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I took the plunge into com's at last!
15 January 2016, 14:51,
#1
I took the plunge into com's at last!
After much study , listening , talking and procrastination I finally went and bought my first transceiver , I bought a Yaesu FT60E there are many reason's why I chose this unit , it's simplicity , it's pedigree , it's longevity of production but mainly because of peoples warmth and affection to it on the ham forum's , I finally got to see and handle a Baofeng UV5 at work of all places , I turned up for work early one day last week(previously unheard of lol)and caught my oppo with one tuned into our onsite private security(who'd have thought it eh?)this guy is a young technically savvy cutting edge gismo kind of guy who loves his tech but he said if I were you I'd look for something simpler , he very obviously knows my prowess with technology!!!! which as it turn's out was fine by me as I didn't like the look,feel or sound of the Baofeng .
I needed to see/try my chosen unit in the flesh so Lightspeed directed me to my nearest dealer(LAM in Yorkshire FFs)luckily I had other business over there so killed two birds with one stone , sadly the store had a display model but no stock(popular or niche I guess)i was given a quick demo and straight away I figured I could cope with it so I ordered one on my phone whilst sat outside said dealer from another main dealer in the Portsmouth area(Nevada...cheaper too!) the other thing's that drew me to this model were its power options , I bought the dry cell adapter so it will run off 6 aa's , I bought a 12v car adapter with noise suppressor(I have a homemade 12v female car ciggy lighter with croc clip connectors already so it will work off any 12v battery) and most important I bought the antenna that was mentioned most as the biggest performance enhancement the Diamond SRH771....transceiver(£105 posted, £12&£22 battery case and ciggy lead and £19 posted for the Antenna=£158 not cheap and I know it could be done a lot cheaper but I really don't want the hassle of using a pc to program it and in truth even though my beloved Triumphs are mostly made there now I've had little luck with most thing's I've bought out of China(The ft60 is made in China hopefully under the watchful eyes of a little Japanese QC man) after a day of messing with it at work I've placed an order with Nevada for his last one and a spare battery too so I now have two!


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Nothing is fool proof for a sufficiently talented fool!!!!
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15 January 2016, 17:15,
#2
RE: I took the plunge into com's at last!
Lightspeed has given me a shortlist of thing's I should learn straight away , such as learning to scan the VFO , using the manual squelch(used before in a previous life)how to set the power levels and how to adjust the steps in the scan and to disable the keypad bleep(annoying)I've managed all these things without to much trouble , the instructions are very clear(not Chinglish! this put me of the UV5 terribly...I can follow instructions if well written) have found all my user 's in my work vicinity and am quite surprised at how many there are! my only bug bear is I can't get the PMR frequencies hence adjusting the steps to the smallest increment(5hz)earlier....turns out it was an oversight by me which all became clear when I read the PMR rules/guidelines in short my kind of transceiver is barred from using PMR frequencies so i'll have to cover those another way, and I thought I'd covered everything pfffft....LS is going to help me with some of the more complex stuff , Repeaters , memory banks , cloning and no doubt loads of other stuff I'm going to need to know.
Nothing is fool proof for a sufficiently talented fool!!!!
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15 January 2016, 17:28,
#3
RE: I took the plunge into com's at last!
soz I believe its 5Khz not 5 Hz .....beware novice at play
Nothing is fool proof for a sufficiently talented fool!!!!
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15 January 2016, 23:03, (This post was last modified: 15 January 2016, 23:04 by Lightspeed.)
#4
RE: I took the plunge into com's at last!
Well done Midnight. Way to go!

Re PMR446 frequencies, your radio will not transmit on those frequencies, but you'll be able to tune it to monitor them.

Manually dial in the closest frequency to 446.00625 Mhz ( channel1) that your radio will accept. Set frequency step to 12.5khz ( that is the spacing between PMR446 channels). So then, every click of the frequency dial will jump to approximately the next PMR446 channel. You won't be perfectly aligned to the PMR446 channel frequencies, but should be close enough to hear them clearly.
72 de

Lightspeed
26-SUKer-17

26-TM-580


STATUS: Bugged-In at the Bug-Out
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20 January 2016, 20:20,
#5
RE: I took the plunge into com's at last!
Second unit has now arrived along with a spare battery , budget well and truly blown for this month and next!!!!! seemed a bit pointless just owning one , my next question is what state do you store the NI-MH batteries in? leave them alone until its time to use them or fully charge them then into the faraday cage....I've tested the second unit using the first ones battery so I have two batteries now in an untouched factory fresh state. charge and store or just store? will be keeping the original unit out to use but the new second one and spares are to go away for later.
Nothing is fool proof for a sufficiently talented fool!!!!
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21 January 2016, 11:32,
#6
RE: I took the plunge into com's at last!
Good question.

I've tried both ways and found that with Lithium Ion ( not NI MH) Cells, greater success was with fully charged batteries.

I seal the cells in plastic airtight bags before storing them in metal tins. Likewise the bodies of stored radios. Funnily enough I just inspected and topped up a few days ago.... after 3 years storage radio programming was intact on both radios, one cell slightly depleted and the other at 50%. Both were recharged and held charge fine. Now all tucked away for another hopefully uneventful year.

Checking and topping up is now reduced to an annual inspection.
72 de

Lightspeed
26-SUKer-17

26-TM-580


STATUS: Bugged-In at the Bug-Out
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