Jumping in to the Amateur Radio world

**Midnightmoon** · 12-31-2022, 01:28 PM

Decided to take the plunge in to the Amateur Radio world this winter. Passed the initial Technician level exam today. I only studied for that one and will start to prepare for the General next.

I know a lot of you are already involved in the hobby. Please feel free to pass on your words of wisdom, tips, tricks, etc. I am truly a rookie at this so any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

David_ski · 12-31-2022, 03:37 PM

Congratulations. I have engineering background and the technical stuff was not foreign concepts. I know some without the technical background have worked really hard to pass the exams. I have had my tech license since around 1992. I have used the HAM bands off an on over the last 30 years.

A couple of years ago, my son and his now wife decided to get their HAM license, and they both took the Tech exam and passed. My son then tried for the General license and passed. After you pass one level on exam day, you can take the test for the next level. After my son passed the General, I started studying for the General. The next exam session, I passed and then tried for the Extra without studying. I missed several questions, but I passed the Extra by just one point. It was still a PASS.

Go for it and give the next level an attempt.
Congratulations again.

KD6PDG

**Midnightmoon** · 12-31-2022, 03:57 PM

Thank you. Yes, I am already starting to study for the General exam. I used an online study course for the Tech level and it worked out well. The same site offers the General and I hope to have it ready to test soon.

In the meantime, I need to start looking for radios. I have absolutely nothing at this point. My brother-in-law has an old 10 meter that he offered me to use. I understand that even on the Tech level, there is a narrow band that I can use there. I also want to start working with the 2 meter stuff.

David_ski · 12-31-2022, 04:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Midnightmoon

Thank you. Yes, I am already starting to study for the General exam. I used an online study course for the Tech level and it worked out well. The same site offers the General and I hope to have it ready to test soon.

In the meantime, I need to start looking for radios. I have absolutely nothing at this point. My brother-in-law has an old 10 meter that he offered me to use. I understand that even on the Tech level, there is a narrow band that I can use there. I also want to start working with the 2 meter stuff.

I have just stuck mostly with the 2m bands. I have a couple of handhelds. I have a 2m Yeasu that I have had for the last 8-10 years. My latest two handhelds are Baofeng dual bands. The Baofeng's are very inexpensive and they have held up well. I also use them on low power mode on the GRMS channels instead of walkie talkies for communication with the DW at the house and at the campsite.

CAG · 12-31-2022, 04:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Midnightmoon

Decided to take the plunge in to the Amateur Radio world this winter. Passed the initial Technician level exam today. I only studied for that one and will start to prepare for the General next.

I know a lot of you are already involved in the hobby. Please feel free to pass on your words of wisdom, tips, tricks, etc. I am truly a rookie at this so any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Congratulations. It is a fun world especially if you get into HF and talking around the world.

I have been a HAM since the early 70s and worked much of the world on HF both voice and CW. Unfortunately we ended up buying homes in areas that do not allow for large antenna systems. That and heavy work schedules stopped the HF but I do have 2 meter/440/220 mobile and handhelds so stay active that way. I pass my Advanced (not available any longer) some years back and had no reason to go further after I stopped HF.

Not much I can pass on in guidance except try the Tech stuff and if you get the bug for more, go for it.

**Midnightmoon** · 12-31-2022, 04:36 PM

Thanks everyone, I appreciate the help. Do you find yourself using the 70 cm band at times? I don't know very much about it except that many of the dual band 2 meter radios have it available.

CAG · 12-31-2022, 06:23 PM

I do, along with 2 meters. I have the repeaters along the road to our summer hangout, and use both at the summer location. We do a lot of back-roading and hiking back country and many time cell is not available. I have local repeaters on the handheld and mobile for emergencies along with Garmin InReach.

At one point last summer we lost phone and internet over most of eastern Arizona but had HAM repeaters to stay up to date.

At one time I was a member of a closed repeater system that was all 440 and covered most of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and parts of Colorado and some of Texas. A rather elaborate system in-which you could open and close various repeaters or legs of the system via tones to communicate over certain areas. There are some very sophisticated systems out there. HAM is not what many outsiders think it is. That system is still there, I just did not use it enough to justify the yearly fee.

**Midnightmoon** · 12-31-2022, 06:35 PM

Thank you. That is exactly what I needed to know. From what I am seeing, nearly all of the 2 meter offerings out there right now are dual band. There are a few strictly 2 meter radios available. But, I will definitely look for a 2 meter/70 cm for my first purchase.

Are you using CHIRP to find your repeater programming or is there another resource that I should look at?

CAG · 12-31-2022, 06:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Midnightmoon

Thank you. That is exactly what I needed to know. From what I am seeing, nearly all of the 2 meter offerings out there right now are dual band. There are a few strictly 2 meter radios available. But, I will definitely look for a 2 meter/70 cm for my first purchase.

