Passed my Technician exam last week

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by Kamakiri

I just bought an Alinco DJ-500 2 meter HT last weekend. I looked at the Baofengs, but I'm a knob and meter guy and I ended up hating the Alinco less for some reason . Played with it a few times and checked into an ARES net on Sunday. Don't really like it, but only because it's too small and too loaded with useless features and menus. Welcome to being a ham in 2017.....

First time back on the bands in a decade (call N2LCJ), and I hooked up my old Clegg FM-28 and tried to kerchunk the repeaters. Nothing. Drove myself crazy trying different antenna setups, etc and nothing. But dammit I could hear everyone!!

Then I found out about CTCSS. Well, hm. We didn't have that a decade ago. And since I abhor the thought of buying a new rig, I'm going to either adapt a board to add PL tones to it or abandon 2 meters entirely.

Currently, I'm studying for the General upgrade. Even though I was one of the last 5 WPM "technican plus" class licenses in 1990 (they did away with the code requirement in '91), you're only grandfathered to a General if you've held your license since '87. Got my Gonset GSB-100 tube transmitter ready to test out too

I'd try these steps before giving up on 2m.

1. Check your FM-28's settings to be sure you are on the correct offset (+/- 600) for the repeater you are trying to use. If your transceiver is set for an incorrect offset you will not get into the repeater.

2. If the repeater you are trying to access uses CTCSS (also known as PL or subaudible) tones, your transceiver must generate that tone along with your transmitted signal. Without the tone, you absolutely cannot access the repeater. The local repeater in my area, for example, requires a 110.9 Hz subaudible tone for access so that its signals do not interfere with two nearby repeaters on the same frequency pair (147.81/21), one in Detroit and the other in Wooster, Ohio.

I'm thinking the reason you can't access the local machines (ham slang for repeaters) in the Buffalo area is because those machines are set up for tone access (see my notes above). You are in the metropolitan Buffalo area, so you should be able to hit the city's local repeaters with no problems.

Put up a good antenna and you should be able to hear and use most repeaters in the area. When I lived in an eastern suburb of Cleveland, I had a Cush-Craft "Ringo Ranger" 2-meter antenna mounted on the chimney of my home; the antenna was fed by a Midland 13-510a FM rig (25 watts). This allowed me to access every major repeater in the Cleveland area with no trouble at all.

BTW, I have two 2m HTs (handheld radios), an Icom IC-T22a (1.5 watts transmit power input) and my newest acquisition, a Baofeng UV-5R (1 to 5 watts TX power input). The Icom HT allows me to access the local repeater in my area with no trouble, although I can do it only from one location in my apartment. This is one drawback of using a handheld radio to access a repeater; there can be areas where your HT will get into the machine better than in others, like digital TV. My Icom HT, for example, only works reliably for repeater access in my bedroom, at one spot in front of my dresser; the signal will not reach the repeater solidly, or in some cases at all, anywhere else in the apartment.

Ham radio has changed quite a bit since 2007, so you will find some differences between what you were accustomed to when you first received your amateur license and now. For instance, tone access for repeaters isn't new, but as more and more repeaters go on the air the need for such has increased to prevent interference between two or more repeaters on the same frequency pairs in the same general areas; this is why the local repeater near here had to go to 110.9 Hz tone access (it was an "open" repeater for many years, not requiring access tones), as I described above.

I hope this helps, Tim. Good luck.

73,