GabeLakmann on Nostr: I live in a hilly area with a lot of tree so that is probably a good thing and a bad ...
I live in a hilly area with a lot of tree so that is probably a good thing and a bad thing sometimes.
For a background, I just bought these when they were trying to pass a law or did pass a law that only licensed operators could buy HAM radios and bought them before it was supposed to pass just in case. I heard the baofengs were decent starter radios and figured I'd mess around with them and upgrade later on after I got my license. I watched some videos and read a little before buying the specific models I bought but it's been probably 4 or 5 years now so I don't remember my reasoning for getting those models.
As far as antennas go, I was thinking the same as you - buy a nice antenna now and upgrade the radios later and keep using the good antenna. I have a mounting kit to mount a roof rack on my SUV and was planning on hard mounting it to the roof rack but getting on that can fold down for when I drive through the forest so it doesn't smack around into the trees. I also thought about getting a magnetic one and making water tight quick connects and heyco grommets for it so I could remove it when I'm not using it. Haven't tried to use the one in my SUV yet because I've heard it is bad to try and transmit without an antenna and I don't have the cable and CHIRP program to upload the frequencies to it.
What I'm wanting to do is buy a nice setup for home, one for my SUV, and have a couple of handhelds to use and use my baofengs as a backup or give them to someone else until they get a better setup. Are there any specific bands/frequencies I need to make sure that my radios are compatible with?
I'm pretty sure that there are repeater stations that I can program into my radios but I'd like to have something with some reach just in case those repeaters or some of them go down during a SHTF situation. I figure a lot of HAM operators probably are preppers too now and have backup generators and such though.
This stuff isn't super complicated but it is definitely not something you're going to learn on the fly if SHTF so I want to practice and maybe get licensed so I'm comfortable using it before I actually need to use it.
There is a guy on YouTube called "Risky Chrisky" that has some interesting HAM/communication videos but I've only seen a few of his videos.
Sounds like I'll just look into getting Yaesu or Kenwood since I think they're both made in Japan and good quality. Probably Yaesu over Kenwood since you said they're more durable right?
For a background, I just bought these when they were trying to pass a law or did pass a law that only licensed operators could buy HAM radios and bought them before it was supposed to pass just in case. I heard the baofengs were decent starter radios and figured I'd mess around with them and upgrade later on after I got my license. I watched some videos and read a little before buying the specific models I bought but it's been probably 4 or 5 years now so I don't remember my reasoning for getting those models.
As far as antennas go, I was thinking the same as you - buy a nice antenna now and upgrade the radios later and keep using the good antenna. I have a mounting kit to mount a roof rack on my SUV and was planning on hard mounting it to the roof rack but getting on that can fold down for when I drive through the forest so it doesn't smack around into the trees. I also thought about getting a magnetic one and making water tight quick connects and heyco grommets for it so I could remove it when I'm not using it. Haven't tried to use the one in my SUV yet because I've heard it is bad to try and transmit without an antenna and I don't have the cable and CHIRP program to upload the frequencies to it.
What I'm wanting to do is buy a nice setup for home, one for my SUV, and have a couple of handhelds to use and use my baofengs as a backup or give them to someone else until they get a better setup. Are there any specific bands/frequencies I need to make sure that my radios are compatible with?
I'm pretty sure that there are repeater stations that I can program into my radios but I'd like to have something with some reach just in case those repeaters or some of them go down during a SHTF situation. I figure a lot of HAM operators probably are preppers too now and have backup generators and such though.
This stuff isn't super complicated but it is definitely not something you're going to learn on the fly if SHTF so I want to practice and maybe get licensed so I'm comfortable using it before I actually need to use it.
There is a guy on YouTube called "Risky Chrisky" that has some interesting HAM/communication videos but I've only seen a few of his videos.
Sounds like I'll just look into getting Yaesu or Kenwood since I think they're both made in Japan and good quality. Probably Yaesu over Kenwood since you said they're more durable right?