- In this episode of Ham Radio Q&A, I answer your questions.
So please stick around for more.
(upbeat rock music)
Hi, I'm Michael, KB9VBR.
Your host for Ham Radio Q&A.
I'm on a mission to inspire and educate
the amateur radio community.
So if this is your first time watching,
please consider hitting that subscribe button.
Wow, a lot of things are happening on this channel.
We've just passed the 10,000 subscriber mark
and I've been picking up about 50 new subscribers a day.
So thank you so very much for that support,
I really appreciate it.
I also appreciate the intelligent comments
and great questions I receive every day.
Sometimes YouTube comments can be
sort of a social media wasteland,
but I'm always impressed
with the quality of comments I receive.
It can be a challenge to call out the best,
but let's dig into this month's questions.
But before we do that, please stick around to the end
as I have a preview of some things
that are going to be happening in the next few weeks.
First off, my video on the purported illegal status
of BaoFeng radios are stirring quite a controversy.
Both the original video I posted in August
and the October channel update
are generating quite a few questions,
so here's a few of the better ones.
Robert shares some points that have been echoed by many.
Namely, the FCC Advisory is silly for many reasons.
Number one, there are millions of these radios in daily use.
The toothpaste is out of the tube.
Number two, custom built equipment is popular
and can transmit outside the ham bands.
Three, some expensive commercial equipment
can also transmit outside the ham bands
with little or no modification.
Number four, it is illegal for hams to,
it is legal for hams to transmit
outside the ham bands in case of an emergency.
In fact, there are cases where someone
has been rescued by doing this.
And finally number five, he states,
does the FCC want to do away with the MARS program?
Well, you bring up some really valid points.
The FCC's enforcement advisory is contradictory
how the amateur radio service has functioned for 100 years.
Also, I want to say that despite what many say,
a radio used on the amateur radio service
does not need to be Part 90 certified.
I believe the FCC really wants to muddy
the regulatory waters
by deliberately creating this confusion.
Finally, I'm gonna talk a bit about the MARS program,
or Military Auxiliary Radio System.
MARS is a radio program
sponsored by the Department of Defense
and provides supplemental radio services for military.
For a long time,
MARS operators completed phone patches
so that military personnel could talk
to loved ones back home.
Nowadays, phone patches are really a thing of the past,
but MARS does still provide
interoperability communications
between the military and civilian
emergency management agencies.
The MARS program is under the jurisdiction
of the Department of Defense
and the MARS operators receive
a special operator's license and call sign,
and use frequencies outside of the amateur radio service.
So the FCC can't control
who can modify their radios for MARS operation.
Gene asks, "Someone please tell me
"which model numbers is/are or now legal or illegal
"and which ones are legal?"
Well, this is a really tough question
as there is no way to know which radios are allowed
under the FCC's Enforcement Advisory
unless the manufacturer or distributor
lists the FCC ID in their product description.
I'm not going to say that a particular radio is legal or not
as I'm not an attorney
and this advisory really doesn't specify
what the FCC considers to be a legal radio
for use under the amateur radio service.
But If the radio carries an FCC ID,
you can be reasonably assured and assume
that the radio is
safe and property used
on the amateur radio bands.
For other radio services like
a land mobile radio service,
the radio's going to need to be Part 90 certified
and Part 95 certified if you want to use it for GMRS.
To follow up on that point,
I also received this comment, the person writes,
"I contacted the company where I bought my BaoFeng radios
"and they said theirs are FCC compliant.
"They even sent me the FCC ID numbers.
"So, the statement that all BaoFeng radios are illegal
"is just not true."
You're correct, some but not all BaoFeng type radios
do have an FCC ID.
If the radio carries an FCC ID,
then it can be reasonably assumed
that you could legally use the device
on the amateur radio bands.
So, if you don't want to use a BaoFeng, and are looking
for something inexpensive, what should you do?
As this commenter asks,
"I am very new to HAM.
"If BaoFengs are illegal for now,
"can you recommend a good, low-cost alternative?
"Even the cheapest Yaesus
"seem to be five times the price of a BaoFeng,
"on Amazon at least.
"Or at least what is the best lowest-cost alternative?"
Well, Amazon is not necessarily the best
or the cheapest price source
if you're searching for amateur radio gear
from the major manufacturers such as Icom, Kenwood or Yaesu.
Since amateur radio gear tends to be a niche category,
you're gonna oftentimes find a better price
if you shop the specialty retailers
like Ham Radio Outlet, DX Engineering,
GigaParts, Universal Radio, MTC Trading, et cetera.
GigaParts has the Yaesu FT-4XR
for $99.95 with free shipping.
Or you can get the dual band FT70-DR
for $159 and that's got built-in Yaesu System Fusion.
These are all bulletproof radios
and they're gonna give you years of use.
In fact, they're definitely a step above
what you're gonna find with the Chinese imports.
While they might be a bit more expensive
than a comparable BaoFeng, you often get what you pay for.
So, they really are a good investment.
Alright, switching focus,
here's a little bit on troubleshooting.
