CB radios/ham radios/emergency radios and comms

[shutupdonnie]

Any cb/ham radio people?

 

[phaZed]

I mess around with SDR (SDR Play, HackRF One) - I'm an amateur (but not a amateur ham)

 

[Philippe]

Yeap. CB: one of the greatest inventions

 

[GTP]

We had a lot of fun with CB Radio back in the 70's.
Played "fox hunts" where to play, people would put $2 (eqivalent to like $10? now) in a pot .
Then a "fox" was drawn from a list of participants names. The fox would have 30 minutes to hide somewhere in the town.
Everyone else would try to find them by using the signal strength meter on your radio.
If you found the fox you won the pot.

The most popular CB's were "Radio Shack" which later became Tandy Electronics. I saved for months to get a CB with LSW/SSB so we could talk to others all over the country.
It was a great feeling when someone responded to your "CQ CQ <call sign> calling CQ CQ does anyone copy?"

Then UHF Radio appeard and ruined everything....

 

[Diggs]

We had a lot of fun with CB Radio back in the 70's.

This ^. But we were the opposite. Outfitted with what we called linear amplifiers at the time (100s of watts output instead of the regulatory 5 watts) and we would try and work the "skip" across the states.

 

[Larry Sabo]

I recall staying up after midnight chatting (CW) with someone who made his dipole out of empty beer cans soldered together. Was fun collecting QRL cards. Today, anyone can get a radio amateur license but back then we had to pass a CW speed & accuracy test and draw a superhet receiver schematic from memory. I still have my Certificate of Proficiency somewhere in this basement.

 

[katz]

My bother and dad are hams. They both built their own radios and have quite a bit of electronics knowledge. My dad is passed now, and my brother is 20 yrs. older than me. A different era of hams.

I have a General license, passed the test in 2015 or so. Went to a couple meetings/swap meets, did a little on 75 meters. Got tired of the constant shaming - "Oh you didn't have to learn CW. Oh, you didn't build your own radio and antenna." Newbies are looked down upon and ridiculed by these guys. I didn't need that drama, so I figured the hobby wasn't worth my time, lol.

Sold the radio/antennas, done with it. I really don't have the free time to devote to learning CW and building a radio from scratch.

 

[MichaelBits]

One of the guys who works here is big into Ham radio. He participates in several competitions through the year.

He has an acreage with 8 (some were taken out by last years derecho) or so towers spread across it. It interesting going down the highway near his place, all you see is this cluster of needles shooting into the sky.

 

[Stever]

I used to repair CB radios about 30 years ago, had a look at the RSGB exam but was put off doing it due to the snobbery about must have the newest expensive kit

 

[shutupdonnie]

Bump for HAM

I still need to get my license and grab a radio

Any recs on a decent setup <$150 are appreciated. Been looking @ Yaesu FT60r or something of that nature