A radio related story but not Ham radio ! I have been trying to get into my nearest DMR repeater and have been messing with antennas. None of this worked as the other antennas and antenna locations made it worse so I put the original antenna back up in it’s original location. At the same I reprogramming a particular Analogue repeater in to the radio memory and noticed the wind was affecting the repeater signal strength ( it always does ) As the repeater was going below the squelch level I decided to check the SWR and found it to be high on the 2 meter band. Up the loft I must go ! Rather than keep going into the attic and all the way back to my ground floor room I got Mrs G7SKU to man/woman the SWR meter and and gave her one of my PMR446 handhelds ( oh boy was she happy not !) I sorted the antenna out and then realised I had set the squelch a little higher than needed which wasn’t helping. I put the two 446 handhelds back in there basket and tried a number of calls ( where is everyone now days !) This was all mid morning !. At about 7.30pm wilst watching Netflix the walkie talkie fired up with someone shouting “Hello Hello” making us jump in shock and my two dogs to go off on one ! ( again Mrs G7SKU was really happy !) I grabbed it and called back and found myself in conversation with a guy about 3 miles away he was deliberately trying to get some PMR446 activity going after being inspired by Lewis’s Youtube videos of Ring way Manchester fame. I had been watching one of these about 20 mins earlier and thought to myself that would be great if I could get something like that started near me but dismissed it as I live 25 miles from the nearest city and about 10 miles from the nearest (small) town. Anyway long story short he went on to make 20+ contacts some at good distances! He was sat on the highest local point ( not particularly high !) running a legal radio. There are two points here, how come you can make all these contacts on simple equipment whilst I spent all day calling on 2/70cm using 12 repeaters DMR simplex and FM calling frequencies and made one contact on a wet stormy Sunday when you would expect people to be in.Yet lots of none hams braved it and got out and about ! and two why is 70cms hardly ever used for CQ calls ? My plan next Sunday ( I like a challenge ) Is to take my Little legal Baofeng BF888’S attach it to the top of my car using a magnet and some tape, rap it in a plastic bag attach a speaker mic and bring that into the car via the window whilst sat on a local high spot (Cleehill Shropshire) . Hopefully the car roof will act as a ground plane and the radio will be in clear space whilst keeping it fully legal ( 0.5 watts output and an integral antenna and unmodified. Have a listen about and see what you can hear. There are groups all over the UK but this group is in South Shropshire on the Worcestershire boarders. From previous experience on 70cm with the same radios I should be able to cover a good portion of Shropshire, Worcestershire,Herefordshire, The Mid Welsh boarders, Up into North Staffordshire and across to Tamworth. Have a listen the net starts at 7pm on a Sunday channel 9 Analogue PMR446(others may be in use), Conversation is informal but respectful and you might just find some activity ! It was quite heart warming to find people with such an interest in communicating with others !
Hello,
It’s the same here on EA3; hardly anyone is on VHF/UHF apart from the usual late-night chatters.
It’s great to hear that, at least, the PMR446 operators are making use of those frequencies and enjoying them.
Carrying a walkie-talkie has become unnecessary for SOTA outings, at least round here.
Thanks for the reply Rafa ! Many years ago I passed a Morse test in order to be allowed to use the HF bands ( becoming M0PAB) then found it was just not me and reverted to 30 MHz and above, unfortunately radio is becoming more of a frustration for me now due to the complete lack of activity. ? I have recently ventured into DMR hoping for more activity but that has been proved even worse in this location. The PMR446 activity at least proved that some people are still interested !
If I follow your story correctly, you were using a pair of unmodified PMR446 HTs to communicate between you in the loft (changing the location of your ham antenna) and your wife downstairs (by your ham radio), which is totally fine.
But it prompted me to remind everyone, although PMR446 is license free, connecting a PMR446 radio to an external antenna (e.g. your 70cm collinear), or even using a handset designed with a removable/detachable antenna, breaks the explicit legal conditions for use in both the UK and Europe.
