What I've learned after 26 days as a ham...

[kayn1n32008]

This is where I chime in and say that my first "ham radio" was a Yaesu FT-23R. Five watt handheld, 2m only, just 10 memory channels, DTMF and CTCSS were options. About $230 in 1989; $589.47 today. Don't tell me about the "high cost of entry".

Exactly. My first dual band radio was a TH-79AD, with a spare, low power, high capacity battery. For a 16yo, it was incredibly expensive.

 

[K9KLC]

I'm having trouble figuring out how to create a digital channel in my Anytone' is going to get my attention.

'Does someone have a basic digital codeplug for an Anyone, that I can use to learn how to program my new radio' is going to get my attention

''Where can I get a codeplug for x area' is going to either get ignored completely.

Unfortunately or maybe fortunately, this is the same criteria I have started to go by. I don't do much DMR these days (twice a year for a simplex event) on 33CM with a local group, and once in a GREAT while to help test a local repeater out, I have helped some people get started with some very basic programming to first time Motorola users by providing a starter plug for them to expound on for the 33cm ham band. I'm actually amazed how quickly most of them caught on, maybe even quicker than I did.

 

[kayn1n32008]

Unfortunately or maybe fortunately, this is the same criteria I have started to go by. I don't do much DMR these days (twice a year for a simplex event) on 33CM with a local group, and once in a GREAT while to help test a local repeater out, I have helped some people get started with some very basic programming to first time Motorola users by providing a starter plug for them to expound on for the 33cm ham band. I'm actually amazed how quickly most of them caught on, maybe even quicker than I did.

Yep. I'm not going to waste a second of time on someone that wants to be spoonfed, or won't make any effort to learn.

I just used DMR as it's the easiest to see who wants to be spoonfed and who wants to learn.

It's also why I tend to stick to the local talkgroup or our stand alone P25 repeater.

 

[k6cpo]

The entire concept of elmering has been replaced by YouTube and short attention spans. If one can't get their fix of info in 10 minutes, they move on. This is not just an amateur radio thing, it's today's humans versus old school "free range" humans who had to WORK and put in TIME to gain knowledge, experience and payed it forward passing it onto the next generation.

That's been replaced by technology fed by algorithms and AI, all owned by a small number of corporations. Change my mind.

I really wish amateur radio would rid itself of all the outdated sayings and titles. The name "Elmer" conjures up a short, bald cartoon character with a speech defect who doesn't seem to know how to do anything except hunt a smart-a** rabbit. Mentoring of young people is a really big thing today and amateur radio could do well to drag itself out of the dark and get with the program.

 

[MTS2000des]

I really wish amateur radio would rid itself of all the outdated sayings and titles. The name "Elmer" conjures up a short, bald cartoon character with a speech defect who doesn't seem to know how to do anything except hunt a smart-a** rabbit. Mentoring of young people is a really big thing today and amateur radio could do well to drag itself out of the dark and get with the program.

When the student is ready, the professor will appear.
The challenge is, the students aren't often ready. What is the solution?

 

[KE9BXE]

Are you saying hams are not “professional” enough to use dmr or p25? I assume not. Any form of radio should not be categorized as belonging to a certain type of user only. While there are primary uses of certain types, I believe this is too broad a statement. See my next post.

I think the person was inferring that DMR and p25 were professional technologies that had trained and licensed administrators doing somewhat straightforward configurations. (E.g. 8 talk groups for a municipality) That tech has been shoehorned into the amateur radio space, but it was done without consideration for what happens when you have 277000 DMR IDs and growing (while only a handful of DMR radios can hold all the IDs) and no one ever dreamed of 1700 and growing talk groups.

It was akin to creating a local area network (LAN) technology like Novell IPX in the 1990s to service 500 hosts and then deploying it as the global WAN standard supporting 8 billion devices. Whoops.

 

[MTS2000des]

I think the person was inferring that DMR and p25 were professional technologies that had trained and licensed administrators doing somewhat straightforward configurations. (E.g. 8 talk groups for a municipality) That tech has been shoehorned into the amateur radio space, but it was done without consideration for what happens when you have 277000 DMR IDs and growing (while only a handful of DMR radios can hold all the IDs) and no one ever dreamed of 1700 and growing talk groups.

