One of the purposes of Hamfests is for people who has surplus equipment
to sell that equipment to help other hams out.
Sometimes you can get some really good deals there.
You need to forget about the walkie talkie idea.
Somewhere along the line, someone forgot to tell you - this is calle
HAM RADIO / NOT HAM WALKIE TALKIE.
For even a 100 something dollars, you can buy a brand new Yaesu mobile
meter rig with 50 watts of transmit power and a new microphone, which i
programmable.
For some stupid reason, people have lost sight of what AMATEUR RADIO, i
really all about.
I hear all kinds of cries and complaints, where people thinks that th
government and others should support their HOBBY.
After all, this is a HOBBY.
Much like GOLF, or Baseball or stock car racing.
You wouldn't expect the government to purchase you a set of golf club
and you wouldn't expect the government to buy you a set of tires -
But for some reason, when HAMS gets a license, they refuse to spend an
money, and if someone gives them something and it works, even just
little, they refuse to spend their own money to buy something better.
You are going to need to get away from the walkie talkie mentality, an
the hitting the one or two local repeaters and thinking that it make
you a ham.
Even just in my situation, I put up a Diamond V2000 antenna above th
roof of the house and I bought a Yaesu 8900R transceiver and I entere
in over 100 repeaters and I can talk 6 meters, 2 meters and 440 Mhz a
much as I want.
Even though it is not HF, I can make contacts 100 miles away.
This is something you cannot do with a walkie talkie, even with a mobil
external antenna.
Unfortunately, the ARRL and the clubs are afraid to tell their member
this stuff, in fear of loosing members.
They coddle and nurse maid these hams until finally they are so brai
washed, they believe that what they are doing is still ham radio.
There is a whole big world out there.
Everything from 160 meters up into the GHz bands.
Out of the 700,000 plus ham radio licenses, there might be 100,00
actual ham radio operators.
Out of that 100,000 - probably 65% of them only holds a Technician clas
license.
That means that out of this whole country, there might only be 40,00
actual ham radio operators that operates on the HF bands.
That's not a lot of people in the grand scheme of things.
And it seems like most of those that are not hams, are either waiting t
retire from work and graduate from the walkie talkie band, as soon a
someone dies and leaves them something.
We are printing all kinds of licenses, but I don't hear a lot of ne
voices on the radio.
One reason for this is the fact that most of those 650,000 licensee
only has a walkie talkie, and they wait until the one day a week whe
their club or local group has a net, where they can check in and sa
their call sign and say NO TRAFFIC, AND SHUT THEIR RADIO BACK OFF AN
THINK THAT THEYARE REAL HAMS AND THAT IF THERE WAS A EMERGENCY THAT THE
WOULD BE OF SOME USE TO THE HAM RADIO COMMUNITY.
My question is - if the local repeater is blown down, who are you goin
to talk to? Especially in rural America where your signal might onl
travel one mile or less?
Go buy yourself a real radio and get on the air and talk to people fro
other places and if you don't have a General or higher class license
put your nose in the book and start studying and upgrade your licens
privledges..
--
Channel Jumper