Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Canada How many of you are amateur radio operators?

and use your equipment when you are hunting, fishing, boating, etc?

I am VE3EPA, originally licensed years ago in BC as VE7WTA. I always have a few radios around.

So we have no CDNs who have any AR inspired cartridges chambered in a bolt action or a single shot. It appears we don't have any hams here either.

Wife and I are both Hams... KK4FZI & KK4FZH..... FYI you might want to update QRZ

https://www.qrz.com/lookup

Hello. It's nice to see there are a few hams around.

I deleted much of my information from QRZ because I was getting spammed. Since I am not a contester, I never considered it important to post information there.

I should add that after an Asian tourist took out my F150, I decided to get two good used vehicles as replacements. One of them is a 2017 Ford Escape. I haven't driven a small car in many years. I wanted to put my 2 meter radio in the Escape, but I need a can opener, grease and a smaller radio. I bought a smaller (palm sized) 25 watt dual bander from a company in SD.I can mount the radio on a cup holder mount and power it with the cigarette lighter. I will be putting the antenna on the rear hatch.



I cannot get over how engineers have managed to squeeze everything down into such a small space. They might be pleased, but I am not!

I have less than zero interest in contesting. QRZ offers kind of a facebook for adults function. I'll generally look them up to see if we have anything in common before I'll respond to a call. Do you operate on HF bands?

I have never been interested in that. Some of the awards are interesting, but I was in the military for many years bouncing around. It was difficult to work contests because of the locations where I was posted. I occasionally work 80m and 20m. I use either an 10-80 Easy Tenna I bought from ebay several years ago, or a home made dipole for nets and local rag chews.

Most of my work is with VHF because of range trips and hunting. I took an ancient Yaesu FT-101 to moose camp one year. I got it set up and never used it.

My wife and I got licence 9 years ago. I had a back injury that forced early retirement. I had always planned to travel "someday" but took good health for granted and never got a passport. I'm interested in "visiting" with folks I never would have met otherwise... I call it arm chair travel.... No annoying TSA agents to endure either.

One of my first DX contacts was a guy in a Northern Ontario off grid cabin running everything with solar and wind power. ... he and his wife were up ice fishing and had caught all the perch they were going to have any use for that day and were planning to tow their shack out over deeper water to try for lake trout in the AM. He was not running much power but propagation was good and we probably spoke for an hour or more.... kind of like sitting around the wood stove in a North woods cabin...

When this covid 19 thing was really starting to take off a few Months ago I was having a conversation with a Ham I'd never spoken to before. I told him I was frustrated with the lack of PPE... my wife is a doc and they were having to ration protective gear. The gentleman in FLA had worked briefly as a EMS person and still had an unopened box of exam gloves. He sent them out Priority mail the next day. Refused any money for postage.... Fine business.

It's great that both of you were licensed at the same time! My wife is not interested at all.

I was licenced in 1992 in BC, on Vancouver Island. An air force buddy and I took the basic course in a place called Courtenay.

I had considered trying 6m ssb. The antennas were small enough for when I was still bouncing around the planet. Never did get around to it.

You have not missed much on "the magic band" over the past several years. I have a 6 Meter beam and almost never use it. There are a few people in our local club that live and breath contesting and awards. I get emails saying openings on 6 Meters NOW!!! There have been a few openings in the past few weeks but the people there just want your grid square for their log book.... and then they will move on while the opening is still there.... Not my thing.

On a humorous note we have a friend that helped us get set up in the hobby.... he is 80 something now.... He gets text messages from his logging software that follows DX Cluster. He has the program set up to trip alert alarms when one of the very few entities that he does not have logged yet pops up on the cluster... I'd hate to be out on the road between Duane and his home station if say North Korea ever got spotted.

Duane has been a Ham for close to 60 years now.... he loves old classic equipment. When I decided to get a legal limit auto tuning amplifier he was horrified.... "It's crazy to spend that much on an amp....". About a year ago I got a call from him... "So John how are you liking that Acom amp you bought?". Apparently he got so excited when one of the few countries he did not yet have in his log book showed up he blew up his manual tune amp trying to make that contact.... He now owns a legal limit Acom just like the one I bought..... I hope he gets the rest of the Countries he still needs....

I was all fired up way back when I was maybe 10, 12 years old. I even built a one tube receiver. Back then you had to know Morse code. I never quite mastered that.

There is some allure with the older equipment. It was simpler, and certainly, looked less intimidating. With new hams, even the very tech friendly, younger crowd, I have been told this IC-718 looks intimidating. I suppose anything new may look scary until you get to know it.



Immediately upon hearing that, I do a web search and ask them about this radio.



They look terrified! That's when I tell them that it scares me too. When gadgets overtake the fun, it's time to walk away. I tell them if you are looking for something in particular, go to a local ham club or field day and ask questions. Tell them what interests you. Be prepared to get an earful. Like shooters, hams have very strong opinions about many things.

