View Single Post
  #310  
Old 12-27-2012, 2:04 AM
BillCA's Avatar
BillCA BillCA is offline
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Silicon Valley
Posts: 3,821
iTrader: 4 / 100%
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by dankthetank View Post
Well Christmas came a couple days early this year and Santa just got me a FT-60R. I don't have my license yet so I've only been able to listen in but I'm looking forward to getting all this stuff figured out. I picked up a used study book on amazon and hope to have my technician license here shortly.
Renewal tests: http://qrz.com/hamtest/
Study guides (books): https://ssl.qrz.com/bookstore


Having the same radio, some thoughts on listening...

You can find a list of repeaters for California (and elsewhere) at:
http://www.artscipub.com/repeaters/s...ate=California

Use the search feature to find your city or cities in your area.

Your FT-60R can also act as a scanner. If you want to listen to municipal radio traffic (police, fire, public works) go to:
http://www.radioreference.com

As you find frequencies you want to listen to or use, either write them down on paper or put them into a spreadsheet (like Excel) so you can keep track of them. Later, you'll want to organize those frequencies on your radio. Having them on a list or spreadsheet (even a text document) will be a big help.

For example, on my radio, the memory channels are set up roughly like this;
01-50 : 2 meter frequencies
51-100 : 70cm (440MHz) frequencies
101-150: ARES, RACES and other special frequencies
150-200: Local Police/Fire/EMS for monitoring
201-220: Air traffic frequencies (I'm near an airport)
221-240: Rail, public utilities, bus service
241-259: 900 MHz monitoring
260-300: Reserved for traveling out of town/road trips

For 2M and 70cm, the first two channels are the primary Simplex (no repeater) "Call" frequency and an alternate frequency with no local repeater. This allows point-to-point talk with another local HAM without a repeater.

I keep my local PD/FD and EMS programmed. Hear lots of sirens? Tune in to find out what's going on and/or where.

Cheers and 73's
Reply With Quote