I'm greener than envy to HAM and need some direction!

[dasboot71]

I'm a total newb to HAM. So to get my feet wet and to see if I am interested in staying in it I purchased a Baofeng UV-S9Plus and a 42.5" Abbree Tactical Antenna, paid for a Premium subscription to Radio Reference, and downloaded CHIRP. When I query Radio Reference and RepeaterBook through CHIRP for the LV both come back with ENORMOUS lists. So I guess my questions for now are as follows:

Of course the following answers need to be within the range of frequencies my limited Baofeng handles VHF: 136-174MHz (RX/TX), UHF: 400-520MHz (RX/TX), 65-108MHz

What repeaters are active and can I reach with my setup(looking at the 133 choices on Repeaterbook is DAUNTING)?

What frequencies (out of the 907 that query in CHIRP from Radio Reference) are interesting and active from Radio Reference? I like listening to Police, Fire, Rescue, Aviation, etc

Radio Reference shows me all Amateur HAM people and Radio Callsigns in my area with the people's names? How do you contact them? Do they have their own frequency or do they just go to general frequencies and/or repeater frequencies? As you can tell I am kind of clueless LOL.

 

[Hit_Factor]

Talk to the guys in your local ham club. They will get you setup, maybe even program your HT to get you started.

The next best thing is your local frequency coordinators, their report on repeaters is what you need.

Repeaterbook has too much info and much of it is outdated and just plain wrong. I found submitting amatuer radio info to RR to have it's own issues.

You won't hear much public safety, unless you are very rural. Most Public Safety uses Trunked P25 systems these days. You probably need a scanner to listen to your list of services. Ham radios don't usually work with in the freqs/bands you listed. Tell us where you are, then we can give better info.

Here is a thread another new ham just started a few days ago. New Technician - starting point questions...

 

[mmckenna]

Of course the following answers need to be within the range of frequencies my limited Baofeng handles VHF: 136-174MHz (RX/TX), UHF: 400-520MHz (RX/TX), 65-108MHz

What repeaters are active and can I reach with my setup(looking at the 133 choices on Repeaterbook is DAUNTING)?

What frequencies (out of the 907 that query in CHIRP from Radio Reference) are interesting and active from Radio Reference? I like listening to Police, Fire, Rescue, Aviation, etc

So, if you have your amateur radio license, you need to understand that the only frequencies you can transmit on are those assigned to amateur radio use. For that radio, that would be in the 144-148MHz range and 420-450MHz range. That's all you can legally transmit on with your ham license, zero exceptions.

Outside of those ranges, you can absolutely program the radio for RECEIVE ONLY. But understand that the radio will only do analog.

One option is to use one of the many online amateur radio repeater guides. Find analog repeaters on the 2 meter and 70 centimeter band that are near you.

For the public safety listening, look for local agencies that use VHF or UHF analog radio systems and program them in as RECEIVE ONLY.

What is available will depend on where you are.

As for finding other hams, locate a local amateur radio club and get involved. That will introduce you to the local amateur radio operators, and they should be willing to help. Their local knowledge will be much more helpful.

 

[dasboot71]

Talk to the guys in your local ham club. They will get you setup, maybe even program your HT to get you started.

The next best thing is your local frequency coordinators, their report on repeaters is what you need.

Repeaterbook has too much info and much of it is outdated and just plain wrong. I found submitting amatuer radio info to RR to have it's own issues.

You won't hear much public safety, unless you are very rural. Most Public Safety uses Trunked P25 systems these days. You probably need a scanner to listen to your list of services. Ham radios don't usually work with in the freqs/bands you listed. Tell us where you are, then we can give better info.

Here is a thread another new ham just started a few days ago. New Technician - starting point questions...

I'm in NW Las Vegas, NV

 

[dasboot71]

So, if you have your amateur radio license, you need to understand that the only frequencies you can transmit on are those assigned to amateur radio use. For that radio, that would be in the 144-148MHz range and 420-450MHz range. That's all you can legally transmit on with your ham license, zero exceptions.

Outside of those ranges, you can absolutely program the radio for RECEIVE ONLY. But understand that the radio will only do analog.

One option is to use one of the many online amateur radio repeater guides. Find analog repeaters on the 2 meter and 70 centimeter band that are near you.

For the public safety listening, look for local agencies that use VHF or UHF analog radio systems and program them in as RECEIVE ONLY.

What is available will depend on where you are.

As for finding other hams, locate a local amateur radio club and get involved. That will introduce you to the local amateur radio operators, and they should be willing to help. Their local knowledge will be much more helpful.

The local club here in Las Vegas meets 3rd weds of the month. I plan on going and seeing what info and help I can obtain.

