To me, the perfect radio for emergency use is the Elecraft KX1. It is the size of a paperback novel, and can run nearly 5W of CW on HF.

In the middle of the woods, a VHF HT will not get out very much. Maybe two miles in a vally, or maybe 10-20 miles on a mountaintop (assuming that you are able enough to reach the top). And hopefully, another person will be listening. Read up on the "wilderness protocol." Note that I am NOT an expert on this, as I live in an area completely devoid of mountains. I find that a VHF HT on 2M will hit the local repeater for about 10-15 miles, but going HT to HT will get about 2 miles.

If you get on HF, you have the potential to send a signal 1000 miles or more. Of course, you cannot do this with just a tech. You will need to upgrade to general.

Just my $0.02.

KG4ZUD

Sounds like a nice trailer - thing is, my budget is limited to what I can personally afford!!

One good thing - when people find out you are serious about Distater comms as an amateur - "stuff" finds it's way to you - it may not be the latest, but 1-2 generation old stuff gets handed to you, with a gruff "here, I was going to toss this out - you want it?". You smile, say "thank you", and press it into service. One of the guys on my Emmcom team now has 10 full up portable packet stations he put togeter - radios, laptops (old ones) TNCs etc

And we're doing this without being a 501c3, which would open more doors

I'll start with Congrats!! My call is KC8BEW

The thing I look for is how easy is it to program and/or operate with no instructions. What I do is go to a store or a friend?s house that may have the radio(s) I am looking at. Then I actually try it out. No manual or instructions beforehand. If I find it fairly easy to use without reading the manual then I will look into what more it can do (bells & whistles). For HT?s, I try setting it up to work on a repeater or be able to change the offset or tones. If I can?t do that I pass on it. For mobiles or desk units I look for the ease of going through the menus, location of the dials, etc.

I figure that if I cannot program an HT (Handi Talkie) without the manual then it will not do me any good in the field. I don?t have the room or weight to carry a manual for this simple, IMO, task. With a desk or mobile unit you can have that manual available. My elmer was given a radio that he threw in a drawer because he couldn?t change the freq. without the manual.

My 1st radio was a Radio Shack HTX-202. It is a brick! I dropped it on its head, which broke the antenna, and only replaced the antenna to make it work again (normal BNC connector). I can take it off the desk and have no problem taking it to the field. I am able to use it in total darkness. I use it for APRS now.

My EDC is an Alinco 596T dual band. Vehicle has a Kenwood 241A. Packet is a Yaesu 1500 mobile.


That is where ham radio comes in. The radio and antenna theory you have to learn will help in that situation.

My pockets are empty now. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Nice trailer benjammin <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I 3rd the Eham.net too!

Yes, it was truly an exercise in "How much money can we really spend and still be practical?"

It was all federal government funded, so nice to know where your tax dollars are going, eh?

When it is for pay, I don't mind seeing how big, how powerful, or how automated I can get a system.

When it is out of my pocket, I try to find what is the minimum that will reliably work. That's why I like those low power HF CW rigs and a spool of 22 gauge wire. You can string up an antenna if you know a little about what you are doing, and away you go.

As I said before, one big problem I have with the new superradios is you can't hardly even service them. To me, Ham radio is supposed to be all about getting your hands dirty. Even in the best shops you will ever see, if the controller or VCO circuit gives out, the tech will just pull the board, send it back to the factory to be fixed, and get a new one in to be recalibrated using a PC and some proprietary software. Not much of a technician anymore. About the only place where technician still means much is in the antenna side of things. Even that is relegated more to the mechanics of the thing, such as putting ends on coax, bolting the antenna clamp to the structure, wire-tying off the cables, etc. Except for the low power HF stuff, no one really "builds" anything anymore.

How many people know how to build a tube amp circuit for something above 2 Mhz?

Hi amper,
Congratulations on your new ham ticket! While it has been over 15 years ago that I got my first ham ticket--it is pretty exciting to get that first ticket!!!
I live in Arizona and around here there are many mountain top repeaters that have very wide coverage, so 2meters especially has real advantage in a survival situation. I can remember being up by the Mogollon rim (north central AZ) and talking on an handitalkie with 2 watts over 100 miles back down into Phoenix while out camping some years ago.
You will need to learn what your area has available in repeaters, but a nice HT would be a good starting place, and by all means get plugged into a local ham group--they will help you alot.
Ford
KG7IW

Congrats Amper! Welcome to Amateur Radio! My callsign is W5ALN and I've got the ICOM V-8000 2 meter in my truck and have the ICOM T-90 (2M, 70cm, 6m) for a handheld. I love my V-8000 - simple, rugged, and powerful. I wish I had bought the ICOM V-8 HT instead of the T-90. It's great having the ability to scan all frequencies (except cellular) but it's tiny and the antenna connector (SMA not BNC) is too fragile. Definitely get a mobile radio first. Lots of new hams get an HT for their first radio but get discouraged quickly by the lack of range.