It was akin to creating a local area network (LAN) technology like Novell IPX in the 1990s to service 500 hosts and then deploying it as the global WAN standard supporting 8 billion devices. Whoops.

Any commercial technology requires technical skill set. This is where the rubber meets the road. There are some well executed amateur DMR, NXDN and P25 networks. Those who implement them usually have more experience than the typical YouTube ham. Many also happen to do it for a living. I operate a P25 amateur reflector connected to a P25 repeater. I don't have "a zillion talk groups" and it is not intended to be the gas bag box of the SE. P25 itself requires real professional radios, no poor performing CCR trash can rigs exist for P25, and one has to have at least a modicum of skill programming subscribers.

DMR has become attractive because of the low cost subscriber radios from China and hot spots. It can perform very well if a network is planned. 2 time slots sharing 15,000 talk groups is as asinine as 1,500 wide area talk groups on a low channel capacity RFSS in a P25 trunked environment. Some of us understand that. But many do not, but it is not a fault of the technology, it's the lack of skill on the users' part. This also shows with the horrible audio quality of low cost DMR radios, hot spots on networks without QoS, and lids kerchunking talk groups to "activate" them on a given repeater (which BTW, is illegal unidentified transmission as DMR IDs are NOT call signs and thus, don't qualify for legal identification on part 97).

 

[KE9BXE]

I am a life long learner, and I don't have an issue with helping and teaching what I know, to others that want to learn. What I .on't have time for, is people that can't be bothered to do any research on their own, and just expect others to spoonfeed them the answers

'I'm having trouble figuring out how to create a digital channel in my Anytone' is going to get my attention.

'Does someone have a basic digital codeplug for an Anyone, that I can use to learn how to program my new radio' is going to get my attention

''Where can I get a codeplug for x area' is going to either get ignored completely.

In defense of the new and naive, I think these are perfectly reasonable questions, I think the answers are embarrassing. The answer goes something like this: "Ham has been given a century to develop and organize itself, but it hasn't. There are very few codeplugs out of the box that work for an area for several reasons. 1.) Digital technology is totally fragmented in most areas. 2.) There is no registration of repeaters that requires a pledge that you will operate them for a period of time and keep them in a registry. 3.) As insane as it sounds, you must constantly and perpetually tweak your codeplugs because repeaters die or their functions are not maintained to a standard of a does-not-exist self governing association or fraternity.

The question from a neophyte isn't the embarrassing part, its that in a century of RF so little structure and organization has formed. Contrast this to the other technical disciplines and even in an area of chaos and creativity (free open source software?) there is structure, governing principles, and accountability.

Anyone getting into ham is going to ask questions based on assumptions that it would function like other technologies and they are shocked to learn that it does not. Even the basics of a central repository of codeplugs that the world has nominated to be the defacto place to get them does not exist, unlike software where you could say it is Github.

I'm not ripping on ham, but I am defending the questions of the naive because their questions are natural, the answers are true but illogical.

As to the hate for the $13 baofeng radio (CCR?), I hate to say it, but with 100% certainty they will probably run ALL the other companies out of business in the coming years if radio acts like any other technological product. They started by making junk, then held their pricepoints and made better, and continued to evolve into digital where you can get a DMR for $50 while competitors were at $600. Then they branched out into the full-featured Radiooddity/TTY/Anytone $200-$300 pricepoint offering way more tech than any other players because they had the VOLUME of units sold that could bend the COST OF GOODS down. Give it five years and there will be so little market left for an Icom or Yaesu left to vie for, the premium companies will be forced to double their costs since they'll have an ever shrinking specialty market. All while the CCRs are able to pack more features into a small factor for far lower costs. In 20 years, a Baofeng version of an ICOM 7300 will be ubiquitous for 1/4 the price. You can hate this opinion, but its the logical conclusion of global markets and mass manufacturing, the CCRs have the power of market hegemony.

