Connunications update following Polls:

[RoadWarrior]

jeesus...LS......that antenna should have a jolly roger flying from it !!! so how many pounds was it putting out whilst talking to the cosmonauts onboard the INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION !!

[Oggydoggy100]

Has anyone locked at Marine Band? For range & battery power they are good. As for regulations, who going to enforce them after a major event?

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Has anyone looked at Marine Band? For range & battery power they are good. As for regulations, who going to enforce them after a major event?

[NorthernRaider]

So good he said it twice . Mike makes a good point perhaps LS and Paul etc could look into marine kit?

[Lightspeed]

(24 October 2012, 09:00)Mike Bardill Wrote: Has anyone locked at Marine Band? For range & battery power they are good. As for regulations, who going to enforce them after a major event?

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Has anyone looked at Marine Band? For range & battery power they are good. As for regulations, who going to enforce them after a major event?

Hi Mike,

You're right, Marine VHF frequencies will work on land too, and dedicated marine equipment can be purcased as robust waterproofed units.

After end of ROL you'd be free to use whatever frequencies you like, including these marine bands

Radios like the UV5r and its baby brother the UV3r that quite a lot of this community have purchased cover Ham bands, (2m and 70cm), PMR 446 band and Marine band frequenceies. Unlike some dedicated Ham gear, the UV5r will both transmit and receive on these frequencies. Again, these are illegal to use at the present time, without necessary licenses.

Paul's away at the moment, so I'll chip in for him.... Hand portable CB radios will do just about anything the marine Band kit or UV5r/3r can do. The advantage is that CB is legal now, and has a considerable installed base of users around the country. Equipment is much more simple to operate than any of the previously mentiond gear.

I am a licensed amateur, but I have CB equipment and marine band capable equipment stored in my preps.

Given a choice between Marine band and CB, unless you have a large number of friends who are already using marine band, I would personally go for CB.

[Skean Dhude]

I bought two marine units to add to my comms collection.

[OpSecRadio]

I just signed up to do the foundation license with my local ham group but i am hoping to progress into HF and CW once I've got the foundation under my belt. For anyone wanting to learn morse there is a good SW program that you can download for free called MorseCat - just google it to find the link.

Maybe we'll touchbase on air sometime

Cheer
Gary

[Bug_out_Bag]

There is 'Morse It' an app for iPads, pods too. 73

[PrepperJohn]

I use the Ham Whisperer for learning morse

[Paul]

What do I mean by that?

Voice wins every time over Morse especially when talking to strangers in a crisis.

Of course the hams among us will rightly state that Morse carries further than voice. It does.

Your problem might be getting someone down the road to pull you out of a ditch and stop the severe bleeding rather than talking round the world to a fellow ham.

Try sending Morse in a vehicle, lying on your side.
It's going to be easier to key a mic and scream "somebody help me" than establish a Morse key link and gently transmit your location at 8 words a minute.

Time yourself.
Send in Morse to a friend:-
Stuck in a ditch by the oak tree, 3 miles west of Cliff road, a village, a town, a county, TW10 1AA for a GPS fix.
I've severely cut my wrist and am bleeding out, come quick.

I'm working on say 150 characters at five characters a word, 30 words.
8 words a minute, about 4 minutes.
Wow that's fast (not).

Now go onto a microphone and say the same thing.
What, 15 seconds at the most?

IMO you need to concentrate on getting PHYSICAL help and that means plain language short range communications.

PMR, VHF Ham, CB, Marine. It doesn't matter.
Voice rules in emergencies and short range comms should be your goal.

Morse? How quaint.

[Bug_out_Bag]

Hi Paul, I'm glad you're back here

I will be using morse to communicate with far flung members of my group at prearranged times. I don't think anyone would disagree with you that CB/PMR/ 2m/marine will be a better bet for immediate response when you're on the move. For me it is useful, but then as we all know everyone's needs, plans and strategy is different.