If GMRS, Then Why VHF/UHF Amateur?

[n4gix]

Trying to get ham licensed currently. Local amateur radio club has cancelled all test sessions til late in the year, so I was looking at another group further out.

There are several VEC groups who are currently offering remote on-line exams for Tech and General licensing. Many hams have taken advantage of this.

 

Our club uses the ARRL VEC and are not currently offering VE testing remotely, but are planning an outdoor VE session on the third Saturday of July, but NW Indiana might just be a tiny bit too far...

 

Ham Radio Online Testing Updates:

[wayoverthere]

There are several VEC groups who are currently offering remote on-line exams for Tech and General licensing. Many hams have taken advantage of this.

 

Our club uses the ARRL VEC and are not currently offering VE testing remotely, but are planning an outdoor VE session on the third Saturday of July, but NW Indiana might just be a tiny bit too far...

 

Ham Radio Online Testing Updates:

Yeah, I was eyeing the remote option, and I think I will have to go that route..., I got my hopes up on the semi local ones still having sessions listed.

[tweiss3]

I had to email 6 different groups, 2 are testing, 3 are not yet and one never responded. Luckily the closest one is a Laurel sponsored and I was able to get signed up. But, I know the struggle, some are sacared, others are just having trouble finding a place to hold the test. I was told I'm going to have to take the test in my car, but it's happening.

[SeldomSeen]

Update:

 

Now my base radio is a fine simple analog dual-band IC-2730A with a Diamond X-50A antenna. Six repeaters and a few simplex folks can be reached despite being in a valley. I joined a local club and have participated in their interesting twice weekly nets. They are a nice bunch of folks. The rest of the time their repeater is almost totally unused. Other repeaters have the occasional mobile during the day and a couple of small groups that talk daily.  Ninety some percent of the talk is about radio equipment. I consider myself to be eclectic and would like to converse about various other topics. Like Hamlet said: "There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreampt of in your philosophy." That doesn't seem very likely though. I like DOCSGMRS's idea of more involvement with GMRS. It's certainly worth another look. I may have to get something more powerful than my Wouxin KG-805G though. And there's always HF and the general ticket down the road. Possibly. Maybe. I can't say for sure.

[fra1]

If you are only interested in VHF,  GMRS is just fine.  But the Tech license also gives you other bands besides 2 meters.  Although GMRS is growing very fast, right now there are way more 2 meter and 440 repeaters you can access while traveling.  But if you are only interested in local VHF communications, I would not bother with a ham license.

 

[JJM]

If you are only interested in VHF, GMRS is just fine. But the Tech license also gives you other bands besides 2 meters. Although GMRS is growing very fast, right now there are way more 2 meter and 440 repeaters you can access while traveling. But if you are only interested in local VHF communications, I would not bother with a ham license.

Except that GMRS is UHF but we understood you (hopefully).

 

 

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[kidphc]

Update:

 

Now my base radio is a fine simple analog dual-band IC-2730A with a Diamond X-50A antenna. Six repeaters and a few simplex folks can be reached despite being in a valley. I joined a local club and have participated in their interesting twice weekly nets. They are a nice bunch of folks. The rest of the time their repeater is almost totally unused. Other repeaters have the occasional mobile during the day and a couple of small groups that talk daily.  Ninety some percent of the talk is about radio equipment. I consider myself to be eclectic and would like to converse about various other topics. Like Hamlet said: "There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreampt of in your philosophy." That doesn't seem very likely though. I like DOCSGMRS's idea of more involvement with GMRS. It's certainly worth another look. I may have to get something more powerful than my Wouxin KG-805G though. And there's always HF and the general ticket down the road. Possibly. Maybe. I can't say for sure.

 

If you like rag chewing about weird topics. Then HF or using a digital hot spot (old ham operator calls it fake amateur radio) may be the way to go. We had a 30 minute conversation over WiresX. He brought up a valid point, "i should just call you".

[marcspaz]

If you like rag chewing about weird topics. Then HF or using a digital hot spot (old ham operator calls it fake amateur radio) may be the way to go. We had a 30 minute conversation over WiresX. He brought up a valid point, "i should just call you".