Are you using CHIRP to find your repeater programming or is there another resource that I should look at?

I had Kenwood TH F6A radios for years and loved them. I used Kenwood programing to configure. I have since gone to BTech radios (Triband) and use Chirp. I was able to transfer Kenwood programming to Chirp with little problems.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

CAG · 12-31-2022, 06:50 PM

The nice thing with these radios is that my wife is not a HAM and this allows programming in MURS etc and allowing us to communicate when we are mushroom or rock hunting (we tend to wander away from each other) but gives us the HAM freqs for emergencies.

We got far enough apart this last summer that I had to work my way back to the Jeep and fire up the mobile to make contact with her to see where she had wandered to. She was fine, finding lobster mushrooms LOL.

David_ski · 12-31-2022, 06:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Midnightmoon

Thank you. That is exactly what I needed to know. From what I am seeing, nearly all of the 2 meter offerings out there right now are dual band. There are a few strictly 2 meter radios available. But, I will definitely look for a 2 meter/70 cm for my first purchase.

Are you using CHIRP to find your repeater programming or is there another resource that I should look at?

CHIRP has worked great. I can program both my Yaesu and the Baofeng's, I can easily copy and paste repeater frequencies between the two. The only time it doesn't work is when I forget the instructions and I have to do a cortex refresh and re-read the manual.

**Midnightmoon** · 12-31-2022, 06:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CAG

I had Kenwood TH F6A radios for years and loved them. I used Kenwood programing to configure. I have since gone to BTech radios (Triband) and use Chirp. I was able to transfer Kenwood programming to Chirp with little problems.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Excellent. Thank you. BTech, Baofeng, and Tidradio are under the same parent company correct?

I was just watching a video on a wireless programmer for those radios that looks to be a useful tool, especially for the price.

https://tidradio.com/products/high-p...ble-programmer

**Midnightmoon** · 12-31-2022, 07:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David_ski

CHIRP has worked great. I can program both my Yaesu and the Baofeng's, I can easily copy and paste repeater frequencies between the two. The only time it doesn't work is when I forget the instructions and I have to do a cortex refresh and re-read the manual.

Do use a PC or Mac to do your programming? I only have a MAC and a Chromebook here at home. I haven't done enough research on CHIRP to know for sure.

David_ski · 12-31-2022, 08:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Midnightmoon

Do use a PC or Mac to do your programming? I only have a MAC and a Chromebook here at home. I haven't done enough research on CHIRP to know for sure.

I have used it on a PC and both a MAC. I have used it on MACs with the Intel CPU (2016). However, I downloaded the latest version of CHIP and it is crashing. Something else to look at tomorrow.

**Midnightmoon** · 12-31-2022, 09:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David_ski

I have used it on a PC and both a MAC. I have used it on MACs with the Intel CPU (2016). However, I downloaded the latest version of CHIP and it is crashing. Something else to look at tomorrow.

I'll play around with it on the Mac in the next couple of days and see how it acts for me. My Mac is a probably 5-6 years old also.

Happy wife / happy life · 12-31-2022, 10:46 PM

Thanks for jogging my memory. My old man used to take me to the “ Mars “ camping weekends in the early 60’s. I never could get the hang of “ Morris code “. He was an Instructor in Sacramento Ca. W6HSV. Thanks again!

**Midnightmoon** · 01-04-2023, 07:24 AM

Received my email notification this morning from the FCC that my call sign was issued. Surprisingly fast turnaround time considering that I took the test on New Years Eve.

**Midnightmoon** · 01-06-2023, 08:02 PM

I could not get CHIRP to work on my Mac. I ended up installing it on an old Windows laptop that my daughter is allowing me to use. Going to try and do some radio programming tomorrow.

David_ski · 01-06-2023, 09:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Midnightmoon

I could not get CHIRP to work on my Mac. I ended up installing it on an old Windows laptop that my daughter is allowing me to use. Going to try and do some radio programming tomorrow.

This has been a things happen week and I have not gone back to the Intel Mac to play with CHIRP. Something has changed, MacOS, CHIRP SW, and I have not spent anytime trying to figure out what changed. My fall back plan will be to use a 6 year old PC laptop.

**Midnightmoon** · 01-06-2023, 09:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David_ski

This has been a things happen week and I have not gone back to the Intel Mac to play with CHIRP. Something has changed, MacOS, CHIRP SW, and I have not spent anytime trying to figure out what changed. My fall back plan will be to use a 6 year old PC laptop.

I am able to get it to download on the MAC, accept the security, etc. As soon as I try to launch the application, it shuts down. It does't run long enough to even see the main CHIRP screen.

The PC I set it up on tonight is probably 9-10 years old. It is still running Windows 7 I believe. No issues getting it to install there.

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