>>16468
What band/power/traffic? I'm guessing you mean AM/FM music, eh?

Necro bump time ...

One step closer to crypto ...
Firmware next

DES-XL
DES-OFB

Depending on mode.
Ie: analog vs digital

Good enough for most comms, it will keep all but the Lettered agencies from hearing bobkes.

>>16561
Fuck, I'm jealous.

Question: I'm looking to set up a few Baofengs and a HAM with an old laptop so the guys and I can use them while hunting/fishing/screwing around int the bush. Any particular sets you can recommend? I figure I need a TNC unit too. I'd love to hammer out one of those compact jobs some folks have in an ammo can for practicality's sake.

>>16564
The simplest option would be to just get FRS/GMRS radios. IIRC (haven't looked at the regs in a while) friends and family can be covered by one person's GMRS license. (or if not, nobody really gives a fuck)

MURS is another option. It's a series of five VHF frequencies just above the 2 meter band meaning that it'll have slightly better propagation than the UHF FRS/GMRS radios. However equipment choices are limited and are more expensive, programming the channels into a Baofeng is a option but isn't entirely legal because they're not type certified for the frequencies.

Amateur radio requires that everybody have their own license (easy enough, $15 test fee and free study materials) and will be all you need to use for whatever Chinese radios you get. As to radios the various UV5R/F8/F9 versions are the best IMO. The UV-82 requires you to go into the settings to switch bands and uses a older version of the firmware and IMO is just inferior in general. The 8 watt "hi-power" function on some of them largely serves just to run down your battery faster as I can tell, I've done some unscientific testing (driving just out of range of a repeater on 4 watts and then switching to 8 watts) and haven't really noticed a difference.

A VHF/UHF repeater will probably be $100-600 used on eBay. Near as I can tell anybody with a GMRS or amateur radio license can put up a repeater. Though the issue with a amateur repeater is that you might not be able to find a open set of frequencies in your area. A simplex repeater would also be a option, basically it records and then retransmits 4-5 seconds later, I see some on eBay for $50 specifically for Baofengs but I have no idea if they're any good. You could also do a ghetto duplex repeater for a temporary setup by wiring two radios speaker-to-mic and setting them to VOX mode.

OK .. Got it working

DES-OFB
and old style Securenet CVSD

Found the KVL at a hole-in-the-wall online surplusser
$40 on the KVL, and $30 on PROM's and a burner, ~$50 in cables and adapters

Away we gooooo

Of course we are using it someplace where we shouldn't be.

>>15659

Amateur traffic must be transmitted in the clear by FCC regs anyways.

>>15700

This so much. When I was a kid, I developed a code system for my friends and I that pushed security by obscurity pretty damn far. People didn't even realize anything of importance was being communicated, because it would sound like we were just having a normal conversation about classmates or school subjects or whatever, when in fact we were communicating about whether our weed guy had any in stock or coordinating the harassment of an uncooperative kid right in front of parents and/or teachers. There were keywords and phrases which would shift conversations between modes and serve as a sort of EOF, so that (for instance) dates and times were ordinarily assumed to be taken at face value unless preceded by one of these modifiers which could have come at any time prior to the dates and times used to communicate other values sub rosa. It sounds complicated, but once you get the hang of it, it actually comes prety naturally.

>>15913

Just use EBCDIC! ;)

>>16569
Guys, I bought a EX DDR radio for like 25 dollars. How much did I fuck up ?

http://www.greenradio.de/htm2/e_uft422.htm

this one.

>>16570

You got an interesting piece of technical history for $25. How bad could it really be?

>>16571

It should even be on working conditions, but I really don't know how to use this thing.

Anybody got suggestions for a simple 2m/70cm base station antenna, since even with a nice whip antenna my HT has trouble hitting the local repeaters?

>>16561

inspiring. I think I will save up for the 3000+ to get AES encryption.

>>16708
I use a Diamond X-300 .. ~100' run of LDF-4-50 to it.
Stub of LMR-400 to the radio. 240 would suffice though.

