Overlanding+Ham=Resurgence?

[Dilldog]

Maybe I should start driving around tuned in to 146.520 and just see what happens...

 

[Ubiety]

Maybe I should start driving around tuned in to 146.520 and just see what happens...

Your teeth will be whiter, your MPG higher and pretty girls will look your way more often. Hahahaha, sorry, could not resist.

 

[MPLMNT]

Overlanding/4x4 has led me to become interested in amateur radio. Unfortunately, after a month of studying my exam was cancelled. Monitoring the local repeaters while waiting for now.

Just read your post. I was in the same position.
I had my exam yesterday after waiting for a quite some time.
See my post in HAM test online thread or just hit me up for info.

 

[Ubiety]

Just read your post. I was in the same position.
I had my exam yesterday after waiting for a quite some time.
See my post in HAM test online thread or just hit me up for info.

Congrats!

 

[MPLMNT]

Congrats!

Thank you!

 

[Huezee]

Thanks for the info. Must have been a run on slots because April is completely booked and you cannot select May on the online form.

 

[taliv]

Anyone in Southeastern Wisconsin with a Ham license? I got into Ham last year and that's what got me into Overland.

Picked up the IC-2730 and have it installed in my truck now. Hopefully be able to put up a post about how I set it up in the future.


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just a safety tip... if you're going to be driving and operating the radio at same time, keep the remote head up high. you should keep your focus on the road, but if you're going to look at your radio, at least keep it where you can see the road in your peripheral vision. if you mount it where you have to look down, while driving, that's really dangerous as you have no peripheral vision.

Just read your post. I was in the same position.
I had my exam yesterday after waiting for a quite some time.
See my post in HAM test online thread or just hit me up for info.

congratulations!

Maybe I should start driving around tuned in to 146.520 and just see what happens...

generally, the idea is to monitor the national call, and if you feel like having a discussion with someone, move to another frequency so you don't annoy everyone else monitoring the national call frequency. so scan the local repeater frequencies and the national call, and a couple others that various groups use. 145.56 is popular in the gun community, for example, like 146.46 is for offroad.

 

[Ian_Hgn]

just a safety tip... if you're going to be driving and operating the radio at same time, keep the remote head up high. you should keep your focus on the road, but if you're going to look at your radio, at least keep it where you can see the road in your peripheral vision. if you mount it where you have to look down, while driving, that's really dangerous as you have no peripheral vision.

Definitely. Installed the Ram Track Mount on my dash and the radio is in my peripheral. going to put up a thread with the install when I get the pictures off the camera.

 

[navydevildoc]

I agree that overlanding and ham radio go hand in hand. All my trucks have some sort of rig, and I am going to add HF to my LR3 here in the next month or so when I so a major refurb.

Love hearing that other folks are into APRS; I am a data mode nerd so I have always ran it. The LR3 has a Kenwood D700, the D90 has Yaesu FTM-350, and I have handhelds with it as well. Plus the HF rig in my D90 is set up for Winlink for long distance e-mail that has been pretty reliable.

@NCPI007 packet is definitely still around, but not having the hey day of the 80s and early 90s. Until recently there were enough nodes that I could connect from East County San Diego all the way to Mendocino and Placer counties using nothing but packet nodes along the state. Unfortunately the backbone seems to stop after Ojai, I am guessing something broke or someone lost interest and the next node wasn't maintained. If you wanted you could still plug in that PakRatt and get on the air. In fact, APRS uses the same packet modems so you could even run an APRS fixed station with it.

I am also happy to see that the Amateur Radio world has started to accept that one of the largest groups of new hams is folks going offroad. There was a lot of resistance at first, lots of old timers angry that folks just wanted to use 2 meter simplex on trails and didn't care about the hobby at large. But then they realized that the sheer number of people buying radios means newer models with newer features... radios that are sealed/waterproof, etc.

In the end, I am just happy that two of my favorite things to do intersect so perfectly.

 

[Ubiety]

I agree that overlanding and ham radio go hand in hand. All my trucks have some sort of rig, and I am going to add HF to my LR3 here in the next month or so when I so a major refurb.

Love hearing that other folks are into APRS; I am a data mode nerd so I have always ran it. The LR3 has a Kenwood D700, the D90 has Yaesu FTM-350, and I have handhelds with it as well. Plus the HF rig in my D90 is set up for Winlink for long distance e-mail that has been pretty reliable.

@NCPI007 packet is definitely still around, but not having the hey day of the 80s and early 90s. Until recently there were enough nodes that I could connect from East County San Diego all the way to Mendocino and Placer counties using nothing but packet nodes along the state. Unfortunately the backbone seems to stop after Ojai, I am guessing something broke or someone lost interest and the next node wasn't maintained. If you wanted you could still plug in that PakRatt and get on the air. In fact, APRS uses the same packet modems so you could even run an APRS fixed station with it.

I am also happy to see that the Amateur Radio world has started to accept that one of the largest groups of new hams is folks going offroad. There was a lot of resistance at first, lots of old timers angry that folks just wanted to use 2 meter simplex on trails and didn't care about the hobby at large. But then they realized that the sheer number of people buying radios means newer models with newer features... radios that are sealed/waterproof, etc.

In the end, I am just happy that two of my favorite things to do intersect so perfectly.

I, also, have an aprs fetish :) It’s great around town but not so much in the remote places that I go (for my purposes). Starting to get real interested in it for trip and convoy management ...

 

[FastLayne]

My stepdad has always been very involved with Ham radio, but the overlanding lifestyle was the final push that got me to get my license. I monitor some local repeaters and Winsys, as well as 460 and 520.