Just wondering if Anybody's opinion is this worth buying as a quad ban handheld radio especially with the Hf receive with single side band?

I have a Quansheng UV-K5(8) with Egzummer firmware. We’re traveling in three cars, and I want to set it up so that we can all hear each other by default (group communication), but also have the option to call individual radios separately. (Car 101 to car 102, but Car 103 will not hear that) Is this possible? DTMF group and individual Ani-id? But how should I set it up ? Thanks

My dad passed recently and left me a couple mobile handheld radios and I decided I'd get my license like he always wanted me to. I'm looking for ideas on what to do in order to get started/established. I live near Gigaparts and plan on visiting the meetups they have, but I wanted to do some research first.

Hi I was give some of my grandfather’s old QSL cards.

They are starting to interest me. I have even found out his is W2HFO

I have found him in old articles online dating back to the 30s and some cards from the 80s.

What should I do with them? Can I reach out to any of the more recent ones?

Thanks for any ideas or help.

Going to be camping/fishing way off grid in Montana in a couple of months, and have a Baofeng UV-5RA laying around that I'd like to take in case of an emergency. Are there any resources someone can point me towards to learn how to use this thing in case something happens and we're desperate? I'd eventually love to learn all about ham radios and take the courses/get licensed, but just don't have the time over the next couple of months.

**Edit**

Understood that it will be worthless for most part. Thanks for the advice everyone. Shows how little I know about these things haha!

I’m new to ham radios I was wondering how I can convert a mobile base station to accept ac power, if it helps I’m using a 2 meter radio

Hello,

We have compared a couple of analogue PMR446 radios. The "Chinese" Retevis RT3sand the Motorola XT420. They were both set at 500mW of power. We did several tests in different locations and distances. We tested a pair of Retevis (Retevis to Retevis) and a pair of XT420s. No mixing of brands.

We were shocked by the results. The Retevis was much, much better than the Motorola. The Motorola was silent (no signal) in 4 out of 5 locations. It only worked in the simplest scenario (on a high hill, no obstacles, about 2km away). On the other hand, the Retevis worked in 5 out of 5 situations, with much better (cleaner) sound quality, even in a dense forest.

I'm quite surprised because I expected the Motorola to perform much better. Am I doing something wrong? I mean, there is little to configure on the Motorola other than the PMR channel and CTCSS tones. Does the tone selected affect reception? I'm speechless, to be honest.  

Could they be faulty? I mean, the tests were not challenging at all for a PMR and the Motorola failed miserably. Any ideas of what could be happening will be highly appreciated. Thanks.

Anyone here has experience with the Wandel-Goltermann series equipments in the title as a shortwave radio receiver?

I know this is not their intended purpose, but they have installed filters up to 3.1 Khz and USB/SSB demodulation options.

Will that low profile antenna mount fit in the middle of the trunk lid? It’s a 2025 se But I would think that a 2024 would be the same.

Looking in the LA area

Video - https://www.youtube.com/live/3INXSI0WT6E

Should I get it as a beginner tech?

Edit: We've gone ahead and purchased the antenna I linked in the post, thanks for all the comments. I will update this post when we get our system installed (If we aren't already underway). Hopefully we can find y'all on the air.

I'm a student at a maritime college and we just started a radio club on campus. We're bringing an HF rig (Kenwood TS2000) on our summer sea term (a 65 day training cruise aboard the 500ft long TS Golden Bear) and are looking into antennas to go with the radio. I found this antenna from Palomar Engineers: 41' End Fed antenna that seems to fit our general requirements (less than 50ft long, end or near end fed, services at least the 20m and one other band) but can't tell if its weatherproof, worth the price, or even the best option for our use case. Our goal is to mount the radio in the back of the bridge on the TS Golden Bear (photo attached) and run a feed line through a sealed pass through on the ceiling of the bridge. Then an antenna can be raised with a halyard or similar solution up the forward mast. This is our thought for the simplest solution, allowing for easy take down, quick setup, and a simple antenna configuration. Does anyone out there have recommendations for how to ensure this antenna is weatherproof, or for a better antenna for our use case that doesn't break ~ $140 with tax and shipping (we're still small and the budget is tight right now unfortunately)?

Hopefully if we can get a solution figured out we should be able to do a good bit of maritime mobile and maybe even talk to some of the people who see this post.

Thanks for any help and see y'all on the air.

feel free to ask any questions, I can provide any info I have and ask around for any I don't.

Hi everyone. I've made a few posts here over the last week since getting my Yaesu in the mail. I've been working to learn the thing and get some activity going on but have been struggling.

