Quoted:
How much money would I need to spend to get into a decent ham set-up?
Karl
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I recommend in order 1. Ham Radio [^] 2. GMRS 3. CB SSB 5. CB AM.
Ham is by far the better choice. Lots of different bands and opportunities. Higher level of ettiqute.
You can learn a bit about what you are doing. check out www.arrl.org You are looking for the technician class
study book. The first test is mostly common sense and is not difficult with a little effort, you need a 70% (I think ) to pass.
For a standard mobile set up, the Yeasu FT-2600 goes for about $165 from www.aesham.com or www.hamradio.com This is about the
price of a SSB CB rig. Add an MFJ 5/8 wave 2m mobile mag mount antenna for <$30 to complete the setup. This will give you a reliable 60w 2m FM rig. Genrally FM sounds _a lot_ better than AM or SSB. Wire it directly to the battery through a fuse with 8g wire. Clarity is not even comparable with CB. For a home setup, get a Ringo Ranger II
~$50 and put it as high as you can. Get a Yeasu VX5R triband handheld radio for handheld use. 2m (146mhz) ham
radio is the most popular, but it is only the tip of the iceberg of possibilities.
The test costs ~$10 and books can be found at radio shack or your library. At 2m comprable antennas are generally much shorter and the equipment is generally of a better quality than CB.
Another benefit of ham is that there usually are repeaters in the area which _dramatically_ increase your coverage.
They are just like any public service repeater, put an antenna on a tall tower and repeat your signal, higher
up and with more power. But even 2m simplex (radio to radio direct) is tons better than CB.
For radio reviews check out (but you can get bogged down): http://www.eham.net/reviews/
A GMRS family license can be obtained for a fee from the FCC. They operate around 460mhz (above the 70cm ham band).
The coverage is not at good as 2m in the mountians. The operate on similar frequencies and channels as FRS but
with higher power possibilities. http://www.gmrsweb.com/gmrs.html
FRS is excellent for _short_ range stuff and they are cheap enough you don't have to worry if you break one.
SSB CB allows more power and more effecient signal.
AM CB. fairly ineffecient, but cheap. I have had very poor luck with CB in the mountians. A simplistic explaination of effeciency is: 1/2 of the signal goes into the carrier, the sidebands are duplicates, so only 1/2 of that holds non duplicated information, so at full modulation (peak of your yell) only 25% or 1w is doing
anything useful. SSB gets rid of the carrier and one sideband, so roughly speaking you get a 6db (4x) improvement
from SSB, plus you are allowed 200% (~6db) more power.
have fun! [:D]