Cruiserdrew
On the way there
This is a post from the Cruiser Owners Amateur Radio group, I thought the ih8mud guys on the fence about ham radio might be interested.
This will not be a post loaded with specs or deep tech, but I though I would share the experience this week on the Norcal Wagons Death Valley Daze run.
It was interesting for me on several levels, but most importantly for the fact that the CBs were not used. The entire run of 15 trucks was coordinated and kept in contact with 2m, on what is not designated by the FCC as the "Norcal" frequency 146.460. Since 2 members of the group did not have 2m, one of our new hams would do a manual cross band repeat for their benefit. My radio feeds back into my CB, so I basically left the CB off. RIP.
The first day into the trip was a straight shot into Saline Valley and the hot springs there. On my way in, I was looking for Ali (KE5LED) who was driving in from Las Vegas. I finally raised him when I was in the bottom of Saline, and he was on the other side of South Pass, 45 miles and 1 mountain range away. Not bad, considering we did not have any line of sight, but we had clear communication on about 25 watts. Once he crested South Pass, we did have line of sight and the power need went to 5 watts. I could keep up with his progress on the way in and redirect him when he went on a brief additional "adventure".
In Saline, I spent a few minutes doing some radio related chores. I could not reach the Silver Peak repeaters, but I did get a squelch tail from Mazourka Peak(146.760). Unfortunately, no one was monitoring the Mazourka repeater, so I didn't speak to anyone. I could not reach Mt. Potosi, or any of the Las Vegas repeaters. I could also not reach the Trona or Ridgecrest machines, but I learned later they were off-line, or having problems.
The following day we went over Steel Pass (didn't try any radio, but an ideal spot!) and down to the Eureka Dunes. At Eureka Dunes, I got on the Silver Peak machines (146.940, 147.060) and was invited to tune back in at 8pm for a "radio net" basically a daily chat of the Bishop area radio club. It was weird, but Ali and I could both hit these repeaters on 5 watts-with full quieting and good signal strength according to the Bishop Radio Club members we talked to. At the time we were 60 miles or so from the repeater site. Funny-Ali could not hear me when I would transmit to the repeater, but could hear the other transmissions from the repeater-apparently my transmitting so close to him, would swamp his receiver. I did not have this problem when he would transmit-perhaps because his radio is an older model? Anyway, that evening a huge storm blew in-the wind and sand forced a retreat into the vehicles without dinner, but I did log onto the Silver Peak 8pm chat. The Bishop area guys are really nice, were very happy to hear what we had been doing, and wanted us to check in the rest of our trip.
The folowing day I could not hit any repeaters from Phinney Canyon at the north end of DV but of course we had excellent truck to truck communications through out the long travel day. The next day in Titus Canyon we could talk truck to truck, but otherwise that is a black hole/vortex as far as communication goes. Even the 2m had a few issues when we got spread out in the deep canyon.
That night in Echo Canyon at the Inyo Mine, another of our group members (Brett- don't remember his newly minted call sign) was camped with his small group roughly 50 miles away near the Racetrack. We could speak to him on medium power like he was part of our group. He was meeting up with us 2 days later so we made arrangements for that (more on that later).
Friday, in Butte Valley-I could hit nothing. I did not have time to go to the top of the hill and try, but it seemed like a dead zone, except for simplex, which was great as usual. We did hike to the top of Striped Butte-that would have been fun to try a HT, but we did not take one up there.
The following day we had intermittent contact with Dana and Brett in Marble Canyon which was 50 or so miles away to the north. That afternoon we were up in South Park and could talk directly to Brett who was down in the flat of Panamint Valley, looking for the entrance to South Park Canyon. I was suprised this worked, since the line of sight in this circumstance is through several miles of solid bed-rock, so something else was happening. That evening we had changed our camp spot plan, but when Brett got to the designated spot, he could talk to us 2 passes away to the north and vector in easily. Very cool.
Last thing-On the way home, I keyed up again on the Silver Peak machine. It has great coverage throughout the Owens Valley, and then intermittent coverage almost to Topaz Lake on 395. I took the route over Monitor pass and could still talk to my new friend NW6C who was helpful with signal readings and coverage suggestions. He is also an off-roader with the Mammoth Area 4 wheel drive group and was impressed that we had converted the Norcal Wagons to amateur radio. Apparently bad communication has been a source of constant irritation for him for many years!