 

[K9KLC]

To date, none of the younger people I and others are "mentoring" (I'll use that word since someone here doesn't like Elmer) have expressed those thoughts. Also honestly to date, while some are using the CCR's for now, none of them intend to stay with that radio once other options present themselves. We often loan radios to young people to get their feet wet on things. To go on further, honestly, none have expressed (that I know of anyway ) an interest in DMR via internet connections. The answers I get from "kids" now a days is, "I've done that on my iPhone for years, I didn't get a ham radio license to talk on the internet". If I could ask you, the OP, why are you so obsessed with DMR? (I'd really like to know not being snarky). DMR travels usually the least furthest of any of the digital modes. Many hams don't even use it via the internet, it's a mode, just like CW, SSB, and all the rest to some people. Again, I'm just curios why you seem so obsessed with a mode that is used in the technician portion of the ham bands is of such great interest to someone with an extra class license. And again, I'm honestly just curious. Thanks.

 

[KE9BXE]

To date, none of the younger people I and others are "mentoring" (I'll use that word since someone here doesn't like Elmer) have expressed those thoughts. Also honestly to date, while some are using the CCR's for now, none of them intend to stay with that radio once other options present themselves. We often loan radios to young people to get their feet wet on things. To go on further, honestly, none have expressed (that I know of anyway ) an interest in DMR via internet connections. The answers I get from "kids" now a days is, "I've done that on my iPhone for years, I didn't get a ham radio license to talk on the internet". If I could ask you, the OP, why are you so obsessed with DMR? (I'd really like to know not being snarky). DMR travels usually the least furthest of any of the digital modes. Many hams don't even use it via the internet, it's a mode, just like CW, SSB, and all the rest to some people. Again, I'm just curios why you seem so obsessed with a mode that is used in the technician portion of the ham bands is of such great interest to someone with an extra class license. And again, I'm honestly just curious. Thanks.

Because DMR has the largest member network. Even though it is “VHS”, inferior to your technical views of “beta”, for the long term it will win the digital war because the other competing techs are more expensive and they haven’t opened their technology up to competitors.

That’s pretty much it, it was a very cheap add-on functionaity to a decent radio and it works with a hotspot here in my 8gbps Internet lit home office. Alternatively, I could have bought a system fusion or dstar alternative, but there are no uhf/vhf repeaters in my area that are reachable from my home to jump on any digital network whatsoever. Heck, there are only 2 analog repeaters within reach of an HT in my area and only about 8-10 that are reachable from a powerful mobile setup.

What you don‘t know anything about, you tend to dabble in cheaply. DMR / Hotspots are cheap. HF is very expensive, particularly if you care about home aesthetics or live on a bluff where you’d need to place a tower/antenna a 500 yards away on your homesite to get optimal transmission.

 

[K9KLC]

Because DMR has the largest member network. Even though it is “VHS”, inferior to your technical views of “beta”, for the long term it will win the digital war because the other competing techs are more expensive and they haven’t opened their technology up to competitors.

That’s pretty much it, it was a very cheap add-on functionaity to a decent radio and it works with a hotspot here in my 8gbps Internet lit home office. Alternatively, I could have bought a system fusion or dstar alternative, but there are no uhf/vhf repeaters in my area that are reachable from my home to jump on any digital network whatsoever. Heck, there are only 2 analog repeaters within reach of an HT in my area and only about 8-10 that are reachable from a powerful mobile setup.

What you don‘t know anything about, you tend to dabble in cheaply. DMR / Hotspots are cheap. HF is very expensive, particularly if you care about home aesthetics or live on a bluff where you’d need to place a tower/antenna a 500 yards away on your homesite to get optimal transmission.

Ok, thanks for your honest answer. I appreciate it.

 

[MTS2000des]

As to the hate for the $13 baofeng radio (CCR?), I hate to say it, but with 100% certainty they will probably run ALL the other companies out of business in the coming years if radio acts like any other technological product. They started by making junk, then held their pricepoints and made better, and continued to evolve into digital where you can get a DMR for $50 while competitors were at $600. Then they branched out into the full-featured Radiooddity/TTY/Anytone $200-$300 pricepoint offering way more tech than any other players because they had the VOLUME of units sold that could bend the COST OF GOODS down. Give it five years and there will be so little market left for an Icom or Yaesu left to vie for, the premium companies will be forced to double their costs since they'll have an ever shrinking specialty market. All while the CCRs are able to pack more features into a small factor for far lower costs. In 20 years, a Baofeng version of an ICOM 7300 will be ubiquitous for 1/4 the price. You can hate this opinion, but its the logical conclusion of global markets and mass manufacturing, the CCRs have the power of market hegemony.

