On Sun, 17 Aug 2003 17:47:57 -0400, "Bill Crocker"
wrote:

Most all the hand-held amateur radio equipment, is almost useless without
the aid of a repeater station.

That is a rather broad statement. It depends greatly on where you
live (or are) in relation to where you want to talk to. I live in a
very ham dense area and can make dozens of contacts on simplex.

I don't know how many repeaters are backed
up by emergency power supplies. I would hope most of them, but if they're
not, don't plan on reaching anyone more than a couple miles away.

Glancing through the repeater directory, I'd guess about a third of
them.
How do you define, "a couple of miles"? My Icom T2H (a 7 Watt hand
held) can make it from my house to the repeater 18 miles away. If I
can hit that repeater then I can talk to anyone between it and me on
simplex, and that is with the rubber duck antenna. Using a home made
twin-lead J-Pole antenna I talked on the repeater from downtown
Chicago which is a 36 miles trip.
On 2 Meters, get your antenna high and you can really reach out.
Height is Might.


H.F. equipment, on the other hand, is usually at least 50~100 watts, and has
the ability to reach extremely long distances, without the need of a
repeater.

Wattage doesn't mean a whole lot with HF because it isn't the power
that enables the longer distances. My 2 Meter rigs at home are 50
Watts. Actually, most HF rigs are 5 to 10 Watts and an external amp
will be used to increase power. Depending on conditions, you can talk
all 50 states with 10 Watts on HF.


When you think about it, standard C.B. radio equipment should do well,
providing there is someone available on the other end.

IF you are in an area with CB users and IF they are helpful and not
just kids wanting to screw around. Also, CB, being limited to 4 Watts
is typicallty very short range. If you are in an area with a lot of
CB users that are 'adult' and use it as a tool then it may be the
proper answer. Same for FRS and GMRS. Where I am, CB is worthless
due to the people that use it. If you can't top someone elses signal
then you aren't going to talk.


Bill Crocker

KB9WFK



"You are behaving like a troll, disguising your attacks as reasonable
discussion."
'Alan Connor'

In rec.radio.scanner KB9WFK wrote:
(snip)
: How do you define, "a couple of miles"? My Icom T2H (a 7 Watt hand
: held) can make it from my house to the repeater 18 miles away. If I
: can hit that repeater then I can talk to anyone between it and me on
: simplex, and that is with the rubber duck antenna. Using a home made
: twin-lead J-Pole antenna I talked on the repeater from downtown
: Chicago which is a 36 miles trip.
: On 2 Meters, get your antenna high and you can really reach out.
: Height is Might.
(snip)

Yes, but ... not everyone has a "high" antenna .. and many of those will
be closer to you than that "repeater 18 miles away" and yet, you *won't*
be able to talk with them. Because they won't hear you and/or you won't
hear them.

Richard in Boston, MA, USA

For current limiting in a point to point telephone system, figure 1000 ohms per
volt for the resistance to put in series with the phone handsets and the
battery. The current then will be about one milliamp.

Bill, K5BY

In rec.radio.scanner mad amoeba wrote:
(all of it snipped)

Sorry, if this has been mentioned (I can't read all 60 replies) but ..

While the radio in question can recieve shortwave, it can't transmit
there (and even if you could modify it to .. it would still only be FM and
low powered)

Without "repeaters" a hand held ham radio is very, very limited in range.

There are other possibilites .. such as the Yaesu 817, but you'd need a
higher class of ham licence and (realistically) a bigger, better antenna
(and a lot of luck) for HF (High Frequency .. aka 'shortwave')
communications.

Richard in Boston, MA, USA

If you're looking for an incredibly full-featured Ham Transceiver, look no
further than the Yaesu-817. 2-meter and 6-meter for local use, and then
pretty much everything else for long distance. All you need is a good
portable antenna and tuner and you'll never be out of touch. It's a "legal"
QSL radio with it's maximum 5watt output and can be set up as a base station
(many people have) or slip it into it's case and sling it over your shoulder
for true portability.
But by the way, you need to get your Ham license before you get one.
Reputable Ham dealers will NOT sell you a transceiver unless you furnish
your call sign that matches the address you want them to mail it to.

MJC

"mad amoeba" wrote in message
. net...
I was affected by the recent blackout in North East. That got me thinking
of
how would
one communicate during such an event. Electricity including phones were
out.
Cellular phones didn't work either. So the only way of receiving
informaiton
was by radio.
My old Sony wm-gx670 did quite nicely. But what if I would need to
communicate with
my relatives or even cops to let them know of an emmergency. If
telephone/cellular/internet
are not available what are my other options? Let's say people I want to
communicate with
are more than several miles away in an urban area. That makes CB radio
useless--right? So
then as far as I understand using ham radio is my only option. With that
you
can either get in
touch with your relatives directly, provided they have ham radio as well,
or
you can call
some person in an area without blackout and tell them to call
police/ambulance etc if that's
what you need.

Not knowing much myself about scanners/shortwaves/hams myself I want to
ask
you guys
with more experience if the below piece of equipment is what I need.

As far as I understand this is an handheld ham radio which also functions
as
a scanner and
can also receive on a shortwave band. So it will allow me to communicate
with people
far away even in urban setting, it is portable and it will also allow me
to
monitor news as
well as police/firefighters etc. Am I right?

Yaesu VX-2R
http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/ht/0176.html

the price is kind of steep but for all-in-one product I would be willing
to
pay it.

It's simple to throw together a set of field telephones from 2 common
type American telephones (complete telephones). Simply connect the red
and green wires with at least a 9 volt battery (up to 48 volts DC) in a
big loop, but you'll have to play around with finding and adding the
right value resistor to the loop to limit the volume. DC volts has a
limited range tho. It's very complicated however, making a phone ring,
so for your ringer you can salvage a couple door bells (or other DC volt
device) to act as your ringer with the switch for each at the opposing
end. You can pick up an ordinary phone at some dollar stores for about
$7 each. Since you don't have to modify the phone itself, you can easily
return it to common use.

Here 'ya go. This is why we can't afford to let the Broadband companies
squeeze us out.

http://www.ev1.net/english/news/news...t=technolo gy

MJC


"mad amoeba" wrote in message
. net...
I was affected by the recent blackout in North East. That got me thinking
of
how would
one communicate during such an event. Electricity including phones were
out.
Cellular phones didn't work either. So the only way of receiving
informaiton
was by radio.
My old Sony wm-gx670 did quite nicely. But what if I would need to
communicate with
my relatives or even cops to let them know of an emmergency. If
telephone/cellular/internet
are not available what are my other options? Let's say people I want to
communicate with
are more than several miles away in an urban area. That makes CB radio
useless--right? So
then as far as I understand using ham radio is my only option. With that
you
can either get in
touch with your relatives directly, provided they have ham radio as well,
or
you can call
some person in an area without blackout and tell them to call
police/ambulance etc if that's
what you need.

Not knowing much myself about scanners/shortwaves/hams myself I want to
ask
you guys
with more experience if the below piece of equipment is what I need.

As far as I understand this is an handheld ham radio which also functions
as
a scanner and
can also receive on a shortwave band. So it will allow me to communicate
with people
far away even in urban setting, it is portable and it will also allow me
to
monitor news as
well as police/firefighters etc. Am I right?

Yaesu VX-2R
http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/ht/0176.html

the price is kind of steep but for all-in-one product I would be willing
to
pay it.