Merry Christmas: Free Pedestrian Mobile Handbook.
Click the link below to the Boschveldt QRP Club Library.
Then go to the “Pedestrian Mobile Section.”
There you’ll find wa3wsj’s Amateur Radio Pedestrian Mobile Handbook: Second Edition."
It’s a PDF free download book filled with good stuff about operating as a pedestrian mobile station or portable.
http://w3bqc.homestead.com/W3BQC-Library.html
Thanks Ed !
Paul w0rw
My wife’s comment to this photo in the handbook
“Does he know he’s not meant to be operating from a vehicle”
She’s learning
Ed, WA3WSJ, has also made 2 additional books available free.
-
Amateur Radio and the Great Outdoors at:
[Website Disabled](http://Ed, WA3WSJ, has also made 2 additional books available free.)- Appalachian Trail Guide at:
http://w3bqc.homestead.com/files/AT_Guide_2014_Preview_Proof.pdf
- Appalachian Trail Guide at:
ps: The First Edition of the Pedestrian Mobile Handbook is also available for 9 MB. It has a section on Military Surplus Radios in Chapter 12.
http://w3bqc.homestead.com/WA3WSJ_s_PM_Handbook.pdf
Paul w0rw
Thanks Paul and Ed!
Always a delight to work a /PM. Lots of smiles, looking at the various rig combos.
Best, Ken
Nomenclature check: /PM is different from /M because it’s more operating a full rig while on foot as opposed to a HT?
/PM is a made up glorification term for walking and talking at the same time.
Oh hahah I thought I’d learnt a new suffix today
People have been making up suffixes, whether allowable by their licence or not, for a long time. It’s only recently that many ham radio licences have become a lot less prescriptive.
Operating pedestrian mobile is intriguing because there are technical issues to overcome to run say a 20m station that is attached only to your person that allows you to walk and make effective long distance QSOs. Also, the expression is descriptive and accurate unlike the oxy-moron “static mobile”. That’s a phrase used by people trying to sound clever when obviously the correct expression for operating a radio in car that has stopped is “I’m square wheels and my 20 is…”
/TIC
Well, I learned something today - I think!
Thanks Paul, don’t know if I’ll ever go PM, but always a fan of your scenic trips into the Rockies (as well as Steve WG0AT and his herd, LOL).
73
Mark / K6MTS
Reminds me of the old “what if I have a radio rig attached to a bike while the rider is on a flatbed truck on a RoRo vehicle ferry in the middle of a lake?” suffix question (or whatever the example is).
I recall someone noting that a operating from a vessel on water that is not an ocean (and possibly not in international waters) is not maritime mobile, just mobile. Rivers, lakes, canals. Mobile.
The issue of what to sign as has confused many an operator. We had a local 2m fm operator who, when operating from his car which stopped at traffic llghts, stated “I’ve just gone portable”, confusing velocity with station status.
We did create an award named after one of his favourite sayings. But then, we are easily amused.
I do operate from a stationary car and I have never really been comfortable calling myself ‘mobile’ or ‘/M’ as folk expect that to be a moving vehicle but then ‘portable’ or ‘/P’ is clearly very ambiguous as well, and ‘/A’ isn’t right.
So maybe /M is technically correct but it raises expectations that you don’t have a dipole on a 10m mast strapped to the tow bar.
That’s just how I don’t roll…!
Please keep your tongue firmly in your cheek when answering, but I’m happy to be corrected on all fronts.
Actually just thinking about this… I always log my contacts as /P when operating from a static car, so I guess I have chosen a suffix regardless of what I tell people. Is that even right?
Mark. M0NOM
So I think based on this discussion the correct term is ‘pedestrian portable mobile’? /PPM.
I may be a PPM in amateur radio operators now…
Could you drive off and continue to operate the radio station? No… well you’re not mobile. Being mobile has nothing to do with the velocity of the station as Andrew eloquently stated.
Setting up a station in a car with a mast and antenna attached to the car in some way (a drive on mast stand) is most definitely portable.
Alternate was dropped in the 80s and reintroduced around 2005-2010 ISTR. It was dropped because it was not needed and caused confusion then and causes confusion now.
The real question is do you need to be /X at all. For SOTA, when I hear /P I think S2S contact and so /P is useful. The rest of the time… well who cares where you are located.
what if you are on a pogo stick
Logging would be difficult
Voice recognition…ahhhhh… = (I’ve crashed)