Re: New Ham!
Posted: Tue Apr 06, 2010 12:03 am
Thanks for all the input, hopefully I can make it down there on saturday to chat more, and then pick up some goodies down there.
I’ll just chime in to say that I have the FT-7900, and it works fine for me. However, I use it just to talk, and do not have a laptop and all that in my truck. I can see why folks do, but I try to keep it simple. It also keeps costs in line in a hobby, off road and the outdoors, where things invariably get broken and ensures I do not pout too long around the campfire when that occurs. Most of the money spent on the hobby (or hobbies) on the whole is in gear for the truck or for me, that has a direct impact on survivability, repair or comfort.
To monitor more than one frequency, I just program them into a Bank and then scan just that Bank. For most trips so far with multiple rigs we make a sort of communication plan, that lists repeaters and simplex frequencies for the trip, those go into a Bank and done. All that is far easier with the software, rather than via the radio itself. It works well enough.
I assign Banks geographically then, and use the naming convention of sorts to indicate what each memory holds, and is if is 144 or 430. Thus far the 2-meter is far more used when out and about than the other side.
Most of our club has only CB, though we are encouraging them to make the switch, so we have to use that as well.
So, anyway, I very much like my FT-7900.