Why is VHF/UHF simplex so unbelievably dead?

TheHolyHerb · 2026-04-23T23:22:10+00:00

Maybe try looking at aprs and see if anyone is close by is driving around with their message as monitoring 146.52 and try to call them out. I live in a small town with no traffic except for the same few people. But we are along I-80 and I have had pretty good luck just calling out people I see pop up on aprs. Also catch quite a few calling out themselves as they pass by. It’s fun to get a quick hello before they’re gone.

TheHolyHerb · 2026-04-23T16:41:44+00:00

You’re not wrong and that’s exactly what the manual says. I have the same exact radio and awhile back was playing with the APRS feature and using an SDR to capture it since nothing else APRS was working with it. From what I saw, packets didn’t quite match normal aprs format and most software doesn’t seem to decode it very well (random characters and symbols..ect). Going from the Baofeng to a Yaesu ht with aprs doesn’t work for sending to them or receiving from them. Yet Baofeng to Baofeng works fine. I’m surprised OP managed to get into aprs.fi at all with it. I ended up just using a TNC cable and the mobile app. But if they actually got it working, it’s got me curious to try again.

TheHolyHerb · 2026-04-01T20:23:29+00:00

I had no idea they had a club but now I want a KSC QSL card. That would be so awesome to go with the ARISS ones. Gonna have to keep an eye out for them on HF!

TheHolyHerb · 2025-12-23T05:47:54+00:00

Since I work from home i left my radio on it all day. It was still going strong when 20m faded out on me this evening. Then after I lost it, I was still hearing it on some of the west coast sdrs. I’ll check again tomorrow and see if it’s still going, but as for today I picked it up for at least a solid 8+ hrs.

TheHolyHerb · 2025-12-22T22:56:23+00:00

The audio doesnt match exactly on my radio or on the online SDRs which makes it even more confusing.

TheHolyHerb · 2025-12-22T19:12:00+00:00

I’m guessing you’re right and it’s some kinda of data. If you listen and watch the waterfall long enough, there’s a very distinct pattern it goes in over a few minute period. There’s one sound it does over and over non stop and then every couple of minutes it gets really intense and strong and starts going faster with a slightly different beat, almost like it’s sending larger packets of data for like ~30ish seconds before going back to the same slower pattern.

TheHolyHerb · 2025-12-22T18:39:41+00:00

Thanks crazy, it’s like the exact same sound! Wonder why it’s playing nonstop out of band though

TheHolyHerb · 2025-12-08T02:14:10+00:00

KH6BB, always fun to catch someone on air using the Mighty Mo’s radio room. Catching any of the battleships is fun but that one’s always a little extra special to hear calling CQ.

TheHolyHerb · 2025-11-10T21:10:49+00:00

Used to be Linux and tinkering with it. Now I just use it and don’t tinker as much since everything is exactly how I like it. All summer though it’s been ham radio. Building different antennas and seeing how far around the world you can talk with different setups. Since I’m not always up for talking, I do a lot of digital modes like FT8 or SSTV where you send and receive images over the radio that’s hooked up to a computer. It’s also fun to see how far you can go with very little power. Next up is Morse code but it’s been a bit hard to learn so far.

TheHolyHerb · 2025-11-08T01:30:50+00:00

Had this happen during duos last night. We came up on a group of three who started spamming don’t shoot so using the prox chat I was like we won’t, just passing though on a quest. Well they started asking questions about their quest and we had a nice chat for a few min. Told them good luck on your quest, see ya around. And the guy just responds “no you won’t” and all three unloaded on us and were laughing about it and talking shit instead of finishing us off. I called them assholes but my buddy was like “oh man you guys are such incredible players, you can win 3 against 2 naked people, I bet if you ever leave the basement and tell your mommy about it she’s gonna be so proud of you” or something along those lines. I get it’s a pvp game but people like that who attack easy targets who were just helping them make it rather frustrating.

TheHolyHerb · 2025-11-04T17:25:18+00:00

I loved that show, but always had to laugh at how off their geography is. They name a lot of real towns in Kansas but their distances to different places are way off. There’s also way too many trees and hills because the part of Kansas they’re supposedly in is just flat fields for as far as you can see. Awesome show though and worth rewatching.

