|
So what are people mostly doing on radios? I'm imagining a bunch of disaster preppers in bunkers swapping tips on storing ammunition, or eccentric retirees chatting in morse code all day.
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2018 22:34
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 26, 2024 03:32 |
|
|
Qu Appelle posted:The FCC has rejected my name change, because they probably want a copy of the court document. I know  but just paper file a 605 and shove a copy of the court docs in the envelope.Here: https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/support/fcc-form-605 Even more specific: https://www.fcc.gov/file/12944/download I've done my mediocre deed for the day. Pixelante posted:So what are people mostly doing on radios? I'm imagining a bunch of disaster preppers in bunkers swapping tips on storing ammunition, or eccentric retirees chatting in morse code all day. If you get on 80 it's mostly the equivalent of shitposting. But you pretty much have it down.
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2018 23:10
|
|
|
Motronic posted:I know This is actually really helpful. I'll do that on Monday. Thank you! It's a lot more helpful than the actual FCC was.  
|
|
#
?
Dec 15, 2018 23:35
|
|
|
Pixelante posted:So what are people mostly doing on radios? I'm imagining a bunch of disaster preppers in bunkers swapping tips on storing ammunition, or eccentric retirees chatting in morse code all day. There's definitely a doomsday nutjob contingency in the amateur radio community, but fortunately they're far outnumbered by people who are focused on being able to reestablish emergency communications during natural disasters or civil defense situations. Unfortunately, I've been able to pick up virtually zero radio traffic where I live because of a fluke of local topography, but hams tend to be a mix of talkative retirees, younger people trying new digital modes, and folks who found something that piqued their interest in radio and/or emergency communications.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2018 04:01
|
|
|
The prepper folks are actually pretty handy if you have questions about off-grid solar and similar topics. Just don't hang around for their investment or political advice.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2018 05:40
|
|
|
We had our medium wind storm Friday with power outages and Internet disruptions. A group was on a local 2m repeater discussing local conditions, providing wind reports, and other helpful ideas. I tried to check in, but... apartment  I could only hit the repeater tone with my 5W handheld but couldn't get any voice through.As people move entirely to Internet-provided media, that means some people will have no means to receive any information unless cell towers and switching stations are still operating. I don't know how much that's different from 30yr ago, but people probably don't have favorite radio stations where they routinely get news. Most population centers have ARES and RACES net meetings and trainings. Seattle emergency management includes auxillary communication by a licensed amateur when active. During the 2006(?) snow storms I was walking around giving reports; (hiker, I have winter gear). We knew about bus problems before the city did. I really want to do NTS over CW. The antenna thing is killing me. Qu Appelle posted:The FCC has rejected my name change, because they probably want a copy of the court document.  But it probably has to be a notorized document. Aaaand as far as I know NTS supports no radio telegram format that includes facsimile images. Given all the packet people, this is kinda an interesting limitation, but I guess it hasn't been around long enough yet.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2018 16:53
|
|
|
I looked up ways to listen to radio signals online and I got this confusing thing. Can anyone explain how to use it properly? I'd love to be able to snoop around local stuff, but haven't a clue how to find it. (I live at roughly the farthest south/west point of Canada, on Vancouver Island.)
