Looking to get my license but question about people to talk to?

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ttkoestner

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Been considering getting my license seriously for about a month now. I have a couple of scanners that I have been using to scan the ham band to see how active it is in my location. I have also looked up the local ham towers and frequencies and there are several within 5-10 miles from my location. I also inputted their frequencies in my scanners. Thing is I NEVER hear anyone talking.

If I get my license I will be using a handheld as I do not want to mount an antenna to my home or fool with coax wiring. However I don't want to get my license if there is no action from my house. I'm about 30 miles north of San Antonio TX.
 

nd5y

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I have also looked up the local ham towers and frequencies and there are several within 5-10 miles from my location. I also inputted their frequencies in my scanners. Thing is I NEVER hear anyone talking.
Where did you find the frequencies? The source could be outdated or bad.
What are you using for a receiver?

If you are using a scanner try searching these ranges where most repeater outputs and FM simplex frequencies in Texas are and see if you hear anything.
145.1-147.6 in 5 kHz steps.
223.4-225.0 in 20 kHz steps.
441.0-446.5 in 25 kHz steps.

You might go for hours or maybe even days without hearing anything. That could be normal depending on how many hams and active repeaters there are near you.

You might not be able to hear very far with a hand held. That will severely limit what you are able to do. Depending on how your house is constructed it could significantly attenuate RF.
 

mass-man

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Ouch....limiting yourself to a handheld is not gonna work out so well! Kinda like remodeling your kitchen and putting in a hot plate in lieu of a four burner range! It will work but not well and you’ll be disappointed! You’ll be limiting yourself to the absolute nearest repeater, that may or may not be active. An outside antenna and a rig with 20-50 watts out and your options increase.
You may want to concentrate your ham scanning on repeaters near you and get a good idea of just what’s possible...to enjoy the hobby you studied and tested for might require a bit more of an open mind!
 

n0xvz

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Sometimes the best way to generate traffic on your local repeaters is by throwing out your callsign. When I monitor my local repeaters, I don't hear a lot of traffic either. Maybe one a week or so. I know there are a couple of local nets, but never remember when they are on the air.

I understand your desire to stick to a handheld. I've done that too (for my own reasons). The posters above are correct. It might make conversing with others more difficult, and you might learn that it won't do everything you want it to. I'm in a similar boat, but I almost never am on the air. Since most of my monitoring would be curing my commute to and from work, I haven't been able to convince myself to install a mobile radio in my truck.
 
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chrismol1

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Besides repeaterbook, try K1IW Amateur Radio Repeater and Broadcast Transmitter Database Websearch and Google your area counties as in - "xxx county and amateur radio" if they have a website besides their repeaters hopefully a list of times of nets
Try scanning the bands in the evening, thats usually when the scan will land on the long winded chats. Also try in the morning and afternoon during commuter hours. Sometimes there just isnt anything outside those hours until a few folks at home get on the air. I'd find it hard to believe you couldnt find at least someone reminiscing their last doctor visit or a meat loaf recipe
 
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ttkoestner

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Where did you find the frequencies? The source could be outdated or bad.
What are you using for a receiver?

If you are using a scanner try searching these ranges where most repeater outputs and FM simplex frequencies in Texas are and see if you hear anything.
145.1-147.6 in 5 kHz steps.
223.4-225.0 in 20 kHz steps.
441.0-446.5 in 25 kHz steps.

You might go for hours or maybe even days without hearing anything. That could be normal depending on how many hams and active repeaters there are near you.

You might not be able to hear very far with a hand held. That will severely limit what you are able to do. Depending on how your house is constructed it could significantly attenuate RF.
This https://repeaterbook.com/repeaters/location_search.php?state_id=48&type=city&loc=Boerne
 

ttkoestner

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Where did you find the frequencies? The source could be outdated or bad.
What are you using for a receiver?

If you are using a scanner try searching these ranges where most repeater outputs and FM simplex frequencies in Texas are and see if you hear anything.
145.1-147.6 in 5 kHz steps.
223.4-225.0 in 20 kHz steps.
441.0-446.5 in 25 kHz steps.

You might go for hours or maybe even days without hearing anything. That could be normal depending on how many hams and active repeaters there are near you.

You might not be able to hear very far with a hand held. That will severely limit what you are able to do. Depending on how your house is constructed it could significantly attenuate RF.
Scanning with a BCD436HP and a older RS Pro-95.
 

nd5y

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I have no idea if RepeaterBook is any good in your area. For my county it's a joke. I don't know where they get their data but most of the repeaters listed haven't existed for decades. Even some of the ones with green on-air indicators don't exist any more.

Pro-95s are good unless you have nearby FM broadcast stations. They scan and search fast. I have no experience with HP scanners.
 

