Duke City Hamfest - Aug 17-18

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Beowulf

Beowulf

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The 2007 Duke City Hamfest will take place Friday, August 17 through Saturday, August 18 at the University of New Mexico (UNM) Continuing Education Conference Center, 1634 University Blvd, conveniently located in Albuquerque.

An ARRL VEC exam session sponsored by the Albuquerque VE Group will take place at the Duke City Hamfest on Saturday, August 18 at 1:00pm.

http://www.qsl.net/dchf/
 
Dang, you mean I actually need to pull out those books I bought and STUDY? When I get my license you think they will let me have the word "rat" in my call sign?:grinpimp:
 
After you get your license, you can apply for a vanity call-sign.

-Mike-
KE5RAT.webp
 
Cruisergreg said:
That should be a pretty exciting crowd...
Trekkies wear Spock ears - what does the ham crowd do at a group event?
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They wear baseball caps with their call sign on it.... and pocket protectors. Its considered impolite to point and giggle though so maybe you should sleep in on that weekend.

-Mike-
 
slimbuddha said:
What are the majority of the HDC members: CBers or Hammers? I have been considering getting a CB, but if more people are using HAM than CB, I may consider cramming and taking the test at the fest.
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I recommend both. You can pick up a garage sale CB for $10 or less and they usually have a mag mount antenna from when these things were popular back in the 70s. It is likely that we will be using CB radios in the 4-wheeling hobby for a few more years.

However, if you like to get out in the boonies alone or with others that don't have an amateur radio then you should consider getting the license (it's an easy test and $14 for 10 years.) The equipment is a little more expensive than CB radios and you won't find stuff at garage sales, but it is high quality gear.

There will be a tail-gate at the Hamfest so you might get lucky and find some used gear. The problem you will have at this stage is that you won't know what is usable and what is just "old junk." There will also be vendors selling new equipment, but you will have the same issue since this is new to you.

I listened in on a "rescue" last Saturday. The guy was camping deep in the Gila next to a creek when they had a flash flood. (Willow Creek CG) He lost his tent and all of the camping gear. The guy was a HAM and had a 5watt HT or mobile. He contacted the Megalink repeater system and got someone that was monitoring to call the NM State Police to come pull out his vehicle which was stuck. I think he was about 200-300 miles from me and the conversation was so clear you would swear he was sitting in the back seat of the Cruiser. Since the creek was rising and they had severe flooding in that area, it could have been a bad situation without the ability to communicate. He was out of cell phone range which doesn't take much here in NM.

-Mike-
 
Cruisergreg said:
That should be a pretty exciting crowd...

Trekkies wear Spock ears - what does the ham crowd do at a group event?
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, that's right... It wasn't just the chain saw...
 
slimbuddha said:
What are the majority of the HDC members: CBers or Hammers? I have been considering getting a CB, but if more people are using HAM than CB, I may consider cramming and taking the test at the fest.
Click to expand...

We're in transition - we being the national 4x4 community. If I had neither I'd buy a cheap CB and take the ham test. Once you have your ham license you can get a radio whenever. The ham test is a lot of memorization, but the answers make sense once you realize the framework of the ham community.

That said, it will probably be many years, if ever, when I get rid of my CB...
 
I think I will go the CB route, and try to take the test that weekend (or at least in the next couple months). I have read a bit about the HAM's, including at least two threads in this forum, and it seems like the way to go is with the dual band, even though the 2m is more widely available/in use at this time.

I downloaded the question/answer book for the 2007 test, and will be making a quick stop at Barnes and noble to get a study guide/tutorial book.
 
BYPP (bring your pocket protectors) to the party!
 
slimbuddha said:
I have read a bit about the HAM's, including at least two threads in this forum, and it seems like the way to go is with the dual band, even though the 2m is more widely available/in use at this time.
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We have 4 active HDC members that have recently passed the Technician exam and have radios in their rigs. I am aware of 3 others that are very interested... maybe more.