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2018 19:09
|
|
|
To be able to listen to local stuff online, someone physically near you needs to set up an antenna to receive signals, then pipe them through their receiver into the internet and tell webSDR about it so they can post the link.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2018 20:08
|
|
|
Pixelante posted:I looked up ways to listen to radio signals online and I got this confusing thing. Can anyone explain how to use it properly? I'd love to be able to snoop around local stuff, but haven't a clue how to find it. (I live at roughly the farthest south/west point of Canada, on Vancouver Island.) There are only two Canadian listings on that page. http://radman.no-ip.ca:8901/ This one currently has some activity. It takes a minute to get through the initial static (for some reason) but you can see where signals are on the waterfall display and the yellow symbol underneath shows where you're tuned and how wide your reception range is. It's one of those things that you have to play around with a little bit to get a feel for, but the UI is just about identical on all of the pages linked from websdr.org so you can poke around all over the place once you've gotten the basics somewhere. Edit: Oh yeah. Do not start playing around using headphones at any real volume. You will end up scaring the crap out of yourself when the band drops out or something else causes a huge burst of loud static.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2018 23:30
|
|
|
Ordered an HF rig, but the soonest it'll show up is Monday, so I've been killing some time with the DMR handheld I've had for the longest time to see if I've got it working right. Got in touch with a guy from Las Vegas 
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2018 00:13
|
|
|
It is cool to see this thread this active, signed this dipshit.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2018 00:44
|
|
|
Pebble and the Penguin posted:Ordered an HF rig, but the soonest it'll show up is Monday, so I've been killing some time with the DMR handheld I've had for the longest time to see if I've got it working right. Got in touch with a guy from Las Vegas I've poo poo on the internet linked networks for years, then I bought an MD380 so i could play digital with sniep and turns out it's fun as hell. Sure it's not the last-bastion emergency fallback communications medium that an HF rig and a pile of wire is, but it's really entertaining to bop around the talkgroups and listen in to different regional/national stuff.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2018 04:31
|
|
|
finally, a reason for an ultrawide display every time i pull out this SDR USB stick it makes me smile, even just if for FM radio lol
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2018 08:28
|
|
|
Okay, I've got time this holiday, so I'm going to dig into studying as soon as work slows down a little. Apparently fountain pens were just a gateway hobby to old weird stuff. Additional questions: how expensive is this hobby? What would it cost to get a basic but functional set-up? And can a luddite manage assembling it on her own? Also, I live in a small deadzone for cell reception; is that going to play into what I can reach by radio antenna or is that a totally different thing?
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2018 18:37
|
|
|
Pixelante posted:Okay, I've got time this holiday, so I'm going to dig into studying as soon as work slows down a little. Apparently fountain pens were just a gateway hobby to old weird stuff. It can be expensive but before you get into any of it you should consider how much space you have for antennas, since that will be a huge factor in determining what you can do.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2018 18:43
|
|
|
Cell phone reception is largely dependent on a direct line of sight to the tower. The frequencies cells use aren’t very flexible, while something like HF can bounce around all over the world and you can pick up people from North Africa in South California.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2018 19:12
|
|
|
long-rear end nips Diane posted:It can be expensive but before you get into any of it you should consider how much space you have for antennas, since that will be a huge factor in determining what you can do. Define "space"? I've already got a cell signal repeater strapped to the deck above my place to help with the phone reception. Wouldn't be too hard to bribe the building manager to zip-tie something up with it. I live in an area with very few tall buildings. I'm very close to the water-level, though. Where's a good place to shop for equipment? (Canadian.)
