We have a local radio club which has its own facebook page. Most of them have a chat on 2m most evenings and they all use HF to reach DX stations.
From here I can reach a repeater at Thirsk and the one at Richmond and I’ve chatted to people on those. I should be able to reach the one at Durham too but at the moment my antenna arrangements are quaint to say the least! Its a dual band mag mount on an Aldi satellite kit dish with the LNB arm removed. Now that I have a Yaesu FT-8900-R I can raise most of the members of the local club on 2m using my legal 10W. I’ll soon be able to up that to 50W but i have discovered that the RX on the 8900 could use some TLC and as the receive path is what actually governs range, because if you can’t hear them you cant talk to them! I’ve spoken to the guy at Yaesu UK and they’ll change all 3 filters for an hours labour and update firmware and give it a bit of a service so at that rate I’ll have over £300 worth of rig for a total of £230. - I got it of an ex colleague who has been an amateur for 40 years and is thinking of packing it in.
There is a guy at Eaglescliffe runs a simplex internet gateway which I can raise easily even on the hand portable. You get to hear Americans, Canadians and all sorts on that. I’ve worked some amateurs in Worcester and Devon on that no probs.
Its not quite as dead a hobby as it might first seem. Lots of people are taking RAE exams. I’d also be interested to know how CB is doing these days I got shot of my 120 channel Cobra many years ago so I’ve no equipment to listen with now. My 8900 does amatuer 10m, 6m, 2m and 70cms but I can’t exploit it until I get the antenna thing sorted out.
Strangely enough on the exam front the Intermediate was actually easier than the Foundation I thought because as its more technical there’s less scope for some of the stupid type of questions that featured in the Foundation. Up to now the Advanced questions seem easier still from the point of view that its more technical and you either know or you don’t again I haven’t come across any of those badly worded ‘gotchas’ that appeared in the Foundation.
Fingers crossed after I’ve said all that I manage to pass the Advanced or I’m going to look a chump!!!
BTW the report pdf you download doesn’t actually show the questions you got it will instead show which bit of syllabus they were and whether you got it right or wrong. This means you can concentrate swatting on the bits of the syllabus you got wrong and so target your efforts.
Crumbs you were only 2 marks out anyway if I were you I’d do a load of the 10 question quickies and some actual mocks off Radiotutur website and you’ll soon be getting 26 out of 26!!
Chirp seems to be quite flexible and gets good write ups. Glad your Baofengs are doing the business for you.
Quote: Originally posted by david8858 on 03/5/2021
I’d also be interested to know how CB is doing these days I got shot of my 120 channel Cobra many years ago so I’ve no equipment to listen with now.
73’s
Dave
CB or the 11 meter band is still going strong and it is now legal to use AM and SSB.When the bands are open you can work all over the World on very little power.11 meters is a good indicator of what the prop is going to be on 10. I cut my teeth on CB and 11 meters is still my fave band.
PS there is no S on the end of 73 the band police will pick up on
it as they just love to put M3 M6 and M7's in their place
73
I’m not an M7 now!! I’m 2E0HEQ or 2 eeeeh Heck if you’re in Yorkshire!!
Ih the interests of callsign efficiency I’ve surrendered M7BWB when I picked up 2E0HEQ today. Come 26th of this month hopefully I’ll get my final and more memorable callsign.
Up to now I’ve just taken the default on the OFCOM website next one available. I’ll have a good look for the M0 as to what’s available. I wouldn’t dream of taking a call from a silent key as that just seems wrong to me. I know OFCOM will do it if you pay but I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing it - you never know whose family members are still around - nah it shouldn’t be possible to get a silent keys call.
I’ve met some of those band police types who think M7’s are the lowest form of animal life on the bands and are to be tolerated at best.
I thought there was more than one best wish - so you’re right I should have missed off the apostrophe as they are plural good wishes.
Commiserations David, but you have done amazingly well to complete and pass the first two exams in such a short space of time.
How many of you were taking the full exam, on your session.
As we have both found the questions you get on the exam are a lottery, and comparing my questions to many of the test papers I did, I am convinced built in failure is part of the regime, that may sound like sour grapes on my part, but I am sure you would agree.
What I can’t understand is why they make it so difficult for some , especially as the hobby has seen a massive decline since it’s hey day.
At least you have got your 2E0 if I had got M7 that would have been enough for me as a beginner in the hobby, but it was not meant to be.
Thankfully PMR446 is licence free, and I am having fun with that, I doubt that I will return to the hobby to take my foundation again, will have a think on that next year.
There were 3 of us on that session 1 Foundation, 1 Intermediate and 1 Advanced. I didn’t find out how they got on as they had an hour and an hour and a half respectively for their 26 and 45 questions. I had 2 hours for my 58.
Frankly by the time I got to question 28 I was fed up and just flashed through the rest as life is too short for substituting to find different components of an equation. There seemed to be a few of those and I just lost interest. I didn’t sign up for pure maths those days have long gone.
You seem a little despondent David, like me it’s money down the drain if nothing else.
Anyway on the upside, Lidl have got Walkie Talkies back in on the 3rd June, they are sure to be PMR446 and hopefully 16ch Analogue, from the image they look as though they take three “AA” batteries each and or rechargeable as they come with a mains charger.
At £29 they will be a nice replacement for my original Lidl SilverCrest radios that are 8ch and use three “AAA” batteries.
Yep, David I agree, more like hacked off, I was surprised that I failed, as I had put a lot of work in and was getting well over past scores in all the mock papers I did, I almost felt duped when I got the fail.
All for the sake of wanting to start a new hobby.
Anyway as you ask, the Baofeng UV-5R’s are more for when we are out on the hills etc, and will also be used as a base radio, walking around a outdoor market etc with one will look a bit odd, the antenna’s are 40cm and the larger battery almost doubles the size of the radio.
It’s funny how the description of the SilverCrest radios on Lidl’s website gives no mention of how many channels the radios are or what size battery they come with, not even that they are PMR446 they may not be !, I will give them a coat of looking at when they arrive in store, going of the image they look more than just a kids toy radio, which is reflected in the price.
Lidl, just sent me a link to the instruction manual for the Walkie Talkies, they are 16ch PMR446 and each radio comes with three "AA" Ni-MH rechargeable batteries with Micro USB input for charging via supplied charger.
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Topic: Ham Radio
