Official 2014 SS Georgia Rally Amateur Radio / Communications Thread

[Whiterabbit]

Big thumbs up for the 51Mhz military channel!

 

[bchauvette]

Unfortunately I got a bad attitude when I asked about communications at the registration tent so I put my radios away.

 

[swbradley1]

Were you the one who asked about programming a Baofeng radio?

 

[Recovry4x4]

Ok

146.500 it is. We'll set that in extremely slow drying cement....just in case.

Im going to be showing up early in the morning Saturday and staying only for the day. Im going to move around on a ATU that I have installed a 2 meter on for the day. Im planing on watching the trucks on the trail some and I will be able to radio around and run back to camp quickly if needed.

In installing the radio for the day I have no idea where the SWRs are. Did I read some where that someone was going to have a meter? If so could you text me or post your Call so when I get there I can call you on 145.500 with my handheld and find you?

Thanks

Well, for what it's worth, looks like someone owes SWB a hundred dollars. Lets see if his actions measure up to his mouth.

 

[patracy]

Is this the same individual that caused all sorts of trouble on a side by side with no helmets and ignored the durhamtown staff 3 different times to stop?

 

[Ferroequinologist]

Yes it is.

 

[swbradley1]

The frequency for 2-meter comm was set in post #49. Ke5eua made a mistake in a later post but the freq for the rally was in fact 146.500

Racing4funn, the $100 you bet me can be donated to the charity of your choice but I would prefer it to be Gary Sinise's charity as about 99% of the money actual goes for helping and not overhead. I'll trust you to send it to them.

Obviously it worked since I talked to you during the extreme ride when you guys were called back in.

With an antenna on a truck we tested an M37 on the rides and we could talk everywhere using 2m and 10watts.

It was just a cheap mag mount. My X30 on a former flagpole worked at the CO tent.

 

[bchauvette]

Were you the one who asked about programming a Baofeng radio?

yep that was me

 

[Ferroequinologist]

When we did the hardball I brought my railroad private license 100 watt mobipe that was mounted in the hyrail truck, and a 7watt handheld I gave to EMD as he was the convoy commander and I was tail dog. Came in handy for hearding the cats and when jimmy jam had the flat on the deuce. I don't have a ham license or I would have used that so others could know what was going on. I think it worked well so I will bring more radios on that freq next year.

 

[EMD567]

The 2 meter simplex channel worked great, as long as it was mobile to mobile, or mobile to base antenna. I hadn't used my rig in 8 years, and it worked, even with a jury rigged power system, and 1/4 wave mag mount antenna. I am going to try and fix up the hardball convoy with 2m simplex, just so I can keep up with the ends of the convoy. I could talk with ferro on his RR channel during the convoy, but all that did was tell me where the end was.

If you got confused about the freq for the trail rides, all you had to do was to ask at the registration desk, and we would have told you. I think 145.500 is supposed to be a repeater pair anyhow.

 

[ke5eua]

The frequency for 2-meter comm was set in post #49. Ke5eua made a mistake in a later post but the freq for the rally was in fact 146.500

Racing4funn, the $100 you bet me can be donated to the charity of your choice but I would prefer it to be Gary Sinise's charity as about 99% of the money actual goes for helping and not overhead. I'll trust you to send it to them.

Obviously it worked since I talked to you during the extreme ride when you guys were called back in.

With an antenna on a truck we tested an M37 on the rides and we could talk everywhere using 2m and 10watts.

It was just a cheap mag mount. My X30 on a former flagpole worked at the CO tent.

Makes sense, when I made the last post I looked at the beginning of the thread. Darn me for not reading further.

My apologies.

 

[swbradley1]

yep that was me

You didn't have your radio with you and I said I would look at it for you. Baofengs are pain to program when everything works when you don't have the software and cable. If you had brought it back I would have spent the rest of the rally getting it to work on 146.500 simplex. Heck, I would have even added our secondary channel at 146.580. The secondary was added because someone had a bunch on that frequency.

I'm sorry if you went away with the impression that I wouldn't do it.

 

[scottgs]

Post #49 is not where the frequency should have been. I saw at least two posts which identified 145.500, including one apparent definitive post on frequencies, so I took it as correct.

The right way to do this is to put the most important information in post #1. It should have listed the 146.500 MHz, 51MHz, and 14.3425MHz frequencies, as well as any FRS/GMRS/MURS or CB channels. I realize we lowly normal members may not be able to do that, but that's where responsible Moderators come in.

As we offered before this rally, our group has available radios which could be used at the rally, including handhelds, base stations, mobiles, all set on ham frequencies (51MHz) which are compatible with Military tactical radios such as the PRC-25/77's or PRC-351's which many of us also have. Even if you don't have a ham license, you can at least listen to the coms.

We had two base stations setup at this rally on 51MHz, but it was essentially wasted other than within our small group. We also can link these to 2m ham frequencies, so it is all one giant net. We could have done this at this rally and we can do it at the next one. Think about it, you can have 51MHz tactical or 2m radios and we all talk to each other.

