Commo

@TyMoore @KD9PREPPER and myself could all be tapped for this.

@Patriotic Trucker Hats off to you. Ive been reading your posts and am learning/relearning a lot. Thank you for sharing with us. Also there is nothing better than saying "fire for effect" and have a whole gun line of 155's unleash only to hear the momentary silents before the sound of impact.

@TyMoore, i wish i had my grandfather's equipment. I just picked up a UV-82HP(looking on how to lock out the tx till i get my ticket). I had thought on getting a tri band model but heard 220 isn't used as much. Might pick one up just for that reason. Is the Yaesu that much better, other than the case integrity?

@JS Badger Yaesu, Icom, Kenwood... They all have advantages and disadvantages. Generally speaking though, a radio will treat you as you treat it. If you're tossing it around on concrete and banging it on the table trying to get it to work again, it won't last. But if it's dropped from the hip into some wet dirt probably won't phase it much. Most of my equipment is 810-Mil-Spec.

Mobile and handhelds are designed for vibrations, accidental drops etcetera. Radios for sheltered environment like the FT-736 not so much.

@Jonathan Wilfred Michelin I'm not sure what they mean by the term "intercom". Unless it's something akin to the old Nextel PTT cellphone walkie talkies?? Anyway one of the weakest links for these class of radios is unfortunately the difficulty of programming them without a computer running CHiRP and or cloning radio to radio. Just my opinion based on reviews.

@Patriotic Trucker ok thank-you, and I copied the radio title from a website, I apologize, they had intercom haha

@Mike Ault, any information or guidance is very much appreciated. As soon as i get my ticket, i hope to xatch y'all on the air.

@JS Badger don't cram! Study for up to an hour or less. Let the information absorb. Take as many practice exams as you possibly can. HAM PREP is an app I'm using along with a book, highlighters and a note book.

Yeah, but I'm tired of replacing them after an overpass scrapes them off the back of my truck! :)

These are tough questions to answer. What do you want to achieve with the radio. What are it's most important features, water resistance, price point so you can replace it in an event of dropping in the lake, range, battery drain, ease of use??

A multi-use and popular radio is the Beofang UV series. You can often compare Beofang against other brands and honestly find many of the same features at different prices

Ok thanks, I was looking at a radio on YouTube a Yaesu FT-817 it's like a mobile with a battery so it's mobile lol, but I'd like a hand held, I have used the Motorola CP-200 vhf radios, they feel good but 450 a radio, not my price range haha

@Jonathan Wilfred Michelin Just out of curiosity, are you a licensed ham? If you aren't you might also consider getting a GMRS mobile radio like the Midland Micromobile MXT115 mobile radio. It's 15W rf, mounts in a vehicle (or pack with a small lead acid or lithium ion battery.) You file for a license from the FCC, pay $70 for 5 years of use, then everybody in your family can use it. Good way to start now while you study up to become a licensed Ham. Just a thought for you.

Ok thanks, in looking at the Yaesu line now, how do you find the prices? I honestly cannot find anything in Canada haha, I'll look up your radio for a idea.

My father told me, never say anything over the air you didn't want your neighbors to hear... This applied to the cordless phone.

@Patriotic Trucker (laughing!) Yes, my dad used to say the same thing. Don't ever do your banking with a cordless phone, especially the old 1980's garbage ones that operated on 29Mhz with a telescoping antenna that literally anyone within 3/4 mile with a Bearcat scanner could listen too! (so much for comsec!)

@Big Squirrel don't underestimate the power of knowledge. Yes technician class is limited to 50Mhz+ (VHF/UHF) and beyond, but there's great fun to be had either assembling your desired station or building one from scratch.

Six meters 50-54Mhz is a fascinating area to "play" around with and capable of doing much more than the typical handheld devices we're well versed in. Such as working meteor skatter, Aurora, and sparatic E propagation or tropospheric ducting to achieve long distances. Learning how to effectively communicate over longer distance by concentration of RF power into a more narrow bandwidth (think about a garden hose with your thumb slightly over the end of the hose), example would be 146.520 FM simplex might not reach the station as well as 144.205 USB simplex. FM carries a lot of information with a modulated carrier wave plus both sidebands, AM on CB has this as well. But what if we cut one of the sidebands out and suppress the carrier on the transmitter side, and reintroduce the carrier and missing sideband on the receiver side?? That's how SSB works. The transmitter only has to transmit either the upper or the lower sideband information and can send that "lighter" load further.

Morse Code is even better at going the distance because it is a continuous wave. Hence the reason Morse code is refered to as CW, it's a carrier that is either on or off. Technically Morse code was one of the first digital modes of Communications, 10101 on off on off dah dah dit dit dit, dit dit dit dah dah.

@Patriotic Trucker The fun thing about ham radio is there are lots of modes one can use to get messages out if needed. A key hear is to learn about them and what you will need to effectively use a particular mode on the equipment you have and that those you need to communicate with also have similar capabilities. Guys there are some very interesting ways to communicate without having to pick up a microphone. Don't limit your knowledge.