I've been getting more involved with HAM radio lately and have found several local clubs and contact many (but not yet joined). This week I plan to investigate joining ARES (the Wake County) branch. I've been joining the 9:15 PM Thursday night net meeting for the last month or so, the first two weeks as a silent "scanner" and the last two weeks I mustered the courage to actually check in with my call sign. Hopefully I didn't sound like a idiot and make many mistakes!!
Hitting the 146.88 Mhz repeater from Youngsville 5 watts of output power created somewhat a stir at the last meeting as it was thought that 5 watts out output power was not nearly enough power to hit the repeater with the input signal being much more than static. It seems my purchase of the Icom IC-T8A was a good choice (though I have not come close to using 1/10 of the functions built into this thing). After last week's meeting I was talking with a couple of very helpful fellows about my perdiciment of wanting a "super radio" that I could install in the house, then put in the car on a whim and later pull the same radio out of the car for use inside at the outer banks.
It seems "super radios" do exist but also carry "super price tags". Since I'm still paying a pretty penny for the Suburban every month I decided anything with a "super price tag" would have to wait. Shoot. But all was not lost! The helpful gentlement I was talking with on 146.88 suggested a cross-band repeater for the car. Essentially how this work is the radio listens on one band and repeats the signal at full strength on the 2nd signal at full mobile strength (50 watts). I would transmit using my handheld Icom on the 440 Mhz/70 cm band and configure the radio to restransmit my signal to any setting on the 146 Mhz/2 meter band. Pretty sweet.
I sould be able to power the unit off a secondary deep-cycle battery and I just so happen to have a 12 volt deep cycle marine battery in my garage. Now all I have to is find the correct radio, purchase it and install. All of which I know nothing about. Should be an adventure!
Greg
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2 comments:
A "cross-band repeater" is simply a dual band radio with a cross-band repeat function. The dual-band mobile in my car will do this, but I haven't really used it that much.
Being able to hit something with 5 watts (or any number of watts) is really more of a function of the antenna than it is of the radio or your power. What antenna were you using when you managed to hit .88 with the HT?
I was using the original rubber duck antenna that arrived with the radio.
Hey, if you're going to be around tonight at 9:15 why not check in on 146.88? :)
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