I too have used (analogue) PMR446 HTs [my former employer used to make them, and maybe still does]. I found them useless for cars travelling in convey if the cars get too widely separated, but usable in open countryside. Odd that so many users tend to stick to channel 1. I’ve not used the newer digital versions but I understand the range is typically about the same [which is also my experience when doing 2m FM vs C4FM tests with SOTA chasers]
I didn’t think that was possible. To be type approved for PMR446 the antenna must be non-removable?
Up north in G/NP there’s a reasonable amount of activity. I usually have no problem getting contacts from SOTA summits. I also hear plenty of other conversations on 2m.
What is it you don’t like about HF? What are you trying to get out of the hobby?
People modify them or use higher-powered non-PMR446 radios (e.g. 70cm AR HTs) on the PMR frequencies (similar to what some CB’ers do).
Hmm, by analogy to reverse-bias leakage current - most ex-Class-B licensees went from VHF to HF, and didn’t go back the other way (much). That’s why so many Oldies like me are nostalgic about the level of ad-hoc (i.e. non contest) activity on 2m and 70cm in the decades before the Morse Test abolition. I too would be interested to know what you don’t like about HF (apart from those large HF antennas).
There is a group about 30 miles from me using CB radio and PMR446 frequencies but using a mixture of widebanded HF Ham gear for CB radio and wideband UHF Ham gear and reprogrammed Commercial UHF Radios and external antennas .Heard one of them saying he had blown up his RM KL805
600 watt linear after one of the others was saying his signal wasn’t as strong as normal ! It’s a free for all out there especially on 25 to 28 Mhz ! I’m completely the opposite and enjoy doing things within the limitations of Cheapness and sort of bending but not breaking the rules !
I like to talk to local (ish) people that I can get to know and return to previous conversations and possibly meet, Don’t like the noise of HF , The amount of contesting, I have no interest speaking to foreign lands and from my limited experience a bit of wire run along the hedge seems to work fine for all bands yielding some good DX contacts ( a bit to easy !). I do think dropping the Morse killed the VHF/UHF Bands ( or was the plan to free up more commercial VHF/UHF space ?) but then again allowed people onto HF who enjoyed it ! So swings and roundabouts really. I am very close to giving up as the lack of VHF/UHF activity is more frustrating than enjoyable , I could be doing something more productive and feel that I’m wasting my time chasing invisible shadows ! ( I have heard a few of the biggish radio Youtuber’s saying the same thing) At the moment I’m going to pursue the PMR446 thing, I will also listen ( I only have an RX) on UK legal SSB CB radio as I am told there are a few nets around here, if that activity exists I may even buy a radio !
It’s the same everywhere. At the same time as the abolition of morse testing (which the ITU required radio amateurs to be skilled in, in case a ship called SOS on a ham band - a very rare event if ever done at all, a skill that related to the 1920s and 1930s perhaps, and never since) the introduction of affordable synthesised radios for all bands made ham radio shack design an exercise in product selection more than development of home made versions of published designs. The handbooks that were once full of articles about home made equipment becamse product selection guides and combination selection options. A few articles about add-on accessories like keyers, voice memory, ATUs, high power amplifiers remained but even most of that is gone now.
The appeal and challenge of ham radio used to be getting the gear built, now it’s getting it connected to an antenna and finding a clear spot to operate on. In the cities and towns, power supply and inverter QRM dominates the HF bands so getting out into the country has even more appeal than it did in the “good old days”. I was first licenced in 1965 with the 14 wpm morse test and a theory exam rivalling the difficulty of a high school physics paper. I was in my final year of high school so that was just par for the course. And I think Australian conditions were similar to other countries but with differences argued for by national organisations.
All that is gone and all the qualifications aim to do is reduce the chance of some clown with a radio interfering with aircraft, military or even worse, television reception.