>>16720
That is next. Wanted to at least get *something* going.
Total investment in the CX to DX project .. ~$110
That includes the CX and expo/hirose cable .. a chip burner, and a couple of blanks from Mouser.
HiRoses for radios were on top of that.
$25 for the Saber one, and like $50 for the one for XTL's
Need to get a Jedi one for the xts's, so that's probably another $25.
BUT, all the cabling and adapters are forward compatible to the 3K+

On a side note, I had a ICE op go down near enough to pick up simplex vhf on my 800 rubber duckie on the scanner .. fired up dsd+ .. Sure as shit .. they still use OFB too

>>16564
Not too sure what to tell ya .. My TNC experience is with the one in my deaf TM-D710
And a PTCIIusb Pactor 3 modem for HF on the IC756pro
Although I am sure there is some raspberry pi solution.

MURS is what I use.
Fwiw, P25 has packet data and txt services, built into the standard. Data through the CAI. Voice on IMBE.
Data rates are slowwwwww .. But for slow gps data, nbd.

Pic is the current M family portrait.

  If you have a few hours to kill.

best newbie radio for under $100?

is this any good?

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HX03AMA/

Baofeng Black UV-5R V2+ Plus (USA Warranty) Dual-Band 136-174/400-480 MHz FM Ham Two-way Radio, Improved Stronger Case, Enhanced Features

  >16770
You get what you pay for ...

>>16771
i am so new that i have no idea what any of that means . . . is anything worth buying for less than or equal to $100?

not trying to be a dick, just want to get in the game.

>>16772
The Baofeng is good to practice with and learn on.

Once you have an idea what you're doing, it's well worth the money to get a Kenwood or Yaesu and progress from there.

Baofeng is worth the $30 it costs, but you'll definitely want something better after you learn more. Just view it as teaching tool.

>>16773
It stays in the pack, and it's got an antenna on it that costs as much as the radio did. I regularly punch out 15+ miles to repeaters, and with CHIRP and the programming cable it's easy to learn. For the money, it's worth it. Then, when your mind is blown with projects, you can go batshit crazy buying radio gear!

Speaking of the Baofeng UV-5R, I put one in the travelling box. Remember the travelling box? So, hey, 7b58ca, if you want to find JonNathe and kick him until the radio falls out of his ass...
>>102523

  >>16772
Sorry 'bout that, didn't mean to be a dick either.
They are known for having shitty filtration on their RF output.

Spurs, spurs errywhere.
To put the vid in perspective, one should *usually* only see the 1st and 3rd harmonics. Even then, they should be smaller spikes.
The ~$30 class radios, Baofeng, wouxon, tyt etc, are just that.
Maybe ok as a first radio, but I would recommend saving for something better.

That, and for chrisssakes learn how to program it w/o a computer.
So many people are just appliance ops now. *rant over*

Even the commercial stuff can be had with the proper options for same these days ...

>>16773
>>16776
looks good! i watched a yt video about how to set one of those up (using a computer) as a scanner only. i don't think that i need to be able to transmit right now, and don't want to get into any trouble.

this sounds like a good place to start for me, and then i can learn how to operate the thing, and manually at channels down the road.

>>16776
The main hitch with programming a Baofeng is that I /always/ forget that to save a repeater offset, you first save the frequency and then have to hit * and then save again to the same memory slot. Or if you know the repeater's receive frequency you can just directly program it in and save it again to the same channel, saves time changing the offset amount/direction options. (a trick is to do this with any out of band frequencies you're saving instead of turning off TX outside of the ham bands, just set the offset to be on 146.520)

And also that you can only save from the top frequency.

  As a heads up, ICOM just discontinued the IC-7200. HRO still has them in stock for $800.

Is there any point in taking a look at surplus radios like the clansman series, obviously HAM handhelds are more useful than surplus handhelds/portables, but what about backpack units???

  >>16867
It depends. Do you want a radio that's going to be more robust than a commercial radio like a KX3 or FT817, but also more limited in features (IIRC a lot of military HF gear doesn't have LSB) and will likely require that you obtain special parts/knowledge to maintain/run it?

>>16867

Powering surplus radios is also a bit of a challenge, as they use military batteries, and you'd have to do heavier niggerrigging to get them to work. Whereas, you can easily find 12v chargers of different sorts, and cobble together a battery pack rather easily.

The largest thing is that most military units aren't really built for scanning a band to talk to "anyone" as you will actually be doing with amateur radio operations, as even point to point over HF you need a series of frequencies to look at, considering propigation and so on. Same time different day, you may have talked on 40m yesterday but now you need 80 or 160 even today.

