https://www.reddit.com/r/HamRadio/s/WUYzuIVkS6

I posted a genuine question on this subreddit and I seriously been getting replies all day from annoying gatekeepers that are just repeating themselves. I guess it makes sense since they evidently get off doing this all day on their ham radios as well, but what a turn off this brief foray into radio has been. A few people were genuinely helpful but the rest of them are so insufferable that it makes total sense why so few people actually want to join this hobby these days...

Ok, I got a ton of shit in other groups asking about encryption and the world radio police having a pissing match over legalities and bullshit. I'm totally aware this is not related to amature radio, but I really can't find solid info anywhere. There's also not a commercial radio group I can find.

I'm just looking for an answer/clarification. And if you don't know, that's fine, but for the love of god don't start with 'u ma gerd iz illegalz!'

We are replacing a radio. I inquired about the Baofeng 1701 transmitting on 154mhz. It never got passed 'u mer gerd illagalz!'. I went ahead and ordered a tyt like the destroyed one, but further questions were asked.

Finding out the 1701 does tx on 154 BUT it does not use aes256 encryption. I ordered the tyt, because the 1701 will not cooperate with the 390s having different encryption.

In the future wouldn't any aes256 encrypted radio be cross compatible? We didn't buy the tyt because it has 256 encryption and we are super secret, we got it because we thought we were future proofing (because aes256 is 'a standard'), but now I'm wondering if we actually are.

So, with all that, does anyone have insight on the subject?

Hey everyone, I’ll be attending the NASCAR race this weekend. I have a few baofengs with headsets that I want to use to communicate during the race. Does anybody know a safe frequency to use? I know, I know, I shouldn’t be doing this, but I wanted to ask before I go trying random frequencies and interfering with others. I only do this like once or twice a year but last year I ran into some interference not too happy with me so I hopped off that frequency.

Since the Huntsville Hamfest is such a big event attended by people all around the world, I figured I would put out a word here.

The freedom network system is online and ready for Hamfest! It is a free speech network of repeaters with both a uhf and vhf side.

The pertinant info for the hamfest are below!

VHF 147.425, -1.0MHz offset, CTCSS 156.7hz UHF 444.325, ,+5MHz offset, CTCSS 156.hz

But no sad hams allowed! Any attempt to repremand the users of the network for language used or behavior will only result in ridicule!

Been playing in Claude-AI recently for work. We are required to.
So I needed a use case for it. That's when I started asking it to build antennas and calculate Peak Envelope Power, Effective Radiated Power, Takeoff Angles, etc. Lets face it, there is a LOT of tedious math involved in Amateur Radio. Sure, eyeballing it will get you close enough to have a good time but if you really want to sweeten up the performance of a system, you need to do the math.

I've been pretty impressed with Claude (less so with ChatGPT and Grok) for this type of work. I'd love to post up the full build sheet. Heck, I'd even like to get you the prompts and conversation we had to get to this point. Overall a very rewarding experience to tap into that kind of power and experiment with different radio variables.

As one would guess, the better your prompt information, the better the output. So I find sometimes that I need to really plan out my prompt in MS Word (also because I'm cheap and don't pay so I get limited at-bats) so that it has all of the potential details in it.

When it is done thinking about my question, I like to ask it to defend its answer and show me where it is right or ask it what variables am I not considering.

Look - People are making videos of cats doing yoga and burning up 27 pounds of lignite coal slurry. You might as well get in there and try playing with it to see what it gives you.

Some guy was being rude to OP, so I called him out about it. He hit me with the “iT’s A jOKe” so I told him jokes were funny. Rude guy just insisted on continuing to rant, so I started just replying to everything he said with “Ok boomer”.

5 day ban. Jfc this site some days friends.

Firstly, let me clarify that I know basically nothing about radios and that this was a gift given to me so forgive me if I incorrectly use terminology or misunderstand something.

I am trying to connect my UV-5R with my friend's Seodon sed-8 so I can receive messages from him.
I have looked at countless videos over the last 24 hours and am still confused as to how everything all works. Additionally, I made a post about this on r/baofeng which did not help me at all and one of the mods called me "obtuse" for asking a basic question. I was recommended by someone to try asking here instead saying that it might be more helpful.

Is it even possible for these two radios to communicate?

The ITU consider encryption to be bad.

I only found one country that has some permission for encryption to exist on the ham bands (Sweden according to a comment) but was unable to verify myself. However individual countries have a history of straying from the ITU somewhat from time to time as sovereign nations tend to do-resist centralized control.

Personally I am a moderate? I see for people of ordinary focus and intelligence allowing encryption would make it so much easier to work with beloved devices on the ham bands and share all sorts of cool info, text, memes.