So that's it. Sorry about the lack of tech. I may post this on ih8mud, just to spread the word about decent communications. Ron can let me know if that's OK.
This will not be a post loaded with specs or deep tech, but I though I would share the experience this week on the Norcal Wagons Death Valley Daze run.
It was interesting for me on several levels, but most importantly for the fact that the CBs were not used. The entire run of 15 trucks was coordinated and kept in contact with 2m, on what is not designated by the FCC as the "Norcal" frequency 146.460. Since 2 members of the group did not have 2m, one of our new hams would do a manual cross band repeat for their benefit. My radio feeds back into my CB, so I basically left the CB off. RIP.
The first day into the trip was a straight shot into Saline Valley and the hot springs there. On my way in, I was looking for Ali (KE5LED) who was driving in from Las Vegas. I finally raised him when I was in the bottom of Saline, and he was on the other side of South Pass, 45 miles and 1 mountain range away. Not bad, considering we did not have any line of sight, but we had clear communication on about 25 watts. Once he crested South Pass, we did have line of sight and the power need went to 5 watts. I could keep up with his progress on the way in and redirect him when he went on a brief additional "adventure".
In Saline, I spent a few minutes doing some radio related chores. I could not reach the Silver Peak repeaters, but I did get a squelch tail from Mazourka Peak(146.760). Unfortunately, no one was monitoring the Mazourka repeater, so I didn't speak to anyone. I could not reach Mt. Potosi, or any of the Las Vegas repeaters. I could also not reach the Trona or Ridgecrest machines, but I learned later they were off-line, or having problems.
The following day we went over Steel Pass (didn't try any radio, but an ideal spot!) and down to the Eureka Dunes. At Eureka Dunes, I got on the Silver Peak machines (146.940, 147.060) and was invited to tune back in at 8pm for a "radio net" basically a daily chat of the Bishop area radio club. It was weird, but Ali and I could both hit these repeaters on 5 watts-with full quieting and good signal strength according to the Bishop Radio Club members we talked to. At the time we were 60 miles or so from the repeater site. Funny-Ali could not hear me when I would transmit to the repeater, but could hear the other transmissions from the repeater-apparently my transmitting so close to him, would swamp his receiver. I did not have this problem when he would transmit-perhaps because his radio is an older model? Anyway, that evening a huge storm blew in-the wind and sand forced a retreat into the vehicles without dinner, but I did log onto the Silver Peak 8pm chat. The Bishop area guys are really nice, were very happy to hear what we had been doing, and wanted us to check in the rest of our trip.
The folowing day I could not hit any repeaters from Phinney Canyon at the north end of DV but of course we had excellent truck to truck communications through out the long travel day. The next day in Titus Canyon we could talk truck to truck, but otherwise that is a black hole/vortex as far as communication goes. Even the 2m had a few issues when we got spread out in the deep canyon.
That night in Echo Canyon at the Inyo Mine, another of our group members (Brett- don't remember his newly minted call sign) was camped with his small group roughly 50 miles away near the Racetrack. We could speak to him on medium power like he was part of our group. He was meeting up with us 2 days later so we made arrangements for that (more on that later).
Friday, in Butte Valley-I could hit nothing. I did not have time to go to the top of the hill and try, but it seemed like a dead zone, except for simplex, which was great as usual. We did hike to the top of Striped Butte-that would have been fun to try a HT, but we did not take one up there.
The following day we had intermittent contact with Dana and Brett in Marble Canyon which was 50 or so miles away to the north. That afternoon we were up in South Park and could talk directly to Brett who was down in the flat of Panamint Valley, looking for the entrance to South Park Canyon. I was suprised this worked, since the line of sight in this circumstance is through several miles of solid bed-rock, so something else was happening. That evening we had changed our camp spot plan, but when Brett got to the designated spot, he could talk to us 2 passes away to the north and vector in easily. Very cool.
Last thing-On the way home, I keyed up again on the Silver Peak machine. It has great coverage throughout the Owens Valley, and then intermittent coverage almost to Topaz Lake on 395. I took the route over Monitor pass and could still talk to my new friend NW6C who was helpful with signal readings and coverage suggestions. He is also an off-roader with the Mammoth Area 4 wheel drive group and was impressed that we had converted the Norcal Wagons to amateur radio. Apparently bad communication has been a source of constant irritation for him for many years!
So that's it. Sorry about the lack of tech. I may post this on ih8mud, just to spread the word about decent communications. Ron can let me know if that's OK.
