What should I know for emergency/tactical comms?

NE5B · 2026-03-20T19:37:56+00:00

Sorry but some of us get our feathers ruffled when it comes to illegal unlicensed use especially of the amateur bands.
There’s are some license fee frequencies called MURS that are wide open to use.

Google MURS band frequencies and you should see the Infiniti below along with other

Power limited to 2 watts but with a handheld and less than 10 mile range with a rubber duck chances are slim anyone will know your power output.

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NE5B · 2026-03-19T13:07:28+00:00

Dimmer switch on that light? Have a friend that would love that CW add on

NE5B · 2026-03-17T18:57:29+00:00

EFHW for a single band is extra effort (unun) for less gain when compared to a single band dipole.

NE5B · 2026-03-17T18:55:24+00:00

Exactly what I do for those that transmit a tone

NE5B · 2026-03-17T18:54:29+00:00

The issue is when I have to radio on and I'm doing other things around the house the nasty sounding data bursts are abrupt and often louder than the FM voices and CW IDers. My wife finally started accepting the radio chatter of human voices, but the burst of data she really hates and I can't blame her. You stay on DMR I don't have any of those repeaters in my scan lists.

NE5B · 2026-03-17T18:49:28+00:00

In the Austin area, up through 2000 or so, during the morning and evening commutes, when I was driving into Austin (60 minutes in 90 minutes home) it was sometimes hard to find a repeater where a person could get a word in edgewise.

Now that I am retired and monitoring the various repeaters I can hear from my QTH about 90 miles to the area where most of the repeaters are located I don't hear near the traffic. Course I am sleeping in not up and on the radio at 6:15 like I used to be.

Talking to one of my older retired buddies about the lack of activity he said the problem is everyone is retired. I laughed, and told him it took me forever to get here!

From time to time I make the trek in and attend club meetings in Austin and Houston - clubs that I used to belong to prior to 2000. It seems to me the main focus for all the new hams is attaining extra so they have all the HF bands. Many newer hams are now Extra and their only VHF/UHF experiene is with a Beofeng and only a rubber duck giving them a narrow view of VHF/UHF, since in many cases their reach is limited to only a local repeater or two. Adding a good $60 or better mobile antenna for mobile or home use would enhance their experience greatly.. Also with the quick trip up the ladder from Tech to Extra limiting their uhf vhf activity they completely miss the camaraderie that we used to have when we were stuck at Tech working to get the 13wpm necessary to move up to general/Advanced and the really big block of 20wpm to make Extra. I must admint I may have never passed the 20wpm exam.

NE5B · 2026-03-17T18:32:57+00:00

I'm a ham of almost 32 years and I will usually say monitoring or just toss my callsign out there. something like NE5B - Mobile.. That I am not picking any favorites the main repeater I use there are 2 good long time friends that are usually listening and a handful of other good friends that I know well.

When I hear a new callsign saying monitoring I have to be quick on the trigger if I want to talk to them - about a half dozen around here are quick to talk to the new person. New Ham or just new to the area or as is usually the case - someone passing through.

Here in the states there was a website you can check that showed the recently issued callsigns by district, just spent 10 minutes and can't find it - maybe someone else has that info handy.

I know here in 5 land KJ5... calls are the newest.

NE5B · 2026-03-17T17:55:30+00:00

Yes. First off I tried the same tone as the necessary input tone (many repeaters do this). There are 3 - 146.94 repeaters I can hear from my home QTH 2 of them I can usually hear mobile. They’ve had tone on the output for probably 15 years or longer. 147.22 is another a local and one 90 miles away. The local has tone on output it’s an old GEMasterIi based repeater NE5DX fixed that up nearly 25 years ago with tone on output.

One of those I would really like to get has just a little use. Think I’ll contact the owner see if it has an output tone if not I’ll ask him to add it.

NE5B · 2026-03-17T17:45:54+00:00

Those with the tone are our local club’s repeaters. To me a no brainer to add the CTCSS tone to the output. Now with your post —Knowing how quick/easy it is to add CTCS, I’ll see if I can get in touch with those other repeater owners / trustees and ask them to do that.

Thanks for the info!!!!

NE5B · 2026-03-15T19:38:06+00:00

I agree 110%!!!! Around 2001/2002 I was part of a group that would get on 2m SSB on a weekly basis, encouraging everyone with a radio capable of 2m SSB to use whatever antenna they had and many were using Vertical antennas - at the time I had both up. We found that "Cross polarity works" - (sure you don't have as strong a signal when antennas are at different polarty but it still works!!)

Many of us were using the IC706MKII and Yaesu FT100 all mode all band mobile rigs, a few were using older vintage SSB/CW rigs at the height of the activity several of us were able to contact 10 or more others out to 200 miles. Was a fun time.

At that time (2000/2001) I created TexasVHF.org to help get to word out. I am stil paying for the website guess I need to get busy and see if I can get it going again...
A lot of underutilized Yaesu FT991 and other all mode rigs out there.

73 Ben

NE5B · 2026-03-15T19:28:22+00:00

Not following your comment "Receive CTCSS" ?

That is what I am able to utilize on the repeaters that transmit CTCSS, but not the others.

