Travelling Ham

When I am on the road in my class C with a lot of miles to cover before stopping for the night - I would love to have someone to talk to on HF and/or 2-meter. I don't do CB because I often have grandchildren with me and do not want them exposed to the filthy language that is sometimes there unexpectantly.  Anyone have suggestions?

Hi Vancar7,  I know how you feel.

  It is difficult to make contact with anyone unless you happen to hear someone on the receiver and can respond on his frequency;

  On 2 meters, you can either keep scanning on the band or you have to do a bit of homework before you leave. You will have to determine where the repeaters (frequency and tone requirements) are in the area. These frequencies can be found on Google using town names and ham frequencies/ radio clubs or similar etc. Of course there is always simplex 148.52 or 148.58 Mhz to attempt to make a local contact.

  On HF, a differing problems exists. You will just have to search manually for whomever happens you can hear. It could be mile away or it could be a few thousands miles away, depending on the band you use. Tough job. You can always call CQ..CQ  to see if anyone answers, if the band is alive.

  Some RV hams use HF to call home to friends with a SCHEDULE, Time of day/certain frequency or even certain days.

  Simply trying DX is up to your expertise, using the proper antennae and bands to see what you can find.

  There is no such thing, such as CB, where there is a common emergency channel for instant access. And that is dubious..

  In other words, it depends on you and your equipment to make contact with anyone.

73, Carson FL 97.0?

There are a whole bunch of nets on the air. On 80 meters I usually check into the Wolverine SSB net (Michigan and surrounding states usually) the pre-net starts around 6pm Eastern (2200 hours UTC) and the formal net one hour later.. Winter hours are the same UTC (an hour earlier eastern)  Frequency 3935

Then over night there is the Before Breakfast club and Breakfast club. Pre-net starts informally between 1 and 2 am Eastern (Summer and winter) formal B-4 starts at 3am, runs to 5am when the Breakfast club takes over till 8am, 3973KHZ.

And there are other nets including the FMCA net 3pm eastern at this time (not sure of the frequency as it was not where I expected it)

If you don't mind typing instead of talking you can go DIGITAL using a program called Ham Radio Delux or several others.. My "Arsenal" of software includes HRD, (With DM-780) which is rapidly becoming my first choice.. Hamscope (My former First Choice, has the best user interface for Macros) and Digipan (Has a few features that prior to DM-780 nobody else had.. Namelly a "Multi-Chan receive)

Using a simple home made interface (HRD comes with instructions to build one nearly identical to the one I designed) I"ve worked about half the world on about 30-40 Watts PSK-31 assorted bands all hours.

My primary HF antenna.. On the rear of the motor home is a Kenwood KAT-1 (Marine Grade automatic long wire tuner) hooked to it is one end of a 100' wire. There is a tie line to a eye bolt at the roof line a few feet out (strain relief)

The other end of the wire is currently anchored to a Sunsetter push-up flag pole, it forms one of 3 guys (Since I don't expect the pole to support the pull of the wire)  Next "incranation" I will replace the flag pole with something else,, I'm going to try a group of 4' "Painter's Extension Handles" chined to the 16 or 20 foot level.. WHY?  Well,, I have other uses for the flagpole.


VHF/UHF.. There is a program you can get from the ARRL store http://www.arrl.org Travel Plus for Repeaters

Just click on where you are and it will give you a list of Repeatrs (all bands) near you.

Thanks Carson and John. How about that - replies from Detroit and Florida. I can take Carson's advice and do my homework before I leave by using John's advice and getting Travel Plus program from ARRL;  Program repeaters into different bands for different areas on my 2 - meter; and, if I don't find any activity on a repeater, I can just put out a general call for travel advice!  I don't usually drive more than about five hours at a time. Even then I get bored and start looking for reasons to stop. A good long conversation would sure help.  73's

www.nwham.com is now the "official", whatever that means, repeater list for many provinces and states.  NWHam can export data in the ARRL format.    What is really nice about NWham.com is that it maps the repeater locations via lat/long so you can see what is near to your route.  Also highways are supported if the state/province repeater "moderators" have set that data up.

Also note that I think the Kenwood D710 can be updated on-the-fly with a laptop hooked up to a GPS for the nearest repeaters.

And I'm in Alberta, Canada

One other thing that I found handy... For two of my three radios I have computer "Control" programs.. (The exact nature of the control varies)

Both the main radio (Kenwood TS-2000) and the hand held (Yesau FT-51R which is in the "Cockpit" area just now) have computer interface capability and "memory control Programs"  (The TS-2000 has some serious control programs out there)

Both the Yesau programmer, and the Kenwood Memory Manager allow me to enter frequencies, offisets, PL tones and name the channel from my computer keyboard,  Save the file to the computer and upload it to the radio.. In bulk

This means I can set up several "proflies" if you like for different parts of the country and with a few mouse clicks convert my Detroit radio to a Flint, MI radio or a Las Vegas NV radio or a Upstate S.C. radio and... BACK

Of course with 300 memories on the TS-2000 (Way less on the Yesau) I don't change it's profile often

Thanks Tony - I'm going now to check out www.nwham.com.

