DISCLOSURE: As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase anything through one of these links we will earn a commission.
In this video I give my own humble opinion about the differences between amateur ham radio equipment and professional ham radio equipment based on 20 years of experience in the field.
i have did them both……?
Christ, doesn't this Walter Mitty like the sound of his own voice..does he ever?
He could talk an untrained & violent rotweiler down off a meat wagon with the windows open!
I congratulate myself that I actually made it through all the way to the end even though I had more exciting things waiting for me to do , like hauling the trash or sweeping leaves in my back yard. I thought we Brits had the monopoly on gibberish.. He wipes the floor with us!?
Love the old MCS M01xTMxxx's in the background lol.
The choice is catch22. Professional as you called it (we seem to call it commercial over here) has more features usually (eg P25, encryption, etc) but a lot more restrictions and will often be more greedy on power.
2x Motorola GP300 handhelds (or for a parrot repeater like yours a single) will make a brilliant portable repeater at possibly a cheaper price than 1-2 Baofengs, Wouxuns etc BUT doesn't have the flexibility to shift frequency on sight. The GP300s however are more legal since they have an FCC rating so 6 of one half dozen of the other.
Commercial mobile/base/repeater units in a repeater setup are the ducks nuts for coverage and features but you then need many batteries, a large water proof lockable vented cabinet and huge solar panels to keep up. If there is no security or land ownership issue they are the way to go but for low visibility and portability a couple of baofengs via vox repeater module or self made lead are unbeatable. Hooked up with a pair of ground independent mobile antennas which are still easy to hide they make an excellent close local repeater. I'm all for the repeater pair rather than parrot repeaters though as parrot repeaters imo are much more likely to have "doubles".
Whilst I find the cheap chinese junk handy (hell I managed one day to make a repeater by turning vox on on my UV5RA and hooking a 3.5-3.5 stereo audio lead from the headphones socket of my scanner to the handheld) I do like my Motorola gear, especially my handhelds with FPP. I rarely use FPP as I prefer to program all via CPS but having the feature is handy as is having P25 and better yet P25+encryption with multiplle encryption keys (allows quick easy transfer if a key is broken and allows intercoms with other groups or people on a key DIFFERENT to what we use).
Then on top the cream of the crop is the dinosaur Kenwood HF. We use a mix of HF, VHF-H and UHF-H (450-480).
TLDR amateur vs cheap chinese vs commercial = horses for courses… whichever is most appropriate for your situation and knowledge level imo.?
Glenn O'Reilly, keep laughing as the state takes you down. Fingerprinting a transmitter has nothing to do with voice recognition and is instantaneous. DF'ing a transmitter is also instantaneous and extremely accurate. Militaries all over the world have been using and improving this technology since ww2. The United States currently has fleets of aircraft, balloons, drones, and ground based vehicles for just this purpose. You may be correct in the fact that most of us on the level of importance during a massive crisis or revolution is insignificant but, be aware all the data will be collected all the time and it will be analyzed. The military is very good at what they do and they do it 24/7. So I'll leave you with an old unit motto
"break squelch and die" even more true today than it was when I served.?
As wee call them here in uk pmr mobile radio ,?
Subbed!?
"Amateur radio" gear is not any lesser gear. Amateur doesn't mean beginner. Ham radio gear is the highest grade you can get. The innovators of radio were the HAM operators. Law Enforcement and Military learned from the HAMs. You don't even need a license to use a radio on the job, and they don't understand how to build radios from scratch. The HAMs are the pros, and their gear is the most professional grade. Your video was confusing for that reason.?
Where can you find a list of MARS CAP mods for your radios? I do find stuff on the internet, but I'm not sure how reliable it is.?
Why are you modifying ham gear ??
Dear GC – Thanks for your videos. I study this type of information and prepare for many types of scenarios. Mainly, natural disasters, power outages and the like. Food, water and fuel rotations, medical training, bug out, bug in – survival skills, mapping/GPS/communications/solar power and security. I rarely talk about my "preparedness for various plans" as many think its funny and get a good laugh as to what I have in my back pack. Your expertise has helped me gain knowledge and tactical insight. Thanks again.?
I like this video. Do you think the Alinco DR-635T is a good Ham radio??
In my area there is a certain population of amateurs that love to purchase the ex-public service radios to modify it for amateur use,what I am seeing is the price is great for the radio, but many times the radio doesn't work correctly when they receive it OR you need the software/cabling for programming and these items are no longer available which renders the radio useless, or they need to send the radio to some magical place to have it programmed at a additional cost. My opinion, purchase a good name brand amateur gear with the programming hardware & software and should be trouble free. I personally have 4- of the Yeasu FT8900's which has a detachable face plate, has 4 bands 440/144/50/28 MHZ,it has been expanded I can listen to the Public Service with great versatility, if need be, I can punch in the frequency via the key pad, it is also nice to dump the frequencies in via the computer. I have been using these for about 15 years and still going strong. I have been a Ham since 1979,I have purchased probably 35 radios -new and have never had to send one back because it was defective. You cant beat Yeasu/Kenwood/Icom I service medical equipment on squads I always take notice of the 2 way radio equipment they use,I see a lot of the Icom/Kenwood /Yeasu Public services radios on board. Alinco is also good only problem I had was the face of the keys faded away over time.?
the motorola radios are "commercial" radios. kenwood is ham. i use both. i open up or mod my kenwood and icom radios for use in an emergency. i just made a video yesterday where i took apart my go box and went with 30 dollar amazon prime rack mounts you can bolt to the wall and its awesome! ham ON! peace from loveland, colorado?