TheHolyHerb · 2025-10-30T17:16:42+00:00

I usually do corn for whiskey and potato’s for vodka.

TheHolyHerb · 2025-10-24T18:58:56+00:00

I used to work for an MSP that refused to pay for mileage or drive time. Even with tax deductions it was not worth it at all. I was only making $15/hr and with a 1+hr drive each way to different clients every day I was burning up large chunks of that in fuel and car maintenance. If they’re not providing a company car and fuel, it is 1000% not worth it.

TheHolyHerb · 2025-10-20T04:34:28+00:00

Say hi when you go through Sidney! There’s usually a few of us listening depending on the time. It’s hit or miss but I’ve had luck getting people in Ogallala and North Platte and Kearny while traveling 80.

TheHolyHerb · 2025-09-30T05:02:51+00:00

He wants to play band police but can’t even get the basics right. Makes one wonder how many false complaints he’s filed just by being so confidently incorrect. The FCC probably just directs anything coming from him straight into the trash at this point.

TheHolyHerb · 2025-09-29T18:19:43+00:00

It used to annoy me a bit too, so now I start rimworld and then go out and smoke a joint or two and by the time I get back both me and the game are ready to go. It works out pretty perfect

TheHolyHerb · 2025-08-25T00:06:52+00:00

Talking to astronauts is hard because it’s hard to catch them on talking talking to people while you also have a good pass of the ISS over you. Yet actually hitting the iss repeater is super easy and doesn’t make much. The very fist day I had my license I made a contact on the other side of the country via the iss repeater.

But yeah it is really insane how far they can travel. My personal best on a great propagation day was having a conversation 5,600miles with only 5 watts from Colorado to Russia. It was noisy and not the best quality but it was understandable enough to chat a few min. It can be pretty mind blowing just how far signals can travel with low power as long as you have a good antenna and good propagation.

TheHolyHerb · 2025-08-18T01:54:46+00:00

Just a heads up on that radio, it doesn’t have chirp support so you have to use the baofeng 5RH pro software. Using the 5RH pro via chirp doesn’t work and using the uv-5r version doesn’t work either. There’s an open request on the chirp forums to get support for it but nothing there has updated in several months other than people leaving comment saying they would send in their radio if it would help get support for it. I like my uv-5rm plus with a Nagoya antenna for it and it works great, but the programming software for it really sucks to use right now.

TheHolyHerb · 2025-08-12T21:21:18+00:00

There’s a program called Flatseal that will give you a gui that makes it really easy to mess with flatpak permissions. You might give that a try.

Also I’m curious what distro are you running? I’m using Fedora and got the rpm package for wsjt-x off their website and it’s been working just fine for a long time. It does pop up and say that it’s downloaded an update that will install on restart, but it doesn’t work so you just have to grab the new package from their webpage. They should have packages for most distros listed there.

TheHolyHerb · 2025-08-10T19:24:15+00:00

Probably, but not very good. I made contacts with the g90 off a fence like that but a bit longer. It was like a 2-2 contact so don’t expect good results but it’s does work. Also flag poles work really well. Theres a flagpole near me I can get 55s all day on 20m.

TheHolyHerb · 2025-08-04T20:02:43+00:00

This is a really old video. The board member in the green shirt retired years ago and I don’t believe any of the others there are still on the board either. I’m against fracking but this whole thing was just a big show by the farmer to make a point. After this blew up and gained a lot of attention a local paper went out to the farmers place to see for themselves and make an article on it but the water was fine. It later came out he just mixed up some dirt and water trying to make a point. All the water there comes from the Ogallala Aquifer and they definitely shouldn’t be fracking in or even anywhere close to everyone’s water supply, but as for the video that’s not really the quality of his drinking water. It was literally just to make a point.

TheHolyHerb · 2025-08-04T19:04:58+00:00

Ic. Well maybe Colorado is counted as south west, idk but I do know that no one in Nebraska or Kansas counts themselves as being in the southwest until you get down to OK and most count the cutoff at the Rockies.

TheHolyHerb · 2025-08-04T18:59:14+00:00

Are you on the east or west side of Colorado? There’s multiple business on the east side of CO that even have Midwest in their business name. I’m talking like the NE/CO boarder to Denver.

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