I finally yielded

GlobalNorth

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Always wanted a 1.25 meter radio, so i brought a Yaesu VX-6R. Now to hit a repeater and if I make a simplex contact, I'm buying a MegaMillions/Powerball ticket.
 

Rt169Radio

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One ticket for each contact?

Are you using programing software or did you program it by hand?
 

GlobalNorth

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After trying manual programming, I bought the RT Systems software and cable. I don't have infinite levels of patience in my waning years and it makes programming so much easier.

There is no activity in my area, so I drove to Phoenix. There was one machine kerchunk heard on 224.600 and no one ever answered my repeated calls. Hams don't need encryption, just use 222+ and no one is likely to overheard a QSO.

No lottery tickets purchased by me either.
 

AK9R

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There was one machine kerchunk heard on 224.600 and no one ever answered my repeated calls.
Since your radio is only rated to produce 1.5 watts RF output on the 222 MHz band, it's entirely possible that your signal was so poor into the repeater that nobody could understand you.
 

GlobalNorth

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Since your radio is only rated to produce 1.5 watts RF output on the 222 MHz band, it's entirely possible that your signal was so poor into the repeater that nobody could understand you.

Thanks, but that wasn't it.

I was line of sight clear to the machine on top of a ~3800 foot mountain and only a few miles away. I could hear the Morse ID as clear as day. The radio was turned to low power and checked for TX capacity against a scanner and it worked well on simplex.

In central AZ, 220 MHz is as dead as Harambe's ghost.
 

mikewazowski

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I got my hands on a Motorola MOF230, programmed up our local 1.25m repeater and gave it a quick kerchunk. Got a terse reply back from one of the locals about who was kerchunking the repeater without ID'ing. From listening, it seems two club members have adopted the repeater as their private channel and were surprised to hear someone else had 1.25m capability.
 

AK9R

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From listening, it seems two club members have adopted the repeater as their private channel and were surprised to hear someone else had 1.25m capability.
There used to be some guys in my area who gathered on 223.500 MHz simplex. They were surprised when a young codeless Technician showed up on their frequency many years ago. ;)
 
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