I have it, I use it, and I'm on the map!

Also on the map.

It would be nice to begin a weekly or bi-weekly ham radio chat for those of us on this forum.
I welcome suggestions from other Ham radio folks here, but how about Wednesday Feb. 27/13 at 7:00pm.
If that works for enough people we could then choose a frequency and post it here.

ya good idea im in

Hello Preppers, hope everyone is well.
I am going to be going on the HAM Wednesday night around 7pm.
I will be on 145.250.
VE6 KGS
Hope you can come say hello if you have the gear and licence.

I don't have a license or even a radio yet, but I will try to listen in on hamsphere.

I've never heard of hamsphere... just downloaded it but can't figure out how to listen to your frequency... must. read. directions. 😥

I wasn't able to pick up any convo until 10:30 tonight, but there is a lot of interferance here today.
If you can get onto the Red Deer tower(VE6 REP - 145.330) at 114.8 then the tower here connects on the SARA link.
The two websites I use are:
http://www.repeaterbook.com/repeaters/LocationSearch.php?state_id=CA01&type=city&loc=Red Deer
http://saralink.ca/
Hopefully enough of us can make a connection soon.
VE6 KGS signing off.

Good news on this Sunday night!
I was able to learn more about linking repeaters and spoke to a friend in Edmonton from East Central Alberta.
He told me about the Yellowhead Amateur Radio Club, so I have been checking out their website now too. Both YARC and SARA are doing some great things. I encourage all preppers to check it out even if you are not a HAM operator. A lot of good communication linking many communities. He also spoke about combining a computer and his radio. The text or chat messages can then be sent directly over the HAM. Neat stuff. After our conversation I did a search and found the Internet Linking Project on SARAlink.ca. So it looks like a couple more ways to communicate are available to us.
I also chatted with two other preppers west of the QEII.
Very encouraged about working towards a future communications plan to benifit the members of this forum.

Two digital modes to check out are psk31 and MT63. Apparently MT63 works well at VHF frequencies. Also, in addition to text messages, you can send computer files, provided they are not too long, as the transfer rate is a little slow by Internet standards.