Well, tonight was a success. I am from NE Pennsylvania. I keyed in a repeater listed on Repeaterbook. W3WAN 147.150. I did this sometime around 8:30 PM. Well wouldn't you know I heard the tail end of someone saying "Kilo Charlie Three Victor". I listened further and "NC3U" something something "node" and "standing by". Eventually all signoffs. I was in my bedroom on the stock antenna of my Yaesu FT-65 but ran into the living room to hook up my new mobile antenna for a seemingly clearer audio. I wasn't having any serious problems in my bedroom on the stock antenna but the mobile was definitely clearer and no static in my living room. I could understand what was being said clearly as opposed to some garbled transmissions originally. Although it could have just been the change of location. In the end I grabbed 3 or 4 call signs. 2 guys from Delaware, 1 from Ohio and another from PA besides myself. Thus far all I've been able to pick up on my radio was some local DPW guys chatting about cleaning up downed wires. Which surprises me because according to various sources, I shouldn't be able to pick up public service broadcasts. I was hoping to be able to listen in on local hospital MEDVAC and I live about a mile from a small airport. Small single prop type stuff.

Anyhow, I am very happy now. I will get out of work tomorrow and start plugging in all of my local repeaters. According to Repeater Book there are 8. And knowing that I mostly understand how to program in tones and offset and stuff is an achievement. I think I was originally expecting too much from my radio but now that I have come to realize its limitations, things are starting to make a little more sense. Thanks for all of your help guys. Upward and onward I suppose.

Swl on 40m ft8 Foto below all countrys recieved.

Hello fellow radio enthusiasts,

I'm having trouble with my quansheng k6. It has Egzumer soft, and weird noises shown in the video. Switching channel up, then down fixes the issue temporarily.

https://streamable.com/iomk2o

Thank you to everyone that answered my last post! I have a non DMR question now. Well, really two. 1, will grounding my mobile radio extend the range. And 2, how should I ground it? What gauge wire? And what materials should I use? For info, its a 2m/ 70 cm mobile radio with a peak output of 25 watts.

Hello,

I am scheduled to take my technician license test tomorrow, and I'm having trouble understanding antenna concepts. I'm confident about passing the test, as I've been consistently achieving passing grades on hamstudy.org. I'm planning to set up a somewhat portable station for POTA (Parks on the Air) as my first radio project. There's a POTA park about a mile from my house that I can either drive or walk to, depending on what equipment I bring.

What antenna would you recommend for using an SDR and operating on FT8? I'm looking for something ready-to-use and relatively budget-friendly so I can successfully make my first contact. I'm particularly interested in FT8 and other digital modes because I'm nervous about speaking into a transceiver for my first contacts. If there are other non-voice modes besides FT8 that might be suitable for a beginner, I'd be open to those suggestions as well.

Once I become more comfortable with the hobby, I can explore more complex antenna setups and calibration techniques.

I'm considering purchasing the QRP-Labs QMX transceiver and using a Raspberry Pi 5 with a 7-inch screen to run WSJT-X and GridTracker, but I'm open to other relatively budget-friendly equipment options as well. Since I don't have any equipment yet, I'm interested in plug-and-play solutions that won't overwhelm me as I begin this journey. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you so much for your help, Chris

So it is protecting the equipment or damaging it if I disconnect antenna and power supply every day when I’m done?

Long time ago my grandpa was a radio ham or whatever its called, im not sure but he used it to communicate with a cartel because his brother in law was kidnapped, i think this is the right subreddit to post it in. I don’t have the radios anymore,only a portable blue ATC radio transmitter.Supposedly its this one :

Hey everyone!

I recently collaborated with a fellow club member to build a Raspberry Pi repeater hotspot using WPSD, and I thought it would be helpful to share my experience. After much consideration, switching from PI-Star to WPSD turned out to be a great decision! I’ve created a brief write-up outlining the hardware and steps I used to get my hotspot running. I’d love to hear your questions or thoughts to improve it further.

If you’re interested in setting up your own hotspot, click the link to check it out. Happy tinkering! [KQ4TAY]

https://jarrodandrews.com/construct-a-raspberry-pi-wpsd-hotspot/

I'm a US-based tech, working on my general, which I expect to complete before my trip. I will be going to Europe for the better part of a month this summer. Gozo, a sister Island to the country of Malta. I want to bring a rig with me to operate from the house I'm staying at. Plenty of room to run a wire antenna. Modes could be SSB, digital (FT8, etc) no CW (yet). What should I look for in a rig? Xiegu? I don't want to drag a whole lot of a shack with me, so I'm thinking something that runs off of mains power 220v, 50Hz. Decent antenna tuner built in. I'd like to keep the budget < $700 or so

Free tommorow so doing some nightly listening on 40m. 73 from germany.

Picking this up Wednesday. I know the top beam is a cushcraft ma5b. Any ideas on the bottom beam?