NY State wide repeater network

[GESchaefer]

Good morning everyone.

Is anyone aware of a NY state wide repeater network?

If I'm in Staten Island NY - is there a way for me to connect UHF / VHF to someone with a handheld in Albany?

 

Thank you in advance for any assistance.

[OffRoaderX]

Sorry to be the one to break this to you, but you might want to watch this:

 

[GESchaefer]

Ah well fook me I guess...

Ty brother

[GESchaefer]

So are there no options?

HF is just generally unreliable, and not mobile at all.

Are there government networks available?

 

[OffRoaderX]

If you are looking to chat with anonymous men over wide-areas/long-range, then GMRS is not the right choice..

Unless you work for the government, I am not aware of any "government networks" you can use/access (anyone please correct me if i am wrong), so H.A.M. repeater networks/HF, or the Grindr app are probably better choices.

[SteveShannon]

11 minutes ago, GESchaefer said:

So are there no options?

HF is just generally unreliable, and not mobile at all.

Are there government networks available?

 

I’m not sure what you mean when you say HF is generally unreliable. I join a 40 meter net Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings and I am always able to reach people several hundred miles from me with 100 watts. Sometimes the signal is better than other times but I’ve never been skunked. 

[gortex2]

The system @OffRoaderX linked is 4+ hours from Stanton Island. If you look at the map you can see various repeaters in and around NYC but none are linked to my knowledge. Half the time they are filled with beeps, foul language and other voices. To my knowledge there is nothing that will get you to albany. My first option would be to be pick up your cell phone and install Zello if you want PTT access to your friend 3 hours north of you. GMRS is not the fix. 

[AdmiralCochrane]

I want my n back.

[GESchaefer]

On 8/10/2024 at 12:07 PM, OffRoaderX said:

Sorry to be the one to break this to you, but you might want to watch this:

 

 

On 8/10/2024 at 1:21 PM, OffRoaderX said:

If you are looking to chat with anonymous men over wide-areas/long-range, then GMRS is not the right choice..

Unless you work for the government, I am not aware of any "government networks" you can use/access (anyone please correct me if i am wrong), so H.A.M. repeater networks/HF, or the Grindr app are probably better choices.

wtf are you talking about - anonymous men and grinder.

Sick duck

Edited August 12 by rdunajewski
Language

[OffRoaderX]

20 hours ago, GESchaefer said:

wtf are you talking about - anonymous men and grinder.

Sick duck

What? I don't understand? why so angry? How is finding men to chat with on Grindr any different from finding men to chat with on GMRS or H.A.M. radio?  Please explain because I must be confused or something.

[TrikeRadio]

19 minutes ago, OffRoaderX said:

 ...How is finding men to chat with on Grindr any different from finding men to chat with on GMRS or H.A.M. radio?

On radio they are probably not looking for a lifetime commitment.

[marcspaz]

32 minutes ago, OffRoaderX said:

What? I don't understand? why so angry? How is finding men to chat with on Grindr any different from finding men to chat with on GMRS or H.A.M. radio?  Please explain because I must be confused or something.

 

I love me some good ole grinder action.  Not just that plain ham crap. A few days ago, I got myself a big Italian... so hot... I'm in love.  My wife says I need to stop for my own good, but brother let me tell you... salami, old-world capicola, pepperoni, mortadella, provolone, fresh out of the oven... I just can't help myself. The dude who made the sandwich was pretty friendly, too.

[WRXR255]

29 minutes ago, marcspaz said:

 

I love me some good ole grinder action.  Not just that plain ham crap. A few days ago, I got myself a big Italian... so hot... I'm in love.  My wife says I need to stop for my own good, but brother let me tell you... salami, old-world capicola, pepperoni, mortadella, provolone, fresh out of the oven... I just can't help myself. The dude who made the sandwich was pretty friendly, too.

Vinegar and oil on it helps

[WRUE951]

10 hours ago, marcspaz said:

 

I love me some good ole grinder action.  Not just that plain ham crap. A few days ago, I got myself a big Italian... so hot... I'm in love.  My wife says I need to stop for my own good, but brother let me tell you... salami, old-world capicola, pepperoni, mortadella, provolone, fresh out of the oven... I just can't help myself. The dude who made the sandwich was pretty friendly, too.

