can help it. |
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Quoted: 100% all it is. IT'S TOOOO HAAAAAARD!!! View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: And the excuses they make up for being too fucking lazy to take a simple test. 100% all it is. IT'S TOOOO HAAAAAARD!!! People have legitimate concerns about adding their name to another list and judging by the governments actions lately that is understandable. As for licensing lets step back and look at it. I started studying the test pool questions a day ago and will likely test in the next day or two. But truthfully the license is garbage to someone like me. My radio will collect dust unless I need it. "But you have to practice!" Really? You push the button and talk. All the other knowledge is just equipment and bullshit that most will never use. |
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Quoted: If you think you're going to use radios during a govt involved SHTF situation, you're badly mistaken. Or more accurately, if you think you'll use them more than once. Every ELINT aircraft, satellite and vehicle will be monitoring, classifying and triangulating every signal generated in its mission area. And for reference, a single, relatively cheap civilian SDR is capable of monitoring ~50MHz of bandwidth at any given moment, and also able to switch that ~50MHz window very rapidly for even more coverage. There are even modern SDR based automatic direction finding systems you can buy for a few hundred dollars that can locate a signal source in minutes of just driving around. View Quote So you're in agreement that HAM is a hobby that will be worthless in shtf. |
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Quoted: They are changing physics?! Stop being tarded: this is like claiming that the only guns you should own are illegal machineguns because otherwise they will just confiscate your legal guns during SHTF. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Practice all you want. In SHTF everything you practiced will change and you'll be getting a knock at your door. I won't...not for radios anyway. They are changing physics?! Stop being tarded: this is like claiming that the only guns you should own are illegal machineguns because otherwise they will just confiscate your legal guns during SHTF. You know I wasn't talking about the science. Your freqs, your repeaters...go poof. |
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Quoted: So you are saying broadcast without a license? Because that’s how you practice. By the way, if it comes to it suppliers will give up their customer list without even being asked. So, yeah, you’ll get your “knock at the door”. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Uhhh, yea they do. It’s not something you’ll understand without some hands on time. When SHTF its too late. The license is just for now so you can practice. Practice all you want. In SHTF everything you practiced will change and you'll be getting a knock at your door. I won't...not for radios anyway. So you are saying broadcast without a license? Because that’s how you practice. By the way, if it comes to it suppliers will give up their customer list without even being asked. So, yeah, you’ll get your “knock at the door”. Again, pinpoint anywhere I said I would transmit outside the law? I'll wait. I want the ability to monitor, but not currently talk to some hambeast in a scooter about the weather at his AO. If SHTF repeaters are going down and you'll be bootlegging it just like me. |
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Quoted: Again, pinpoint anywhere I said I would transmit outside the law? I'll wait. I want the ability to monitor, but not currently talk to some hambeast in a scooter about the weather at his AO. If SHTF repeaters are going down and you'll be bootlegging it just like me. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Uhhh, yea they do. It’s not something you’ll understand without some hands on time. When SHTF its too late. The license is just for now so you can practice. Practice all you want. In SHTF everything you practiced will change and you'll be getting a knock at your door. I won't...not for radios anyway. So you are saying broadcast without a license? Because that’s how you practice. By the way, if it comes to it suppliers will give up their customer list without even being asked. So, yeah, you’ll get your “knock at the door”. Again, pinpoint anywhere I said I would transmit outside the law? I'll wait. I want the ability to monitor, but not currently talk to some hambeast in a scooter about the weather at his AO. If SHTF repeaters are going down and you'll be bootlegging it just like me. You said practice. It’s right there in your post I quoted. If you’re going to practice you’ve got to key up. That’s all there is to it. Being able to just pick up someone else is the easiest most basic part of having a radio. Thinking you’re ready for “SHTF” because you’ve got a radio and heard someone talking is like thinking that you’re ready for “SHTF” because you bought a featherweight revolver and know how to load it. It’s a stupid gear queer mindset that doesn’t know what it doesn’t know. |