Louie1961

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Ouch....limiting yourself to a handheld is not gonna work out so well! Kinda like remodeling your kitchen and putting in a hot plate in lieu of a four burner range! It will work but not well and you’ll be disappointed!

This is definitely not true if you get yourself a hotspot and start dabbling in the digital modes (DMR, D-STAR, YSF, etc.). Lots of local analog repeaters are pretty barren of traffic, but the hotspot acts as your personal repeater, and opens up a lot of users/activity to you.
 

Louie1961

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Check out these folks, and I bet they can answer all your questions KB5TX

It looks like they run combination analog/digital repeaters (Yaesu Fusion). You may not pick up any activity on your scanner if they predominantly use digital mode.

"KARS Net meets every Tuesday night at 7pm on the 146.64 repeater. All are welcome. " - I would make a point of trying to listen in on Tuesday night

If you don't hear anything, you may want to join one of their virtual club meetings: "Out of an abundance of caution, we will NOT have a have the face-to-face element for the meeting on Thursday, January 4. The meeting will be ALL VIRTUAL using SKYPE. The link will be published around 6pm on groups.io. "
 

alcahuete

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As has been said, a lot of hams have moved over to digital, so the local standalone repeaters often don't get a lot of traffic. Jump on a DMR repeater or get yourself a hotspot and there will be traffic quite literally 24/7.
 

ttkoestner

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As has been said, a lot of hams have moved over to digital, so the local standalone repeaters often don't get a lot of traffic. Jump on a DMR repeater or get yourself a hotspot and there will be traffic quite literally 24/7.
This digital seems like something I would be interested when I get my license. Could you please post a link on it so I can read up on it?
 

alcahuete

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This digital seems like something I would be interested when I get my license. Could you please post a link on it so I can read up on it?

The link that Louie posted is good. There are a few different modes out there, DMR, D-Star, Fusion, etc. DMR is the most popular. It can be more challenging to use and program and get set up, but once you do, as I mentioned, there are people on 24/7. On the World Talkgroup, for example, you're lucky if you can find a 5 minute break in traffic at any given time.

Just to give you an idea, here is the talkgroup list on the largest DMR network: Talkgroups | BrandMeister

There are ones that are dedicated to individual states or counties, EMCOMM, various interests, you name it. And it's truly worldwide, so you are not relying on local people within a couple dozen miles of your own local repeaters.

Most people access the DMR networks using a hotspot. You can search for amateur radio hotspot and you'll get more results than you know what to do with. It connects to your home internet (or cell phone, if you use one mobile) and gives you access to whatever talkgroup you want, whenever you want. You'll hear some people complain that it isn't really ham radio, since your hotspot is going through the internet, but you're using a radio to get to your hotspot, and broadcasting over tens of thousands of other hotspots and repeaters on the other end.

You don't have to use a hotspot. There are plenty of digital repeaters out there, but you are more at the mercy of what the repeater owner has set up. With a hotspot, you control everything.

Again, there's nothing wrong with standard analog FM repeaters. Here in Southern California, for example, they are still reasonably active. But then again, we are blessed with big mountains, linked systems, and repeaters that can cover a hundred miles or more. But where you are, that just might not be the case. A lot of analog repeaters just don't get utilized that much anymore.
 

edweirdFL

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I find that the over the air repeaters that are linked to a network, and the digital mode talkgroups that you might access from home using a hotspot tend to have the most traffic for a HT user to access. In my area I need a hotspot for DStar but there's at least 1 active DMR repeater. The regular FM repeaters have always been rather quiet here. That's one of the reasons I prefer HF. You can almost always find a band opening to somewhere.
 

nd5y

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I would be careful about learning anything from the DMR for Dummies web site.

The very first sentence says:
DMR stands for Digital Mobile Radio and uses the Motorola TRBO protocol for communications.

They got that backwards. MOTOTRBO uses the DMR standard (plus proprietary add-ons) which was developed by ETSI. If they can't even get that right then there's no telling what else is wrong.
 

hill

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A lot of nets in your area, but to get into them reliability a mobile radio used as base would most likely be required. You may not need a outdoor antenna, as plenty can be done with an antenna in the attic. I live in a apartment and use an indoor antenna to access the repeaters, but have many hams I talk with in the early mornings on the way to work from the mobile also. Some of the repeaters have been more quiet with the lockdowns and more people just working from home.

In my area a lot hams don't use repeaters and they have a 2 meter simplex frequency they talk on.

I see there is a radio traffic net every day and we have one is my area that welcomes new hams.

I say get your license and join a local club. The hams will be able to assist you with getting on the air. Plus after they know you will be more likely to talk with on the local repeaters. Plenty to do in ham radio to increase your knowledge of radio and you will not regret it.
 
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