A Fireline Medic Calls Home on Amateur Radio
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ก.ย. 2024
- Letting my family know by amateur radio that we arrived safely at our assignment on the Bluff Creek Complex Fire.
@PartisanCommsGroup @dl2man @digirig@threeme3
Here's the tuner I'm using:
amzn.to/3YtVhLY
pretty stupid. im out on the fires too. i just used my sat phone. ham radio is for phaggs and old white pepo.
Hey buddy. Which fire ya out on? Maybe your HR person would be interested in reading your opinions on race and sexual orientation.
“I hate ham radio, I better go watch some videos about it and act like a wet blanket on the internet”
All too often you see the prepper and SHTF fantasy videos about these kinds of setups, however, this is the first practical and sensible use of this type of setup I have seen yet. Congratulations.😊
Thanks! That's my goal exactly: practical radio use.
Great kit and NVIS utilization! Awesome, seeing 1st responders using this! Thanks for your service and for taking the time to make this video. Stay safe 🙏
73
Great video. I have a TruSDX and it kicks butt. Also look into HF APRS. I know with vhf APRS you can text to a cell phone and they can text back to you.
It's so awesome to see folks actually using ham radio for other than rag chewing. Nothing wrong with rag chewing but this is really cool to see.
Well done, good advice from experience.
If NVIS is free wherever you go, I'm all for NVIS.
NVIS is Near Vertical Incidence Skywave - simply RF propagation nearly straight up and nearly straight down to communicate with nearby (50-400 km) stations. Yes, it’s free to hams :)
NVIS will get you from 0 - 600 km (and more) depending on the mode, band and conditions!
Great advice. I love the trUSDX too. Very cool you used winlink with the little trUSDX. I have to try that now. 😊
It's great!
Every once and while YT actually suggests a hidden gem. Nice seeing someone using ham for this
Thank you for watching! I got a few comments saying I should just use satellite, and yeah for sure that would be easier but $$$ every month. Plus this gives me something to do other than stare at trees for 14 hours a day.
@@TerminalElement Uhhhh, FISHING?? 🎣🐟 😜
@@TerminalElement Uhhhh, clay bar & wax the Rig/Unit?? 🚑🚑
@@TerminalElement Uhhhhh, sort all the rocks on the side of the road in a line by size?? 🪨🪨
Thanks for the update. Be safe
Nw1L… as a Operator, I always enjoy when more people find out about my calling!!!! Any mission requires a good Comms!!!!
Solid advice. Keep up the good work.
Been a cured ham for 16 years and having fun with it. Now that I am older, I can't put antennas on the roof so I went the hotspot route.
So, a couple of powerbanks later plus a fully charged mobile and I am either off portable or at home with a usb charger. Ham radio is great and governments usually fall back on hams when national emergencies have taken out mains power.
Now I just wonder to myself if a satphone can be used a repeater jus for the fun of it:)
I love that you can send messages to an email address outside of ham radio callsigns. I have a tentative trip to an area of Michigan's Upper Peninsula with little to no cell phone service coming up. I was already planning to take my HF radio for doing some Parks On The Air activations. Now I think I will take my laptop and the accessories needed to use data modes so I can send an email to my girlfriend and let her know I made it there safely just in case I can't send her a message via a cellular or internet connection.
Awesome! Have a great trip! I think APRS has a place for contacting civilization, too, if one can reach a digipeater. That's on my list.
@@TerminalElement I believe APRS is able to make contact with non hams as well. I remember watching a video about how to send a SMS through APRS. I think it might have been from The Tech Prepper, but I could be wrong on that.
I agree about the heavy manpacks folks are building. They have a place, but it isn't in a backcountry setting with high mileage or lots of elevation where I need other gear to not die. For hiking/backpacking I typically carry either a KX2 or QMX 60-15, an EFHW (no coax style), and a compact mast.
As a firefighter right on the gulf coast, I got my general primarily so if we take a direct hit and cell goes down (which it has before) I can send out a Winlink to the wife and let her know we are ok.
This is the way.
Great job! Excellent example of emergency communications.
Excellent job and real world implementation of NVIS. I run mainly NVIS here in VK land and can maintain comms between Sydney & Melbourne on 15w on 40M during the day no problems.
wow terrific job congratulations enjoy 73 from kb2uew
Cool good add for the TruSDX
Awesome setup and great points. Defiantly a lot to think about.
Love it! Great info & love the scenery. Keep up the good work 73, Ky4bcd
Wonderful video. I do the same. Take small radio to work and see if I can make CW contacts. OK, not the same thing, but small pack. Operating from 10th floor outdoor balcony of a skyscraper. Why? Why not. Thanks 73 Bill KG4FXG
RDO here for a type 3 team. Good video. Look forward to other videos.
Right on! See you out there. On the Flat Fire near Boise rn.
Very cool.👍
Very cool!
You've got my SUB! sharing this...
Thanks!
Love your video. I have been having a difficult time picking out my first rig because I want to build a man pack but also want to have it be a reasonable weight to power ratio.
If I had the cash, I'd buy an icom 705. That would be a sweet portable radio.
Bravo Zulu.
This is incredible! Perfect use case for winlink.
Is there any vhf repeater/digipeter coverage in the area?
There is a linked FM voice repeater system in the region that I might be able to hit, but as a millennial I do not talk to people 😆. I don't know about digipeaters though. I should look it up because using the SMSGTE would be pretty sweet.
I did use the linked repeater system a few years ago on a fire a couple hours away from here to call home during the first few days of the incident before they got a satellite internet trailer set up at the spike camp. I just called out and asked somebody to text my wife and ask her to jump onto the repeater nearest to her (she's a technician). Some of the kindest and most helpful people in the world can be found on amateur radio.
