Ham Radio People Metro ATL

[Klif]

Where is a good place to purchase Ham equipment? I plan to attend a local Ham group meeting a time or two, but I will miss the next meeting and the one after that is a month later.

From what I have seen on the internet, Kenwood, Yaesu, and icom appear to be solid brands. Kenwood may be out of my price range. What do you think?

For my needs, a base station capable of HF, VHF, and UHF would be a possibility. A handheld would be very convenient, but may be very limiting. A mobile might be the ticket even if it never gets mounted in a vehicle.

Actually Amazon has some pretty fair prices on radio gear and delivers fast. I bought a couple of handhelds from them.

I bought most of my gear from HRO (Ham Radio Outlet) and they have good prices and even threw in a desk mike with my last HF rig. They will ask for your callsign and look you up on QRZ

 

[Electra_glide_ryder]

Where is a good place to purchase Ham equipment? I plan to attend a local Ham group meeting a time or two, but I will miss the next meeting and the one after that is a month later.

From what I have seen on the internet, Kenwood, Yaesu, and icom appear to be solid brands. Kenwood may be out of my price range. What do you think?

For my needs, a base station capable of HF, VHF, and UHF would be a possibility. A handheld would be very convenient, but may be very limiting. A mobile might be the ticket even if it never gets mounted in a vehicle.

I buy my ham gear from gigaparts.com or Amazon. Amazon for the Chinese stuff like Baofeng or QYT. I have a QYT dual band mobile in my truck with a Diamond mag mount antenna that I gave $105 for on Amazon. Kenwood, Yaesu & iCom are all good quality. Yaesu tends to have more of a “shack in a box” solution - one radio for HF, VHF & UHF. The Yaesu FT991A is a good choice for all of the latest bells & whistles. The swap meet forum on QRZ.com has lot’s of rigs for sale also. Almost all ham radios are “mobile” & require a 13.8 volt external power supply. My FT-857 is about the size of a mobile CB but has HF 100 watt, VHF & UHF 50 watt capability. I use it as a base but could easily take it with me. Unless you will be working digital a cheap handheld will work fine.

 

[A34]

This stuff will be tough to sell as individual parts. I would list it on Ebay as a lot. The website QRZ.com has a swap meet page where radios & related equipment are posted for sell. That may work as well. Are there any radios or other equipment for sale?

Thanks for the Advice! I posted 2 lots on ebay. Please feel free to tell any friends of yours that want parts to check it out.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/334088789423

https://www.ebay.com/itm/334088800171

 

[Leveraction44]

Just passed my Extra class test.

I am still trying to figure out how ham radios will fit into my everyday life and in a shtf scenario.

I guess I will attend a few ham meeting and try to pick up a few things from guys who have some good solid experience.

 

[Wheeler]

Just passed my Extra class test.

I am still trying to figure out how ham radios will fit into my everyday life and in a shtf scenario.

I guess I will attend a few ham meeting and try to pick up a few things from guys who have some good solid experience.

Congrats on passing Extra!

 

[Klif]

Thanks for the Advice! I posted 2 lots on ebay. Please feel free to tell any friends of yours that want parts to check it out.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/334088789423

https://www.ebay.com/itm/334088800171

You've got some pretty neat stuff there on Ebay. Nothing I really need right now but I've added you to my saved seller list. Good Luck!

 

[Klif]

Just passed my Extra class test.

I am still trying to figure out how ham radios will fit into my everyday life and in a shtf scenario.

I guess I will attend a few ham meeting and try to pick up a few things from guys who have some good solid experience.

Congrats on getting your Extra. You'll be out there giving the test before you know it.
As to how Ham fits in with SHTF, well, I as an example, and it wasn't really SHTF but it was close. I was stationed in Northern Japan at Misawa Air Base. I had my shack set up in on base housing. They were doing major construction close to the base central office for all the land lines on base. We had a lot of rain and the water breached the wall and flooded the central office. Here's a base with over 8,000 people and 2 fighter wings and associated other units, with no voice comms available from the base to the rest of the world. I fired my rig up, along with several other buddies, some in the base MARS station, and we ran comms for the base. Everything from Red Cross messages to medical comms to letting the other bases know our status. It was important. We even ran Health and Morale phone patches for people who couldn't get word out to their familes otherwise. It lasted two weeks before we had land line comms back up, so if we hadn't had the fallback we would have been treking off base and shoveling in 10 yen coins in the pay phones.

Another example, same base, a fighter went down about 20 miles from the base. Crashed into a mountain carrying full ordnance load out plus all the cryto gear they usually carry. Pilot was killed. Base response went running out but all the had for comms were handi talkies. I had a buddy with a Toyota that had the full complement of HF, VHF and UHF gear plus about 10 or 12 antennas sticking up all over. He grabbed his go bag and headed for the crash site, and I sat up in my shack or the MARS station and handled all the comms from the site and we ran like that for a week. Only comms going was our HF rigs.

So, how Ham can really fit in during SHTF, you'll know when you need it and don't have it.
73

 

[Klif]

I buy my ham gear from gigaparts.com or Amazon. Amazon for the Chinese stuff like Baofeng or QYT. I have a QYT dual band mobile in my truck with a Diamond mag mount antenna that I gave $105 for on Amazon. Kenwood, Yaesu & iCom are all good quality. Yaesu tends to have more of a “shack in a box” solution - one radio for HF, VHF & UHF. The Yaesu FT991A is a good choice for all of the latest bells & whistles. The swap meet forum on QRZ.com has lot’s of rigs for sale also. Almost all ham radios are “mobile” & require a 13.8 volt external power supply. My FT-857 is about the size of a mobile CB but has HF 100 watt, VHF & UHF 50 watt capability. I use it as a base but could easily take it with me. Unless you will be working digital a cheap handheld will work fine.

Be careful on QRZ.com It's a lot like here. There are good folks with good deals on gear and their are the same number of spammers and thieves who want you to send money and they'll get it in the mail to you. Get on eHam.com and there is a forum, along with all the tech stuff on antennas, gear review, boat anchors and the like, and then they talk about this guy and that guy who rips people off.

Have fun but watch yourself.
73

 

[Leveraction44]

Congrats on passing Extra!

Thanks

 

[Leveraction44]

Congrats I was fortunate to have a seasoned mentor early on when I got into amateur ruhdideo, he guided me through the various rigs, beams and home-brew antenna’s. Of course I knew everyone at HRO on a first name basis, LOL. I still recall the night in ‘92 when I passed the 20-wpm test.

I saw a graph of the number of hams ( or new hams) versus time. The number had been steadily falling for years. Then the Morse code section was dropped from the test - I think around 2005. Every year since then the numbers have been increasing. I would still be trying to learn Morse code for the Technician license if it was still a requirement. 20 WPM is really fast.