 

[n4njj]

The local club here in Las Vegas meets 3rd weds of the month. I plan on going and seeing what info and help I can obtain.

I'm also located in the northwest. I run several repeaters right in Centennial Hills:

• 147.210 MHz (-) PL 107.2
• 445.375 MHz (-) PL 107.2
• 449.725 MHz (-) PL 107.2 // Not always up
• 927.1125 MHz (-) DCS 432

Depending on where in the northwest you are, my Angel Peak repeater is 448.325 MHz (-) PL 107.2. Be advised that you might be completely shielded from Angel Peak by a ridge.

My call sign is good on QRZ. You can always shoot me an email.

I have a comprehensive list of what's up and what's not. I'm part of a coalition that has completely audited the ham spectrum over the past three years. Most of the machines on the local legacy repeater coordinator's website are inaccurate/incomplete.

 

[Ravenfalls]

Hi, welcome to the hobby! Las Vegas is filled with ham clubs & so many repeater that provide wide area coverage, you be very happy!

For digital, a local Vegas DMR Group will get you as much knowledge & equipment as you want to take in. Owned by Terry NX7R.
Traveling along I10 & 40. Have solid repeater coverage from NM to the ocean. Mainly So Cal that had some holes, those bad areas have been resolved with new repeaters. Upto St George solid coverage.

GMRS you will hear about. It's another callsign to add. Occasionally small towns have gmrs repeater but no ham.

Email wise, most use their callsign @ Gmail. Com

To locate local Hams information & email address, you enter that via www.qrz.Com
To view the info, you must log in. Also you can add your email address along with a Bio of yourself if you wish.

File attached is latest LV repeater list.

73!

 

[Hit_Factor]

.... Most of the machines on the local legacy repeater coordinator's website are inaccurate/incomplete.

That is really unfortunate.

 

[n4njj]

That is really unfortunate.

It seems to be the case just about everywhere. Look what happened in Florida not too long ago...

 

[com501]

LV has backwards splits, too and weird offsets. (Kinda like SOCAL).

 

[n4njj]

LV has backwards splits, too and weird offsets. (Kinda like SOCAL).

It's funny that you mention that. Everyone that visits from anywhere other than SoCal says the same thing about our splits. The SoCal guys act like everyone else does it weird. I even had one say that everyone else is "wrong." The SoCal influence in ham radio here is very high.

 

[jim202]

If you go to the web site repeaterbook.com you will have to log in, then select the state and frequency band your interested in. It will provide a list of repeaters by frequency wit the output and tone required. Also given for the repeater listing is the county and town or city it is located in. On the far right of that repeater frequency info you see what modes it uses.

I normally go to the bottom of this file list. Then left click on your mouse and hold it down on the right bottom of the list. While continuing to hold the left mouse button down, you scroll to the very top of the entire list. This will highlight the whole list. Let go of the left button of your mouse and right click to highlight the list. Select copy and post it into your word program you use.

Save it to a file with a date as a .doc or .txt file. This will now allow you to be able to print out the entire list of repeaters in the file file.

I then go to the printed list an take a highlighter to select the repeaters of interest, based on location and mode it uses. If it uses a mode other than FM, I use a red marker on the mode and put a line next to the frequency.

This makes selecting what you program into your radios.

If you travel, do the same for the states you will be traveling through. But pay attention to your location by the roads you will be using.

I have an old mapping program that allows me to put tags on the map that I can put in the repeater frequency and tone required. Then print out the maps for my travel route.

I use some old Motorola radios that have zones ability. Then put the repeaters into the zone for that area. Draw lines on the map to show what area the different zones cover. It lets me just select the zone I need and can scan the 15 channels in that zone for activity. Plus I can walk through the channels and see if I can stir up a contact on the different repeaters.

Those with the newer radios will have to keep playing with the radio to set the frequencies and set the tone needed for each repeater.

I got long winded here, but wanted to put out this info for those struggling on repeater use info.

 

[kg4icg]

If you go to the web site repeaterbook.com you will have to log in, then select the state and frequency band your interested in. It will provide a list of repeaters by frequency wit the output and tone required. Also given for the repeater listing is the county and town or city it is located in. On the far right of that repeater frequency info you see what modes it uses.

I normally go to the bottom of this file list. Then left click on your mouse and hold it down on the right bottom of the list. While continuing to hold the left mouse button down, you scroll to the very top of the entire list. This will highlight the whole list. Let go of the left button of your mouse and right click to highlight the list. Select copy and post it into your word program you use.

Save it to a file with a date as a .doc or .txt file. This will now allow you to be able to print out the entire list of repeaters in the file file.