All great points, the average joe has no need for the so called commercial radios. By the way I bought a FTDX-1200 with FFT-1, and 4BTV. I am cutting the radials this weekend.?
An Amateur Radio Operator CAN use Part 90 gear on the amateur radio bands, provided it can be programed, or modified to program, there.
I own several Kenwood TK-760's (VHF), and a few TK-860's (UHF); they are both mobiles and will program down into their respective ham bands "out of the box" (in the FM repeater/simplex portions)… assuming you have the programming cable, KPG-29D software, and a DOS computer with a serial port. They both use the same accessories, including the software and programing cable.
Yes they are limited in the fact that they have no VFO or way to 'modify' channels on the fly (unless you modify the radio physically and program it for that); it only has 32 memory banks, or 'channels'… but they are good, solid, nearly indestructible radios, that should last a lifetime, and have amazing receive sensitivity. They transmit a good clean signal, they are less susceptible to intermod, they are VERY rugged, and they operate in both HAM bands, and Part 90 bands (and are type certified to do so!)… all VERY attractive reasons to own Part 90 gear!
I consider not having a VFO to be a minor limitation, as even your tertiary back-up, back-up, frequencies should already be determined ahead of time anyhow… I tend to stick to less than/about 32 different frequencies in each of the VHF and UHF bands respectively, and rarely stray from those, so it's no big deal for me. A few repeaters, a handful of favorite simplex frequencies, the local ARES comm-plan, a few public service frequencies to monitor, and two local NOAA weather radio frequencies round out my list. There are usually regional Amateur Radio band-plans, sometimes with recommended, 'channelized', simplex frequencies (IE: 146.49, 146.52, 146.55, 146.58, etc…) to maximize usable spectrum while avoiding QRM; local HAM's in my area tend to follow our regional band-plans; so I program the few common local ones, and add a few tertiary ones too.
They make great repeaters too… fixed, deployable, cross-band or otherwise; especially low-power, deployable, cross-band simplex repeaters or links! The KCT-19 terminal interface accessory cord makes interfacing with a repeater, or TNC/digital interface, a breeze.
I spent a good portion of my youth in the CAP, as a radio operator in the radio room at our two state EOC's during both SAR-EX, and active SAR missions. Most of the gear used was commercial, Part 90 gear (mostly the mobiles), but a lot of the HT's were amateur gear with the MARS/CAP mod done; a lot were Kenwood or Alinco. Though at one EOC, we had an amateur grade Kenwood with the MARS/CAP mod in the radio room, worked great with everyone involved (CAP ground teams, CAP air teams, State Police, Fish and Game, and civilian ground teams on amateur frequencies), we just used the memory channels, never the VFO; as an auxiliary of the Air Force, on a live SAR mission, I'm sure the FCC didn't care about type 90 acceptance of the radio….. just sayin'. Of course, that was in the early/mid-90's….
I also served in the military, so when talking about SHTF commo gear… I like rugged, robust, "bulletproof", and IDIOT-PROOF gear! If SHTF tomorrow, and I had to don battle rattle to protect home and country, you can bet it would be a Part-90 HT in the radio pouch…. it'll take almost anything you throw at it, and it will keep calling for back-up/fire/supplies/help…. usually; and you can hand one off to a radio-illiterate comrade, tell him 'channel-1' gets you HQ, 'channel-2' is simplex/talk channel, etc…. and it just works for them, nothing to "mess up".
I'm also not saying I wouldn't/don't own amateur gear…. everything is just "another tool in the drawer" so to speak!
73 and thank you for your channel, I enjoy it! :)?
1) None of the cheap chinese amateur radio gear has the capability to interfere with modern police or military gear.
2) The thing is, "pro" radio gear like modern police radios are trunked systems that constantly rotate frequencies – often during the same exchange. They require a centralized hub or control frequencies, and have to be set up professionally. You could pick up two of the same kinds of radio from two police departments and not be able to talk with each other because they'd be programmed to different frequencies. Ironically, this is done so they do NOT to talk with each other – so that a lot of different public safety services can occupy the same part of the 800 Mhz spectrum and not interfere with one another.
3) I'm not into "Prepping", but if I were, and assuming I'd even want to talk to people instead of hide in a bunker, ham radio gear is what I'd want. Its designed so that communication between two radios is easy; punch in a frequency and go. Pick up a 30 year old ICOM HF tranceiver, a 50 year-old Heathkit, a brand new Elecraft KS3, a 15 year-old Yaesu QRP rig, or a home-made "cw" or morse code transceiver. they can all talk to each other. Also, ham gear is designed to run off of 12V DC power.?