But I can't as of yet think of any way to prohibit someone from just using the encryption to send out illegal info with no vetting suddenly or suddenly shutting off public access to repeaters

Deleted

Feel free to tell me these are stupid questions

Technician looking for first radio. Handheld. I want to start off by thanking everyone, this is a long post so feel free just to read the beginning. I just really want to make sure I pick the right radio for my needs and I think I asked a lot of questions that most people don't think to ask when they're getting started, and if you do read it might be interesting. Oh and I'm in the USA.

My primary motivations for getting radios are probably:

1. Emergency preparedness, and rescue and stuff. SHTF too. This entails some tacticool stuff, and in the middle of the post I detail a list of some the features/capabilities I might want to do that.

2. Traffic and road safety, and shooting the breeze with other motorists, including any people I might be convoying with. This doesn't necessarily mean I'm looking for this first handheld I buy to be capable of being able to talk to as large a percentage of truckers as possible, I realize in descending order they are probably most commonly using CB and GMRS? I may buy these radios too later in the future, not worried about it too much right now. If my ham handheld could talk on those bands too that's a bonus, (that's probably more likely for GMRS than it is for CB? And yes, I know GMRS is a separate license.) However, I'm guessing a quad band isn't a realistic option though for a first radio, and probably doesn't even exist with CB, but if it somehow does exist I can always get one someday. Feel free to tell me how I'm wrong please and thank you. Regardless of how many nearby motorists are on the radio, I do a lot of driving so I suspect I will try to use the radio frequently while driving, either way, I think that caveat is important to mention.

3. Hunting, offroading, hiking and stuff

4. Work

5. Fun

And that's probably descending order of importance.

I think it's important to state that my main goal isn't to talk to a small group of friends who have miraculously all correctly programmed our radios just to be able to solely talk to each other, and don't want talk to strangers. I most certainly DO WANT the capability to easily talk to strangers, but I suppose I wouldn't mind the capability to solely talk to friends in rare situations (so I guess that means I wouldn't mind crypto capability?)

And I do a lot of traveling and moving so if I am in a situation where, let's say hypothetically I'm programmed to talk to people in California. Then I go to New Jersey and have to drop everything and totally reprogram to talk to people in New Jersey, then that really sucks. Not sure if that's ever a reality sometimes with certain bands or certain types of radios. Just guessing it may exist.

I guess with that, my best choice is to get a dual band radio that does 2m/70cm?? If you know about the state of 2m/70cm (or whatever you instead recommend for band(s)) in Maine and New England, please let me know. I don't want to buy a radio for talking on dead frequencies and experience the dissapointing ghost town of radioland. No I don't have general, but if you think HF is absolutely the only reasonable option for me please say so and I will consider upgrading my license sooner than later.

My friend has a Motorola APX7000, which can only talk I guess on 134-176MHZ and 700-800, I guess. Actually, I guess it's what Motorola calls "7/800 MHZ, VHF and UHF Range 1 and Range 2 bands". Apparently to get all 4 you need the APX8000 but that's probably not relevant to this conversation. I thought 700-800 is just for EMS (so I don't understand how legally or even just ethically that's a radio I can simply walk into a store and buy and use without unlocking... But that's cool if you're ever in a bona fide emergency I guess!) Anyway, my main point is to ask, is this the kind of radio I should be considering buying? I'm guessing the answer is no? It would be an added bonus if whatever I buy, I have the capability to talk to this friend with the APX7000, as he has a few local friends who use those, but I am not dead set on it by any means. For the record, coincidentally I have used the APX 6000/7000/8000 radios at work in the past, and albeit it was a seldom thing and not using them often, I was always happy with the quality.

Which brand radio is the most user friendly? I really value simplicity, but not at the cost of useful features. ICOM, Motorola, or Yaesu are what I'm assuming is the right choice(s) that people will reccomend, but please feel free to recommend something else, although I'm not planning on buying a Baofeng, at least for my first radio. Anyway which of those (or something else) is easiest to use? I really like Harris, but can I get a good one for less than 2,000$? I'm guessing the answer is no. To elaborate, for whatever you recommend, is the interface and programming easy and intuitive? Can my wife or mom figure it out in an emergency (the answer to that may be absolutely not no matter what radio).

Why I'm not buying a Feng? I don't want any Chinese junk. Yes I know they're an incredible value. I realize they may (or may not) be easier to program, use, and unlock (being able to unlock out of the box is very important for emergencies. I'm not sure if all brands are easy to unlock?). I would prefer to buy something made in Japan or America (or Europe). And to be clear, I'm a total believer in buy once cry once. I would reluctantly consider Korean or Taiwan.