The result is we get from the hobby whatever we want to, from sitting at home battling QRM to sitting on hills or in the countryside chatting with others with no local noise to spoil it. If you would get more satisfaction and enjoyment from one particular type of operation, do it.
Andrew, you make some excellent points. I have S9 RFI noise at home on 1.8MHz. It drops a bit as you go up the HF bands and drops to about S1 in the 17-19MHz region. [VSDL2 strictly terminates at 17.664 MHz].
Earlier this year we had a power cut in my village for a few hours and it was like going back to the 1950s with S0-S1 running my FT857D from a battery. It’s why so many like me are attracted to SOTA activating. Up there on the hills away from domestic appliances, you can still enjoy operating QRP-QRP with only atmospheric or no noise.
Much has changed in amateur radio over the last few decades — including the underlying conditions.
In the past, almost everyone had a television antenna on their roof, and an amateur radio antenna — especially for the VHF/UHF bands — would hardly have been noticed. Even those who listened to FM radio often had a rotor for their antennas.
Because certain license classes restricted operators to frequencies above 144 MHz, there was a great deal of activity, technical development, and a wide variety of equipment in that range.
Furthermore, the modes of operation were primarily limited to phone and CW. Those few individuals experimenting with SSTV, ATV or RTTY were rare.
Today, there are far fewer amateur radio operators, and they face increasingly difficult conditions —such as higher levels of QRM and challenges in obtaining permission to install antennas — yet they also have access to a much broader field of possibilities.
It is therefore a wonderful thing that there are still people who find themselves drawn to wireless communication (and I don’t mean mobile phones! ).
Perhaps some of them will go on to obtain their own licensed call sign in the near future.
not !) I sorted the antenna out and then realised I had set the squelch a little higher than needed which wasn’t helping. I put the two 446 handhelds back in there basket and tried a number of calls ( where is everyone now days !) This was all mid morning !. At about 7.30pm wilst watching Netflix the walkie talkie fired up with someone shouting “Hello Hello” making us jump in shock and my two dogs to go off on one ! ( again Mrs G7SKU was really happy !) I grabbed it and called back and found myself in conversation with a guy about 3 miles away he was deliberately trying to get some PMR446 activity going after being inspired by Lewis’s Youtube videos of Ring way Manchester fame. I had been watching one of these about 20 mins earlier and thought to myself that would be great if I could get something like that started near me but dismissed it as I live 25 miles from the nearest city and about 10 miles from the nearest (small) town. Anyway long story short he went on to make 20+ contacts some at good distances! He was sat on the highest local point ( not particularly high !) running a legal radio. There are two points here, how come you can make all these contacts on simple equipment whilst I spent all day calling on 2/70cm using 12 repeaters DMR simplex and FM calling frequencies and made one contact on a wet stormy Sunday when you would expect people to be in.Yet lots of none hams braved it and got out and about ! and two why is 70cms hardly ever used for CQ calls ? My plan next Sunday ( I like a challenge ) Is to take my Little legal Baofeng BF888’S attach it to the top of my car using a magnet and some tape, rap it in a plastic bag attach a speaker mic and bring that into the car via the window whilst sat on a local high spot (Cleehill Shropshire) . Hopefully the car roof will act as a ground plane and the radio will be in clear space whilst keeping it fully legal ( 0.5 watts output and an integral antenna and unmodified. Have a listen about and see what you can hear. There are groups all over the UK but this group is in South Shropshire on the Worcestershire boarders. From previous experience on 70cm with the same radios I should be able to cover a good portion of Shropshire, Worcestershire,Herefordshire, The Mid Welsh boarders, Up into North Staffordshire and across to Tamworth. Have a listen the net starts at 7pm on a Sunday channel 9 Analogue PMR446(others may be in use), Conversation is informal but respectful and you might just find some activity ! It was quite heart warming to find people with such an interest in communicating with others !