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2018 19:34
|
|
|
Sniep posted:finally, a reason for an ultrawide display What software is that ? I just started playing around with an RTL-SDR stick last night with sdr#. Its pretty drat cool. I have no idea what I'm doing other than listening into a few of the 70cm stations so far in my area. But the interface makes me feel like i'm in the movie contact
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2018 20:24
|
|
|
Pixelante posted:Define "space"? I've already got a cell signal repeater strapped to the deck above my place to help with the phone reception. Wouldn't be too hard to bribe the building manager to zip-tie something up with it. I live in an area with very few tall buildings. I'm very close to the water-level, though. "Space" in terms of HF antennas is pretty large if you're looking for optimal. A basic dipole is 1/2 wave length - so 40 meters long if you want to operate on 80 meters effectively. It's basically a piece of wire that needs to be supported on both sides and the feed line will connect to the center. If that's not the kind of space you have there are hundreds of other things you could try. There are end-fed dipoles if you cold strap something to a tree on one side and your deck on the other. There are mast type antennas you can use (hamsticks) which are really designed for mobile or portable use but work great for limited space. You don't even need anything permanent - you could set something like this up on a tripod and throw it on your deck/in the yard when you're using it. Now if you're only talking about VHF/UHF you may be able to operate perfectly fine with nothing more than a hand held radio.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2018 23:30
|
|
|
mashed_penguin posted:What software is that ? Rather new to it myself, just installed it a couple nights ago on a lark - HDSDR http://www.hdsdr.de/
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2018 00:28
|
|
|
Sniep posted:just installed it a couple nights ago on a lark
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2018 01:03
|
|
|
Before I went mad and started buying Yaesus, I really liked SDR# for running RTLSDR sticks. HDSDR is very pretty, but the interface is bad even for ham software.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2018 03:25
|
|
|
Totally Reasonable posted:HDSDR is very pretty, but the interface is bad even for ham software. i can't tell the difference between it any any other ham s/w UI/UX it's all poo poo you just learn where the brain genious put the buttons that do the things and dwi, as far as i am concerned
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2018 03:40
|
|
|
Sniep posted:i can't tell the difference between it any any other ham s/w UI/UX hdsdr good for compability with radio program software / radios and hamrig control sdr# good for waterfall pretty and spyserver streaming and plugins
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2018 17:51
|
|
|
Broke off a small retaining hinge holding a panel on this RS-978 I got 'cause I didn't take the hint and realize the last screw holding the panel in place was underneath a sticker.  so yeah that's my ham radio story for the day.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2018 20:57
|
|
|
God I wish Yaesu would go out of business with their lovely UIs and terrible digital system. Someone in our club was trying to explain all the crap they had to buy and how to set it up to set up our club’s Fusion VHF repeater for Wires-X and I felt terrible saying that we’re not going to do it, FM only, cause one of our users had to piss away hundreds of dollars to attempt this. Amateur is right they are really amateur hour.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2018 00:18
|
|
|
Luckily, Yaesu menus are so bad that you have to be an extremely dedicated dipshit to use their horrible digital system. e: that said, I've got 2 Yaesus
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2018 02:20
|
|
|
i don't sell radios except i wouldnt mind selling my ft8900r, also the only radio ive bought new. its ui is horrid. --- the ic-9700 price got released today, 188k yen ~ $1670 at current exch rate. i was planning for 2200-2300
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2018 06:28
|
|
|
You’ll never get me to defend Yaesu’s menu system and UI, but the 7 counties around me just pulled out the d-star repeaters the counties had installed to support emcomm and replaced them with Yaesu repeaters linked doing system fusion digital because trying to maintain the d-star backend systems was untenable, especially when they had to use government IT networks to get to the Internet.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2018 08:03
|
|
|
Oh yeahhh, let me rant about Yaesu for a bit here My first mobile rig was a 7900R, and it was decent, a bit minimalist, but it was at least usable in the car. Rock solid no-frills analog dual band. Last year I thought I'd upgrade to an FTM-100DR, because there's a decent amount of Fusion traffic in my area, and it supported APRS, so why not. Yaesu really hosed up with Fusion. They nailed it with not having to register your callsign anywhere, but beyond that they really messed up. They screwed up the mic gain on analog vs. digital in their radios, so the whole value proposition of mixed-mode operation goes down the toilet if your mic is too hot only on FM or digital. Every time I listen to local Fusion repeaters, there are always dudes with their mic gain turned up way too high, and it sounds like utter garbage. I feel like D-Star handles audio way better. The FTM-100 is OK, but I hate the white backlight, which is either too blinding bright at night, or not bright enough. The radio audio strangely mutes when you go into the top-level menu, but not sub-menus, so I'm not quite sure what's going on there. Setting the channel to skip during a scan, or trying to properly write a name to the channel is confusing, and having to press a button to change squelch sucks when you're mobile as well. I eventually got sick of using the FTM-100 in my car, since it was impossible to change stuff without getting super deep into a confusing menu, moved it to my shack, and sold off the 7900 for cash and put it towards a TM-D710G. And boy let me tell you, that Kenwood is a dream to use. Everything's easily accessible, and makes sense. I'm hoping they come out with a mobile version of the D74.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2018 18:32
|
|
|
But but but that FT-991A is so hot!
