HAM Cheap Little ONe

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Test is easy enough - just take it, pay your pizza money and you are good for 10yrs and will have a call sign to use. Really a no brainer and just plain laziness would be the only real excuse to delay getting the license...

My 7yr old and 9yr old (at the time) both passed first time when they took the test 6+ years ago. Hopefully that'll shame the procrastinators into spending a few evenings studying for the test :)

cheers,
george.
 
Cruiserdrew said:
Fine can be $10,000 but unlikely you'll be caught. The test is trivially easy, so just no reason not to do it.
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e9999 said:
it is btw, perfectly legal I think, to use a ham radio for transmission without license if there is a danger to life. So this one is not a bad inexpensive safety device to have, even without a license.
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45Kevin said:
In Canada it is legal to use a ham if you are unlicensed but are under the supervision of someone that is licensed. It is also legal to monitor a ham when you you are alone.

That said, if you are out on the trails with your buds and talking truck to truck on a 3 or 5 watt handheld; most likely no one else will hear you anyway.

The course is not overly hard so you should do it anyway.
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spressomon said:
RX all you want legally. TX and caught = Felony + fine.

Take the test and be done with it...if I passed anyone can pass :D
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george_tlc said:
Test is easy enough - just take it, pay your pizza money and you are good for 10yrs and will have a call sign to use. Really a no brainer and just plain laziness would be the only real excuse to delay getting the license...

My 7yr old and 9yr old (at the time) both passed first time when they took the test 6+ years ago. Hopefully that'll shame the procrastinators into spending a few evenings studying for the test :)

cheers,
george.
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Thank you all!...I'll just take the test and get it over with...appreciate the words of wisdom
 
45Kevin said:
In Canada it is legal to use a ham if you are unlicensed but are under the supervision of someone that is licensed. It is also legal to monitor a ham when you you are alone.

That said, if you are out on the trails with your buds and talking truck to truck on a 3 or 5 watt handheld; most likely no one else will hear you anyway.

The course is not overly hard so you should do it anyway.
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Same in the US. As long as the control operator is present anyone can use the radio. As the control operator it is your responsibility to make sure the radio is operated within the limits of you license. So only on the frequencies and at the transmission power levels which you are licensed to use.

Typically if I loan my HT to someone on the trail I set the power to 1/2W and lock the radio. They can monitor the group and if there is an urgent need they can contact other drivers. I am extremely careful not to loan an HT to someone who will break the rules.
 
Fosters said:
Wow...old timer eh...been a member there since 2006...same name as here mostly lurk on GD
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Not too old, but prematurely senile from time to time.:D

My Dad got me started on AR's from bolt guns, but I escalated FAL's.

If you think LC's are an addiction...:p

Steve
 
RobRed said:
Guess What? The charging base died on the cheap little one. Sure wish I had that power port now.

On the plus side I got two charges on it before it died. That's only $20 per use... not bad.
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Did you contact the vendor? Most of the folks I've dealt with that peddle the cheap Chinese import electronics are more than happy to replace stuff rather than get a black mark on their e-bay profile.
 
I read on the miklos site that the small charger is not able to step down the voltage from 12.5 to 10 and so if operated in car mode from the lighter plug it runs hot and burns out the charger. Were you running from the wall, or from your car?

There is a car charger available for it that puts out the proper 10.5 volts but it needs to plug into the base to charge the radio.

It is a minor annoyance to not be able to directly charge it, but for $35, I'm still good with it. I did get a large battery for it that literally went a whole week during Rubithon without a charge and being used every day all day.
 
Drew, you still enjoying your UV-5RA? I was thinking of picking one up as a second handheld so I can give one away as a spare.

My UV-5R performed flawlessly at CMCC this year (not that I expected otherwise) and it's making me want to get another.
 
The UV-5RA has been perfect. I programmed it with CHIRP. I let it to one of the Rubithon guys for the entire trip and it worked perfectly for that truck to truck type duty. I wish I had a few more because there were still a few on the run with no radio.

I got a better antenna (that was <$5), a different car charger and the larger battery. I also got the adapter cabling so I can run it through my hard mount antenna if I want to. It's a nice and compact spare.
 
My charger s*** the bed too.

So I ordered a new UV-5R+ along with an extra battery and a lighter plug in unit to use while only in the truck.

$55 cheap.

I now have a spare hand held that I loaned to a radioless truck at the Rubithon.

Andy, I have not been successful with Chirp programming. How do you do it?
 
45Kevin said:
Andy, I have not been successful with Chirp programming. How do you do it?
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The key is the correct cable. Many of the cheap ebay clones do not work, but they will work if you manually install the correct driver which is a huge pain in the butt. Do not use the drivers that come on the disc that comes with the ebay cable. Best advice I can give is to spend some quality time on the Miklos UV5R site. It's loaded with great info.

http://www.miklor.com/uv5r/

The $9 cable from Amazon is what I have been using and it's been perfect. Then it's just a matter of downloading the radio, changing the memories to what you want, and uploading back to the radio.

It took me an afternoon to figure it out, but then I'm not the world's smartest computer guy.
 
I bought this one for $8, and it works: I don't remember if I had to update the driver or not. If so it was not difficult.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008ORT9OY/?tag=ihco-20

Kevin, where did you run into trouble, or are you just getting started?

I started from scratch at about 10pm the night before Rubithon and finished about 1am including looking up all the repeaters I set up.
 
These little units were all over CMCC this year. We made use of a local repeater and were able to communicate between trail rides and base camp. They all worked flawlessly.
We are talking about having the club purchase 6 or so of these to hand out to trail leaders during events.

"Give me Ham on 5, hold the mayo"
 
RobRed said:
Guess What? The charging base died on the cheap little one. Sure wish I had that power port now.

On the plus side I got two charges on it before it died. That's only $20 per use... not bad.
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I was going to post this earlier in the week but decided not to. But here goes:

I bought a Kaito radio for swl, etc. It covers like 100khz to 30mhz plus am/fm broadcast etc. Not bad for $80. Way cheaper than a Sangean, Icom, Sony.

The first never would charge the batteries and then abruplty died. The second one I bought would not charge teh batteries either, but still works--I use it sparingly.

So, I thought maybe I'll take a gamble on a $35 radio to loan out. After reading that, no thanks.....
 
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