I then go to the printed list an take a highlighter to select the repeaters of interest, based on location and mode it uses. If it uses a mode other than FM, I use a red marker on the mode and put a line next to the frequency.

This makes selecting what you program into your radios.

If you travel, do the same for the states you will be traveling through. But pay attention to your location by the roads you will be using.

I have an old mapping program that allows me to put tags on the map that I can put in the repeater frequency and tone required. Then print out the maps for my travel route.

I use some old Motorola radios that have zones ability. Then put the repeaters into the zone for that area. Draw lines on the map to show what area the different zones cover. It lets me just select the zone I need and can scan the 15 channels in that zone for activity. Plus I can walk through the channels and see if I can stir up a contact on the different repeaters.

Those with the newer radios will have to keep playing with the radio to set the frequencies and set the tone needed for each repeater.

I got long winded here, but wanted to put out this info for those struggling on repeater use info.

Or you could just go to export on repeaterbook and click csv download and it will come out in excel spreadsheet for you for which most cps and chirp programs can read and import

 

[Hooligan]

We can all appreciate your enthusiasm, and yes people on RR are mostly here to be helpful, BUT I think you're being incredibly lazy, asking others to tell you what frequencies you should monitor, and even asking them what ham repeaters they think you can hit via your radio, despite you .

Regardless of whether your bow-wow is the only VHF/UHF receiver you have or not, you simply need to scan the spectrum, hear what you can hear & take notes (log what you're hearing on what freq, then maybe do a RR Database search or FCC License search) & identify users. When it comes to ham radio in-specific, search ham spectrum & take notes. If you're eager to talk with other hams, monitor the repeaters you hear to get a feel for any specific 'culture.' For example, some repeater owners hate the bow-wow and other chicom radios and make announcements that they're not-allowed to transmit on their repeaters (right, Bill??), some repeaters, despite using frequencies you may be allowed to transmit on, are 'private' systems that only members can use. Get a feel for the culture of a repeater (system) and if it's something you like, maybe you can check-in during a repeater club net or join-in during a conversation, and perhaps if the machine is owned by a club, you'll want to join it.

It's normal to be a little nervous & awkward over ham radio initially -- we were all there once -- BUT the key is to LISTEN more than you talk, and when you do talk, have cogent & interesting to say, then un-key! Too many lobotomized or drugged geezers talk on ham radio just for the sake of talking on ham radio and the dialog is completely vapid & dysfunctional (last night, I heard a guy talking for about 90 seconds about how he likes drinking Mr Pibb, but he'll also drink Dr Pepper...). They're not listening to what the other guy is saying, just anxiously waiting for him to un-key so they can start talking, and they cannot just make a simple, quick comment or statement, they feel obligated to ramble for at-least a minute or two before they un-key, and this can go on & on for hours... If you LISTEN with an objective ear, you'll notice that, and be a more interesting speaker, or at-least not-engage with people that aren't capable of partaking in an intelligent dialog. I've been a ham for about 40 years, and when I realize that I'm just rambling-on, I sign-out from a dialog, even if others were also just rambling.

Import ham repeater systems from various databases. Some of the info will likely be wrong (repeater long-gone, or switched from analog to digital voice only, or changed CTCSS/DCS, etc.) but enough of it will be right, to help get you started with ham radio. Hopefully in the three months since you posted, you've made great progress -- by taking the initiative to search/scan/listen/research, instead of relying on others to do it for you.

 

[jim202]

One big point that bites my butt is someone getting on a repeater and just giving their call verbally without providing it phonetically also. Many letters sound so much the same. If your not a local that gets on often, most people probably will not catch your call sign.

At the same time it would really help to identify just which repeater your talking on. There are several reasons to give the repeater frequency. One is that many hams have their radio scanning and probably won't catch which frequency or repeater the radio scan came up on. If someone is mobile, it is generally hard to look down at the radio just as your talking and giving out your call sign.

In my case, I have 7 different radios going on my work bench. Unless I swing my head real fast, I generally have no idea which radio was talking unless the repeaters identifies.

So give those on the other end of a repeater consideration when your looking for a contact.

Another issue I hear often is a ham will come up on a repeater and only put out the call of the person they are looking for and asking if that person is there. This doesn't follow the FCC rules by not following the call with "This is" and not providing your own call.

Here in the region where I live, there is a fairly active FCC monitoring office in New Orleans that is staffed with hams that like to monitor the ham repeaters in the area. It would not be out of the picture to hear from one of them contacting you for not following the rules and regulations that all of us hams have to operate under the part 97 rules if I remember correctly.

I am not posting this to be a hard butt, but to offer up some issues or problems on how some hams operate. Consider the comments and think about how you normally operate. Be considerate of those that could be listening. At least provide a chance that you might get a response to your transmission.