You are right John - my little Kenwood TM-271 has 200 slots for memory channels and you can put different repeaters in different "bands" I call them. Of course I'll now call them cities or states instead of bands. Talking about computer controlled programs - my TM-271 would not retain anything in the memory that I put in manually. I used the program Kenwood offers and it was a cinch. Of course the connecting cable (with a usb on one end and an ethernet connector on the other end of a three foot cable cost $79. plus shipping).  I have been out of ham radio for about 25 years and am just now setting up a small station. Getting back in has been a real challenge. The changes that have taken place since the mid eighties boggles my mind. Who would ever have thought of a computerized control program for several different radios back then. "Back then" was when Packet was just getting popular in my area. Sounds like you have a couple of fine rigs. I have mostly inexpensive stuff like the IC-718 in addition to the above 2-meter. But I have more dollars invested in antennas and tuners than radios.  With the big BP Oil spill down here - I figure fishing is going to be wiped out for quite a few years. So, I jumped to the head of the line and sold my boat before the market gets flooded. Now I may be able to move on up!  73's - thanks for all the good advice from everyone.

From Deen, W4ANR, Palmdale, FL:
I'm a full timer, QTH at Sabal Palm RV Resort in Palmdale, FL.  Thought I'd present my antenna setup for fixed and portable operations from my Itasca 34 ft. Suncruiser Class A MH.  When travelling or running from hurricanes, I load up enough portable antennas to operate most bands at a destination.  The portable antenna farm includes a set of tuned ham sticks for 80-6 meters, mounted on a telescoping painter pole for quick set up and overnight stops.  Antenna tuners really make loading up much easier.  The main antennas include inverted v's for 80 and/ or 40 meters.  For 20-15-10, I use the driven element from my Cushcraft A3s triband beam.  For the HF bands, I'll throw in a 40 ft. push up mast on the floor then mount the mast and tie at the aft ladder to support the inverted v's and the Cushcraft dipole.  The 3 band dipole mounts at the 20-25 ft. level on the push-up mast.  For a contest DX weekend, the full 3 el. 3 band beam could be set up.  For local VHF or UHF communications, I have an assortment of 6, 2, and 440 antennas including 4 element beams, Ringo Rangers, and a 10 meter vertical.  These antennas can be mounted on up to 5 sections of 5 ft. stacked mast, tied off in the forward section around the awning.  A 6 ft. rod is included for proper grounding.  I've never set up all of these antennas at one time as a portable, but it certainly could be accomplished.  Using the above HF antennas and 5 watts QRP, I recently worked FD 2010 on CW and SSB, working KH6, KL7 KP4, and most states in between,  from FL!  Otherwise, an ICOM automatic-,  or MFJ antenna tuner and a random wire will certainly work too.  And don't forget plenty of coax!

I usually use a 100' long wire, one end is attached to a Kenwood KAT-1 (A Marine grade mate for my TS-2000) and where as I used to toss the other end over a handy tree limb.. Of late I've been using a push-up pole.. The last time I used a painter's 12' extension handle and it worked well.. I plan on extending it just a bit more though.

Works well on 80 40 and 20, not so good on 10 and 15

I also have a hustler 4btv (or most of it) and the KAT is mounted right at it's base so I can simply feed it with the KAT.. Almost works on 80, works well on 40 through 10.

I have a lot of fun with that TS-2000

I added sticky (numbers/letters) to the back of my motorhome up high that says: 146.52 and my call sign.  As long as I remember to turn on my 2-meter rig it actually has worked out pretty good.  Last trip we were on I had a trucker contact me on 146.52 and we yakked off and on all the way across Wyoming along I-80.  We were moving along about 65 mph and he was traveling a little faster and gradually passed us.  I was surprised how far ahead of us he got and we still had a very good signal.  He would pull over for something or the other, and we'd catch up, then pass us again.

It was a lot of fun, and sure made that section of the trip go by fast.

pa04 said:

I added sticky (numbers/letters) to the back of my motorhome up high that says: 146.52 and my call sign.

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I've had some good chats on .52.  Enough that when I'm out of repeater range I call very ten or twenty minutes or when I come to a town.    Not a lot mind you but enough.  I also give a long CQ so that folks who are scanning, like I do, will stop on 52.

I keep one radio on 146.52 all the time, I scan with the rest of 'em.

One suggestion  http://www.irlp.net/

Nothing quite like standing in Los Angles. holding a UHF hand held, and chatting with a ham on the other side of the world "Down Under"

Been there (LV) done that..

John From Detroit said:

One suggestion  http://www.irlp.net/

Click to expand...

A Canadian friend of mine was having a beer with the fire chief of a major US city who was lamenting how the radios between the fire dept weren't compatible with police, etc, etc.  He pulls out his HT which was already on a local IRLP repeater node, identifies, punches in an IRLP node number and has a quick chat with someone on another IRLP node.

The fire chief was impressed.

That is a common issue (Public Service) Michigan, long ago, secured a license for a specific frequency that EVERY police agency has to have in their radios if they want Federal money for the system (or state help) lets agencies talk across boundries.. Fire Depts here have the same.

Still... From time to time the only help is the local Ham Radio club.