And this. I haven't met an amateur yet who would recommend something like an IC-7600 as a first radio. The price can put people off for sure, but most operators don't use half of the switches, buttons and dials.

For WX events and other emergencies, or just shooting the breeze, simple is best.



Yes, years ago the code was a requirement. The first time I tried a code test, I froze. Opinions are split as to its value. It is an old form of communication that has been eclipsed by more modern forms of delivery. On one side, you have hams (mostly older ones) who believe that code kept out the riff raff, which included CBers.On the other, there are hams who say that time and technology marches on.

If you don't know what to say at a ham field day or local meeting, ask for opinions about Morse, and the need to learn it. For hams, it's a hot button issue. Personally, I haven't bothered with it since the 21st century arrived. It isn't interesting for me. But for the people who insist it has value, I always ask them if they are doing it the old fashioned way, or using software to translate. I was surprised the number of people who use Morse software "just in case I don't get the whole message..." Okay.

I walk away from those conversations. For me at least, it's like asking which cartridge (or scope) is the best. I have always believed you should use what makes you happy, except...the reactions you provoke are similar to what you read here on the hunting scopes forum.

Here's 20 wpm of Morse. LOAD. SET R15 TO FULLY CLOCKWISE POSITION...etc

http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Morse/Archive/20%20WPM/200114_20WPM.mp3

wabigoon, for a lot of the the older Hans in our local club, building and extensively testing it (some times with gear that cost more than the radios they built) was one of the most enjoyable parts of the hobby. I never would have tried for a Ham licence if Morse code was still a requirement. Again though we have older Hams in our club that LOVE Morse code. It seems to be a kind of zen like experience when they have their brains focused on the ... and ---s.

We have a field day event coming up at the end of the month where Hams nation wide set up temporary stations with rapidly deployed antennas and operate only with emergency power sources. This is the only contest type event my wife and I take part in . It is practical training for local Hams to train for providing emergency communications . I saw first hand how into Morse code some of the older members are. A pterodactyl could have swooped down over their heads and they would not have noticed...

About 5 years ago there was a technology break through that has changed the face of Ham radio. Soft ware defined radio has been around longer. I have a Flex 6500 SDR it cost close to $5000.00. It uses technology that captures the RF signal digitally and then displays it on a screen showing real time signals along with recording a history of what was just on the frequency.... I can monitor 4 bands at the same time. Flex offers a 6700 radio that allows a operator to monitor 8 different frequency bands at the same time ...

Icom came along and figured out how to produce a $900.00 radio that uses the same SDR tech with their ICOM IC 7300 radio. This is the shortest you tube clip I could find

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTivl2ND2gs

This break through is great for new comers that want to give amateur radio a try but terrible for the older hams who spent 5 to 10 thousand dollars on flagship rigs and now find that they can't resell these great radios for even a third of what they payed....

The sun appears to finally be starting to wake back up. solar activity is what charges the earth's atmosphere which then reflects RF transitions back down to distant stations. Think of skipping a stone across a flat calm surface vs a choppy one....

Now is a great time to think about trying Ham radio. You can probably find a Ham club near you lots of support is available and there is a station set up at field day locations just for new comers... no licence required if you'd like to give it a whirl

I've notice quite a bit of overlap between the shooting sports and ham radio, both are "gadget hobbies" so that might be why.

https://www.ar15.com/forums/Outdoors/Ham-Radios/22/ ARFCOM has a ham radio forum
there is a guns & ham radio page on FB
some guy set up a demo station at the National Matches at Camp Perry a coupla years ago (and did not bring a key!!!, I brought a key and paddle the following year so I could help hiim operate but he had to cancel the plans at the last minute)

I don't know if your question was directed only at VE's but since a few hams from the US have reply'd I guess this could become 24HCF-wide.

Poole
.- .- ....- --.-

One of the tales I find interesting, William Van Horne, a few of you good Canucks may have heard of him, could read code without weighting it down. He broke up a poker game the telegraph operators had planed, he overheard the code.

oh and 2 folks named MAXIM, father and son I think, were instrumental in development of both firearms and ham radio 100+ years ago.

The thread is open for whoever wants to respond.

I agree, amateur radio and firearms are very much alike. In both worlds, there is a lot to talk about, and there are the fanboys for certain equipment, or modes, etc. And the silly fights that start from time to time too.



Years ago, one of my profs asked a question about water and steam. What is the difference between the two? He got the standard responses, but the one that stuck with me was a girl who said, "Steam burned me." My prof pointed to her, and smiled. "Ladies and gentleman, never overlook the obvious!"

Thoughts about making a link to this thread on the main forum page? I saw this because I'm interested in Canada and would love to visit it again someday.... Right now there are a bunch of Hams stuck at home and looking for new people to talk to while our various world wide dramas unfold....

Sure, but you'll have to chat with the powers that be.

I don't think so, this will just generate more traffic for Rick.... let's see what happens....