Yaesu and Icom have other products. The fact they keep developing new VHF/UHF radios at tremendous cost (Japanese engineers and labor aren't cheap) doesn't seem to be threatened by low rent junk radios that perform poorly being available in droves any more than Ford stopping production of the Explorer because Kia sells a ton of Souls that catch on fire. Two different customers. As others have pointed out, CCR garbage pail radios in the amateur world are a "gateway" to "real" radios, HF, etc all of which cost more and are available from "real" radio vendors. The whackers/preppers will flock to the junk as it's part of the cosplay setup.

Actual hams upgrade, migrate to more technical realms of the hobby, and "advance the art of radio communication while promoting international good will", none of which happens with 13 dollar fake radios on Amazon.

 

[K9KLC]

Yaesu and Icom have other products. The fact they keep developing new VHF/UHF radios at tremendous cost (Japanese engineers and labor aren't cheap) doesn't seem to be threatened by low rent junk radios that perform poorly being available in droves any more than Ford stopping production of the Explorer because Kia sells a ton of Souls that catch on fire. Two different customers. As others have pointed out, CCR garbage pail radios in the amateur world are a "gateway" to "real" radios, HF, etc all of which cost more and are available from "real" radio vendors. The whackers/preppers will flock to the junk as it's part of the cosplay setup.

Well put!

Actual hams upgrade, migrate to more technical realms of the hobby, and "advance the art of radio communication while promoting international good will", none of which happens with 13 dollar fake radios on Amazon.

Yep, exactly. That part seems to get missed these days on occasion.

 

[a727469]

The CCR battle continues! I am far from a defender of these, but they have their place for anyone whether a new or old ham. I have mentioned elsewhere that having and using them is not a sin(assuming the transmit is clean on some of the newer ones). I am an America first person, but living in a free country allows us to choose. I have no problem putting high tariffs on such radios but the choice is the individuals to buy.

My minimal usage of one includes throwing one in the car just to monitor local pd/fd on vhf and having a transmit source in an emergency. If I drop it or it gets lost, I do not care. I have owned a multitude of Icoms, Yaesus, Alincos etc and each had its use. I do not wish to lose my Alinco or Icom handhelds.

 

[kayn1n32008]

I am far from a defender of these, but they have their place for anyone whether a new or old ham.

Yet here you are, defending these garbage radios.

If I drop it or it gets lost, I do not care. I have owned a multitude of Icoms, Yaesus, Alincos etc and each had its use. I do not wish to lose my Alinco or Icom handhelds.

Always the same excuse. Damn near word for word.

I've owned a multitude of radios too. None got lost, dropped, sunk, broke or what ever bull**** excuse cheap ass hams make to justify buy those barely functional pieces of garbage.

'America first' 'China bad' yet you all can't buy them fast enough, then say those of us that call them **** tier radios are 'snobs'

Even with out the plethora of garbage radios coming from China, this hobby has never been more affordable to get into.

 

[KE9BXE]

Yet here you are, defending these garbage radios.

Always the same excuse. Damn near word for word.

I've owned a multitude of radios too. None got lost, dropped, sunk, broke or what ever bull**** excuse cheap ass hams make to justify buy those barely functional pieces of garbage.

'America first' 'China bad' yet you all can't buy them fast enough, then say those of us that call them **** tier radios are 'snobs'

Even with out the plethora of garbage radios coming from China, this hobby has never been more affordable to get into.

Yikes. Guys, where do you think these radios come from anyway? Unless its world-class 45nm or smaller circuits, it isn't coming from Taiwan and Japan anymore. All the simpleton stuff is done in the PRC by near slave labor. Same goes for nearly every circuit in your American automobile. Same goes for the chips in your million dollar super car that in turn is using pedestrian volvo and jaguar circuit boards that are chock full of PRC Chinese chips.