 

I'm not an old Ham... but if you're talking to someone over the internet, that isn't radio, in my opinion.  The whole point is to use airways to talk.  If you are using the internet, you may as well be on a computer or smartphone.  I especially feel this way about people using their smart phone to get into a group and they aren't even on a radio. 

 

If 2 people are using their smartphone to talk to each other though a Fusion or WiresX web app, how the heck is that Ham radio?  If that counts, anyone who talks on a cell phone may as well consider themselves a Ham.  LOL

[JJM]

I'm not an old Ham... but if you're talking to someone over the internet, that isn't radio, in my opinion. The whole point is to use airways to talk. If you are using the internet, you may as well be on a computer or smartphone. I especially feel this way about people using their smart phone to get into a group and they aren't even on a radio.

 

If 2 people are using their smartphone to talk to each other though a Fusion or WiresX web app, how the heck is that Ham radio? If that counts, anyone who talks on a cell phone may as well consider themselves a Ham. LOL

Technically it’s still over the air when you do radio to hotspot, que no?

 

 

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[marcspaz]

Technically it’s still over the air when you do radio to hotspot, que no?

 

 

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For a small part of the path to the repeater... that's it.  That's not real contact.

 

I had someone bragging to me about a 2m C4FM contact to an operator in Japan over a digital group and he logged it as a JP contact in his log.  I told him to give me a break.  If using my radio to go 2.5 miles to an internet-linked repeater and digital chatroom counts as a JP contact, I may as well just call a random person in Japan on the phone and count that as a JP contact, too.

[tweiss3]

For a small part of the path to the repeater... that's it.  That's not real contact.

 

I had someone bragging to me about a 2m C4FM contact to an operator in Japan over a digital group and he logged it as a JP contact in his log.  I told him to give me a break.  If using my radio to go 2.5 miles to an internet-linked repeater and digital chatroom counts as a JP contact, I may as well just call a random person in Japan on the phone and count that as a JP contact, too.

 

I agree with you that it shouldn't count for your State/Country search, but the fact that you can do it and still technically be on the radio and working on your contact skills is pretty intriguing. 

[marcspaz]

I agree with you that it shouldn't count for your State/Country search, but the fact that you can do it and still technically be on the radio and working on your contact skills is pretty intriguing. 

 

 

Don't get me wrong... I was taught that the two main objectives of Amateur Radio was to promote international good will and to further the technology.  The only limits on tech that I am aware of is that you are not allowed to run encryption or anything that is designed to hide the true meaning of the communications and your new protocol(s) need to be published publicly before they are used beyond development.  Beyond that, the sky is the limit. 

 

The fact that you can do it is pretty cool.  It took some sharp and creative people to come up with the idea and bring it to life.  But as an RF communications person, I have been groomed (and been grooming others) to no be reliant on underlying sub-systems for communications, because those systems fail.  For two-way peer to peer radio to fail, we would have to have a catastrophic atmospheric conditions that would kill all carbon based life on Earth, before radio completely stopped working.

[tweiss3]

Don't get me wrong... I was taught that the two main objectives of Amateur Radio was to promote international good will and to further the technology.  The only limits on tech that I am aware of is that you are not allowed to run encryption or anything that is designed to hide the true meaning of the communications and your new protocol(s) need to be published publicly before they are used beyond development.  Beyond that, the sky is the limit. 

 

The fact that you can do it is pretty cool.  It took some sharp and creative people to come up with the idea and bring it to life.  But as an RF communications person, I have been groomed (and been grooming others) to no be reliant on underlying sub-systems for communications, because those systems fail.  For two-way peer to peer radio to fail, we would have to have a catastrophic atmospheric conditions that would kill all carbon based life on Earth, before radio completely stopped working.

 

I'm especially impressed that the hardware is in the $100 range. Though, you do have to be into digital, with the exception of AllStar and Echolink (by my understanding). 

 

Do I want to get into digital (DMR most likely), yes. Is it really going to be usable when things fail? I doubt it. With the internet outages, cell phone outages, etc. going on recently, and the other mess of destruction people are bringing, can't count on anything. I have a feeling some of the local repeater towers would last without commercial power, but then you are still stuck to that RF range. I understand one could do DMR simplex, but the chances of finding someone out on DMR in a bad situation that have the same color and talk group programmed on the frequency is highly unlikely.

