“General” frequency to monitor when driving

[N4GIX]

As I've mentioned a time or two previously, I monitor both 146.52 and 446 on a dedicated radio here in my shack.

Well yesterday morning this paid off in spades as I had a cool QSO with K0JLC Aeronautical Mobile on .52. Jason was flying his Piper Twin Cherokee at FL240 while traversing the Midwest from East to West. I picked him up from just east of Ft. Wayne, Indiana to about 50nm past Rockford, Illinois.

 

[KK4JUG]

That almost re-defines line-of-sight for a ham.

 

[N4GIX]

That almost re-defines line-of-sight for a ham.

Absolutely, it was purely LOS, given that he was on a 5 watt HT at the time! He had his pax writing down the log info so he can enter it in his computer log this evening. He was wanting to see how many people were monitoring .52 and would reply...

 

[DeepBlue]

That almost re-defines line-of-sight for a ham.

EME is half line of sight. My longest contact on the longest of all possible paths so far is over 243,000 miles with 80 watts (at 1.2 gHz).

Still smiling about that.

KB8JNE

 

[prcguy]

You can do much farther under the right conditions. I once did over 400mi with a 5w handheld in a vehicle with a 1/4 wave whip to an aircraft. I was about 1,000ft high on a hill and the aircraft was around 37,000ft.

As I've mentioned a time or two previously, I monitor both 146.52 and 446 on a dedicated radio here in my shack.

Well yesterday morning this paid off in spades as I had a cool QSO with K0JLC Aeronautical Mobile on .52. Jason was flying his Piper Twin Cherokee at FL240 while traversing the Midwest from East to West. I picked him up from just east of Ft. Wayne, Indiana to about 50nm past Rockford, Illinois.

 

[Lauri-CoyoteFrostbite]

That's Neat 4GIX , and fun, No ?.......

It shows that "52" is worth parking a radio on. Personally, its the only VHF frequency I listen to.

At home in my mountains we do SOTA- "Summits on the Air." The airline distances out to the eastern plains from atop a 13-14,000 foot peak with a "52" handheld can be over a 'hundred miles.... I have made "summit to summit' contacts to over twice that.


Lauri

 

[Triple6Ham]

I always though it was 146.000 but I usually listen to repeaters when I'm staying local

 

[N4GIX]

Close, but no cigar: 146.52 and 446.000 are the suggested "National Calling Frequencies."

 

[Triple6Ham]

thanks, 70m is the .000, I got confused.

 

[KE0GXN]

As I've mentioned a time or two previously, I monitor both 146.52 and 446 on a dedicated radio here in my shack.

Well yesterday morning this paid off in spades as I had a cool QSO with K0JLC Aeronautical Mobile on .52. Jason was flying his Piper Twin Cherokee at FL240 while traversing the Midwest from East to West. I picked him up from just east of Ft. Wayne, Indiana to about 50nm past Rockford, Illinois.

Those are always cool. I got Jason in the log back in November of 2018 on .52 in the parking lot of daughter's school while I was waiting to pick her up. He was over Kansas somewhere at the time. They are rare to get for sure, so far I have 3 total, the two others were in the shack while scanning, I have .52 in my scan list, as well as .0 He had quite the pile-up that day from folks in MO. KS and OK!

 

[bill4long]

2 meters has occasional tropospheric openings where long distance communication is possible by people on the ground. Distance is usually 50 to 200 miles. My farthest tropospheric 2 meter DX was over 1000 miles from Ohio to Texas. Mode was FM running 100 watts on a Diamond vertical.

Tropospheric propagation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[N4DJC]

I usually run APRS and monitor 146.52. I had a QSO with a guy traveling to New Jersey some months back after seeing him pop up on APRS and saw he was monitoring a local wide area repeater...we talked for a half hour. Lots of fun.

Seems a few of us monitored 146.58 on the interstates years ago.

 

[KK2DOG]

146.520 for me...in the car or in the shack from FN24.

 

[popnokick]

My radios all have a button and / or function labeled "Scan". And when mobile, that's what I'm doing (of course with .52 and 446.000 in the list).

 

[TheSpaceMann]

146.52 when I travel, but unfortunately I usually find a lot more activity on 27.185.

 

[KE0GXN]

On the road trips I have been on, for the most part, crickets is all I hear on .52. Your better off programming local repeaters into your radio prior to your trip utilizing RepeaterBook, etc...Other than being at the right place at the right time for a few air mobile contacts, can’t say I have heard much on .52.

Like @TheSpaceMann said, there is always something on CH 19....It just may not be as civil as .52..

 

[KK4JUG]

On the road trips I have been on, for the most part, crickets is all I hear on .52. Your better off programming local repeaters into your radio prior to your trip utilizing RepeaterBook, etc...Other than being at the right place at the right time for a few air mobile contacts, can’t say I have heard much on .52.

Like @TheSpaceMann said, there is always something on CH 19....It just may not be as civil as .52..

I've been pre-programming for years. Some of my regular trips (GA to MI to see the grandkids, GA to Wichita, GA to Dallas, Okefenokee Swamp for camping, etc.) are stored in the hyper memory (I think that's what they call it) of my FT8900 for easy retrieval. One side of the radio is on .52 and the other is used for repeaters programmed in for the trip. I have one of those Cobra "everything in the mic" CB radios but I seldom use it. I'm certainly no prude but some of the things that go on even embarrass me. If I have to fall back to CB, it takes less than 5 minutes to dig it out and put it to work.

 

[needairtime]

In the boonies, seems all the 'chicken band' traffic is on 27.025 just because of those seat warmers.
I rarely hear anything on 27.185.

Pretty much I just keep local repeaters programmed/tuned, mainly because the radio I use in the car is a 10W commercial radio retuned to the 70cm amateur band. Also 446.000 is programmed, but due to difficulty in programming and lack of scan on this radio I don't bother, and resort to the Baofeng HT when I need on the go programmability.

Someday, I need to get a real mobile amateur radio.