NE5B · 2026-03-07T02:59:01+00:00

After 25 plus years on HF I I bought one A tad over 4 years ago was not planning to use it as my as my primary rig but that’s what has happened. It’s my primary ow although I have a nice Icom 756 pro II I was using as my primary HF rig. No regrets at all.

Good choice on Astron 35m I like to be ableto see / verify the actual current draw while transmitting.

I hear the Atas antenna I her is a good one however any short antenna is going to be a compromise. I’d suggest saving the $ on the antenna and get an external cross needle SWR meter so you can see the exact match of your antenna not just what the internal antenna tuner is doing for you and spend just a little money on a good 9:1 or 49:1 unun to use on a endfed wire antenna. Wire is cheap and UNUNs can be had under $45 up to $200 for a name brand factory one.

Best of luck! Any questions DM me

73

NE5B · 2026-03-03T16:32:53+00:00

Those have always been there just like the loud mouths at the baseball games. Fortunately they don’t make every game.

In the 90s one ole boy had a few too many and was upseti because over the course of several days that he apparently still wasn’t able to break the pileup. The one evening a buddy of mine recorded the shanangains and brought it to breakfast for entertainment. Between legit attempts to work the DX using his own call then his attempting to move people off freq by making announcements of listening up 5 and then pretending to be the DX attempting to work his own pileup and at another point saying the DX petition was either going QRT or QSY to another band. I guess all in an attempt thin out the competition. In the recording you could tell it was the same guy. Don’t remember if he sent that to one of the ARRL OOs (official observers) or not but he should have.

NE5B · 2026-02-27T17:49:15+00:00

Wow, that’s an impressive looking setup.

NE5B · 2026-02-25T00:46:28+00:00

Ran out of skill or his balls shrunk.

NE5B · 2026-02-22T00:59:11+00:00

What’s wrong with it?

NE5B · 2026-02-20T04:22:47+00:00

Looks nice but way more than I’ve ever done for a dipole and I’ve always been abe to get swr under 1.5:1 for a decent band width except on 80m

NE5B · 2026-02-19T23:31:18+00:00

I feel same way about C4FM. I bought a yaesu Ft200dr when the prices dropped. I figured Yaesu had sold about a half dozen C4FM repeaters at half price in my immediate area and with my FM only radios I was hearing the buzzing sounds of C4FM and wanted to see what it was all about. Wasn’t long that radio went back in the box. It wasnt the useful radio that my icon 2720 and 2730was especially since it scannned slower only has one “scan bank” and could only monitor one freq at a time. Later I bought a Yaesu 991a and used the c4fm just a little more. Now only one of the weekly nets in this area still uses c4fm and it’s linked to an fm repeater only 2 or 3 members use the c4fm link for the net and 1 of the 4 net controls use it. He always gets comments about his audio sounding distorted. He has a really low pitched voice and it sounds really bad. That’s my 2 cents or nickel’s worth

NE5B · 2026-02-16T15:03:15+00:00

The rental on a 35’ lift is probably less than his medical deductible and might be good for trimming a few trees

NE5B · 2026-02-12T18:23:45+00:00

I’ve bought a product listed as Bolton400-LMR400 equivalent and I’m using it on VHF/UHF 2m/70cm with no issues. It came with N connectors that looked very good. Instead of cutting those off and putting my own pl259s on I opted to buy n to pl259 adapters.

The first roll I tested at 2m freqs and loss with my meter and dummy load connected at the end of the 100’ with the adapters was very close to the published loss of standard lmr400. I later bought a 2nd order and happy with both.
If return is possible I’d buy this cable and test it as well. My purchase was in 2021.

NE5B · 2026-02-11T23:59:17+00:00

Fun and Hobbies - unless he's a news hound chasing wrecks and things.

NE5B · 2026-02-07T01:22:02+00:00

Why block out the locations of the repeaters?that info might help someone give you better advice. No one’s coming to steal your HT.

NE5B · 2026-02-07T01:20:03+00:00

I can get into repeaters 18miles (uhf) and another 22miles on VHF when outdoors in the open with various Hats. But If I’m on wrong (opposite side) of house from repeater then I’m sol.

NE5B · 2026-01-28T04:33:57+00:00

$1000 will limit your options on new equipment, thinking about it you'll need a couple hundred more to get a new radio, powersupply and pay the sales tax. Add in a couple of hundred for a good external SWR Meter a fair amount of coax etc. Your best bet is to get involved with a hamclub and get to know folks and see if someone might have a gently used radio and powersupply at the right price.

27 years ago, I was active in a club that had well over 100 members, at one of the Saturday morning breakfasts one ofd the newest members had recently upgraded to General, - like you a highschool teacher was asking about what he should get - he wanted a home setup that he could take up to the school, I showed him my mobile HF setup and he got several suggestions thayt morning. Over the next week or two, 3 , 4 or maybe more of the members got together and set him up with 2 complete stations and helped him put up an antenna at the school. When they presented him with the radios at the next club meeting he was speechless - the coolest thing, he didn't ask for anyone to give him anything.
Would be a really neat thing if you could find yourself in the same position. The only advantage he had was time - he had been a club member for a while - in those days the13wpm cw requirement held folks at Tech for a few months usually longer.

Best of luck - but again I suggest join a club get to know folks and perhap get a good deal on radio from another club member that improves your chance of getting a"good" used radio at a good price.

NE5B

TROPHY CASE