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Ham Radio Recommendation?


Milton

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Yes, cross banding into a repeater does require other repeater users to practice good radio discipline to allow cross banders a chance. During events like the MS150 Bike Rides, which could involve 80 operatrors, we run a directed net and depend on a good net control operator to enforce that discipline. Using half duplex cross banding and DCS instead of tone squelch control also help.
 


AllanD

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The biggest complaints about Alinco radios is their programming artecture is ODD but guys who are used to Icom or Yaesu radios often say the same thing about Kenwood radios

Most of my stuff is Icom, but frankly there are certain dual band mobile radios I'd avoid, the IC-2700 and IC-2710, which have a justified reputation of simply dying.. I had an IC-2710 simply stop working.. back around 10 years ago...

AD
 

Bill in Arizona

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Thanks.

I found this helpful as i am planning on getting my ticket too. Milton thanks for you advice. I'll post when I pass and set up
 

Ayax

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apologize for bump an old topic from the dead, just have a few interesting things from personal experience, maybe someone will need this information in the future
I have many models of the Baofeng radios mostly the UV-5R series, some 888's and some GT's. The software and a cable are mandatory for programming the 888's and GT's because they lack a keyboard and screen.

Everyone talks about the UV series as being difficult to program but I find menu system very easy to navigate. Also, a word on the advertised output of these units. Despite what the manual or the ad claims these radios will not put out the advertised watts.

I test each radio I purchased. The following statement almost always rings true of HT's and that would be output is higher in the VHF range and will get close to advertised ratings (4.2 watts vers 5 watts) but on UHF it will be a little more than half of the advertised rating (2.5 vers 4 watts). The frequency in the band you plan to operate on will figure in as well.

Mobile units seem to be the exception. I still have some old Radio Shack 2 channel MURS radios https://secretstorages.com/best-handheld-ham-radios/ These units are programmable and operate on the VHF band. An advertised output is 5 watts. One unit tested in at a full 8 watts and the other one managed about 7.5 watts which are well above the advertised RF output of 5 watts. I was very surprised at those numbers. My Icom dual bander also managed to beat out the advertised RF ratings on both VHF and UHF bands. Advertised VHF is 55 watts, actual was 62. 50 watts UHF advertised, actual was 54.

I have yet to find the perfect radio, HT or mobile. There are pros and cons to all of them. IMHO the Baofeng radios may not be up to everyone's standard but for the money, they can't be beaten. I often look at Youtube for different videos on this topic, I'll leave you here, maybe this will be useful to someone in the future. Good Luck.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DuD5cdqxxw&fs=1" width="644" height="390">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DuD5cdqxxw&fs=1" />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DuD5cdqxxw">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DuD5cdqxxw
 

Spott

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apologize for bump an old topic from the dead, just have a few interesting things from personal experience, maybe someone will need this information in the future
I have many models of the Baofeng radios mostly the UV-5R series, some 888's and some GT's. The software and a cable are mandatory for programming the 888's and GT's because they lack a keyboard and screen.

Everyone talks about the UV series as being difficult to program but I find menu system very easy to navigate. Also, a word on the advertised output of these units. Despite what the manual or the ad claims these radios will not put out the advertised watts.

I test each radio I purchased. The following statement almost always rings true of HT's and that would be output is higher in the VHF range and will get close to advertised ratings (4.2 watts vers 5 watts) but on UHF it will be a little more than half of the advertised rating (2.5 vers 4 watts). The frequency in the band you plan to operate on will figure in as well.

Mobile units seem to be the exception. I still have some old Radio Shack 2 channel MURS radios https://secretstorages.com/best-handheld-ham-radios/ These units are programmable and operate on the VHF band. An advertised output is 5 watts. One unit tested in at a full 8 watts and the other one managed about 7.5 watts which are well above the advertised RF output of 5 watts. I was very surprised at those numbers. My Icom dual bander also managed to beat out the advertised RF ratings on both VHF and UHF bands. Advertised VHF is 55 watts, actual was 62. 50 watts UHF advertised, actual was 54.

I have yet to find the perfect radio, HT or mobile. There are pros and cons to all of them. IMHO the Baofeng radios may not be up to everyone's standard but for the money, they can't be beaten. I often look at Youtube for different videos on this topic, I'll leave you here, maybe this will be useful to someone in the future. Good Luck.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DuD5cdqxxw&fs=1" width="644" height="390">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DuD5cdqxxw&fs=1" />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DuD5cdqxxw">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DuD5cdqxxw
Here's my opinion, please treat it as an opinion and not an assertion of concrete facts intended to offend:

I've never met a situation in the retail world where you ever got more than you paid for.

If you buy an $80 Chinese mobile radio, it's not going to work as well as a $300 "Japanese" or "American" radio with comparable specs (which is probably also manufactured in China or Taiwan anyways). It's going to have cheaper internal parts with potentially looser values, it's going to have weaker construction (including heat management), it's going to have a less-well developed design (including power management), and it's going to have poorer QC in the factory.

As a result, it's likely (but not guaranteed) to have weaker TX power, worse receive sensitivity, less accurate frequency tracking, looser modulation, and greater potential to create interference. It may run hotter, drain portable batteries faster, develop problems sooner, be less durable, and be more complicated to use.

