Are old say 80's 2 meter all mode any good for a base station at home?
Is not having pl capability a problem? How do I tell if a repeater in
my area has pl?

I have found a few of these on ebay for about 200 bucks or less. This
leads me to another question, is ebay as good and cheap a place to find
used equipment as say a ham fest? I am going to my first one in January.

wrote in message
ups.com...
Are old say 80's 2 meter all mode any good for a base station at home?

Some are

Is not having pl capability a problem?

Yes a big problem -- repeaters in many places are require PL (PL is a
motorola trademark by the way)
CTCSS Continuous Tone Coded Squelch System ia a better term
But You can add a PL tone generator if need be -- see
http://www.com-spec.com/index1.htm

How do I tell if a repeater in my area has pl?

See Repeater guide at URL:
http://www.artscipub.com/repeaters/

I have found a few of these on ebay for about 200 bucks or less. This
leads me to another question, is ebay as good and cheap a place to find
used equipment as say a ham fest?

No for e-bay -- tends to be higher priced -- Ham Fests are usually a better
deal -- In either case a question arises "Is the rig fully operational in
all respects and meets mfg specs?"

From e-bay -- I always e-mail the seller asking that and a money back
guarntee.

For Ham fests -- sale is often -- as is -- but since they are local --
hopefully you can get back to them -- ask the same question of the sellers
at Hamfests as well.

Some Hamfests will have the rig hooked up to a power supply so you can check
it to your satisfaction.


I am going to my first one in January.

Have fun -- lots of junk but some goodies too (:-)
--
Caveat Lecter

J999w wrote:
Also check the online classifieds. I have purchased several radios
from hams on
'eham' or rec.radio.swap and have been quite pleased. I find hamfests
to be
overpriced because these guys are trying to make a living at selling
equipment
rather than selling radios for a recent widow, or a "cleaning out
the shack"
sale.

My advise: if you're looking for a radio to be used on FM repeaters
and have no
real interest in SSB or CW work, then buy a dedicated FM radio.
You'll be
happier (more memories, in board PL deck). Of course if you're
actually
interested in SSB/
CW on VHF then go for the multi mode! (you'll need horizontally
polarized
antennas for ssb/cw rather than vertical for FM work)


JW
K9RZZ
MILWAUKEE

I hve never used ssb. I would like to try it. Is ther much action on
this? What do the two different antennas look like?

I hve never used ssb. I would like to try it. Is ther much action on
this? What do the two different antennas look like?


For SSB/CW work around 144.2mhz, all antennas should be horizontal, otherwise
you throw away 20db in signal strength due to you being vertical and everyone
else being horizontal. Because of this, omni directional antennas are usually
horiz. loops or 'squalos', not verticals, and beams are usually 4 elements or
more.

Note that there are no repeaters for SSB/
CW, it's all simplex so the distance you cover is dependent on the equipment
you use. Even with 10watts and a homebrew 7 element yagi (and not that good of
one) I worked about 8 states on 2m which was a lot of fun. You can work guys
with a vertical, but it's tougher than even with a little 4 element beam. Most
activity is either in the mornings when band conditions are best, or in the
evenings between 5pm and 11pm. Just park your radio on 144.200mhz and let it
run for awile. Eventually you'll hear somebody calling CQ and you'll get a feel
for it. Both SSB and CW are focused on 144.200 regardless what the ARRL
publishes for a CW calling frequency, then it's +/- from there depeneding on
QRM. I've NEVER heard anyone on 144.100 which the ARRL still calls the CW
calling freq.

Of course when the band opens up ... WHOO HOOO, the sky's the limit and you
could find yourself talking to Texas or Florida even with only a couple watts
out of your radio!

John Wilke
K9RZZ
Milwaukee, WI
EN62

J999w wrote:
I hve never used ssb. I would like to try it. Is ther much action on
this? What do the two different antennas look like?


For SSB/CW work around 144.2mhz, all antennas should be horizontal,
otherwise
you throw away 20db in signal strength due to you being vertical and
everyone
else being horizontal. Because of this, omni directional antennas
are usually
horiz. loops or 'squalos', not verticals, and beams are usually 4
elements or
more.

Note that there are no repeaters for SSB/
CW, it's all simplex so the distance you cover is dependent on the
equipment
you use. Even with 10watts and a homebrew 7 element yagi (and not
that good of
one) I worked about 8 states on 2m which was a lot of fun. You can
work guys
with a vertical, but it's tougher than even with a little 4 element
beam. Most
activity is either in the mornings when band conditions are best, or
in the
evenings between 5pm and 11pm. Just park your radio on 144.200mhz
and let it
run for awile. Eventually you'll hear somebody calling CQ and you'll
get a feel
for it. Both SSB and CW are focused on 144.200 regardless what the
ARRL
publishes for a CW calling frequency, then it's +/- from there
depeneding on
QRM. I've NEVER heard anyone on 144.100 which the ARRL still calls
the CW
calling freq.

Of course when the band opens up ... WHOO HOOO, the sky's the limit
and you
could find yourself talking to Texas or Florida even with only a
couple watts
out of your radio!

John Wilke
K9RZZ
Milwaukee, WI
EN62

You worked 8 states using simplex or ssb?
Can I use a home built "yagi" type for both ssb and regular FM?

..You worked 8 states using simplex or ssb?


There no ssb repeaters, so all ssb is 'simplex' (transmit and receive on the
same frequency).

:^]

Can I use a home built "yagi" type for both ssb and regular FM?

You can use the same antenna, but all SSB is horizontally polarized and all FM
is veritical. So you can use a horizontal antenna to work repeaters, but your
signal into it will suffer if it's marginal to start with. You could simply use
a vertical to get into your local repeaters, and that will probably work quite
well, but don't expect to work much SSB with the vertical since you'll have
zero gain ( or close to it ) AND lose 20db due to cross polarization. That
makes you pretty weak. The other way to go would be to put up a horizontal beam
(4 el or larger) ... that will work pretty well on SSB, and while you'll still
suffer the 20db loss into repeaters, you won't notice it as much.

Depending on how distant your local repeaters are, you could cobble up a simple
ground plane antenna built around a SO239 connector for FM, and a simple yagi
or quagi for SSB. Yeah that's two antennas, but the ground plane is almost
free. I built my first beam on a scrap wood boom and number 12 copper house
wire. Get it up in the air as high as you can, stick a cheap TV rotator under
it, spend your allowance on *good* coax, and you're set.

:^]

I use my horizontal SSB beam for the repeaters, but then, I don't do much FM
work anyway.

jw
k9rzz