Amateur Radio FAQ

ToolAA said:

I agree. The entire reason I got my license was mostly due to buying my first UV5R and realizing there was so much that I couldn’t legally do with it.

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jc1240 said:

Does anyone in Carroll County play with DMR and/or APRS? I'm not having positive results, but it could be I'm too far from anything.

I thought for APRS for example I'd see the traffic (callsigns), but nothing. I hear the analog traffic on 144.390, but my radio won't decode it.

I can see why folks say new techs should stay away from DRM for their first radio. Thankfully, this is my 2nd.

Would anyone be willing to verify my setup? I can post screenshots. This is for an Anytone D878UV.

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ToolAA said:

I wish I could help out. I was never able to program my DMR radio to make any successful contacts. In my case I brought a radio that was not very popular and I have not found much support online in developing a code plug.

I mostly use Fusion digital mode. It’s really simple. You tune to a Fusion repeater, choose your room and go.

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Antarctica said:

Got aforementioned buddy up and running a few weeks ago, and thought maybe I'd try to improve my own antenna situation in the short term. Pulled up a 135 foot wire that promptly got torn down in the snow/ice. Got it back up yesterday, and fired up the shack.

I'm using a 7300 with the filtered RF split, and half going to an RTL-SDR to run HDSDR for watching the band and tuning. Expecting an improvement, I find I am now looking at a veritable spur factory.

Switching the old wire back to the AH-4, the problem is pretty much gone. Definitely worse with the new, longer wire. Also only happens when I'm splitting the RF output. Pull off the RTL-SDR, and its gone. The winning combination is the new wire and the RTL-SDR. Looks like a porcupine.

I have some ideas, but they are mostly theories.

Bummed!

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jc1240 said:

I thought for APRS for example I'd see the traffic (callsigns), but nothing. I hear the analog traffic on 144.390, but my radio won't decode it.

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jc1240 said:

Same here. Without that cheap inexpensive radio, I would probably never have known anything about ham radio and the fun it is.

I have an Anytone AT-D878UV on the way and am pulling out my hair in a fun way getting a grasp on DMR. Seems I’ll need a hotspot to get the most out of it. Have had EchoLink for a few weeks and have my DMR ID set. Just need the radio to start toying around.

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Antarctica said:

Got aforementioned buddy up and running a few weeks ago, and thought maybe I'd try to improve my own antenna situation in the short term. Pulled up a 135 foot wire that promptly got torn down in the snow/ice. Got it back up yesterday, and fired up the shack.

I'm using a 7300 with the filtered RF split, and half going to an RTL-SDR to run HDSDR for watching the band and tuning. Expecting an improvement, I find I am now looking at a veritable spur factory.

Switching the old wire back to the AH-4, the problem is pretty much gone. Definitely worse with the new, longer wire. Also only happens when I'm splitting the RF output. Pull off the RTL-SDR, and its gone. The winning combination is the new wire and the RTL-SDR. Looks like a porcupine.

I have some ideas, but they are mostly theories.

Bummed!

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Occam said:

In my case, I had to explicitly enable the APRS modem (which defaulted to off), and then also enable alerts to announced decoded transmissions.

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gamer_jim said:

I am not on DMR nor in Carroll County but my elmer is.

PM me your callsign and I'll forward it to him and he can help you.

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tourrider said:

That's crazy man! So periodic. If you haven't mentioned the differences in the antenna's, I would have blamed the software transforms. Is the new wire running basically the same path as the old? You're tapping the IF out of the 7300?

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Occam said:

So I got a call this morning from a good friend who was on eastbound 7 in Loudon County, climbing one of the big hills just before the Appalachian Trail crossing, and his new (<7k miles!) Nissan truck's clutch flamed out. Barely got over onto the shoulder and called AAA for a tow. They said they could tow, but couldn't take any passengers or their gear (including several bagged firearms, in this case). So he needed a rescue run. It's about 45 minutes from me to that spot, so off I went.

Turned on the mobile rig's APRS beacon feature set to TX every 30 seconds, and then TXTed him a link to APRS.FI and told him to search/filter for my call. That way he and his wife could track my progress to the their position. Worked like a charm! Gave them some nerdy fun to distract while they sat chilling (literally) on the side of the highway. So that wasn't a life or death use of that tool, but it worked with very little coaching to get someone with no familiarity to be able to see where I was, and what vector I was on. Good practice!

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Occam said:

So I got a call this morning from a good friend who was on eastbound 7 in Loudon County, climbing one of the big hills just before the Appalachian Trail crossing, and his new (<7k miles!) Nissan truck's clutch flamed out. Barely got over onto the shoulder and called AAA for a tow. They said they could tow, but couldn't take any passengers or their gear (including several bagged firearms, in this case). So he needed a rescue run. It's about 45 minutes from me to that spot, so off I went.

Turned on the mobile rig's APRS beacon feature set to TX every 30 seconds, and then TXTed him a link to APRS.FI and told him to search/filter for my call. That way he and his wife could track my progress to their position. Worked like a charm! Gave them some nerdy fun to distract while they sat chilling (literally) on the side of the highway. So that wasn't a life or death use of that tool, but it worked with very little coaching to get someone with no familiarity to be able to see where I was, and what vector I was on. Good practice!

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ToolAA said:

That’s a good story. I never thought to do that, but I’ll keep that in mind for some future need.

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Mark75H said:

That's probably the only thing I'd actually use APRS for.

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Naptown34 said:

Bump for any AT-D878UV gouge…


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Occam said:

So I got a call this morning from a good friend who was on eastbound 7 in Loudon County, climbing one of the big hills just before the Appalachian Trail crossing, and his new (<7k miles!) Nissan truck's clutch flamed out. Barely got over onto the shoulder and called AAA for a tow. They said they could tow, but couldn't take any passengers or their gear (including several bagged firearms, in this case). So he needed a rescue run. It's about 45 minutes from me to that spot, so off I went.

Turned on the mobile rig's APRS beacon feature set to TX every 30 seconds, and then TXTed him a link to APRS.FI and told him to search/filter for my call. That way he and his wife could track my progress to their position. Worked like a charm! Gave them some nerdy fun to distract while they sat chilling (literally) on the side of the highway. So that wasn't a life or death use of that tool, but it worked with very little coaching to get someone with no familiarity to be able to see where I was, and what vector I was on. Good practice!

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Mark75H said:

That's probably the only thing I'd actually use APRS for.

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Naptown34 said:

Gouge

(U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard – particularly aviation) Informal information channel; the grapevine; the straight dope; inside information. Gouge is passed on by the gouge train. 'Gouge' fits better on the web page than any of the synonyms above. You can get bad gouge, but this is good gouge!


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Mark75H said:

How about a fat code local code plug from a AT 578

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