Subj : Wannbe HAM
To : JIMMY ANDERSON
From : Bob Seaborn
Date : Thu Sep 15 2016 07:59 pm
>-=> Bob Seaborn wrote to JIMMY ANDERSON <=-
>
>> Well, my wife and I are interested in the weather side of things for
>> HAM,
>> but I'm also interested in the CHAT side. :-) If CB's would give me
>> morechance for CHAT it would be worth it. If it didn't, though, I feel
>> like
>> it would be a waste. :-)
>
>
>BS> Get connected with D-STAR, there are numerous nets almost every day who
>BS> are chat oriented.
>
> Yeah - Daryl mentioned that to me - pretty expensive though, right?
> Pluswouldn't help me for chatting during a drive. :-)
No, not at all. I understand that the Icom ID-51A is on sale right now
for about $250 at some places in the US. If you are within range of a repeater,
no problem. If not, a mobile hot spot is all it takes, using wifi from your
cell smartphone.
My Home setup here consists of an Icom ID-31A (cost me $200 cdn 18
months ago), coupled with a DVMega interface, which is a Raspberry Pi 2, with a
small sub board added to it. Everything sits in the Pi case, and has a four
inch antenna sticking out the top. It sits on the corner of my desk, and I get
around 2 miles range out of it (TX power is approx 10 mw on 440MHz). Total cost
of this was well under $200, also. The big feature is that I have world wide
qso's, with NO outside antennae, and don't use any repeater. Especially nice
considering the state of HF these days. :) I regularly chat with hams in
Ohio, North Carolina, Ontario, the UK, Australia, etc.
My mobile is a 50 watt Icom ID-2820H, into a Larsen 2/70 maganatopper
antenna.
If you wish, send me your email address, and I can send you pictures.
I can be found at "bob at fidonet.ca". If anyone reading this cares, I usually
can be found on X-Reflector 005B.
.....Bob, VE5XEF
--- GEcho/32 & IM 2.50
* Origin: DE VE5XEF (1:140/12)