 

EDIT: What do I know though, I don't even have my license yet (testing next week), so I can't speak on the actual difficulties of digital and linking.

[kidphc]

Don't get me wrong... I was taught that the two main objectives of Amateur Radio was to promote international good will and to further the technology.  The only limits on tech that I am aware of is that you are not allowed to run encryption or anything that is designed to hide the true meaning of the communications and your new protocol(s) need to be published publicly before they are used beyond development.  Beyond that, the sky is the limit. 

 

The fact that you can do it is pretty cool.  It took some sharp and creative people to come up with the idea and bring it to life.  But as an RF communications person, I have been groomed (and been grooming others) to no be reliant on underlying sub-systems for communications, because those systems fail.  For two-way peer to peer radio to fail, we would have to have a catastrophic atmospheric conditions that would kill all carbon based life on Earth, before radio completely stopped working.

Big negative to IRLP/digital over the internet is that if you have an infrastructure failure you may lose the whole system or at least large parts of it.

 

Sooooo. Marc you MARS certified?

[marcspaz]

Sooooo. Marc you MARS certified?

 

No, but the Army and Air Force have been asking me to join every few months for years.  I keep turning them down because I could be deployed outside the US.  MARS doesn't pay, so I need to keep working while serving. 

 

I can do my regular job remotely while on a deployment (during down time) domestically, but I can't VPN in if I am overseas unless I get special hardware.  My main served agency will only give me that hardware if they are the ones deploying me.

 

So, no MARS or CAP service until I retire.

[kidphc]

Yeah figured it was something like that with you seaming to be heavy into public service.

 

Just found out that the MARS anntennas are protected by the DOJ.

 

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[rickh]

Briefing through this post I did not see any clarification provided for the difference in the bands, UHF vs VHF. There is a difference which is substantial. 

UHF is a lot more dependent on line of site and as such usability over a distance is limited where as VHF wave lengths are longer and are able to travel further and in the right conditions a loooong ways.

Congrats on obtaining the lic. You noted virtually testing can you tell us what that looked like? Was there live video proxy?

 

UHF radio waves are much shorter in length than VHF, measuring around 12 to 24 inches. As a result antenna length is reduced as well as radio range. Anything from a building to a human body can interfere with UHF transmissions

[kidphc]

General rule of thumb. UHF performs better outside in the woods. Attenuation through wet leaves and such is better. Where VHF performs better in an urban setting. It has a better chances of bouncing and penetrating walls/ glass then UHF.

 

Although personally I don't see it nor can say I have seen quantifiable gains to support. They both seam to perform about the same.

 

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[UHFJim]

General rule of thumb. UHF performs better outside in the woods. Attenuation through wet leaves and such is better. Where VHF performs better in an urban setting. It has a better chances of bouncing and penetrating walls/ glass then UHF.

 

Although personally I don't see it nor can say I have seen quantifiable gains to support. They both seam to perform about the same.

 

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I think you have this backwards.  UHF performs better in urban areas. Better penetration through buildings. NYPD remains on UHF for this reason.  VHF is better in wooded, hilly terrain.    

 

https://www.buytwowayradios.com/blog/2008/09/uhf_or_vhf_which_is_right_for_you.html

[kidphc]

Yes. It is the reversed.

 

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[tweiss3]

As line of sight, they are nearly identical. VHF sometimes experiences what is known as E skip, or propagation, where the atmosphere can take the signal and bounce it off the E layer and carry it 2+ times normal distance. Frequently this summer we had 150-200 mile contact via VHF propagation. The atmosphere never gets to a point to where the MUF (maximum usable frequency) for skip is in the UHF range.

[WRKC935]

Ham VS GMRS.

That's gonna depend on what YOU want to do with the radio hobby.  And the number of users in your area on GMRS and their willingness to talk to you.

GMRS is VERY limited as opposed to ham radio.  You have 7 repeater channels and 14 interstitial.  Ham had BANDS of frequencies and a number of modes of operation.

