SigMatt
Ultimate Member
Yes I have HF comms capability. Icom IC-7489 and Yaesu FT-817ND. General licensed W3BRK. I can be up and running in an hour.
Matt
Matt
Comms - HF
- Thread starter Antarctica
- Start date
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My daughter used to live right up the street from you. You might want to consider editing your call sign out of the post, thru the FCC database anyone can look up your full name and address in less than 10 seconds.
I live in the same zip code.
gamer_jim
Podcaster
Do you like your FT-817?
I'm looking at buying an FT-818ND.
I'm in the process of learning CW and would like to get into POTA.
gamer_jim
Podcaster
Anyone use JS8Call?
A station has a message for me but I can't hear them directly. I do have a relay between us. I tried:
[relay station callsign]>[callsign] QUERY MSGS
But didn't get anything back. The relay station is saying they can hear the station I'm trying to get the message from.
A station has a message for me but I can't hear them directly. I do have a relay between us. I tried:
[relay station callsign]>[callsign] QUERY MSGS
But didn't get anything back. The relay station is saying they can hear the station I'm trying to get the message from.
kshaw
Active Member
I am VHF only.
KC3LLM
KC3LLM
Kshaw I see you are not shy about giving out your name and address
stevenliss
Member
- Mar 3, 2019
- 1
KC3IIW
Just like J3FFG
Not really, I know where Ken and Steve live and so does anyone who looks it up online
I have an ICOM M88 VHF handheld with a whopping 5W. No license. No HAM gear, can't do key, although I hear that isn't required anymore. Somewhere, I have a SW receiver, a Sangean, which I don't listen to anymore. With everything commercial streaming to the web, terrestrial is really fading away.
ICOM M88 has absolutely nothing to do with Amateur Radio HF operation. And HF operation is far from fading away.
I do know what the M88 is and does, and I think I drew a distinction between that and HF transceivers, which I do not have. As far as HF fading away, the trade magazines seem to regularly lament that while many ham operators have been going underground in a permanent way, they have not been replaced in equal numbers by new hobbyists, something to do with other electronic venues, internet, gaming and other interactive opportunities. From what I have read, the technician class licenses reversed the downward trend in new licenses about 12 years ago, so license numbers have been growing again. What isn't reported is how many of those licensees are active and how many are silent.
Thanks for posting this because I hadn't checked recently but it looks as if the numbers of new license holders has declined in recent years so I will have to go back and amend the FAQ. It looks like the peak was around 2018 so the Chinese Bioweapon Virus was probably only partially responsible.
I have seen the type of articles you are referring to since I've been a ham. That is, I've seen the panicked titles even during the years of growth. I've gotten in heated debates as a matter of fact about them because they always say the same thing, "We have to get more young people into the hobby or it's gonna die!". I question that though. Since the majority of amateurs are older and from what I have experienced, got into the hobby later in life, is the target for recruitment really young people? And I'm not saying ignore young people, amateur radio never has and continues to provide activities to stimulate interest. However when the emphasis is strictly that, is there a risk that there is no effort being made to recruit older people? Or even worse that it will deter older people from the hobby.
So yes, at least in this country we may be losing people through attrition. However, from what I have seen there is a general decline in the interest of young people in hobby type activities in general except perhaps gaming.
I think that it is far from dead however. New and better radio models are produced every year and there is even a surge of cheap and sometimes low power transceivers built or available in kit form or both. New digital protocols are being created and adopted. I'm not sure about your use of terrestrial in your posts but there has been a blending of amateur radio and Internet network for many years now and even the establishment of a an independent packet-switched network based on wireless and in part using amateur radio frequencies (although I haven't looked into it recently to see it's current status).
There are also, speaking of terrestrial, I believe, more amateur radio satellites in orbit than ever before including, a geostationary one.
But since this is the prepper forum, does amateur radio still make sense to take up and make a part of disaster preparations? I've seen people just recently lose their power and "terrestrial" communications due to weather. And yes, Starlink and other non-terrestrial forms of communications exist but I read one time that it would take only as few as three collisions of spacecraft/space junk to trigger a chain reaction of other collisions that would make it unlikely to launch anything to orbit for generations. And that was before Starlink. And Starlink is only one of several proposed multi satellite based networks.
I'm not surprised to see that the majority of ham operators are older. (I had a great uncle who had an attic literally full of gear for his station in Hyattsville.) Unless you have a parent or close relative in the hobby, the opportunity to start might be limited. Also, the cost has to be considered. Getting used gear is probably the best way to start as like most hobbies, people upgrade, swap and sell. Also, it isn't exactly a compact setup, your bench may be, but if you get into building an antenna, that doesn't move around so easily (yeah, 2m band, I know) and younger adults are more peripatetic. The hobby fits better with people who are geostationary themselves. One barrier that I think hurt the hobby was requiring key and having to work your way to licenses above that. At one point, it was a motivator to those committed to both the hobby and to experiencing the history through mastery of early technology, but the utility was debatable. The case for requiring it became weaker with time.
It may be waning in North America, but there are still plenty of places in the world where it works well and remains an active hobby. Yaesu, iCom, Kenwood and others, not so much RCA.
Not to derail this thread, but I have been really working hard over the last few years to remove my personal information from online databases. I discovered one website that seems to have data-mined the FCC database to include personal information sold as part of their people search service. I would think the FCC has some rule in place which states that users of the FCC ULS cannot use the data for profit, but I couldn’t find any information about who can access the ULS data and how it can be used or shared.
I really think the FCC should consider amending the personal licensing rules to redact the holders actual street address from general public view.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
gamer_jim
Podcaster
I got a smallish 2M Yagi antenna for xmas so going to try to assemble it today and learn how to work satellites.
There are aspects of it that can be physically challenging. Summits On the Air (SOTA) for instance and there are many lightweight QRP transceivers on the market. For an HF antenna, a wire strung through the trees works very well and there are portable "sticks" type antennas. And yes, a majority of the people in the hobby are not marathon runners but I know some who are as well as many active duty military people.
For that matter, I wouldn't call young people (or people of any age) who play COD all day in their spare time models of physical fitness.
I don't disagree that the Morse requirement became a bit more like hazing to get into a club in recent times when other countries did away with it but it hasn't been a requirement for over twenty years.
Again, numbers of operators in the US may be declining in the last several years but the hobby is growing in many other ways.
This has been asked of the FCC commissioner several times. I'm not sure why they insist on making it publicly available at least for private grants. You don't have to provide your home address though. They have said "Anywhere you can receive mail".
You generally need a 2M/70cm antenna to work amatuer spacecraft unless you just want to listen (or just want to transmit but that's probably not a good thing for anybody). One band is transmit and the other is receive. They can be different for each individual spacecraft. An exception is the ISS which uses 2M on two frequencies. Some amateur spacecraft also use other bands beside 2M/70cm but also use one band for transmit/one for receive.
