Newb looking for guidance

[freqhopping]

It looks like there are two 70cm repeaters that could potentially be within range in GA. The close one seems to have limited talkgroups, the other doesn't say and the club site doesn't have any info either.

Echolink on W4HHH is in range.

Several Echolink options in KY. One DMR option but only the KY talkgroup.

 

[KMG54]

Why is 10 meters getting dissed, I can talk 300 to 500 hundred miles all day with 200 watts.

 

[alcahuete]

Why is 10 meters getting dissed, I can talk 300 to 500 hundred miles all day with 200 watts.

Nobody is dissing 10m. It's a fantastic band. But if you want reliable 500 mile communication 24/7, 10m is not the band for that. You generally need a combination of bands, and unless you use CW, you aren't going to get that combo with a Tech. license.

Even in the best solar cycles, it is rarely open really late into the night. During the solar minima, it is most definitely dead after sunset, and usually all day too.

 

[Lauri-CoyoteFrostbite]

.

"................. if you want reliable 500 mile communication 24/7, 10m is not the band .........."

That can not be said strongly enuff.

Ten is a VHF band, contrary to what others may say. I does exhibit high frequency properties during periods of soar activity that enhance's its long distance properties, but the day to day conditions for anything point -to-point limits it to the <100 mile range. At 28 MHz there is no ground wave such as found on 160....even as high as 40 metre's........ you are shooting your RF over the horizon and off into space.
I will concede with beams and high power you can achieve considerable range by scatter effect, but this is a specialty mode-- not possible with your average low power'd 100 watt dipole station.

I hate to be the wet blanket-- but if you are thinking 10 metre's you might as well be thinking 6 or 2--- unless its during skip, when anything goes,-- but 'skip' is not to be relied upon-- and as any commerciall/government users can attest, that is often a curse **.

There are many reasons why the 25 to 60 MHz spectrum is commercial junk -- these are just a few.

.
________________________________________________________________


**We used 150 watt low band mobiles all through out my field work'ing days. These stations could reliably talk 50, 60 even out as far 100 miles....but that was it.... that is, until there was 'skip' when they didn't talk anywhere. We seemed to share some 30 meg channels with, what we could only call --The Somali Pirates. What ever language they spoke was shouted and always accompanied by loud racing engine noises-- speed boats running down container ships maybe ? We never knew, but though it was amusing it wrecked havoc on our days .
.

 

[Boombox]

No band is completely, 100% reliable for 500 miles, or even 200 miles, or even 1000 miles. I just tuned the ham bands this AM and heard nothing but static with a trace of FT8/JT65 on 7075 kHz. The rest was just noise.

Conditions and propagation varies. So there's that.

But, that said, if you have a good antenna and a decent HF radio -- and the person on the other end has the same -- with HF (and a General license) you have several bands to choose from (10, 12, 17, 20, 30, 40, 75, and 160) and hopefully at least one of them, along with at least one mode, would get you connected.

On good days (good propagation) I've heard regional nets in Canada on 40 meters, where they're fielding calls from all over BC and Alberta, and sometimes into Saskatchewan. That covers 500 miles easy. So it can be done on HF.

 

[N4JKD]

It is a must for HF. I recommend the General class license as a baseline for any ham. That way you can use HF if you want to, but also all of the benefits of the Technician class license. You can than talk from Georgia to Kentucky and many other places, including DX (international contacts).