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Vintage Amateur and Military Radio Amateur/military receivers and transmitters, morse, and any other related vintage comms equipment.

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Old 24th Aug 2018, 11:54 pm   #61
Radio Wrangler
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

Tanuki's got it, I think.

Two metres, and even 70cm would all result in cellphones and doodads with unfashionable antennae stuck out of them or cases with huge, unsightly bulges. The people putting immense pressure on spectrum space aren't after those bands. 23cm is a different matter.

You can't have a phone with an antenna sticking out of it. It suggests the user is talking into a radio transmitter and that would cause fear.

The aviation people's documents already say that the air band may be extended to 154MHz ! and they would love to shift things to get a cordon sanitaire between their autolanding localisers and Gold Classic Lucky FM or whatever. But it would take a global coordination effort. Once they were planning to change to MLS, but that flopped. Now they're just hoping the noisy broadcasters all begger off to 230MHz.

2m is probably safe for the foreseeable future.

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Old 25th Aug 2018, 12:42 pm   #62
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

Quote:
The aviation people's documents already say that the air band may be extended to 154MHz ! and they would love to shift things to get a cordon sanitaire between their autolanding localisers and Gold Classic Lucky FM or whatever. But it would take a global coordination effort. Once they were planning to change to MLS, but that flopped. Now they're just hoping the noisy broadcasters all begger off to 230MHz.

2m is probably safe for the foreseeable future.
Aviation will go to GNSS landing, and soon. Gallileo system is superbly accurate.

ILS costs a lot of money and that is paid for by the airfield owner, GNSS is paid for by the airline! GNSS is also a lot more flexible, literally. Some of the GNSS landings we now fly into Greek islands for example are as wobbly as heck...good for ground clearance though.

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Old 25th Aug 2018, 9:38 pm   #63
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

I had the day off from my usual domestic entanglements today so, inspired by this thread, I drove off up onto some high ground in the North Yorkshire Moors and managed a ~70 mile 2m FM contact with a station down in South Yorkshire, then moved down to 4m FM and had a nice old-school ramble on about all sorts of stuff with another station quite some distance to the south east on the Yorkshire Wolds.

In both cases, I put out the initial calls. There are still people out there.
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Old 26th Aug 2018, 12:36 am   #64
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

But of course, back around 1970, you would have been inundated with calls on 2m from the Leeds-Bradford area.

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Old 26th Aug 2018, 9:36 am   #65
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

Yes but to discuss the reason for that would achieve instant thread lock.
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Old 26th Aug 2018, 10:15 am   #66
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

I haven't worked mobile 2m for many years now, partly because you rarely hear anything but to give you an idea of traffic levels then and now, I was driving in Yorkshire near Hull, probably in the '80s where I went to pick up an HF tribander which was very cheap, I had a friend with me who was also licensed, 2m was running and the band was chockablock with signals mostly emanating from mobiles in the London area! you couldn't find a space between them. There was obviously a lift on but that's just an indicator of how things were.

We go on holiday to the far north of Scotland and again even in remote Caithness you could nearly always find someone to talk to, I even got to know a few of the hams. I got stuck in the mud on the North coast at Duncasby head, gave out a call and a ham from Orkney came back and got the AA out for me. Sadly those days have long gone.

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Old 26th Aug 2018, 10:20 am   #67
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

Sorry Dave. m0cemdave I missed this post and no I do not have the manual for my NAG-144XL.

I will PM you and let me know the costs.

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Old 26th Aug 2018, 11:19 am   #68
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

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Originally Posted by Bazz4CQJ View Post
But of course, back around 1970, you would have been inundated with calls on 2m from the Leeds-Bradford area.
That was still true of the mid-nineties when I first became licenced. I'm just saying that things are not entirely dead yet, and it helps if we try to create a bit of activity ourselves.

I admit it was unusual for these times, even from my elevated location with a view over the whole of the vale of York and on to Ferrybridge power station on the far horizon, to get a call back straight away.

Even more unusual to get a call back immediately on 4m. It may have helped that this was a bank holiday weekend Saturday.
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Old 26th Aug 2018, 2:07 pm   #69
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

I think the problem can only be fixed by ourselves. If we don't make more of an effort as licensed radio amateurs to use the bands...and actually communicate with each other, of course the bands will be quiet. Who else is going to be on them? As said before in previous posts, I am one of the main offenders. I should really do more, although my main interest is construction and getting things working as opposed to actually talking to someone. I didn't get round to doing my amateur license until 1997, despite having a career in radio comms.
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Old 26th Aug 2018, 2:57 pm   #70
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

I have heard an unknown taxi firm use 2m on occasion here late at night.
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Old 26th Aug 2018, 3:03 pm   #71
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

CLUB NETS _ 2M

Poole radio society net Mondays at 2000 145.575 call sign G4PRS

http://www.g4prs.org.uk/

all welcome

John
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Old 27th Aug 2018, 8:31 am   #72
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

Andover club tried a 2m net...wiltshire chalk stymied us so it went to a repeater. The skill to use and optimise 2m ssb has largely gone. Too many new amateurs never get taught to use ssb on vhf, they genuinely dint know how. So they never try.