As to junkie radios, I think the bar is pretty low on a $13 Baofeng as far as expectations. That said, if you held a metaphorical gun to the head of a top-tier company like Motorola, Icom, or Yaesu and said they needed to make a copy of a $13 baofeng and sell it for a retail price 10x, or $130, they'd all fail in that task. They lack the volume and prevailing wage conditions to ever make something that inexpensively. Add to that, I think you'd be surprised how much of the circuitry in a top-tier radio is made in the PRC anyway.

I avoid much of these moral hazards about chip countries of origin and dealing with China by only buying the most American-made vehicles on the road, the only ones that use first-world Asian chips as well.....Toyota.

American made or even first world made goods are simply an illusion. I'm sort of a collector of first-world goods and it results in me buying 50 year old "new old stock" for 20x the price just to say I didn't buy from our enemies or a product built by slaves.

 

[hill]

growing (while only a handful of DMR radios can hold all the IDs)

As I have stated before never ever load the complete user database in my DMR radios. Mainly use local and a few statewide groups. Only load the user's talk with on regular basis. I will never talk with someone on other side of world, so don't needs ids in the radios. Hans have to use their callsigns over the air, so can identify them that way.

There are some well executed amateur DMR, NXDN and P25 networks

This linked below is very good network. Repeaters cover the better part of at least four. States. Any DMR network is going to have users with bad audio, that haven't tested their radios on the Parrott talkgroup. Many users don't even know about Parrott. If they did they could tell their audio was kind of bad and try to fix it.

Interstate DMR

delmarvadmr.com

 

[k6cpo]

Yikes. Guys, where do you think these radios come from anyway? Unless its world-class 45nm or smaller circuits, it isn't coming from Taiwan and Japan anymore. All the simpleton stuff is done in the PRC by near slave labor. Same goes for nearly every circuit in your American automobile. Same goes for the chips in your million dollar super car that in turn is using pedestrian volvo and jaguar circuit boards that are chock full of PRC Chinese chips.

As to junkie radios, I think the bar is pretty low on a $13 Baofeng as far as expectations. That said, if you held a metaphorical gun to the head of a top-tier company like Motorola, Icom, or Yaesu and said they needed to make a copy of a $13 baofeng and sell it for a retail price 10x, or $130, they'd all fail in that task. They lack the volume and prevailing wage conditions to ever make something that inexpensively. Add to that, I think you'd be surprised how much of the circuitry in a top-tier radio is made in the PRC anyway.

I avoid much of these moral hazards about chip countries of origin and dealing with China by only buying the most American-made vehicles on the road, the only ones that use first-world Asian chips as well.....Toyota.

American made or even first world made goods are simply an illusion. I'm sort of a collector of first-world goods and it results in me buying 50 year old "new old stock" for 20x the price just to say I didn't buy from our enemies or a product built by slaves.

The Chinese learned right from the start that Americans place price before any other criteria when it comes to purchasing goods.

 

[KE9BXE]

The Chinese learned right from the start that Americans EVERYONE place price before any other criteria when it comes to purchasing goods.

Fixed your quote for you. If it were 20 years ago, you could have argued the Scandinavians didn't, or the Germans, but they are now fully entrenched in the same foreign sub-component dependency as everyone else.

 

[a727469]

Yet here you are, defending these garbage radios.

Always the same excuse. Damn near word for word.

I've owned a multitude of radios too. None got lost, dropped, sunk, broke or what ever bull**** excuse cheap ass hams make to justify buy those barely functional pieces of garbage.

'America first' 'China bad' yet you all can't buy them fast enough, then say those of us that call them **** tier radios are 'snobs'

Even with out the plethora of garbage radios coming from China, this hobby has never been more affordable to get into.

Wow, you must have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed.

However, I am not a “ cheap ass” ham.

I have never called anyone in this hobby a “snob”

I am not defending a radio but rather a use for a particular radio in a certain situation, I do not need to defend my beliefs in a radio forum, but I can certainly state them and they are not “excuses”

I am glad you never had an radio that was…

lost, dropped, sunk, broke

You know what, neither have I, but no reason to be critical of those who have..it happens to the best of us.

Even garbage has value🗑️!🙂

Relax, and since you trace my response words, I have also said it is a hobby, don’t take it so seriously.

Finally, in all seriousness(which I truly mean). , have a Merry Christmas if you celebrate that or have a wonderful holiday!🎄🎅