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Quoted: Of course they do. If it was a body armor or ammo reseller requiring law enforcement credentials we'd all be incensed, but since it's civi legal radios that's okay. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: My local Ham shop requires a valid call sign to buy equipment from them. Of course they do. If it was a body armor or ammo reseller requiring law enforcement credentials we'd all be incensed, but since it's civi legal radios that's okay. Haven't read past this post, but the "of course they do" comment is off base. I've bought a lot or gear and have never once been asked for a call sign. If I was, I'd take my business elsewhere, and not because I don't have a call. That's a bullshit policy right there. |
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Quoted: Lol, so they are coming to take your radios for no reason? Pro tip: If you have bought anything gun related in the last 5 years with a credit card, you will get that knock long before someone with a ham ticket. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: True, but they're coming after licensees first which was my point. I have other concerns. This was just one. Lol, so they are coming to take your radios for no reason? Pro tip: If you have bought anything gun related in the last 5 years with a credit card, you will get that knock long before someone with a ham ticket. No kidding. 1) It seems to me that getting your HAM license, a call sign, and registering your address with the Federal government is a terrible idea in the current political climate. It's kind of like buying NFA items in that you get to play with the good stuff, but you also move to the top of the government's shit list when they try to curtail rights. ---- Thanks to big tech doing big data things you're already on list if that's what you're worried about. 2) From a preparedness perspective, there's very little value in a HAM license. The discussions taking place now are completely mundane, contrary to what the Feds are claiming. It's literally just discussions about new radio parts, weather, model rocketry, etc. And in a SHTF situation where these means of communication might actually come in handy they won't be there. ---- From a preparedness perspective, there's very little value in going to the shooting range. 3) My wife said something that stopped me in my tracks, "Won't the government just take over the repeaters in a grid down SHTF situation?" In fact, that article above threatens exactly that. If there's any value in HAM after an "event" it will be of the bootleg variety, because your favorite repeater will be down. Having a license will be to your detriment. ---- What do you mean "take over the repeaters"? Many are in peoples' houses. Even without repeaters there's APRS. A wide3-3 will get you pretty far. If two is one and one is none, then I've got a lot of options. Heck, a portable HF radio capable of reaching hundreds of miles (more on a good day) will be here Wednesday. Unless the feds plan on taking over the ionosphere then I've got a means to talk. |
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Quoted: If you are going to get licensed - you better hurry before they start the $35 fee. Incidentally, radio coms isn't something you can easily learn once all the instructional videos are no longer on the internet...or the internet gets shut down. View Quote Weird. The .gov burned all those radio books people used prior to the internet? |
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Quoted: There are HAM nerds out there that can figure out where you're broadcasting from and sic the FCC on you if you're unlicensed. View Quote Those same HAM nerds will be more than willing to put on their brown shirts and report anyone speaking wrongthink over the air to the FCC as well, licensed or unlicensed. |
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Quoted: Haven't read past this post, but the "of course they do" comment is off base. I've bought a lot or gear and have never once been asked for a call sign. If I was, I'd take my business elsewhere, and not because I don't have a call. That's a bullshit policy right there. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: My local Ham shop requires a valid call sign to buy equipment from them. Of course they do. If it was a body armor or ammo reseller requiring law enforcement credentials we'd all be incensed, but since it's civi legal radios that's okay. Haven't read past this post, but the "of course they do" comment is off base. I've bought a lot or gear and have never once been asked for a call sign. If I was, I'd take my business elsewhere, and not because I don't have a call. That's a bullshit policy right there. And if you are that paranoid then just peruse the used market and pay cash. Nobody has asked a call sign when I was at a hamfest. |
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Give me 5 watts, a carrier signal and a simple dipole and I could talk to the world. And space even!