I would dearly love to see a resurgence.of vhf use, its an exciting band to use.
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Old 27th Aug 2018, 10:31 am   #73
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

I have been on the Poole net but not lately.

I like FM because of the sound quality, you can have a good rag chew without getting a headache.

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Old 27th Aug 2018, 11:58 am   #74
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

Getting on for forty years ago I used to use 2m SSB mobile with 3 watts into a halo to relieve the boredom of long plodding evening motorway journeys in an old banger that I didn't dare risk thrashing at 70mph. Three or four contacts would see me the up the M6 to Lancashire or down the M1 to London talking all the way. I wouldn't dream of operating whilst driving now.
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Old 27th Aug 2018, 12:07 pm   #75
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

Nor would I, even though we (as two way radio users) are accidentally exempt from the law concerning use of mobile phones, etc. while driving. We could still get into trouble if, in the view of an official, we are seen to be driving without due care and attention.

Who hasn't, in their younger days, ended up with the microphone lead wrapped around the steering column while trying to talk and drive? I would never do it now. All my 'mobile' operation nowadays is strictly static mobile.
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Old 27th Aug 2018, 1:50 pm   #76
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

I used to use 2m mobile for rally talk in with an old Icom 215.

I made a custom hands free microphone for it using a long piece of screened multicore cable and a mini microphone element at the tip. It had a toggle switch for PTT and it clipped onto my seatbelt by my shoulder. It cost next to nothing to make and it worked extremely well. This avoided the issues with a conventional fist microphone. However, I didn't really like operating mobile because I think talking on a radio and taking directions whilst driving requires a lot of concentration and can be quite tiring.

I've still got the Icom 215 and this homebrew mobile microphone somewhere in the house but I haven't seen it in maybe 15 years. It's probably buried in the loft. The last rally I went to was the last but one rally at Drayton Manor and I don't think I used the Icom 215 that day as I knew the way to Drayton.
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Old 27th Aug 2018, 2:00 pm   #77
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

For me, the 1980s involved a Trio TW4000A dual bander, a Heatherlite boom mike and a Sandpiper dual band whip clipped to the tailgate of a succession of 205GTIs. Hands-free apart from flipping the PTT switch and that could always wait when traffic demanded.

I think the law was carefully phrased to exclude two-way radios to prevent the police having to book themselves

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Old 27th Aug 2018, 2:58 pm   #78
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

Quote:
I think the law was carefully phrased to exclude two-way radios to prevent the police having to book themselves
And taxis/minicabs: quite a few of the old "Black Cabs" had a rather bulky-looking mic (a bit like the old Pye 'Tulip') on a chromed gooseneck-thing bolted to the metal rail above the windscreen so they could operate their Hudson/GEC/Dymar/Pye radio handsfree, even back in the 1970s.

My 1980s VHF-mobile handsfree setup was based on a 'Plantronics' single-earpiece-and-boom-microphone arrangement of the type used by PABX telephone-operators of the era. The telephonists were always getting themselves entangled in the cords to these things and snagging the connection where the lead went into the headset, meaning we replaced loads of them. It would have been a shame to see the failed ones go to waste.
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Old 27th Aug 2018, 5:50 pm   #79
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

I've got an old Plantronics headset from a previous job which I might have a go at converting. I did make a hands free unit for my MC Micro works radio years ago using the SL6270 VOGAD chip but never actually got round to installing it. It's still there in the shed, waiting to be used. The Plantronics headsets we used in the control room had an intermediate connector designed to break free if the operator forgot they were wearing one and dashed off from their desk. A common occurrence. They caused other problems though. The connector used to get full of fluff/detritus from the person wearing it which made the contacts intermittent. I made a portable test set just for sorting out various headset trouble in control rooms. You could immediately eliminate the headset from causing complaints like "the radio's gone all crackly today...must be the weather, when are you going to fix it because we're really busy?".
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Old 27th Aug 2018, 6:14 pm   #80
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Default Re: Users of 2 metre Amateur Band?

I use mobile mobile and wouldn't dream of NOT doing so. I'm not an idiot,Ii don't park next to plod whilst using the mic, but I do use it. Trouble is, the VHF bands are empty and the HF bands are usually too flat for a mobile station to really work. All very sad.

However, if more folk were taking up VHF I might be persuaded to stick SSB in the landy and pop up a yagi sometime.

D
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