It's also much easier and cheaper to get accessories and equipment for civilian equipment, than to do the same for military gear most of the time. Plus, military gear is made with military specifications in mind, which while in some cases (example being prc-148 or 117F) have significant overlap into civilian use should you be able to find them, but they still have limitations in some regards that civvie gear wouldn't have.

>>16869
Can you even legally own a MBITR or SINCGARS/ASIP's?

I'm more interested in the British Clansman sets (retired in full in 2010 and completely replaced by the Bowman series, several manpacks exist like the PRC-351), the only more modern military radio you can readily get your hands on besides Clansman series radios is the Marconi/Selex squad level PRR's (see picture)

>>16871

Yes. You just can't have the ones with crypto installed. Physically and internally, other than the freq hop/singlechannel encryption capability, it's totally the same radio.

Except that unless you know someone GOOD you're looking at a very VERY large chunk of change.

>>16885
I've never even seen the "clear" version of the MBITR that Thales makes for non-ITAR/civil sales show up on the market. Maybe in 10 or 20 years when police/fire agencies start changing to whatever it's replacement is.

>>16886

I'll leave it at "I probably have more connections than you do".

Friends of mine work in the industry and have access to offer them for sale, as well as I have also seen them on access-restricted gear sites, and even on one that I can't recall now in the open.

>>16904
I've seen the earlier generation large sincgars sets come up for sale from time to time (w/o crypto) on the open market.

As cool as a MBITR sounds, a handheld Yaesu will be more useful

>>16904
Obviously. And I'm not hugely interested in military gear beyond antique tank radios from WWII, and cold war spy equipment like the modular radios the Germans made for Glaudio.

Anyways. Snapped up a used IC-718 locally. Apparently the previous owner had it as a "backup radio" and only used it for the local emergency nets, so it's pretty much new. Paid $350 for it, so a pretty good deal. I've got a Alinco power supply and a MFJ tuner on the way, I don't have much space for a dipole so I'm probably going to just do a random wire antenna for now.

<<17008
Nb Nb .. does it have the dsp board in it ? .. if not, they are cheap enough.
I have one in the closet that is a backup to my 756pro, but will probably become the offspring's first hf rig. After passing the test.

I just grabbed a MotoTrbo rig (turnkey $200+50 for cable), for listening to the kids bus drivers and school.
They enabled the "basic privacy" encryption on their radios, which DSD+ won't decode.
The portable has no issue.
The basic privacy has "1-255" as the possible "codes".
For ALL whom have the feature ..... heh, yeah.

Gotta love people who use defaults ;)

As far as I am concerned, it doesn't sound any better than P25.
That and the trbo community has supposedly gone to shit since the glut of chicom gear.

P25 is where my $$ goes

>>17009
Yes it's one of the newer ones that comes with the DSP as standard.

Awesome !! Hope ya have a great time with it.
FWIW any of Icom's autotuners will connect to it as well .. The ham-centric AH-4 or any of the AT-120/130/140 series (marine hf units)

>>17011
Yeah I was thinking of getting a LDG autotuner but ended up going with a MFJ-904, a bit cheaper and I kinda figure I should learn how to use one instead of just pushing a button.

Can anybody comment on the Bearcat 75 or 125? I've decided I'd like to get a scanner so that I can have it monitor the 2m/70cm simplex frequencies, mainly because of how slow the scan function is on Baofengs, and the limited frequency coverage.

One thing I'm mainly interested in is the "close by" function, mainly in how it works, is it effective and can it be set to only respond to memory/band frequencies or does it just respond to anything?

>>17438

I'm not particularly skilled or knowledgeable in the context of amateur radio, but I am a helluva researcher, and your interests happen to at least momentarily coincide with mine, so I'll look into the matter and report back to you.

>One thing I'm mainly interested in is the "close by" function, mainly in how it works, is it effective and can it be set to only respond to memory/band frequencies or does it just respond to anything?

Right off the bat, this sounds prima fascie like something that might operate based on APRS or similar. But again, most of my knowledge is heavily black-boxed, so I'll have to do a bit of reading and get back to you.

Image unrelated and chosen at random nearly at random.

