OB Approved So You Want To Be A HAM? (US Edition)

[theick]

Can I throw out a question. I'm trying to set up my beufang UV6R to work with a repeater and I'm having some troubles. It may be that I'm just to far from the repeater for my 5w to transmit that far.

The repeater is 146.940, the offset direction is (-) and it is PL100.0. I'm setting the HT to 146.940, the direction to (-), the offset to 600khz and the transmit CTCSS to 100.00. Does that look right to get onto this repeater?

 

[hjason.hay]

That looks correct. How far is the repeater from your location?

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[hjason.hay]

https://earth.google.com/web/@35.9983335,-115.0016665,777.72870601a,2056129.93065183d,35y,0h,0t,0r

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[hjason.hay]

I think this is the repeater you're asking about. It's a link to the reported coverage map of the repeater in Google Earth. For the Baofengs a cheap mag mount antenna mounted to your vehicle or even a pie pan will increase its range over the stock antenna.

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[theick]

That looks correct. How far is the repeater from your location?

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I'm about 6 miles from the repeater. In researching this I did find out that the repeater will sound a tone at the end of my transmission to verify that I am contacting the repeater. At least now I know if I can reach the repeater but there is just no one on the other end.

 

[The other Sean]

Have you simply monitored that repeater at different times of the day? Even in large metro areas, you can have times of the day where no one is on let alone listening.

 

[theick]

Have you simply monitored that repeater at different times of the day? Even in large metro areas, you can have times of the day where no one is on let alone listening.

Yeah I can hear traffic on almost every repeater in town. There are only a few that are close enough to my house for me to transmit to.

 

[The other Sean]

Is this inside the house with the rubber duck antenna? I find a noticeable difference in signal inside my house with the rubber duck when I stand by one specific window.

 

[hjason.hay]

I'm about 6 miles from the repeater. In researching this I did find out that the repeater will sound a tone at the end of my transmission to verify that I am contacting the repeater. At least now I know if I can reach the repeater but there is just no one on the other end.

Good deal.

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[Itacal]

I'd highly recommend signing up and QRZ.com. They are a good resourse for hams and they have free practice tests. The best part about the practice tests is that the questions and answers are the exact same ones on the real test. The only difference is the order the answers are in. Here is a link to the practice test with instructions for a free account. Tghey don't send you anything or sell your info so it is safe to use. https://www.qrz.com/hamtest/

I signed up for a class to study for the general test, but because of an illness and a family emergency, I was not able to attend any of the three classes/study sessions. I sat for the exam anyway and passed it Saturday, after taking the practice tests at QRZ. Simon Wolfe's post on this thread is the sole reason I now have my general classification. I first came upon his post when I was just planning to get my technician classification and I used QRZ to prepare for that exam. I love this thread and THANK YOU AGAIN, Simon, for the QRZ link!

 

[hjason.hay]

I signed up for a class to study for the general test, but because of an illness and a family emergency, I was not able to attend any of the three classes/study sessions. I sat for the exam anyway and passed it Saturday, after taking the practice tests at QRZ. Simon Wolfe's post on this thread is the sole reason I now have my general classification. I first came upon his post when I was just planning to get my technician classification and I used QRZ to prepare for that exam. I love this thread and THANK YOU AGAIN, Simon, for the QRZ link!

Congrats on the upgraded ticket! I hope to test for Extra soon.

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[Itacal]

Congrats on the upgraded ticket! I hope to test for Extra soon.

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Extra, huh ... That's pretty awesome! I may decide to tackle that one day. I've looked at material for the Extra and it's daunting for someone with no background in electronics. Best of luck ... Please let me know how you do when you take it!

 

[brien]

I signed up for a class to study for the general test, but because of an illness and a family emergency, I was not able to attend any of the three classes/study sessions. I sat for the exam anyway and passed it Saturday, after taking the practice tests at QRZ. Simon Wolfe's post on this thread is the sole reason I now have my general classification. I first came upon his post when I was just planning to get my technician classification and I used QRZ to prepare for that exam. I love this thread and THANK YOU AGAIN, Simon, for the QRZ link!

Congrats on the upgrade!

 

[Lyon McKeil]

I signed up for a class to study for the general test, but because of an illness and a family emergency, I was not able to attend any of the three classes/study sessions. I sat for the exam anyway and passed it Saturday, after taking the practice tests at QRZ. Simon Wolfe's post on this thread is the sole reason I now have my general classification. I first came upon his post when I was just planning to get my technician classification and I used QRZ to prepare for that exam. I love this thread and THANK YOU AGAIN, Simon, for the QRZ link!

Congrats on the General Ticket!!

 

[afootorafloatLJ]

Great thread.
I run a Yaesu FTM 400XD (mobile) in the Jeep and have a Yaesu VX-6R (handheld) for the co-pilot or to leave at base camp.

 

[GMoney]

Excellent thread. After reading this, I bought Gordo's book, studied and passed the Technician test on Monday. Now just waiting for my call sign!! Thanks to everyone for the insightful posts.

 

[Lars]

Excellent thread. After reading this, I bought Gordo's book, studied and passed the Technician test on Monday. Now just waiting for my call sign!! Thanks to everyone for the insightful posts.

I'm glad I could be of some help.

 

[Elsewhere]

@Lars Gonna try real hard to be at your 12 o clock class next Friday at the Expo! Looking forward to seeing you again man!
-Joshua

 

[Sierrahotel83]

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.

In between reading this thread and reading up on various items involving Commo, I did see that the price for the GMRS license is $70 and it is now for 10 years, unless I misread it. I know that the FCC recently redid a lot of the Part 95 radio reqs and regs.

On a HAM note, i studied up last year then failed to take a Technician exam, I am still able to get about 75-80% right, would I be just as well off to spend the next 3 weeks studying for the General exam and take practice exams on both?

 

[brien]

On a HAM note, i studied up last year then failed to take a Technician exam, I am still able to get about 75-80% right, would I be just as well off to spend the next 3 weeks studying for the General exam and take practice exams on both?

I would focus 100% on technician practice exams until you pass them consistently with 80% or higher (sounds like you are basically there), then, yeah, move on to spending the rest of your time studying the General exam, when you are two or three days out from your test date, go back to the Technician exams and make sure you can still pass them with ~80%. After you pass your Technician, they will give you the General exam and there is so much overlap you'll likely have a great chance at passing both. Make sure you are earnestly studying every day for 30-60 minutes (or taking 3-4 practice exams throughout the day) and you'll likely knock out both exams with ease.

For extra study material in addition to practice exams (assuming you don't have the time/interest to read through the ARRL exam guide books) check out these recordings of training sessions on youtube. I watched both of them at 1.5 speed on YT to speed it up a bit.
Ham Radio 2.0 New Technician Training Class Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Ham Radio 2.0 New General Training Class Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

If you were planning on reading the ARRL exam guides, search youtube for the ham `ke0og`, he has some really really great section introduction videos for each section of the official ARRL study guides for all three exams.

If you start passing General exams with ease, I would recommend that you DO NOT talk yourself into cramming for the Extra exam during these three weeks as well.Technician and General exams are very similar, and relatively easy to pass, the Extra exam is a whole different beast and is noticeably more difficult. If you are interested in moving up to Extra at some point, knock out your Technician and General right away and then spend a month or so really studying for the Extra, try to take it within a month or two of the other exams since there still is a little bit of overlap. The Extra exam takes some actual studying since you can't really just remember test answers like you can for the other two exams.