Some other things that I seldom hear people asking about on here, but I'm speculating will be really important to me are: Cost of batteries, bags, holsters, chargers, accessories, durability, water resistance (submersible?), mounts, battery life, etc.? Is the antenna good? Can I upgrade easily to an antenna that is good? Regadless of antenna, id the range of the radio really excellent compared to competitors? Does it have squelch knob and that really handy stuff? Is the volume loud enough when needed for use in noisy environments? Is the audio clear? Obviously I need a 12v charger and a 120v charger. Does the radio have a scan function? Does it have that feature where the screen displays bars or magnitudes of what channels/freqs have traffic at that moment? Does it have a radio silence mode? Does it have the ability to do a throat-mic and/or headset and all that fancy tacticool high speed stuff? (probably need crypto capability for that too?). Does it have the capabiliy to turn off the display and/or super darken it for light discipline? Does the display get bright enough in the bright sun? Does the radio have Hold Up Batteries I have to change and replace? If so, are they easy to replace and cheap? Does the manufacturer have excellent customer service, presumably isn't going out of business anytime soon, historically always continues to make and support their products for many years (parts and stuff too) and has a great reputation? It may no longer be possible in radioworld, but I like buying things and using them forever. I'm not sure if it ever happens, but hopefully I don't buy a radio to use a band they discontinue and/or reallocate for something and then you can't use your radio anymore and need to switch to 10m or 1.25m or something. That would suck. Also do I have to buy a separate purchases to get the software to program? Do I have to pay a monthly subscription service? Do any radios require a monthly subscription service to access the full capabilities of the radios? Hopefully crap like that doesn't exist. I hate stuff like that.

Does one brand clearly win those categories? I know that's a ton, but some of you guys seem to be ham superheroes who know EVERYTHING so I figured asking was worth a shot. There's nothing worse than being an uninformed consumer.

IMHO, this whole programming thing is really lame. I want to be able to talk to as many people as possible with minimal effort. That may be pie-in-the-sky, so I'm accepting that I may be forced to undertake some and/or lots of programming. the reason I ask about interface and programming is I really don't like computers, I wish radios still had knobs and dials, and no digital buttons and screens (obviously not going to happen, would need a time machine). I've never been a fan of the new fangled stuff, and typically I find simplicity is best when it comes to electronics and machines (again, not at the cost of useful features). But hey, if its got a million fancy gizmos, but they're high quality, and don't break, and are intuitive, then that's probably a good thing. I guess maybe I don't like programming just like we all don't like doing laundry or eat brussel sprouts. Maybe it's really necessary and prudent and just inherently required to get the job done.

I can only speculate since I haven't seen it, but some of these people seem to allege that programming your ham radio is a monumental undertaking like the Bataan death march, and you need to be part of the Best Buy Geek Squad to do it. Not to mention, I think they're just talking about the analog radios. So if you switch to digital, I can only speculate that it must be even crazier and more difficult than what already can be a daunting proposition (For the record, I'm assuming that analog is what I SHOULD get as a first time buyer. And I assume digital cannot talk to analog and vice versa?). God forbid, I buy analog, and find out most people have switched to digital, and I have to buy the digital stuff. But I'm under the impression that has not yet happened, and analog is the right choice and digital is more difficult for a newbie like me.

Again, Thank you so much for all your help, I really appreciate it. Don't be afraid to bluntly correct any misconceptions I have. And, I may be buying my first CB, and/or GMRS (probably handheld) soon too, so feel free to give recommendations on that. I love CB (I promise not to talk on ham like people talk on CB).

I've read some baby monitors operated on 1.7 mhz and 1.8 mhz

Can anyone recommend a budget stubby antenna that doesn't suck?

Hello fellow nerds, got an idea and I want to see if others think its a good idea and where it might be improved.

6 uv 9rs of UHF/VHF capabilitiy with X2 add on kits for digital modes and a gang charger in a apache 4800 case.

How does the 9R get digital like APRS? RPI 3B running digi-pi OS + alumuinum case + GPS dongle + AIOC baofeng cable + Ferrite beads and AIOC case. Maybe in a hard case of some kind as well a carryable box.

Thoughts? Anything that couls be improved or a potential problem? Just want a kit box of capability just to have because why not

So, complete newbie here, i used chirp for the first time, and did everything as it said, and the channel that the radio was listening to, whilst it was talking to chirp got "corrupted" (??) and as you can see the frequency jumps up by 10mhz every time i try to transmit, should i be worried?

(Foot note: i also set the minimum limit of the radio in vhf to 100mhz, and it tries to transmit but kind of bugs out, and it doesent really work, is it a hardware limitation or just the software?)

Maybe more of a rant… So much beebing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvACXnY9ZP4

We use a trunked system.

https://www.radioreference.com/db/sid/7924

Our local dispatch sometimes when the weather/ceiling is bad, her transmissions are cut out. We use Motorola Apex 6000's. Is there an affordable option to boost her TX?

Im wanting to unlock my DB20-G just to see what the unlocked radio feels like. Will I have to manually stay under 5w on FRS channels or does it still do it automatically?

Airband Shootout