70 cm the hard way

[WX2MIG]

Looks like I'm finally on the 440 Mhz band, but I'm doing it the hard way....sort of....

Today I was given an old Uniden programmable (business / police) radio. It has to be programmed with a computer, but I do have a friend in the business that can do that for me. Right now I have an old 1/4 wave magnet mount sitting up on the garage roof, I'm able to hit a repeater several miles away with this cheesey setup, as it does have a couple of the area amateur repeaters already programmed in it.

I just need to establish a list of the repeater frequencies, splits, and PL tones, plus a couple of simplex frequencies I want, and take it to my buddy's shop to get it straightened out.

Hell, I don't even know how many channels this thing has, or how much power it puts out, but it'll get me on 70 cm's....

I've been planning to get a new 2m antenna, and wanted to get a dual bander for when I ever got a dual band radio, I'll just get a duplexer and hook my IC-2200H and this Uniden into the dual band antenna.
I used to have a Comet X50A, they're the short stout fiberglass units that are rated for 135 mph wind load, that thing worked great before, and they're less than a hundred bucks......

 

[C2]

hope you monitored activity first...

 

[W5LZ]

For what it's worth, and I have to admit it isn't worth a whole lot, I use a 2 meter 'J' pole for both 2 meters and '440. Works just fine. I've also got a Comet GP-something ot other dual bander antenna. Hate to say it, but the 'J' pole does just as well as the Comet (not to mention costing about a 1/10th as much).
'440 is a for real 'line of sight' band. Higher means much more than more gain with an antenna. Having gain isn't bad, but having more height is more better!
'Doc

 

[Moleculo]

I just use a little mag mount 1/4 wave mobile antenna sitting in the window sill on a steel plate. Of course, my house is way up on a hill, so it doesn't take much to be heard. With 440, it's so easy to make an antenna work, it almost takes all the fun out of it! LOL. MIG...next you'll be wanting to get a 2m/440 rig to crossband repeat...just be prepared to get into lengthy discussions about the legality of doing that if you tell someone...

 

[Wire Weasel]

Well good luck with all that. You may find precious little activity there once you get the equipment operational. In my area there is pitiful little activity on the 440 machines. About half the 2 meter machines sit around mostly unused. Hopefully there is more going on where you live!

Good luck with the new gear

 

[SR385]

Make yourself a quagi or some other beam for 440. It's relatively easy to make a very high gain yagi from Home Depot materials.

Since you have other antennas working, start poking around for 440 beam projects.

A quagi or a multi-element quad for 440 would be fun to try.

Oh and your audio on HF is sounding pretty good.

I was wiring up a control box and audio muting setup for a Dow-Key relay last night and couldn't TX while you were on 14. I finally have a TX relay that works very well AND mutes my speakers so that all my other noise from 2m/440, scanners etc etc is stopped while I'm on the key.

 

[linearone]

repeaters are for cheaters
sideband is for sissies

hf AM simplex is where its at.

 

[WX2MIG]

'440 is a for real 'line of sight' band. Higher means much more than more gain with an antenna. Having gain isn't bad, but having more height is more better!
'Doc

I'm well aware of the need for height, I also need to get my 2m up uch higher than it is now.
As much as I like playing around with antenna projects, and probably will experiment with a home made yagi in the near future, I have made some commitments to the area RACES / ARES organizatione, and I'm also the Amateur Radio coordinator for the OEM in Ocean City (NJ). Because of these commitments I need to have in place a solid reliable connection that can hold up in severe weather. This is what I had before, it proved itself then, and I have no doubt it will prove itself again.
I have 20 foot of heavy duty mast, the light weight and highly wind resistant X50A can sit up on this arrangement unsupported by guy wires and handle a lot of wind, plus it will get me solid contact to the far ends of two Counties, and beyond for emmcom work on 2m, and 440.

WW....
I balked at getting 440 when I got back into the hobby because the last time I was in it back in the late 80's to early 90's the 440 band was pretty dead around these parts. Seems things have changed in the 18 to 20 years I was gone, there are several new 440 repeaters up and running, a few active and popular nets, and some emmcom activity as well. Now I'm kicking myself for not going with a dual bander to begin with. At least this arrangement will give me dual band capabilities at the shack, and that's where I really need it....

 

[WX2MIG]

Oh and your audio on HF is sounding pretty good.

Thanks Chris, knowing what an audio buff you are, that means a lot.
I'm sure glad this Heil GM-5 wasn't a waste of money, I've gotten a lot of good compliments on my audio since plugging that mic into my TS-130S....

