I am taking my exam

[airplane1]

I am so happy , I am taking my exam on the third sat of this month and will be an amatuer. I have been passing all the practice exams now so I am ready.

I cant wait to get on 2M with my ICV8000 mobile as a base station.

I need an antenna now to finnish up but need good advice on what is a good vertical antenna for a base or would building one be better?

thanks in advace,
Roger

 

[CDX8412]

Roger,

Good luck and I am sure you will succeed in getting your license.

If you buy an antenna, try to plan ahead.
If you only need a 2 meter antenna, you might want to look at dual band antennas, or even a tri band antenna, for when your station grows.

The most widely used antennas for the VHF/UHF ham bands are the Diamond and Comet antennas. Check out the prices online at HRO or AES, and then figure what works for your budget.

I am going to replace my dual bander with a tri bander this spring, and I wish I had done that from the beginning, so think ahead.

If you need to watch your pennies, these antennas offer good performance for the price arrow antennas

 

[Sonwatcher]

Congrats Roger ! As far as antennas I have the best performance using a Discone scanner antenna from Radio Shack. I hit repeaters many many miles from here. I can reach repeaters as far as York (around 80 miles) Hanover, Wilkes Barre. Delano I hit very easily with 5 watts and have talked to Paul .

 

[airplane1]

Thanks Paul and Ron,

I cant wait to talk to to you all. That is amazing you hit repeaters like that Ron, your in the mountains not?

Thanks for your help guys, I will be checking those web sites for a Tribander.

Roger

 

[BIONIC_TEXAN88]

I just made me a 1/4 wave ground plane out of a 102" whip and some ground radials. gonna try her out tonite!!

 

[airplane1]

BIONIC_TEXAN88,

Good luck, I hope it works for you.

I did a search on the net for 2m antennas and found a ton of home brews. Quads,beams and GP antennas.

Alot of them are made from copper plumbing pipes.

Roger

 

[Seminoles]

BIONIC_TEXAN88,

Good luck, I hope it works for you.

I did a search on the net for 2m antennas and found a ton of home brews. Quads,beams and GP antennas.

Alot of them are made from *** **** plumbing pipes.

Roger

Anyone play with these 2m Loops?

 

[2M Guy]

I have a j pole on ebay with coax.

A groundplane is easy also.

The 8000 is a good radio, I have two.

 

[bioman]

roger

youll do just fine on your test...........

i sent you a pm about antennas and what not

scott

 

[KingCobra_CDX882]

i 2ed the comet and diamond antennas

i currantly use Comet GP-9 and is 58 feet at base
i easily hit repeaters 100 miles out and that is being in a very heavy rf area (nyc/nj metro area)using 1 to 5 watts (hooking either of my HT's (Icom T-90A or Kenwood THF6A)
ofcourse i usally use either my 706 MKIIG or IC-7000

i like knowing i can talk quite far even in hooking either of my HT's
since they rtequire very little power
just this past saturday night into sunday mourning
we had a nearly 3 hour power outage
so i simply took my Icom T-90A to listen to what was going on and to talk to a few locals

when and if i need replace my GP-9 i will step it up to the
Diamond 700 (it is 24 ft tall verses my comet GP-9 18 feet)

 

[Sonwatcher]

That is amazing you hit repeaters like that Ron, your in the mountains not?

Uh yep And I know that helps me a lot. Love these Pa mountains !

 

[rfoverlord]

plane 1 , good luck on your exams! listen to theese guys when they say plan ahead if you can afford it get a tri band if not a dual bander i will be changing out my diamond dual bander fot a comet tri bander.

 

[airplane1]

yea, I am already planning ahead, I am going to start studying for the general now and try for that in another month.

My next rig is going to have all mode, I think thats the way you say a radio with all coverage.

I ordered a ic-v8000 from ham city on sat. and it should be here a few weeks befor my exam. I am going to listen for those weeks to get an ear for the way you communicate on 2 meters befor getting on so I can be a little confort when talking the first time.

I need to learn the way to say the alphabet in radio talk like wisky for w, tangle for t, delta for d and so on. anyone know what it is called and where to get the info on the net?

Roger

 

[Sonwatcher]

Roger, that's the Nato phonetic alphabet.

http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/phoneticalphabet/

 

[bioman]

roger

heres is a good repeater site to see what you might be able to hit from your location

http://www.arcc-inc.org/

in case you didnt know the freq listed is the LISTENING frequency then a + or - for "offset" which is TYPICALLY .600

so for example the delano repeator listening frequency is 145.370 but you TRANSMIT on 144.770 since its a "-"

one of the lebanon repeaters is 147.240 + so you would listen on 147.240 but transmit on 147.840 since its a "+"




the instruction manual with your radio will show you how to set this up so it will happen automatically or id be happy to get together with you to show you

ok next youve got the "tones" MOST repeaters use a certian tone to "open" the machine for usage.........it keeps different repeater from keying each other by accident and what not

if it listed GREAT you instruction book will show you how to set it up

if not well then youll have to do a little legwork on it

you can either ask around to see if someone you talk to on another repeater knows or any local hams you might have OR you can try different tones just to see if theyll work...theres not that many of them 131.8 is probably the most common one

need any help by all means please ask away

if i dont know the answer im sure ill be able to send you to someone who does

youre gonna do great on your test and i cant wait to talk to you

scott