You do realize that this hobby consists of nerds and pensioners, who sometimes spend thousands on being able to talk to other nerds?

If anything, you might need to politely stop people from over-sharing all the cool stuff they made… :D

As always, the answer is “it depends” :D

Feel free to PM me or ask in a new post

10W at 2m, 70cm and 10m. Except for the 10m, which I have never heard anyone use (*), that fits pretty well with the idea of giving high school kids an aliexpress handheld to get them into STEM.

The ugly part is, you need to do the same regulatory and legal questionnaire that you need to do for the larger licenses.

“N Lizenz” in Germany, for reference

(*) I just remembered that 10m is basically CB, but Ham. So if you find/inherit an old CB radio and want to experiment, it might be a really cheap way into the hobby.

My country just introduced a super-beginners license that can be done with basic high school physics. Of course, severe limitations, basically, a “Baofeng license”. Still great idea.

The fuck? It seems I have been lucky. Most people here follow the “don’t argue politics” advice.

Check out a local club. Literally, check it out. If it is full of arrogant assholes twice your age, leave. If they are cool but you don’t fit in, ask them for advice. There are so many retired radio operators who are doing it to stay “in it”, or retired engineers who finally have time and so on. Most of them are very happy to info-dump about their hobby.

It is fine for ham radio’s original purpose: technical experimentation and connecting people. "Don’t discuss politics’ is a long-standing Gentleman’s (woman’s) agreement for a reason.

If you want to encrypt, go for the ISM bands. Lora, meshtastic, whatever happens at 433 MHz, hell even at 2.4 GHz a few 100mW will get you quite far with the right approach.

The difference is, your stuff will be type-checked. No experimentation, no building the crazy antenna idea that will be surelu fine according to your back of the napkin math.

Everything is an antenna. Unless you want it to be an antenna, then nothing is.

We don’t have a lab :P

Also, to measure the far field, you’d need a non-trivially-large anechoic chamber, right? I figured an open field is the next best thing, and the park is the next best thing to an open field…

Late reply, and forgive me if I am over-explaining. I found some random datasheets that say RG-316 has 26-29 dB per 100 ft at 1 GHz. So in the worst case, 3 ft would be 0.87 dB. Doesn’t sound like much, but 30 dBm - 0.87 dB = 29.13 dBm = 818 mW, so he is losing 182 mW to the cable. Not great, not terrible.

It definitely should not make that much of an impact. Maybe look into antenna tuning / SWR? Or broken connectors / pinched cables? If my past IT jobs have taught me anything that that it’s always the cable, unless it’s the plug :)

My recommendation: find a local-ish club/chapter with sane people. The prepper nuts haven’t really invaded those here. Probably because that would require being social and working together.

Only if you follow the rules. Those people don’t intend to follow the rules. They don’t want to help, they want to feel powerful.

If you actually want to help, at least on my side of the ocean they have official collaborations/trainings between ham volunteers and agencies for when stuff goes south. I guess the Arrl is (supposed to) organize that?. But I also know of a local initiative over here, where hams volunteered to put like repeaters on town halls and fire stations, just in case.

I had a similar experience with RG58 and UHF. I guess the good old tech support wisdom is true: when in doubt, check the cable…

Have you considered the Fresnel zone? You know, the ellipse between sender and receiver where most of the signal power is located? If you are 200+30 feet up, at 17.5 miles, my back of the napkin map says you are barely having a line of sight, so much of the Fresnel zone is probably obscured by the earth.

Some random online calculator says that at 433 MHz, you have a Fresnel zone radius of 230 ft, (145 MHz has 395 ft, 866 MHz has 161 ft). So half of the signal path is blocked at 433 MHz, and apparently the rule of thumb is it should be at least 60% free. I am too lazy to do actual math right now, but that might be a reason.

They could get a really long yagi, and connect to your omni. That sounds like the most reasonable solution. Do you know what power and sensitivity is used?

Honestly? Cool that you are asking, but I just want a coffee, not a conversation.

Yes, I’m German, how could you tell?

One difference is that Egypt and Turkey have a lot of tourism, so they tend to be quite tolerant towards tourists. You don’t want to scare off potential customers. The US seems to forget that.

It is more about being able to constantly spy on everyone. Funny how this exact sentence would have labeled one as a conspiracy nut not too long ago.

Constantly online means constant (more or less) analytics, means constant data to throw in the big computer to make you buy more shit or vote for the shit party.

I am outside of the US, and I do care. Biggest army and economy and so on. Even if not, I would not want to be associated with, idk, Australian wannabe tyrants either.

I’d like to point out that it is only one single proposal. If this does not get shut down, then it is time to be worried. But for now, it might just be one glue-sniffing Congressperson sniffing the wrong kind of glue one morning.