Baofengtech just brought out a triband version of the UV-5. Does 1.25m offer any benefits or is it mainly just a secondary band to 2 and 70?

https://baofengtech.com/uv-5x3
http://www.miklor.com/COM/Review_5X3.php

CB, FRS/GMRS regs are being modernized.

http://swling.com/blog/2017/05/fcc-to-legalize-cb-dxing-and-boost-frs-power/

Amongst other things, FRS/GMRS radios will no longer be licensed, just FRS or GMRS only ones, but FRS will be raised to 2w of power. Digital is now allowed on GMRS. Voice scramblers are banned entirely so get some BF-888s while you can I guess.

  If I just want to listen to "local emergency nets" as someone in this thread said, how much should I be willing to spend?

>>18124
Listening to police/fire stuff: $70 scanner if your local departments don't use digital/trunking, $200+ if they do, check Radio Reference.

VHF/UHF: $30 for a Baofeng, if you decide to get a amateur license (free study materials and generally a $15 fee, tech exam is very easy) you might want to consider a entry-level HT from the big 3 like a FT-60 because honestly Baofengs are terrible to program and have poor electronic performance overall.

HF: You could probably put together everything for maybe $500-600 if you can find a good deal for a used IC-718.

Another alternative is getting a USB dongle like a RTL-SDR, which will give you more options for decoding data and so on.

I signed up for the basic HAM license cram-and-test session nearby next month. I took one of the online ham tests and passed without studying, so I imagine with the class I will be just fine.

Anything I should know?

I live in Seattle and want to equip close friends and family with radios in case of yet another power outage or Best Korea sending us a gift. Suggestions on what I should get?

>>18128
> Baofengs are terrible to program and have poor electronic performance overall.

I've played with a Baofeng.

Jeez, what a piece of shit. Retarded controls, and they feel like a crappy toy.

Seconding the 'Buy a Big 3 radio'. Y'know, Icom, Yaesu, and Kenwood.

Or an Alinco, or Bendix King (also kinda shitty to program but jeez they're robust), or well, anything but a fucking baofeng.

I really hate those stupid fuckers.

>>18148
Spend the same amount as a Baofeng and get a surplus Motorola XTS3000.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Motorola-XTS-3000-Model-III-H09UCH9PW7AN-800-mhz-Portable-Radio-Lot-of-5-/253058368963

>>18164

which won't talk to anyone

>>18148
My first radio was a Baofeng UV-5R that took two years of abuse. I reprogrammed it and stuffed it in the traveling box. Remember the box?

I spend the better part of a day with manuals learning to program the damned thing by hand to get onto local repeaters. Yes, it was difficult to program. That's why they make programming cables and CHIRP. Now, I cut and paste to different radios with different firmware. I play with RTL-SDR and have a Yaesu FT-897 base station these days.

And FIVE Baofengs, mostly for hiking using mobilinkd for APRS or otherwise messing around. They're brilliant for what they do, which is work as programmed, take abuse, and be cheap as hell. Sure, they look awful and have an ill-conceived interface. But for $25, you have a great little HT that you can take out and mistreat with excellent results.

>>18174
I taped a little piece of paper inside the battery compartment with instructions on how to program a repeater offeset, since I always forget the correct order.

And yeah they're not great, but they're good enough and have drastically lowered the cost of entry into ham radio. I think a lot of the hate just comes from the same old farts who got super angry when code requirements got dropped.

Anybody get contacts on AO-91 yet?

https://www.amsat.org/ao-91-commissioned-declared-open-for-amateur-use/
>The satellite was launched on November 18, 2017 as part of the ELaNa XIV mission, secondary payloads aboard the Delta II rocket that carried the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS-1) satellite to orbit. AO-91 also features the Fox-1 style FM U/v repeater with an uplink on 435.250 MHz (67.0 Hz CTCSS) and a downlink on 145.960 MHz.

Bumping a old and dead thread but the Chinese are starting to get into the HF game. The Recent RS-918 is a pre-assembled copy of the mcHF SDR kit radio for around $450, and Xiegu has two models of QRP radios, one (X5105) aping the Elecraft KX3 and being sold through MFJ.

Also Yaesu is now selling reengineered Baofengs (or rather, their version of the RDA1846 chip) as the entry-level FT-4X. Also the VX-8DR has been discontinued with no sign of a replacement, so if you see one for a reasonable price and want one, grab it.
https://qrpblog.com/2018/09/yaesu-ft-4x-review-it-is-after-all-a-baofeng/