Regarding GMRS vs. Amateur - I believe that you're more likely to have someone hear you on Amateur frequencies than on GMRS. Not to bash GMRS, I know that there are some serious users out there, but 99% of GMRS radios purchased get used once and then sit in the drawer for the rest of eternity. Nobody monitors the GMRS frequencies like amateurs tend to monitor the amateur freqs. Also, it's easier to cobble up a better antenna for a ham HT than a GMRS. Google "roll up j pole" to find plans for a cheap, very effective, and easily-packed auxiliary antenna. Wad it up and throw it in a pocket. Toss it up into a tree for better range than a rubber duckie!

73s

Contgratulations on getting your ticket. Here are some thoughts that I came up with, although somewhat disorganized

Things to consider when buying your first rig:

• What is your budget?
  
• What is your intended use? (casual QSOs from home, mobile work, hiking, ARES/RACES response, etc.)
  
• I don't know what your situation is, but if you drive a vehicle at all, I would recommend a mobile rig as your first radio. HTs may be more appropriate if you take mass transit, or are not old enough to drive.
  
• In most areas of the country, 2m is still the most-used band, so make sure the radio you buy has solid 2m capabilities.
  
  
• If you already have a GMRS HT (I do also), keep it as another tool in the toolbox. GMRS' shared channels with FRS are something to keep in mind.
  
  
• Unless you plan on upgrading to General class or higher in the near future, save yourself the expense of purchasing any HF-capable radios, at least to start.
  
  
• Finally, Ed Harris, KE4SKY of Virginia RACES has some thoughts on radios for emergency communications. This doesn't mean calling for help in the wilderness, but replacing a commercial system when it's down or overloaded. e.g.: there is a hurricane and it takes out the county's only tower holding all the police/fire/EMS repeaters.
  Best Radio for Emergency Communications
  
  

Thanks for all the responses and congrats! The FCC posted my call sign today, KC2OOS, and tonight I attended my first club meeting at the South Jersey Radio Association, which happens to be the oldest continuously operating radio club in the country (so they claim).

Here's my thoughts for where I'm going in the ham community...

I'd like to be involved with the local emergency comms group. At the meeting tonight, I made contact with the local coordinator for my township. My family has a long history of service in the emergency services. My grandfather was a Battalion Chief in the NYFD, my grandmother (and other family members) served in their local ambulance corps, my father was an ER physician, and my mother is an RN with her county's health department.

It's about time for me to replace my car, so I've been thinking of something with some off-road capability. My ideal would be a long-wheelbase Jeep CJ or Wrangler that I want to fill full of electronics and comm gear. The ultimate to me looks like the impending Icom IC-7000 (you can watch TV on it, too!), which should fit in the Tuffy Products overhead console (same dimensions as the IC-706MkIIG, which according to http://www.commtechreview.net/jeep/tuffy1.htm fits nicely). I'm planning on having an HF/VHF/UHF unit along with a CB, scanner, GPS, and one or two in-car computers, assuming I can fit it all somehow. I want to route all the audio outputs to a halfway decent car stereo, nothing eardrum-shattering. If you follow that link above and check out their whole rig, you'll have an idea of what I'm thinking.

Budget is always an issue, of course (and that IC-7000 is rumored to come out at somewhere around $1500), but I make an OK living. Needless to say, because of the expense involved, I won't be building it all at once. I'll also be doing all the installation myself.

But, first things first--I don't even have the Jeep, yet. Realistically, I'll probably start with a decent multi-band HT, for now. Of course, I'll have to upgrade my license to transmit HF.

For HF emergency comms I'm pretty interested in the PSK31 mode. That's an ultra low speed digital mode (31 bits/sec) that uses even less bandwidth than CW. The speed was chosen to be just fast enough to keep up with moderately fast typing (40 wpm or so). The low bit rate means you can have text chat conversations with about 1/100th the power needed for voice conversations. So that 5 watt FT817 on PSK31 is like 500 watts voice. For emergency comms, text is if anything better than voice, since you can send stuff like GPS coordinates and it's all logged directly to the other person's computer.

I've thought for a while that someone should make an all-in-one PSK31 transceiver (maybe single band 20 meter) the size of an FT817, with a keyboard and display and all the modulation stuff all in the same waterproof box. It would be a no-operation-cost backup or substitute for a satellite phone, capable of communicating from the remotest areas as long as you could set up a reasonable antenna. The only drawback would be the text-only nature, but us computer users have gotten used to that.