A few other thoughts:

-There were at least two of us in our camp who could have programmed the Baofengs. They are horrible, but I'm pretty good at it now and could have had it done in minutes. I personally had two Baofengs there already on 145.500MHz.

-We can also program Motorola Spectra Railroad radios to 2m ham frequencies, as I have a couple myself. I had the PC, RSS and cables there.

-We had an assortment of SWR meters, antennas analyzers, cable and antennas that could have been used if needed. But most of it just sat in the Land-Rover 101 because there was no apparent need.

On the positive side, we did make our Steel Soldiers Rally presence known on several HF nets, including the 20m Submariners net, the 20m Maritime Mobile net, the 80m Tennessee net, and of course the Military Radio Collectors Association net. This included several contacts from an HF packset which is always fun.

Just my thoughts.

Garret
W8BUG

 

[racing4funn]

Racing4funn, the $100 you bet me can be donated to the charity of your choice but I would prefer it to be Gary Sinise's charity as about 99% of the money actual goes for helping and not overhead. I'll trust you to send it to them..

What I said was that 145.500 was posted and you all but stood up screaming lair. No wounder the other ham put up his radio. I wish I had done the same.. Funny someone running things doesn't have better people skills.

Since my statement was 100% correct and if YOU want to throw in $100 I will match Yours.. Its been clearly talked about here that 145.500 has in fact been posted more than once. Kinda got a feeling that my post will get edited. Some people.. sad

 

[phil2968]

... Its been clearly talked about here that 145.500 has in fact been posted more than once. ...

Just because it was talked about and repeated in error does not make it correct. Post #49 set the frequency and the someone posted in error and it snowballed from there.

 

[ke5eua]

Just because it was talked about and repeated in error does not make it correct. Post #49 set the frequency and the someone posted in error and it snowballed from there.

It was my fault, I was the last to post about all the frequencies. I just skimmed through the first couple pages for listed frequencies.

Again, my fault. No need to argue over it.

 

[Recovry4x4]

2 meter frequency was first mentioned in post number 47 as quoted below.

I think we should pick a frequency for 2 meter operations beforehand. I was thinking somewhere around the normal simplex frequency. The GMRS will probably be whatever Mike used at Graves since it worked.

If I can get setup early I may be on air as people get close.

ODFever came right back in post 48 and deduced that 146.500 would be a good compromise.

The 2m simplex frequencies are 146.400-146.580. Athens repeaters are 146.745 and 145.955. How about 146.500? It's far enough away from the repeaters that there won't be any bleed-over, and it's close to the national simplex frequency of 146.520.

I'm really looking forward to hitting the trails and finding out the range of my mobile antennas on simplex. I also want to find out how many repeaters I can hit. Maybe we can use one of them if simplex fades out on the trails furthest from the Registration/HQ Tent. If we can't hit any repeaters and simplex is too weak, we might have to set up relay stations or a radio relay system to get word back to the First Aid Tent in an emergency.

C/O set the frequency in slow drying cement in post 49

Ok

146.500 it is. We'll set that in extremely slow drying cement....just in case.

Im going to be showing up early in the morning Saturday and staying only for the day. Im going to move around on a ATU that I have installed a 2 meter on for the day. Im planing on watching the trucks on the trail some and I will be able to radio around and run back to camp quickly if needed.

In installing the radio for the day I have no idea where the SWRs are. Did I read some where that someone was going to have a meter? If so could you text me or post your Call so when I get there I can call you on 145.500 with my handheld and find you?

Thanks

Funny I was at the rally today. At check in I asked a guy there if the Hams where on 145.500 and he said no 146.500 but that he hadnt heard much goings on.. I told he the thread stated 145.500 and he said I was wrong.. Guess I wasnt wrong BUT I did make a contact on 145.500 and later on the trail 146.500 was used.. So thats nice.. Not sure since 145.500 was posted first why someone would over ride that, cause confusion, and change the frequency but the result was more harm than good..

What I said was that 145.500 was posted and you all but stood up screaming lair. No wounder the other ham put up his radio. I wish I had done the same.. Funny someone running things doesn't have better people skills.

Since my statement was 100% correct and if YOU want to throw in $100 I will match Yours.. Its been clearly talked about here that 145.500 has in fact been posted more than once. Kinda got a feeling that my post will get edited. Some people.. sad

If you dig deep enough you can even find 5.8 mentioned. In this case the frequency decided upon was in post 49. We as volunteers should have edited the first post to reflect this to assist folks who don't read or selectively read the thread. This will be corrected in future events. If you go back to one of Mike's posts you can see hundreds of frequencies listed. Looking at it from your point of view, we could have been on any one of hundreds of frequencies posted. Why you picked that post to follow, only you know.

As far as the liar thing, no one said anything remotely like that. I think the posts above are pretty clear and mention nothing about 145.500.

Now, the some people...sad thing is kind of ironic. I think your actions on the trails were, well....sad. Some people!

 

[phil2968]

I figured I would make a list for those who need it....
Admin frequency:

145.5000 No PL Noted

...

There you go. Program in peace.

It all went wrong in this post. It was posted wrong and repeated wrong.

 

[patracy]

Seeing that the rally is over and a new 2015 communication thread is started. I'll zip this one up.