Influencer II
- 3,135
- First Name
- Lyon
- Last Name
- McKeil
- Member #
-
4052
- Ham/GMRS Callsign
- AI6F WQZP709 M0GVK (UK Ham Licesne)
- Service Branch
- CAL FIRE
OB Approved So You Want To Be A HAM? (US Edition)
- Thread starter Lars
- Start date
Advocate III
Yep! Headed out with a group next Saturday ... Have no idea what to expect, but everyone says it's a blast.
Influencer II
- 3,135
- First Name
- Lyon
- Last Name
- McKeil
- Member #
-
4052
- Ham/GMRS Callsign
- AI6F WQZP709 M0GVK (UK Ham Licesne)
- Service Branch
- CAL FIRE
It is a lot of fun. You'll have a great time. Keep an ear out for AI6F, we are combining Field Day with a fire prevention event and will be operating out of our mobile command van.
I hope to hear you on the air and meet you on the trail.
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Advocate III
Got my call sign today: KG5TTZ ... Haven't gotten on the air yet ... I am also now signed up to go ahead and take the general class in July.
I just got my tech license last week and am starting to play around a little. Mostly I just want to have expanded comms capability when I'm offroad. Our local ham club has monthly meetings that I'm planning to attend and hopefully get some of my questions answered but I have a quick one that someone may be able to help with.
Our local FJ club monitors 146.460 and tells it's members to use it if they have an issue and need assistance. I can typically find a repeater but it will broadcast on a different frequency than 146.460. How would I communicate through a repeater on a different frequency and get a message to someone on 146.460 so that they can come get me? Thanks for the help.
Our local FJ club monitors 146.460 and tells it's members to use it if they have an issue and need assistance. I can typically find a repeater but it will broadcast on a different frequency than 146.460. How would I communicate through a repeater on a different frequency and get a message to someone on 146.460 so that they can come get me? Thanks for the help.
Member III
You use the repeater to talk to who's on there. You can have them try to contact one of the FJ club on 146.460 and get them to swap over to the repeater for non-emergency stuff. But if you need emergency help, the ham on the repeater will be able to coordinate what help you need. The FJ club should also be monitoring local repeaters as well since they provide a means of longer distance communication and broader reach. Not that you'd want to use it for idle chit-chat between trucks on the trail, but them just using the one frequency all the time is little better than just having CB's really.
Thank you. That's what I thought. I'm looking forward to getting a better grip on actually using my radio.
Most repeaters use a CTCSS tone. You can program in your local repeaters to the radio memory banks or manually set them.
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Traveler III
Then what am I doing wrong? GMRS License is $70? ZA licensing, right?
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Off-Road Ranger I
There is a grey area with MURS / GMRS and the Baofeng radios. It's technically illegal to use them on MURS or GMRS frequencies because they allow you to exceed the maximum transmit power for MURS which is 2 Watts, and for GMRS the device itself must be approved for use by the FCC, which the Baofeng is not.
It's a grey area because nobody is likely to notice or care if you use a Baofeng for those frequencies as long as your keep the power setting on low (1 Watt) on those frequencies - assuming you have a GMRS license for the GMRS channels.
If you spend a couple of days studying and then spend $15 (or free in some cities) to take your amateur radio license exam, then it won't matter, because you'll have free access to all the VHF/UHF ham bands and you'll be able to do so much more.
It's a grey area because nobody is likely to notice or care if you use a Baofeng for those frequencies as long as your keep the power setting on low (1 Watt) on those frequencies - assuming you have a GMRS license for the GMRS channels.
If you spend a couple of days studying and then spend $15 (or free in some cities) to take your amateur radio license exam, then it won't matter, because you'll have free access to all the VHF/UHF ham bands and you'll be able to do so much more.
Traveler III
Off-Road Ranger I
No, ham bands are separate from the GMRS bands, so if you want transmit on the GMRS bands, you'll still need to pay the FCC for a license. I have both a GMRS license and an Extra Class amateur license so that I can adapt to whatever the group i'm riding with uses, i've never used my GMRS, /ever/, so the $85 license fee feels like a waste of money in hindsight.
If you know for sure that you are going to be with others using GMRS, with no other communication option, get the license. the costs is almost reasonable if you plan to actually use it all the time because it covers your whole household (spouse and kids) for 5 years. If you are not sure, save the money and spend it on getting a CB, a Baofeng HT and a ham license, that will likely cover everybody you run across. The Technician test is surprisingly easy to pass, especially if you don't care to learn the "fundamentals" just yet and just spend a few hours studying and remembering the exam questions. Check https://hamstudy.org/, for example, you can use it to study the tests for free. Read through the questions and answers, then go through the flash cards, then start taking practice exams until you can reliably get 80-855. At that point you will be ready to easily pass the exam. This can be done in a matter of days only spending about an hour a day studying.
Traveler III
That's excellent--I appreciate the guidance-- I did wonder how hard to cram and see if I could pass all three in one shot...
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Off-Road Ranger I
my original plan was to cram and do all three in one shot, but I ended up getting each one separately a month apart. Here's why: I heard from a few people that getting active on the radio as soon as possible should be the first goal, as actual use will help you reenforce concepts you are studying, and "learn by doing". The fastest way to do that is just to get Technician as soon as you can pass the exam. By doing this, you are also able to actually start getting some value and joy out of the hobby right away. I was looking at spending a month, or more, realistically, to study for all three and then take them all at once, mostly for bragging rights, partially to save myself money. Then i found out that my local exams are actually free, so i wouldn't even be saving any money by doing so. After a few days of studying I was already fully prepared for the Technician exam, and since there was a test session coming up, i went and got it out of the way. I think i studied for maybe 4 or 5 days before taking that exam, and then BOOM, I was on the air.
When you take the Technician exam and pass, they will offer you the General exam, TAKE IT. even if you are not ready. There is significant overlap between the Technician test and the General test, so you may just luck out and pass it, too. If not, be pumped that you are now officially a ham and start studying for your General and take it during the next test session in your area - give yourself at least a week or two to study for it.
More details about the tests: You can easily pass both the Technician and the General by just studying test questions alone and essentially memorizing the answers and skipping the "fundamentals" which are taught when you study the actual ARRL manuals for each level. The manuals give you lots more context and background information, but take longer to read and study. Passing Technician and General takes what I would consider pretty minimal effort. The Extra Class exam, however, is a very large step up, and will take some actual serious studying efforts. A month is still plenty of time to study for it, but know that it is a significantly more complicated exam, and the question pool is much larger, so it is probably not likely that one could just remember answers like with the Technician exam.
If you plan on going all the way up to Extra, take them one test session after another, don't give yourself a long break. There is a lot of overlap in both questions and concepts between the three exams, and they build on each other, so less time between the exams, the less you will be likely to forget something.
Off-Road Ranger I
One more note: The Technician and General exams have a lot of "common sense" answers. So even if you are presented with a question you don't know, or a list of answers you've never seen, take your time and use common sense to narrow down the choices.
Off-Road Ranger I
