We should be making plans

No offense if your trying to setup emergency communication, for the event of .gov taking down the net. I am not worrying if I have the “required” permission slip to key up a radio and talk.
 
How does the digital stuff hold up communication wise and privacy wise in the event of some grid down/partially down or internet/computer compromised type situation ?
In that regard, the network is only as reliable as its power and in most cases internet connectivity. Read up on the link I posted.

HF doesn't rely on any type of infrastructure and is much more self sufficient, but has its limitations as well.
 
godaddy.com just canceled ar15.com, it's coming.

Ok, that says a lot. NES may in fact be on the list. Without any formal plans as of yet, if it does go down, I will be on 3905.0 at noon. If we stay up, proceed as we were and PM me your info, I will do my best to come up with a schedule of frequencies and times.
 
We could use some folks for cross band relays so the rest of us can still enjoy the 'family'.
A few folks to relay over to 11m?
 
I have my General and a D-Star (ID-5100A) hooked only to a mag mount car antenna on a file cabinet currently in NH, no outside antennas and noise pickup is a real problem on a number of repeaters. I have a DMR HT that can reach out a few miles. The plan is/was to have some tree work done in the Spring and then hang a Buckmaster OCF between a few trees for HF.

I wish that I still had my shortwave receiver that I built back as a teenager, but I'm sure that it is long gone.
 
I have my General and a D-Star (ID-5100A) hooked only to a mag mount car antenna on a file cabinet currently in NH, no outside antennas and noise pickup is a real problem on a number of repeaters. I have a DMR HT that can reach out a few miles. The plan is/was to have some tree work done in the Spring and then hang a Buckmaster OCF between a few trees for HF.

I wish that I still had my shortwave receiver that I built back as a teenager, but I'm sure that it is long gone.
I had one of those buckmaster OCF dipoles years ago. It didn't radiate worth a damn. It loaded up ok but nobody heard me. It was a pretty good RX antenna though. If you have enough room, go with either a G5RV or a ZS6BKW variant. They work much better.
 
Dudes, Dudettes

-AR15 seems to be working, they likely changed domain services- (Moderators could look at qth.com as alternative / backup webservices)

-Get your ham license. The S did not HTF yet where you can go all willy-nilly on the ham radio bands.
---The hobby itself has so many facets of potentially interesting and useful things, once the panic is over, it really is a wonderful, technologically advanced knowledge base
---Keep in mind, you are registering with a gub't org with licensure.

-For VHF, a DMR or D-star radio, as previously mentioned, is pretty awesome. If you have a home network (No SHTF times, I know... but..) you can install a little raspi or similar dongle that acts as a hotspot for your radio and the hotspot uses the internet as a backbone to communicate worldwide. I don't know if the NEDCN supports hotspots.
-For VHF SHTF, we are stuck with repeaters. Setting up one is not trivial, but there are a shitton around. search for 'new england repeater directory' and see if there is something around you on that resource. In MA the W1BIM 146.97 has had pretty good coverage in the past, for example. The caveat is that the repeater RF footprint is the limitation on who can use it.

-For HF Receive only, SDR Radios are pretty awesome, but the horsepower is in whatever computer you are connecting it to. an `SDR-Play` unit plugged in to a modern PC and with a decent external antenna should have you receiving the 75m band.-
---These little wonders cover from below and including the AM broadcast band to way above and including the VHF and UHF public service and ham freqs with a visual display of a chunk of radio spectrum where you can 'look' for signals.

-For HF TX. after you get your licenses, they are pricey - keep an eye on the used market or ham radio classifieds web pages.

The best bang-for-your-buck antenna if you can only have 1 is- A decent ($$) Antenna tuner and a 'zepp' style dipole. With a good tuner, and a 130' flat-topped wire dipole fed all of the way to the tuner in the shack with 'Open Wire Line' (OWL) ~450 ohm 'ladderline' feedline will get you efficiently on all bands.

Just this past Saturday, I replaced the coax feed on my 80m dipole to OWL and fed it in to the shack tuner and made more than 300 domestic contacts with it Saturday evening spread across 6 ham radio bands from 160m/1.8Mhz to 10m/28Mhz. This was for a ham radio contest.

Oh, this coming weekend is a VHF radio contest and the bands should be active SSB/CW/Digital at least. Make contacts on FM without using a repeater and submit a log!

Man, I rambled on this morning.

godspeed-
 
So what are all us techs supposed to do? Miss out on the conversation because you want to use 80m?

Just get on the air anyway. There is ZERO FCC enforcement on HF. 20m, 40m and 80m is full of jammers that have been out there seven days/nights a week for years. They've even jammed actual maritime emergency transmissions between coastguard and a sailing vessel in distress at sea in a hurricane.

I cannot believe that you have even the slightest concern about this and If anyone is planning on using their actual government issued callsign for "tactical comms ". YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.
I wouldn't even use the ham bands, there's too many leftist jammers. ( take a listen on 3860 any night of the week, jammers galore).
I'd pick a frequency above or below the ham band edges and operate there.
 
Two Baofeng portables, an interconnecting repeater controller, an antenna coax adapter, 25 feet of RG-58AU ( stranded center conductor) coax, 50ft of black 100lb test braided fishing line or paracord, a $3.99 plastic ammo box and a 4oz fishing weight and you have the makings of an instant temporary field repeater that can be deployed at any geographical vantage point ( hill top, roof top, mobile, etc.)

You could string four or five of these by using input and output frequencies where keying one would key up all the others.

THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX.
 
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Just get on the air anyway. There is ZERO FCC enforcement on HF. 20m, 40m and 80m is full of jammers that have been out there seven days/nights a week for years. They've even jammed actual maritime emergency transmissions between coastguard and a sailing vessel in distress at sea in a hurricane.

