Major Mod's

[M1009]

I use the radio to communcate with my buddy he has an Humvee, I can't get too many stations locally for some reason, maybe i don't know the frequencies well enough?
the gears are 4:56's in the rear to accomodate the larger tires and it gives me alot more torque. and they are full detroit lockers.
I do not want to put a turbo on the 6.2L diesel, i have read too much about the disasters after people have done the conversion. the only thing left for more power is headers, which i found a company that makes them for diesels, and larger exhaust.
Thanks for all the complements guys, I love this truck too!

PS it was 83 degrees today in February!!

 

[gt1009]

I've been meaning to look into this for a while,
How does your truck ride at that height? Does it lean at all when you take corners?
Thanks

 

[OPCOM]

Hey M1009, I don't know how much you are into radio, so at the risk of posting to the choir, I can offer this:
About the radios, if you are listening for ham activity, you would have to find a 6-meter FM net to find much going on. Hams use alot of SSB and other modes on 6M because FM is noisy at distances. There is a 6M "simplex calling frequency," 52.525 MHz and when the conditions are right, you can hear alot of acivity, except the RT524 does not tune 25KHz steps like 52.525 but rather 50KHz steps such as 52.500 and 52.550.

The 6M band sort of has two states, "open" and "crap". When it's open, you can go much farther, hundreds of miles, than the 20KM claimed by the manuals, and when it's closed that's all she wrote. FM is very challenging because it seems to take about 100 times as much power to make as clean a signal as a SSB signal at the ragged edge of the range.

When I did my 2800 mile road trip, I called CQ at the top of every 15 minutes on 52.5 on high power for much of the way. it gave me something to do. never got one single bite. This said, IF there had been a ham radio contest, or a field day during my trek, I would not have been able to beat them off with a club within 15 miles of any city, and they would have waited patiently while the mobile station from out of state went QRT to refuel!

The other thing is that many contesters and DX-minded folk use horizontally polarized antennas, and ours are vertical, although you have an NVIS effect and sort of undefined polarization by tying them down like that which is an advantage. There are listings of nets and contests on the web, but have to search them out. There are also beacons located in various places which contantly transmit. If one is on a freq. that your radio can pick up, and you suddenly hear it, the band is open!

The rest of the low-band VHF "band" from 30-75MHz is sort of deserted, but you might listed for local national guard traffic.

Here is a good place to start if you want to try some 6M commo in AZ.
http://www.hamsrus.com/index.shtml
scroll down to simplex frequencies and there's a list.

 

[M1009]

OPCOM thanks for the post, alot to absorb, i'll get there slowly, i'll check out the link for sure, i had sombody on 49.85 tonight they were singing with a open mic weird. any info anyone has on these radios would be much apreciated. over.

 

[M1009]

hey greg the answer is no, not much leaning at all, I did drive the truck for about 1000 miles before i lifted it, so i know how it handled before and i have to say it's alot better now than before

 

[JoshC]

Which radios are those?

 

[M1009]

RT-524 Transceiver and R-442 Receiver with a C-2298VRC control box and speaker. do you know much about them?

 

[OPCOM]

I think 49.85 is an intercom frequency like for baby monitors and very cheap walkie talkies, or maybe one side of an old cordless phone link. You should have made some noise of your own!! ( who's that in there with the baby!!! ) Most likely, you may have heard one of these kind of wireless headphone sets:
http://www.globalsources.com/gsol/I/Wireless-headphone/a/9000000074853.htm

 

[OPCOM]

I think 49.85 is an intercom frequency like for baby monitors and very cheap walkie talkies, or maybe one side of an old cordless phone link. You should have made some noise of your own!! ( who's that in there with the baby!!! ) Most likely, you may have heard one of these kind of wireless headphone sets:
http://www.globalsources.com/gsol/I/Wireless-headphone/a/9000000074853.htm

 

[JoshC]

RT-524 Transceiver and R-442 Receiver with a C-2298VRC control box and speaker. do you know much about them?

No, I do not know anything about them. Or any of them for that matter but I am looking to learn.

 

[Boatcarpenter]

Radio net

Don't think this will do JoshC much good but perhaps Patrick can find some use from it.

 

[AJMBLAZER]

Very nice truck. What's the gear ratio in you rears?. Did you do anything to the exhaust?

Are those the stock GM 10 bolt axles or did you upgrade?

Nice truck.

Where'd you find the headers?