You've been having around with Christie too much.. 

[marcspaz]

2 hours ago, WRUE951 said:

You've been having around with Christie too much.. 

 

As in Chris Christie?

[WRQI583]

On 8/10/2024 at 1:11 PM, GESchaefer said:

HF is just generally unreliable, and not mobile at all.

 

I have to agree. What many who love HF don't realize is this- if I need to communicate instantly,  such as you would with a cell phone,  generally,  VHF and UHF will do this for you. Sadly,  it has limited range.  This is where HF comes into play.  It has the distance,  however,  the band conditions have to be good to effectively communicate, and if you want to do short range,  you are limited on the bands you can use and also what antenna you are using in order to do short range (NVIS).  If the bands are dead due to space Weather,  such as has been the case this whole summer,  and then add into that all of the thunderstorms,  especially ones that pop up for no reason whenever they please,  you may as well just unplug your equipment and leave it shut off.  

I just got into HF this past spring.  The beginning was pretty good.  Great signals and I got real good distance at most anytime.  Summertime rolled around and the highly unstable atmosphere with dangerous lightning, and the constant solar flares,  and I have actually disconnected my HF and packed it away. Every time I would jump on,  I had to keep plugging everything back just to find out I had thunderstorms threatening my area. When HF works,  it works well.  But lately,  it's been highly unreliable. 

The only suggestion I could come up with is a linked digital voice mode. Sadly it uses internet,  but generally it's more reliable than HF. 

[SteveShannon]

11 hours ago, WRQI583 said:

I have to agree. What many who love HF don't realize is this- if I need to communicate instantly,  such as you would with a cell phone,  generally,  VHF and UHF will do this for you. Sadly,  it has limited range.  This is where HF comes into play.  It has the distance,  however,  the band conditions have to be good to effectively communicate, and if you want to do short range,  you are limited on the bands you can use and also what antenna you are using in order to do short range (NVIS).  If the bands are dead due to space Weather,  such as has been the case this whole summer,  and then add into that all of the thunderstorms,  especially ones that pop up for no reason whenever they please,  you may as well just unplug your equipment and leave it shut off.  

I just got into HF this past spring.  The beginning was pretty good.  Great signals and I got real good distance at most anytime.  Summertime rolled around and the highly unstable atmosphere with dangerous lightning, and the constant solar flares,  and I have actually disconnected my HF and packed it away. Every time I would jump on,  I had to keep plugging everything back just to find out I had thunderstorms threatening my area. When HF works,  it works well.  But lately,  it's been highly unreliable. 

The only suggestion I could come up with is a linked digital voice mode. Sadly it uses internet,  but generally it's more reliable than HF. 

I guess we have differing expectations of hf and differing definitions of reliability.  It sounds like you want the instant gratification of a VHF handheld, the addressable nature of a cell phone, and the long distance of hf.  That would be wonderful, but it’s just not realistic.
As I’ve mentioned probably too often I always get through to the 40 meter net on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  I’ve simply never failed at it and from Butte, MT to Keyport, WA the distance isn’t short. And that’s on SSB phone which is one of the most sensitive to noise.  That doesn’t mean I can hear every person who checks in.  As you say, atmospheric conditions sometimes make it difficult to hear some people. But what it does mean is that I know which paths work reliably, which modes I can fall back to (text or email style messaging via weak-signal modes are particularly useful, but the original CW is a skill I want to develop), and whom I can count on to relay a message if I must get a message delivered.  Now that’s not as convenient as a cell phone. I cannot say that I can talk to any other person on hf whenever I want, but I can rely on a network of hams to get messages through, and in an emergency that’s what’s important.

 

[WRXB215]

1 hour ago, SteveShannon said:

Butte, MT to Keyport, WA the distance isn’t short

Almost 500 miles. Way beyond the horizon.

1 hour ago, SteveShannon said:

I can rely on a network of hams to get messages through, and in an emergency

Exactly. ARRL, American Radio Relay League. 

1 hour ago, SteveShannon said:

CW is a skill I want to develop

Same here. Been learning Morse code. Got the letters and numbers, now to increase speed and learn abbreviations etc.

[WRUE951]

22 hours ago, marcspaz said:

 

As in Chris Christie?