 

[WX2MIG]

updated and corrected information....

First I must correct an earlier mistake....
I refered to the X50A antenna as a product of Comet, it's actually made by Diamond.....(although Comet does make a similar model fiberglass dual band antenna model GP-1, there are some minor differences between the two)

The model of this Uniden radio is SM250KTS, and it has 93 programmable channels......(far more than I'll ever need)

 

[WX2MIG]

I need a repeater directory.....

Trying to establish a set of working repeater frequencies from online repeater directories sucks....
I have links to two different sites, one requires I pay for anything beyond a limited list of machines that may or may not still be active, and no splits listed. Splits may be pre-programmed into modern amateur radios, but programming an old business band UHF radio requires knowing which way to send your transmit frequency....:bored:

I've researched one local repeater and found one online list has the PL tone incorrect, so that makes me wonder if the others are right or wrong.....

Looks like it's time to purchase the ARRL 2009-2010 repeater directory....

 

[SR385]

O.k. try this listing

K5EHX Amateur Radio Repeater Mapping

On the left side if you scroll down, there is an option for downloading the info into various file formats.

Lots and lots of dead repeater info out there though so many of those may be inaccurate. The ARRL guide is just as inaccurate frankly. Tedious, but you basically need to just poke and prod the machines until you find the ones that work.

If you have a local club down there, you can get files and lists and find out what the active machines are more easily that way.

I'm not sure what's good and what isn't that far South, I spend very little time on repeaters other than the 2m one up here locally and it won't reach down there.

 

[WX2MIG]

Thanks for the link Chris, it's got a few dead indians listed on there, but so does most of the directory sites I've seen.
The guy that's going to program this radio is the Atlantic County ARES AEC, he'll know what's good, bad, and what splits & PL's to put to them if I have the information wrong.
It's more of a matter of me choosing what repeaters and simplex frequencies I want to put in, and how to tag them once in there.....

 

[SR385]

I'll tell you not to be all clever and organized and sort them by the trustees' calls. Nobody seems to know a repeater by that.

Most people seem to know them by frequency "The 045 repeater" "The Asbury repeater" things like that. If you say "KQ2H repeater" you are lucky to find anyone who knows it that way.

I tend to mark them by town or other alias name that people call it and sort by frequency and band.

Having 2m simplex frequencies punched in in a bank is handy as well. Most people have no idea what the steps are for simplex and come up with whacky random picks in-between the allocations.

On radios that have memory banks, I tend to have a main scan bank for just the daily use local machines, one with regional machines or further out less frequently used, then banks for all 440 simplex, all 2m simplex, and regions I seldom travel to. I have my 'home' repeater in every bank or linked to it as the case may be as well. I also have a bank with the local PD/FD/EMS with the home repeater in it as well.

 

[WX2MIG]

Pretty much the way I do it as well Chris, this Uniden 440 radio being an old police unit is strictly computer programmed, and the alpha/numeric tagging is something like 10 characters......(all my programmable radios are only 6 character)..... so I have a lot of room in how I identify each setting.
I also create a complete menu list of the frequency, split, PL tone, club and identifier call sign to each entry so there's no confusion 3 months down the road after I've forgotten exactly what I had programmed in the radio.......:redface:

Also this will be strictly a base unit for the shack, things would be a lot different if it were for mobile use, and with the exception of two area 440 repeaters that do get a fair amount of local rag chew use, my main interest with this radio is to have it set up for ARES/RACES OEM work, there's plenty of 2 meter repeaters and simplex frequencies around here for general B.S'ing.

The other factor here is this radio does not have the ability to scan like a normal Amateur VHF/UHF mobile or HT does, and there is no banking memory frequencies, it's straight up, go to the frequency I need to operate on, and operate on it, and with the limited emcomm use on 440 down here it's more of a matter of having it and not needing it, as 99.9% of all emcomm work is done on 2 meters anyway.

440 would be a little more important to me if I had D-Star since there is a widely used 440 D-Star machine in Atlantic City that's linked to a nation wide network of other D-Star repeaters, and hosts one of the nation's biggest D-Star nets, but at this time I do not have that mode, and I'm in no hurry to invest money I don't have into it. If given an open check book and a choice, I'd much rather invest in better HF equipment, and antennas.....

My Diamond X50A is supposed to be delivered today, so at least I won't have to work off the 1/4 wave magnet mount sitting on the garage roof anymore.....