A new toy!

Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2002 11:31 am

On the groundspeak forums, there is a thread going on about Family Radio Service (FRS) usage. Someone posted a great deal at Radio Shack right now, so I ran over to my local store and picked one up. Its a car/boat/base mount FRS. Full 500mw transmission, all 14 channels, very nice magnetic mount antenna. It also a nice scan feature where it scans all the channels looking for transmissions.

Its normally $80, but on sale right now for $29! You can read about it HERE. I'll bring it to the campout, it might make a good base radio.

[This message has been edited by CacheCows (edited February 23, 2002).]

Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2002 10:38 pm

If you really want some distance, try amateur radio. If you have a scanner, listen to 146.820 MHz. That is being transmitted from that tower at Lapham Peak Park. It will receive my "walkie talkie" and retransmit it over a 40 mile radius or more. It's pretty simple to get the license now and in an emergency in the woods, will get out to a repeater many times where a cell phone will not.

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Steve Bukosky
Waukesha

Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2002 4:29 pm

Team GrouseTails and I spent the morning discussing a simplex repeater that Tandy used to sell. It 'listens' to just about any two-way radio, and when it 'hears' a broadcast, it records up to 30 seconds, then retransmits it. You connect it to the best radio you have, hopefully with a good, high-mounted antenna that can receive and transmit a good distance. This way the repeater can receive weak signals, and rebroadcast them, thereby giving you much greater distance. We found a few of these on ebay, and we each bought one. We'll set one up at the campout, probably connected to one of the above mentioned mobile FRS radios, since it has the best FRS antenna we've seen. We will post the channel for the campout later.

Joined: 2002-02-18 Posts: 3399 Location: West Allis, Wi

With a no code license can you operate on 2 meters and use 2/m repeaters?

Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2002 8:58 pm

For sometime the "no code" technician license has had full privileges on 2m and above.
Like some wise person said, "If you really want some distance, try amateur radio."

Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2002 10:14 pm

quote:
Originally posted by LeeLansinger:
For sometime the "no code" technician license has had full privileges on 2m and above.
Like some wise person said, "If you really want some distance, try amateur radio."

The goal is to provide at least rudimentary communications for the camp-out for all that come.

Do you really think that many cachers will have 2-meter or other amateur radios atthe campout? If so, well, we could set the repeater up for 2-meter I guess. I'll have to get my license and a radio or I won't be able to talk...

[This message has been edited by CacheCows (edited February 26, 2002).]

Posted: Sun Mar 03, 2002 10:58 pm

Unhappily the campout is on a bad weekend for amature radio operators, the largest ham event, the Dayton Hamvention is the same weekend and we all had to have our reservations in long ago. I hope this campout goes well so there will be another.

Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2002 9:19 am

quote:
Originally posted by LeeLansinger:
Unhappily the campout is on a bad weekend for amature radio operators, the largest ham event, the Dayton Hamvention is the same weekend and we all had to have our reservations in long ago. I hope this campout goes well so there will be another.

Sorry you won't be able to join the campout, Lee. Judging by the number of people signed up so far, it looks like we're going to have a quite an event, so it's likely there will be more in the future.

BTW, although I'm not a ham radio operator myself, I do have background interest in that hobby.

[This message has been edited by kbraband (edited March 04, 2002).]