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2018 19:05
|
|
|
I mainly avoided Fusion stuff 'cause there aren't any Fusion repeaters where I am. Now I understand why.  Been happy with DMR for the most part, but the CPS is...not user-friendly. Sounds like this is a problem throughout the standard too and not just on my handheld. Can't I at least re-arrange channels I've programmed into some kind of order without having to get rid of all of them and put them in from scratch? 
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2018 20:58
|
|
|
I've always liked my Yaesu mobile and handheld. After having not turned on the mobile for years, I only had to look up one thing in the manual, and I checked the handheld manual last night to verify that the earphone plug is special. I just glanced at "Kenwood mobile hf" and I cannot imagine using any of those remote headed keyboards. They look like "whackamole oops accidentally turned it off / drifted off frequency / melted the antenna" just begging to happen, repeatedly. As base stations, sure it seems like all those buttons would make operations easier.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2018 02:04
|
|
|
Yaesus are excellent radios, it's just the whole UX philosophy is very weird. Also the manuals are not great.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2018 04:34
|
|
|
 They must have been designed by mathematician/physicist/hacker because they make sense to me. I admit it's nowhere convenient to have to scroll through an alphabetical list of menu options, but it kinda is when you're driving down the highway.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2018 16:40
|
|
|
PhantomOfTheCopier posted:
The thing I like about Kenwoods is that if you've used one, you've pretty much used them all. Lots of very similar design language and UX setup. Yaesu's industrial design and UX is all over the place. A while back I saw a picture of the FTM-350, and it looks like they more or less stole the design from the TM-D710. Eventually the 400 came out, which looks vaguely similar, but doesn't scream "SUE US" as much.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2018 17:16
|
|
|
Jonny 290 posted:I've poo poo on the internet linked networks for years, then I bought an MD380 so i could play digital with sniep and turns out it's fun as hell. Sure it's not the last-bastion emergency fallback communications medium that an HF rig and a pile of wire is, but it's really entertaining to bop around the talkgroups and listen in to different regional/national stuff. I just bought one of these after reading your post because I'm an impulsive idiot and it was under $100 - turns out there's a bunch of DMR repeaters around Chicago so it'll be interesting to start playing around talking to people around the country. Hopefully the conversation is more interesting than what I've heard around here.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2018 23:04
|
|
|
What kind of equipment would you recommend for a beginner?
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2018 23:07
|
|
|
charliebravo77 posted:I just bought one of these after reading your post because I'm an impulsive idiot and it was under $100 - turns out there's a bunch of DMR repeaters around Chicago so it'll be interesting to start playing around talking to people around the country. Hopefully the conversation is more interesting than what I've heard around here. Hey, awesome  Talkgroup 310 is a good US-centric (but not -restricted) TG with good convos, it overflows to TG311 as well. the MD380tools firmware flash is very easy and gives you lots of extra toys like promiscuous mode (will receive any active TG on the current repeater/color channel, not just the one you're tuned to) and scanning and other stuff.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2018 23:18
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 26, 2024 03:32 |
|
|
charliebravo77 posted:I just bought one of these after reading your post because I'm an impulsive idiot and it was under $100 - turns out there's a bunch of DMR repeaters around Chicago so it'll be interesting to start playing around talking to people around the country. Hopefully the conversation is more interesting than what I've heard around here. God dammit. I almost bought one when Jonny posted that, but said.....no.....no, I don't need that. Your lack of self control has infected me and now there's one on the way to my house too. Edit: Oh hey, my Zarug gang tag has been replaced with a different BFC one.
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2018 00:49
|
|