Mike..    You are a spitting image of him

[WRQI583]

12 hours ago, SteveShannon said:

I guess we have differing expectations of hf and differing definitions of reliability.  It sounds like you want the instant gratification of a VHF handheld, the addressable nature of a cell phone, and the long distance of hf.  That would be wonderful, but it’s just not realistic.
As I’ve mentioned probably too often I always get through to the 40 meter net on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  I’ve simply never failed at it and from Butte, MT to Keyport, WA the distance isn’t short. And that’s on SSB phone which is one of the most sensitive to noise.  That doesn’t mean I can hear every person who checks in.  As you say, atmospheric conditions sometimes make it difficult to hear some people. But what it does mean is that I know which paths work reliably, which modes I can fall back to (text or email style messaging via weak-signal modes are particularly useful, but the original CW is a skill I want to develop), and whom I can count on to relay a message if I must get a message delivered.  Now that’s not as convenient as a cell phone. I cannot say that I can talk to any other person on hf whenever I want, but I can rely on a network of hams to get messages through, and in an emergency that’s what’s important.

 

I'm one of those types of ready operators who like to sit down after a long day and ragchew with other operators on the radio. If I decide to turn my radio on, and want to communicate with someone, I want it to work. If it doesn't work, it gets shut off and I find another means. If nothing works, I shut it all off and go in the other room and watch TV. My TV seems to be on more than my radio this summer. 

Most of this summer, the solar flares and thunderstorms have shut down my radio operating. I really enjoy checking into the HF activity group in addition to a couple of other nets, but it's got to the point where I can barely hear anyone. For me, hearing only a couple people out of 30-40 people with most of it all static, gives me a literal splitting headache. I understand HF won't work 100% of the time, but this summer has been more than irritating and ridiculous. 

If my life was an eternal emergency, HF wouldn't bother me so much, but for me, radio is supposed to be a relaxing hobby. It's been anything but that. I am hoping this winter brings some much needed change, at least as far as thunderstorms are concerned. I only have a yaesu ft891 on a doublet antenna about 45 feet in the air, not a kilowatt on a beam like many people. 160-20 are the only bands that work in my area. 17-6 are very hard to receive and 10 and 6 have been dead since late spring, with 6 having nothing at all on it since I started playing with HF. I've tried several other antennas both vertical and horizontal and nothing. 

For some, a thin wire in a tree with 5 watts gets them around the world year round, round the clock. For me, I need much more. 

[SteveShannon]

18 minutes ago, WRQI583 said:

I'm one of those types of ready operators who like to sit down after a long day and ragchew with other operators on the radio. If I decide to turn my radio on, and want to communicate with someone, I want it to work. If it doesn't work, it gets shut off and I find another means. If nothing works, I shut it all off and go in the other room and watch TV. My TV seems to be on more than my radio this summer. 

Most of this summer, the solar flares and thunderstorms have shut down my radio operating. I really enjoy checking into the HF activity group in addition to a couple of other nets, but it's got to the point where I can barely hear anyone. For me, hearing only a couple people out of 30-40 people with most of it all static, gives me a literal splitting headache. I understand HF won't work 100% of the time, but this summer has been more than irritating and ridiculous. 

If my life was an eternal emergency, HF wouldn't bother me so much, but for me, radio is supposed to be a relaxing hobby. It's been anything but that. I am hoping this winter brings some much needed change, at least as far as thunderstorms are concerned. I only have a yaesu ft891 on a doublet antenna about 45 feet in the air, not a kilowatt on a beam like many people. 160-20 are the only bands that work in my area. 17-6 are very hard to receive and 10 and 6 have been dead since late spring, with 6 having nothing at all on it since I started playing with HF. I've tried several other antennas both vertical and horizontal and nothing. 

For some, a thin wire in a tree with 5 watts gets them around the world year round, round the clock. For me, I need much more. 

I have an end fed half wave that has good SWR on 40, 30, 20, 15, and 10 meters. 17 can be tuned using the internal tuner in my FTDX10, but I built an automatic tuner from a kit that’ll tune to 10:1 so I can pick up 80, 60, and 12 meters. With the beautiful waterfall on the radio I can almost always find someone to listen to. I only have 100 watts but I usually don’t turn it up beyond 45 watts and sometimes only 15-20.