Last weekend I was driving up to WalMart to pick some things up and had the FT-857d mobile in scan mode as I drove. I heard the usual police band chatter, somone on a repeater, so ariline traffic, and then it stopped on 164.520 – the National Calling Frequency in the 2 meter band. Hmmm…. someone passing by on the local freeway I thought. Or maybe a base station looking for DX contacts? Wasn’t sure what it was. Both sides of the conversation were nice and clear.
I took the radio out of scan mode to listen a bit. I had put this frequency in the memory bank some time ago and had only heard one other conversation on it. Most mobiles use the repeaters if they know the tones, etc.. So what was this? I heard something about 31,000 feet over Madison, WI. Not a bad trip – good clean signal into my mobile in Appleton, WI. Must be mayb 150 miles… SWEET! There was a net going on. So I checked in and got a confirmation of my signal.
Turns out that this was a project of the University of Wisconsin Near Earth Space program. They said it was their 46th launch. This one with a good ham radio repeater on board. And it was in memory of a slient Key (deceased ham). I thought that was quite nice.
Ham radio is an interesting hobby. If you listen long enough you will surely find things of interest. I like the hobby because there are many different modes to explore and tons of different frequencies to use – all with their own propagation characteristics. If you have been a ham and maybe are not active as much as you have been – give a listen. You’ll be suprised what you run across. If you are not a ham, then contact the www.ARRL.org for information on how to get started.
Until next time,
73′s!
Jon Kreski, AB9NN
www.HamRadioResources.com
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