Some of the less active members won't make the move to better radios because of cost, because they don't venture out alone, and because they only go out 3 or 4 times a year and it would be hard to justify having 2 types of radios for that limited use.

If you come to the August meeting, be sure to check out my install. The 2m antenna is a "stubby" (I also have a long-range antenna), the main radio is under the driver seat, and the small display unit is on the dash. The Yaesu 7800 has a remote mount so it allows for a very stealth install.

-Mike-
 
Cruisergreg said:
Given the debrief on 2M used at CM2007 I'm not convinced they are "better" in every instance.
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I had the opposite reaction at CM. Plus, with the way I like to venture off solo I like the idea of HAM. It would be cool to find a way to make them work from Baja. :grinpimp: Don't know how possible that is.
 
Cruisergreg said:
Given the debrief on 2M used at CM2007 I'm not convinced they are "better" in every instance.
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Since I wrote the majority of that thread, I am curious as to why you jump to that conclusion?

The only issues were that RS didn't have anyone to man the 2M base station. I believe there was an illness or something like that. This was not a big deal since there wasn't any defined role for the base station anyway. I believe in future years they will have this worked out. In fact, I gave a good example of how they could have used a HAM base station to coordinate the canceled trails on the last day. CB will NEVER work as a base station due to the extremely limited distance.

The other issue is that we didn't have the correct information on how to use the local repeaters. I believe Ali has this worked out now and he spent some time talking with the repeater owner on his last trip to Moab. Basically, we were using "published" information (something we found on a web site) that was out of date. Use of the repeaters would further extend the communication to ~100mi radius of Moab.

Even without using the repeater we were clearly picking up guys that were WAY out in the boonies. Every trail that I was on had at least 2 with HAM radios. One guy on E-Hill only had a HAM. I have not seen the final stats, but I know that RS was trying to keep track of those with HAM radios. Unfortunately, they did not ask everyone at the Tech Inspection even though it was on their inspection sheet so the totals at CM07 will be less than actuals.

My ability to reach out a long distance was very helpful on the caravan up to Moab. I was talking with Steve on the 2M and told him to head out since I was running late to the North Portal. I didn't catch up to the group until well North of Cuba but they maintained their speed, met up with the Espa guys, and kept rolling. There was no "where is Mike?" concern because I could talk 25+ miles, car-to-car, and let them know exactly where I was.

In summary, at CM07, those (albeit few) of us with 2m had significantly better communications than those with only a CB.

-Mike-
 
Beowulf said:
I am curious as to why you jump to that conclusion?
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Your first words of that post: "Let's just say there were opportunities for improvement."

Beyond the golly gee whiz of how much benefit you thought it COULD provide if the system had worked right, I didn't hear that it added anything to actual trail use.

And I still haven't bought into this idea that a HAM is going to save your bacon every time in the boonies because there are plenty of potential weak links: no available repeater, bad repeater information, no geeky geezer monitoring the frequency to relay something, weather conditions, sunspots, whatever.
 
Cruisergreg said:
Your first words of that post: "Let's just say there were opportunities for improvement."
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I see, you're a Gen-Xer and just want the Headline News version.

Here ya go Greg: "CM07 attendees with 2m radios had significantly better communications than those with only a CB."

-B-
 
Beowulf said:
I see, you're a Gen-Xer and just want the Headline News version.
Click to expand...

Dude, go back and read your post. "Let's just say there were opportunities for improvement" WAS your headline. Maybe the secondary should be "Hams fail to meet expectations at Moab". Sure wasn't much of that glowing talk about it after everyone got back.

I firmly believe you're trying to spin a less than satisfying experience into a vaguely positive one. Just like the spin you applied to the "real men don't use CBs" reply to slimbuddh's question.

I don't give a rat's ass who has a ham or doesn't, but I don't think prospective members should be led to believe that they need to get a ham just to go on runs. Because THEY DON'T.
 
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