I got a comment recently, that stated,
"I can't seem to get anyone or hear anyone
"on my Kenwood TS480SAT.
"Not sure if it's the antenna or I pushed the wrong button.
"I've been off radio for years,
"and a guy set it up for me and it worked, any ideas?"
Well, I'm not an expert on that rig,
so here's a couple general things you can check
if you can't hear a signal on your radio.
The first thing I'd do would be to check the antenna switch.
The TS480SAT's got two antenna ports,
Antenna 1 and Antenna 2.
And being on the wrong antenna port
or accidentally pressing a switch is a common problem.
In fact, our club's got a Kenwood TS2000
and being on the antenna has been a common problem
I've run into with helping a new operator use it.
So, if that checks out, and you're connected to Antenna 1
and there's an antenna on Antenna 1,
the next step I would do would be
to tune the radio to WWV
at 10 megahertz.
That's the atomic clock broadcast out of Boulder, Colorado.
Can you hear a signal from that at all?
Well if not, then you may have an antenna issue
or there might be something wrong with your transceiver.
I also received a couple of comments
on my APRS Fill-In Digi video.
"Great video, especially since my club has been talking
"about digipeaters at aid stations
"in mountainous and ultramarathons in my area,
"I was looking into building a few based on Arduino
"and forgot that this may work
"with some of the stuff that I already have
"like the MFJ TNC2 clones,
"and a KAM and a KPC3, thank you."
Building a fill-in digi is a great way
to repurpose old equipment
and sometimes doing that is easier
than building something from scratch
out of an Arduino or a Raspberry Pi.
Rob says, "KB9VBR, great video.
"This just might be the solution
"to the digipeater/IGate problem in our area.
"We do not have an IGate or a digipeater in our county
"and I've been wanting to install something for a long time
"that it would at least allow APRS tracking
"within our neighborhood and nearby town of Woodville.
"There is a digipeater in the county next door,
"which I think could be activated from my QTH
"if I could put up a small beam."
Well, if you don't have a reliable APRS service
at your location, I'd probably look
at building a full-blown digipeater
instead of just the fill-in.
Fill-ins work only for the first hop
and a true digi has the extra filtering
to reduce congestion and also
to help remove those duplicate packets.
You could host a digipeater at your home location,
and maybe that would be a good starting point,
to get things rolling, but in the long run
maybe co-hosting it at a repeater site might be the answer.
Our local club has a digipeater
di-plexed onto a UHF repeater system.
The repeater uses a dual-band antenna,
so it was easy to add the digipeater to the same system.
That might be an option for you.
Chris asks a question
about the Wolf River Coils review I did.
"Any advice for using this with an MFJ 1979?"
Well, the MFJ-1979 is a 16-foot telescoping whip antenna,
just like this one here,
and basically it's great portable operation.
What I do is extend it out to about nine feet
for the 75 to 80-meter band and then collapse it down
to about five to six feet for the higher bands.
If you're using the 102-inch stainless steel whips,
with this coil, here's the coil.
If you use 102-inch stainless steel whip,
you'll find that you're gonna run out of space
on the top end of the band at the coil here.
This only goes up to about 20 meters,
so you're gonna need to shorten that whip
for 10 or 15-meter bands.
Since there's a little bit of imprecision
when you're using the coils with the whip antenna,
often times what I'll do is pre-tune everything
with an antenna analyzer before I get on the air.
Another interesting thing with the whip antenna
is that if you extend it all the way out to 16 feet,
you can use this coil on the 160-meter band.
But to do so, you're gonna need a really good ground system
to get a good match on 160 meters.
But, hey, give it a shot.
Well, that's it for this month's questions.
Please keep them coming,
as your question might be featured next month.
As a coming preview,
I'm gonna be doing a couple of videos
on mobile radio operation.
I bought a new-to-me car this last month
and right now I'm in the process
of installing a VHF/UHF mobile radio in it.
So I'm gonna be giving you some tips
on antenna installation, running power from the battery,
and locating the radio unit
inside the car itself.
Plus, I'll be shopping for a new radio.
So I'm trying to decide between the Icom ID-5100A
or the Yaesu FTM-400XDR.
Eventually, I'll have a review
of one of those two rigs coming up.
But, if you have a personal preference between the two,
let me know, I'd love to hear it.
Finally, the holiday season is fast approaching,
and I'll have my annual holiday gift guide
out in a couple of weeks.
This video highlights ham-friendly gifts
any amateur would love to see under the tree.
Let me know in the comments if there's a particular gift
you'd love to receive from Santa.
Well, that's it for another month.
For more Ham Radio articles and information,
be sure to check out my blog
at www.jpole-antenna.com
and don't forget, if you love this video,
give me a big thumbs up, I really appreciate that.
Check out some of the other videos
that are suggested along the side here.
And hit that subscribe button
if you haven't already done so.
Pressing Subscribe and the bell notification
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I'm Michael, KB9VBR. (upbeat rock music)
Your host for Ham Radio Q&A.
Have a great day and 73.