I cannot believe that you have even the slightest concern about this and If anyone is planning on using their actual government issued callsign for "tactical comms ". YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.
I wouldn't even use the ham bands, there's too many leftist jammers. ( take a listen on 3860 any night of the week, jammers galore).
I'd pick a frequency above or below the ham band edges and operate there.
Yeah, rules for thee, not for me. F the rules, everyone else does it. My friend, that attitude is why there is a problem. So just screw all the people that worked hard to get their legal license.

Stupidest post so far today but it's early yet.
 
Yeah, rules for thee, not for me. F the rules, everyone else does it. My friend, that attitude is why there is a problem. So just screw all the people that worked hard to get their legal license.

Stupidest post so far today but it's early yet.
In the context of this thread, meaning grid down S has HTF communications, yes, f*** the rules.
 
In the context of this thread, meaning grid down S has HTF communications, yes, f*** the rules.
I agree and I would bet that Lucas agrees too.

In the meantime though even if just for practice purposes we should get our licenses just so we aren’t fumbling around trying to learn about it when we should already have some experience.

Seems silly not to want to take a course or at the very least deep dive into YouTube and books and be able to learn.

It’s like saying you’re going to build an 80% for your first and only gun and bury it out back encase of emergencies. When the time comes, does it work? Do you know how to load it? Can you clear a jam? Do you have spare parts?

Get the license. Follow the rules. Train. Learn what you “can” do and how to do it. Then whip out all the tricks and toys when the shit hits the fan.
 
I have been a nominal member of this for some years and they have some good information on their site...Sometimes I think they might be a bit tin foilish (perhaps not, now that we are where we are in time) but I used to participate in their 40 and 75 meter nets. I haven't for a while because of propagation issues but that seems to be getting better.

 
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Yeah, rules for thee, not for me. F the rules, everyone else does it. My friend, that attitude is why there is a problem. So just screw all the people that worked hard to get their legal license.

Stupidest post so far today but it's early yet.
No, it's not stupid. I was wondering when you were going to explain your "angry" reaction to my post.

You equating normal operating conditions ( Where most obey the rules ) to SHTF contingency conditions WHERE THERE ARE NO MORE RULES.
If you cannot differentiate between the two, the problem is yours, not mine.

If my objective was to get some type of critical information to another party when the SHTF has arrived, there are no rules that would stop me.

Please leave your Goodie Two Shoes outside the door.
 
How about one of these
$4k and your good to go!
In Stock! $2600, $275, $68
Power $408, $440
Base station ground rod $13.50 plus wire & rod clamp
 
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I had one of those buckmaster OCF dipoles years ago. It didn't radiate worth a damn. It loaded up ok but nobody heard me. It was a pretty good RX antenna though. If you have enough room, go with either a G5RV or a ZS6BKW variant. They work much better.
Funny, Fred K, president of the Nashua Area Radio Society told us the exact opposite wrt wire antennas. He has a number of towers and wire antennas at his house that all work for him. He held a bootcamp that I attended there pre-COVID.
 
Just get on the air anyway. There is ZERO FCC enforcement on HF.

Nope, this is horrible action and advice..

As a hams, we are self-policing.

Do not get on the air anyway, please. It would be tough to do useful things besides jamming since license holders will not usually converse..
The S has not HTF yet, so, until then you will remain ahead of your neighbors by learning how to communicate with licensure & requirements.

I used to have a 'Carolina Windom' commercially available (?Years ago?) antenna that worked pretty well on all bands.

j-
 
No, it's not stupid. I was wondering when you were going to explain your "angry" reaction to my post.

You equating normal operating conditions ( Where most obey the rules ) to SHTF contingency conditions WHERE THERE ARE NO MORE RULES.
If you cannot differentiate between the two, the problem is yours, not mine.

If my objective was to get some type of critical information to another party when the SHTF has arrived, there are no rules that would stop me.

Please leave your Goodie Two Shoes outside the door.
Thanks for your advice, you have proven my point!
 
Nope, this is horrible action and advice..

As a hams, we are self-policing.

Do not get on the air anyway, please. It would be tough to do useful things besides jamming since license holders will not usually converse..
The S has not HTF yet, so, until then you will remain ahead of your neighbors by learning how to communicate with licensure & requirements.

I used to have a 'Carolina Windom' commercially available (?Years ago?) antenna that worked pretty well on all bands.

j-
Once again, you too are not following the context of the thread. THE CONTEXT IS "CONTINGENCY"

To give you a little background, I've been licensed in multiple radio services for over 30 years. I've worked in the radio service, installation and repair business for 20 or more years. I can tell you unequivocally that there would be no consequences from the FCC for making a few brief transmissions on any band, commercial or otherwise if the need arose.
UNLESS AND UNTIL one makes a complete nuisance of themself by jamming a public safety, aircraft or personally owned commercial repeater, the likelyhood of being the subject of any investigation or prosecution is ZERO.

When things have devolved to the point that people are using Baofengs for critical communications, there is no more rule of law. Food, shelter and protection will take a far greater priority than worrying about an FCC letter in the mail.
 
The Nashua Ham Radio Club (N1FD) is doing their tech class ONLINE = on January 23rd and 24th, 2021.
(You do not have to be from Nashua or even from NH for this. People from all over New England can do this, especially because its done online with ZOOM).
They will also be doing a general class in March.

Nashua Area Radio Society Amateur Radio License Class Offerings (n1fd.org)

You take the exam on the second day at the end of class. 99.9% of students pass. And even if you flunk the first exam, you can re-take it right then and there (using a different set of questions).

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