[Democracyman]

This is a item that I recently got into, there are repeaters most
everywhere and you can get a signal in places that
you can't get a cell phone signal. Also a lot of fun. You
need to pass a basic license class and test to get the
ham radio ticket.

Dan

[kevin]

I've heard of it, but don't really get it. could you give me the ham radio primer please?

[Democracyman]

You have two primary sets frequencies that your legal to operate
in when you get the first basic license, you have to take a test,
the basic first ham license is the technical license. If you pass you are
licensed by the FCC. You get a call sign. There are Ham clubs in every state and
most every county and all over the world. You can get radios
and software that can actually track your position and post that
on the internet. This tech is now growing and I don't know what
competing technology will come out on top, a couple of different
types of systems. The coverage is spotty in the mountains.

You have repeater systems supported by the ham radio clubs, this
is done by them, out of their own pockets. The ham radio clubs
also have rescue communications and so on for disasters and events.

Repeaters are boosters for hand held radio operations, a station is
set up someplace often as high as possible and then you transmit
at one frequency to the repeater and the repeater repeats what you
say and send it out at another frequency. The radios are designed
to operate at this and in effect it boosts your signal and you can
reach out 30 and more miles.

Many ham radios can be modified to be able to transmit in the
out of the ham radio range into the range of military and police
and rescue frequencies. Recently they are making it harder to do
this modification. What you typically do is remove one or more diodes
from the circuit board.

K5EHX Amateur Radio Repeater Mapping

Look at the above map and go the area your interested in and see
what Repeaters are there. Typically most populated areas have good
repeater coverage and less so for less populated areas, but usually
there are a few in the mountains and so on. Typically you want to
be up high in the mountains to be able to communicate. You manually
program the repeater frequencies in your radio or use your computer
to do so.

For normal usage for hiking and so on, the dual band hand held radios
are fine, I have a Icom which is said to be more easy to operate, the
Yaesu Radios are very good, but harder to figure out how to operate.

As for actual usage in the mountains, I just got my hand held ham radio
and yet to have much experience in the north cascades, but I did hear
of a story from last year that a guy broke his leg on the mountain in
winter, mount baker and he used his hand held ham radio to call for
help, it was said a guy in Idaho heard him and relayed the information.

The hand held's typically put out five watts max, the car radios are more
powerful, I think twenty and fifty watts are their power levels for the
two different frequency ranges.

I belong to mountain rescue, I used my radio on a mission a few weeks ago.
It was out of my area and I had to manually program my radio, also they
put up a portable repeater, and I had to program for that. I was way out
in the mountains on the mission, the central cascades. Zero cell coverage
and I had ham radio repeaters that I could hit with no problem.

As for in general, I suppose that I can hit a repeater anyplace in the Cascade
mountains if I was up high enough, and if I had the needed repeaters programmed
in or I had their frequencies and locations wrote down with me.

Also you can get the frequencies for law enforcement and many other
government and military, medical entities and you can listen in on these
frequencies if you wanted to. Of course a hand held scanner probably would
be better for this, I may get a scanner in the future.

If you wanted to talk around the world or if you had a boat and want to
talk around the world, as you can imagine this can be useful on a boat
or out in the wilderness in a cabin as in the far north and so on. You get
the Ham Radio General or higher license then you can get a base station
that can use a lower frequency and you can have much more power and
you can if weather/sun conditions are right , can talk around the world.

I use a radio for mountain rescue, I volunteer in this and go on a few
missions a year. I really enjoy this activity.

Dan

[Democracyman]

I have the Icom t7h, for the money it is hard to beat this radio. You can
find good deals on Ebay etc.

Icom T7H Dual Band HT

It is easy to program and you can use AA batteries and get close to
full power. This is a very nice and uncommon feature for ham
radios.

I have figured out how to water proof it with a zip lock baggy and
it works good.

If anyone gets this radio, I know where you can get a six AA battery
holder for it,then transmits at close to full power from "Batteries America"
I also have a few other tips.


Dan

[Foxfire]

I have a Yaesu VX-7R. Really nice handheld. and waterproof for 30 minutes under 3 ft of water.

[Screaming Eagle]

There are also repeaters that are linked that can stretch as a network for hundreds of miles. For example, there's the Saltgrass network that picks up signals and sends from one repeater to another all the way across Texas (and more). That's the prerogative of the club and access to the repeaters can be restricted (special tone to sign in to be recognized) at their discretion because it's their private toy.
Even with a tech license there is a part of the HF band you can use in the 10m frequencies. The repeaters are 2m band frequencies. And someone with a home unit can listen but *not* legally transmit all the way up to 80m and higher. Potentially, you could listen to broadcasts from the Middle East, China, Europe etc with the right weather conditions.

[kevin]

thanks for filling me in so well democ. sounds cool, now I know more! by the way, good job on SAR - kind of think I'd like to do something like that.

[Democracyman]

thanks for filling me in so well democ. sounds cool, now I know more! by the way, good job on SAR - kind of think I'd like to do something like that.

There are SAR groups all over the country for all types of rescue operations,
for mountain rescue generally you need some mountaineering experience
at least. They have water rescue, they have rescue for lost hikers and
lost people in the woods, they have scuba rescue, they have air search rescue
and they have power boat rescue. All are volunteer based and you have
to own your personal equipment.

The parks have their own people as rescue, their rangers do this, the volunteers
get called in when they need help. Most of the time the helicopter gets called
in and they pick them up. Understand often the volenteer ground pounders are only called
in if they can't find the person or if the weather is too bad to get a helicopter in,
so theoretically you can be called out in the worse possible weather conditions
a possible real test for survival and you may find the person and then what? You have
to go fairly light and you have only gear for yourself, so you may have to use a light
weight kit to make more shelter, etc for a group. Could be a injured party, a lot
of possibilities. Could be way far in, in bad conditions, all sorts of situations
could come up as you can imagine.

I mostly do the mountaineering type of rescue, if a hiker is lost in the
mountains they may call us in, part of the work is body recovery which
I have not done yet and is not fun so be prepared for this, but the family
really appreciates this. The great part is finding and really rescuing people,
that is really nice. Also you get to help support your activity, most people
think that a huge amount of money is spent on finding lost people, while
this is true to some extent the vast majority of rescue people are unpaid volunteers.

I want to mention that for Search and Rescue if your going to be a ground
pounder you need to be in really good physical shape, the best you can be.
You may need to hike in for ten miles or more, maybe thirty miles.

As for the Ham Radio, if you like radios and gadgets, this is a great way to enjoy
doing this and also practical for the back country. If you get the radio above
it will set you back about 200 bucks if you buy it and get the better antenna
and a expanded AA battery case. This is a pretty good deal.

Dan