Making the most of whats left of the VHF/UHF bands

[kayn1n32008]

IMO Amateur Radio is barely treading water....

Ham radio is a very niche hobby AT BEST.

Sadly it's been invaded by the 48hr HamCram folks that then go out and buy junk $25 CCR's. Then they show up looking for a 'codeplug' because they lack the critical reasoning skills to ask thoughtful questions and apply the information they get told. They only want to be spoonfed what they need. The lack of care or respect for things that we amateur radio operators are supposed to uphold, like ensuring we are transmitting spectrally clean carriers, and complying with the rules, regulations and spirit of what amateur radio is. They have thier annoying Roger beeps, splattering crap across the spectrum and muffled, crappy audio. Then when you tell them their radios suck, sound like crap and are splattering the spectrum with spurs amd harmonics, they get all pissy about it and start telling you that you are an 'elitist', that the radios 'werk grate' and who cares about the spurs and harmonics because it's only a few milliwatts of power and nobody will notice it and it's not hurting any one.

It makes it really hard to want to do anything on the hobby with people like that, because I have absolutely nothing in common with them. It's why I keep to a very small circle of friends in this hobby.

I more use it as spectrum I don't have to pay a yearly fee to use, and really only talk to a small handful of friends, on digital repeaters, using local only talkgroups on DMR and P25.

Even traveling, I rarely PTT. I use it more for background noise when I'm not listening to music.

I'll also use it to listen to truckers on the VHF LADD channels. Weather, road conditions and accidents are shared by drivers constantly, especially on the major routes in the provinces I frequent.

I keep lots of ham repeaters and all the band plan simplex channels programmed in my mobile.

I do travel in areas that lack cellular coverage, and only have ham epeater coverage or Satellite phone coverage.

 

[Spider255]

I do like programming old PMR equipment to work on the Ham bands, its great fun but you do need to tune and align some ex-business radios properly. Some of them do actually work fantastically with clean outputs and very good audio, if your microphone is old and worn out combined with deviation not set correctly then its going to sound like junk. The Motorola radios and Taits I find are the best sets for sounding good on air. My iCom F1010 programed to the 2 meter band sounds brilliant, although the mic is a new old stock basic Sharman's mic, nothing special but sounds fantastic, I've been told by other hams they could hear a pin drop.

 

[kayn1n32008]

I do like programming old PMR equipment to work on the Ham bands, its great fun but you do need to tune and align some ex-business radios properly. Some of them do actually work fantastically with clean outputs and very good audio, if your microphone is old and worn out combined with deviation not set correctly then its going to sound like junk.

Exactly. Tuned and aligned properly. When was the last time a IC-2AT a ham bought in the 80's was aligned? Or any of the multitude of garbage $20 BaoTurd/TYT/BeTech/Tidradio/Aluince or what ever other cheap Chinese garbage, radio on a chip POS


I'm running all XTS/XPR gear right now. Even on a XTS2500's worst day, it sounds better than most of the hammy toys. It can easily be tuned and aligned.

I paid more for my IC-92AD, than any of my XTS2500's.

The Motorola radios and Taits I find are the best sets for sounding good on air. My iCom F1010 programed to the 2 meter band sounds brilliant, although the mic is a new old stock basic Sharman's mic, nothing special but sounds fantastic, I've been told by other hams they could hear a pin drop.

They also properly detect and act on the phase change of properly CTCSS reverse burst present on LMR repeaters, and I don't have to hear the annoying squelch crashes, like with ham gear. Selectivity and front end filtering is so far ahead of any ham gear, except the HTX202.

I'll take LMR gear all day long over ham gear, even with out the ability to do FPP. Not even my XTS2500/5000 portables have FPP or trunking in their Flashport codes.