HOWEVER: Ham radio is an extremely broad hobby, attracting people with a very wide range of ages and financial abilities. I got my license when I was 14, and my only source of income was mowing the neighbors's lawns. I worked all summer to save just enough money to go to scout camp, and buy a brand-new Radio Shack HTX-202 handheld. (Fortunately, my father got his license at the same time, so I could sometimes use the gear he could afford, in the meantime.) If a halfway-decent, halfway-reliable 2m handheld had been available for $40 instead of $200, I could have had my own radio much earlier (and probably a better antenna, too!)

As long as the buyer understands the drawbacks of the Chinese brands, it's a decent way to get into the hobby with a limited budget. But I will strongly recommend that, once the starter radio wears out or the users' needs/interests grow to exceed that radio, they look for a higher quality replacement.

In the same way, I'll recommend that people buy tools from Harbor Freight exactly once, even though they're known to be cheap quality. If they use the tool infrequently enough that it never wears out or breaks, then they saved some money and still got the job done. If they use it enough that the tool fails, then they know they need the tool enough to invest in a quality replacement from a reliable brand.

I now have a degree in Electronics Engineering, extensive experience as a Communication Technician, and a stable position in the communication industry. I have much greater financial ability to purchase radios and accessories, although I'm not yet "rich" by any definition. I find that Yaesu equipment is very high quality, while being a bit less expensive than Icom or Kenwood. I have a great little VX-6R that still works great after 10 years, although the battery pack is getting weak after that time. I just installed an FT-8900R in my Ranger a few weeks ago that I'm really enjoying.

I've owned, used, borrowed, and sometimes repaired Icom, Kenwood, Yaesu, HeathKit, Ten-Tec, Motorola, Vertex Standard (Yaesu's parent company), Baofeng, Wouxun, and a few other obscure brands of Amateur and commercial radios. My recommendation is Yaesu for new purchases, in consideration of quality and price.

KC7JXF
 

Spott

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Hello...As per my knowledge you should set the mobile in your vehicle to operate as a cross-band repeater. When your mobile receives a signal from the 2 meter repeater, it retransmits the signal on the UHF band. You are carrying a UHF handheld so you can still hear the communications. You transmit on your UHF handheld and the more powerful mobile in your vehicle receives the UHF signal and retransmits it to the 2 meter repeater. You have complete communications at all times.
In a very, very few instances this is a very useful feature. The rest of the time it's more hassle and confusion than it's worth.

There are significant limitations to this: you have to buy a much-more-expensive dual-VFO radio, you have to buy a separate UHF H-T radio, you have to have your vehicle parked in a location where it has a decent signal path to the 2m repeater you're using (usually on a hilltop somewhere, which are generally harder to access), you have to be located somewhere away from your vehicle in a spot with a decent signal path for your weaker H-T (usually in the valley below, not too far up or down the valley, and how did you get there with your vehicle left on top of the hill?), you have to have plenty of battery capacity in your vehicle to keep that mobile rig running and still be able to start the vehicle later (it transmits whenever the repeater is active, even with traffic you don't care about, and is continually receiving, waiting for your transmissions), and the additional "squelch tail" on your mobile radio (just like another repeater) can make it so that rapid conversation on the repeater can block any opportunity to break into conversation, or exceed the TX "timeout" on your mobile radio, and it stops transmitting until the repeater it's allowed to stop transmitting longer than usual.

There are really only two situations I can think of where this might be useful. The first would be for short hunting trips in mountainous areas without repeater coverage down in the valley, while traveling in a group with multiple vehicles. The second would be public-service or extended emergency situations, where it is determined that there is a need for temporary coverage of an area that not otherwise available, and the terrain is conducive to placing a cross-band repeater in a spot for good coverage (including UHF signal-path limitations), and it's organized with the supporting/responding group.

I've been licensed for over 20 years, and have only ever seen one situation where this was beneficial. That is an annual 200+ mile bicycle race, between 3 cities, with a large known dead zone with no repeater coverage (or population) along the route. One operator is designated to park on a mountaintop to serve as a temporary repeater, in addition to the 6 other fixed repeaters in use along that route.

I have a dual-VFO radio in my truck (but I didn't choose it for the cross-band repeater feature at all), and a dual-band antenna on the roof, and could set it up for cross-band repeater operation. I believe I can evaluate a situation and determine when a cross-band repeater might be useful. But I've never even tried it, and would have to dig the manual out of the glovebox to set it up, and stay with the truck to run the engine occasionally to keep the battery charged. It's just one more specialty "tool" that's available to me if the need ever arises, but will never get much use. And if I didn't have it, several others in the local radio club have similar radios in similar light-offroad vehicles, that could do the same thing, although they've never used theirs for cross-band repeater operation either. (And I live in an area with pretty spread-out population, plenty of nearby mountains, an active hunting and outdoors culture, and significant snow problems in the winter.)

For a beginner purchase, the great expense and minimal utility of such a setup probably means that it's not worth considering until the gradual accumulation of equipment with the features that you want and use, means that you end with it unintentionally. If you need this feature already, you're probably aware of that need already.

KC7JXF
 

alwaysFlOoReD

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DaveRodda is a bot. It copied and pasted a previous post. It has been deleted.
 

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