You can experiment in ham radio with any sort of communications technology... GMRS is wide band FM on UHF.  That's all there is and there ain't no more.

 

I am a communications hobbyist.  In short, I like radio.  I am a ham. I have a GMRS license (which I waited far to long to get) and I am a commercial radio tech as my chosen career path.

GMRS is a PART of my hobby.  But I can't build a GMRS radio,,, where I have built several ham radios.  Mostly single frequency HF low power stuff, but I built it and communicated with it.

 

The only person that will know if a ham ticket is the thing to get is you,  all we can do is explain the differences.

[smalpierre]

There is a tremendous amount of benefits with Amateur Radio vs. GMRS.  First, lets just talk about voice. 

 

On GMRS simplex, the absolute very best you can expect from a perfect setup, is going to be about 70 miles.  Likely less. That would be mobile or base. 

 

With Amateur Radio VHF and UHF, the power limits are 1500 watts with no radiated power restrictions.  That means with a little elevation, you are talking coast to coast on the higher portions of VHF and the lower portions of UHF.  On the lower portions of VHF, you can talk to Europe, Mediterranean, Northern Africa, etc.  Even in my mobile, I can talk to NY from Virginia on VHF simplex.

 

 

I haven't got an SSB rig yet, and it's been eons since I played with a SSB (CB rig decades ago) - but I'm curious about how you could possibly talk mobile - mobile 70 miles away with GMRS considering it's UHF FM. VHF/UHF are line of sight - at least they are on FM. There is a LITTLE bit of difference between the radio and visual horizons, but I don't see how it's possible to communicate 70 miles away on UHF regardleess of power, much less limited to 50w. I mean - maybe tropo ducting, but that's very very far from reliable, and could theoretically get you way further than 70 miles  to random places - not sure if that would even be doable on FM though.

 

Consider even two average trucks with roof mount antennas - they aren't even 10 feet high, but lets say both are 10 feet up, running 50w. The horizon is 4 miles for each, and even with radio waves bending a bit, I don't see getting out much more than 10 miles simplex. I'm not saying it's not possible to go further, but 70 miles? I'm very interested in equipment that's capable of even 50 miles reliably. Even with each station stopping and putting up a 40 foot push up pole, it's looking a lot like 20 miles for reliable range.

 

I'm also interested in finding out more about SSB propagation, and how and why SSB on VHF frequencies (and even high HF frequencies like 10m and 11m) seem to far exceed line of sight distances. I didn't think modulation would change how a frequency propagates, but maybe because it's so sensetive it can pick up RF that's scattered through the atmosphere a lot better than FM? Does it take something like high gain directionals to do it? I've seen old CB's (12w on SSB power limit iirc) - get 40 or so miles out - but that's with a base antenna on a roof... still it's pretty significantly further than the horizon.

 

Anyway - the original question - how do you get 70 miles out of mobile to mobile on GMRS - heck, even 40 miles? Edit: Since this is the amateur section let me rephrase that: How can you get 40 miles simplex mobile to mobile with a 50 watt rig on UHF using FM

[axorlov]

If you both on mountain tops. Repeaters in Sacramento area can easily be worked from Emigrant Gap in Sierra Nevada with 40W mobile, and that's about 70 miles as bird flies. In fact, I can hear mt Diablo repeaters (K6POU) way into Sierra, that will be more than 100 miles. Though, never tried to work it from that distance. Certainty not reliable, because as the road turns, you lose line-of-sight and communications. But strategically places fixed station, or long hike to the top of local hill will make comms reliable.

[smalpierre]

If you both on mountain tops. Repeaters in Sacramento area can easily be worked from Emigrant Gap in Sierra Nevada with 40W mobile, and that's about 70 miles as bird flies. In fact, I can hear mt Diablo repeaters (K6POU) way into Sierra, that will be more than 100 miles. Though, never tried to work it from that distance. Certainty not reliable, because as the road turns, you lose line-of-sight and communications. But strategically places fixed station, or long hike to the top of local hill will make comms reliable.

 

Why didn't I think of that? Not much for mountains in south florida.