I have 1,000's of contacts worldwide on low power morse code. |
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Quoted: Weird. The .gov burned all those radio books people used prior to the internet? View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: If you are going to get licensed - you better hurry before they start the $35 fee. Incidentally, radio coms isn't something you can easily learn once all the instructional videos are no longer on the internet...or the internet gets shut down. Weird. The .gov burned all those radio books people used prior to the internet? Do you have one? |
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Quoted: I think this really sums it up. If you're really in to radios and just want to chat about mundane shit get your HAM license. It isn't a SHTF tool. View Quote now you're starting to get it ham radio is not tactical encrypted conservative libertarian battle radio. half the country and US hams are LIB-TARDS Rush Limbaugh, and G.Gordon Liddy are not on ham radio some of you guys have been mislead |
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Quoted: No, you think you can listen with your HF rig. The truth is that you don’t know what you are missing with a compromised antenna setup that can only be troubleshot by transmitting. View Quote HF is my current project. Watching youtube videos on antennas, but don't want to make my house look like a radio station at this time. There are some pretty good makeshift antennas that I can put in to practice per the tubes. At any rate, right now I can listen to people from coast to coast and in to Canada on nets and I'm confident in my abilities for small group communications within my AO. That's good enough for me currently and I think would prove more valuable than HF in SHTF...but again I'm working on that aspect as well. |
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I cant believe you have to have a license to operate a radio in the first place
Thats pants on head retarded imho |
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Quoted: There are HAM nerds out there that can figure out where you're broadcasting from and sic the FCC on you if you're unlicensed. View Quote 1. If we're in SHTF, who gives a fuck? 2. If we're in SHTF and you are in the "wrongthink" group (aka conservatism), expect that the FCC will charge you as aiding/furthering the commission of *insert felony here that you are loosely aware of occurring* and you'll have the same end result. 3. You don't think the FCC, NSA, DHS, FBI, etc can do the same thing? HAM nerds are the least of my worries IF (hypothetically speaking) I was using the radios to further the commission of a crime. I'm admittedly ignorant to ham use, but making up some bullshit 4-5 character call sign and saying your piece, then getting off the air and moving the fuck away from where you were just transmitting, would probably do you more good than having a license and all your information in a public database. Just sayin'. |
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Quoted: now you're starting to get it ham radio is not tactical encrypted conservative libertarian battle radio. half the country and US hams are LIB-TARDS Rush Limbaugh, and G.Gordon Liddy are not on ham radio some of you guys have been mislead View Quote Yep. People buying baofengs and shortwave receivers are just wasting money, and getting on the credit card list. |
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Fine. Try to figure out how it all works when shtf. Enjoy your solitude.
Let your generator just sit there till it's go time, too. Don't bother trying to figure out how to get it running and connected. |
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Quoted: And you'll/they'll do what, exactly, when that source is located? Not a damn thing. You're under the assumption the source is constantly transmitting a signal. Folks, establish something similar to the 3-3-3 plan, and stop worrying about the HAM fudds and feds coming for you, especially in a SHTF situation where visitors will soon learn they are not welcome. https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/505435/333_radio_plan_jpg-1785130.JPG View Quote This is useful. I've got multiple simplex channels in my channel bank for family communications. I'm putting one on channel 3. Seems simple enough for everyone to remember. |
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Yeah, this radio stuff is kind of like engineering and shit. It ain't cell phone where there's countless billions of dollars worth of technology to make it simple. This is me and another guy "chatting" on a digital mode ... 1200 miles apart ... each using less than 5 watts of power but with nice antennas and radios costing maybe as cheap as $400-$500 dollars. To get that to work you got get shit right or it doesn't work. Sorry but the sun will be a cold glowing ember in the sky before you figure out which of the dozens of knobs and switches to move to what position let alone know what kind of antenna to use, where to mount it, and most importantly how to tune it. There are tutors (loving called Elmers) who teach others how to do this ... what other appliance in your house required hours and hours of study, a test so that you know what you're doing, and then requires a tutor to assist you. Clubs of these clever people form up and they cross teach each other the math, the science, and magic that is RF communications. Yeah, they tend not to be kids at the Extra and even the General. Lots of Tech licenses to be sure ..
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