Look into the icom 705 which is a sdr radio. Does the whole hf spectrum along with 2m/ 440 usb and lsb included. On batter power puts out 5w and if you plug it in puts out 12. Love the crap out of mine and is so convenient, for the antenna I use a super antenna mechanical screwdriver antenna. Also whoever says just use a sat phone, yes they serve their purpose, but with hf you just spend the money on the equipment, and after that no service fee’s required.
Oh man, if I had a spare $1200 I'd buy a 705 in a heartbeat.
@@TerminalElement lol it is very pricy brought mine 3 years ago and use it solely as my main rig. Used to have a 7600 but sold it due to no longer needing it. I also picked up a 100watt amplifier so I could use it effectively if more power is needed. Also do you work for the national forrest service, that is my dream gig there except on the le side.
No, I don't work for USFS. We're contracted. Forest Service sounds like a great career, except I know a lot of them are frustrated because their work gets bogged down by lawsuits, and they're not allowed to actually manage the forest to prevent fires.
I would just use my cheap inReach. 4 ounces.
Yeah but then I would have nothing to do but stare at trees for like 14 hours.
Nicely done! I'm curious as to why you don't just plug in the trusdx straight into the laptop? It supports full cat and audio streaming with a single cable. Just make sure the micro usb has a ferrite and/or good shielding.
I've had terrible success with this, so I reserve it for a backup. I've noticed that the digirig provides a cleaner, louder sound as well.
@TerminalElement interesting. I use it regularly hiking and camping, but always carry a digirig just in case. Have only needed it once though. Great channel!
I read on a forum that some devices have different components that do better with the usb than others. I guess mine doesn't have those components!
@@TerminalElement interesting!
Also what about Starlink? That might be as expensive as a Sat phone though huh?
Starlink is great. I'm just not interested in another monthly bill. I can buy radio parts when I have extra cash, and the total cost is lower than satellite equipment. And, this is more fun. Fire medical is slow work. Wildland firefighters are very incentivized to be safe, because they lose money when they get injured. Most days we just sit here with no patient contacts. Check out my most recent video for some more thoughts and observations on Starlink.
Was Brian using his barbed wire fence antenna?
I couldn't say. Is he a friend of yours?
@@TerminalElement We've met. He, with k7rmo taught a radio class and W7OWO shared a bit about his rigs, antennae, and difficulty of getting out, being nestled against hills.
That's awesome. It seems that he's overcome his terrain challenges because his gateway works great!
How many watts? Maybe i missed it.
Around 5 watts with the little battery pack that holds three 18650 batteries. I think it's so cool to reach out hundreds of miles on something about the same size and output of a walkie talkie.
Great video. Btw, what is the typical impedance of an NVIS AE?
There are so many variables, it is difficult to answer this question. But this low power setup met my goal of being able to reach out of the region to a winlink gateway. Unfortunately, the ionisphere has to cooperate, which is probably the greatest variable. Over the last couple of days, I haven't been able to reach anything until around 1800 or 1900 due to poor conditions for radio propagation.
@@TerminalElement thank you! I ask about the impedance to ensure that I'm not mismatched too much to my transceiver that I get a high vswr... I'll play around with my inv-v setup to adjust it as an NVIS and see what happens.
I'm sorry. I thought you were asking about performance. My antenna would not be usable without a tuner. But this cheap $40 manual tuner from Amazon is amazing. It tunes nearly anything. Just yesterday it tuned a 2m antenna to 40m and took it from a SWR of 20 down to 1.9.
I just dropped a link in the description to the Z-Match tuner I'm using.
@@TerminalElement thank you, 73
Are you getting cat control with the usb? I’m a heavy digital hf user the trusdx was my first hf radio. Haven’t quite gotten it smoothed out for using digital. I mainly use the G90 with a digirig I’d like to get mine at least setup. Would you mind sharing your general winlink settings for the trusdx? I’m a windows user as well
Yes but I'm out on another fire rn and connectivity is extremely limited. I'll jump back on and post settings when I'm back to civilization. Also my trusdx just reset its settings to default for reasons unknown ugh!
OK I'm in a place with cell service today. These are my settings, but its not the only way to set it up. Some of the transceiver settings may not be the best.
Winlink:
Radio model: Kenwood Amateur
USB
Serial port: the port for the micro usb cable
Serial port baud: 115200
Serial port enable DTR
PTT port: the port for the digirig
PTT port baud: 9600
Serial port enable RTS
Vara:
Select digirig input and output
I'm not using any attenuation in Vara
Windows Playback (attenuate by listening through another receiver, and attenuation until the noises sound correct)
Speakers: -19.9 dB
Microphone: 0db. Muted.
Enhancements: disable box checked
Custom: AGC unchecked
Windows Recording:
Microphone: 0 dB
JS8Call settings:
Rig options -
Radio: Kenwood TS-480
PTT Method: CAT
Mode: USB
Transmit: front/mic
Split operation: none
Cat control -
Serial port: Select port for the micro usb cable
Data bits: default
Stop bits: default
Handshake: none
DTR: high
RTS: low
Audio -
Select the digirig for input and output
Trusdx settings
1.1 volume: 7-12 depending on mode, noise, band
1.2 mode: USB
1.3 Filter bandwidth: 4k
1.7 RIT: off
1.8 AGC: on
1.9 NR: 0
3.1 VOX: off
3.2 Noise Gate
3.3 TX drive: 4
3.4 TX delay: 0
8.2 PA Bias max: 128
8.3 Ref frequency: this needs to be individually calibrated for your Radio. Check DL2MAN vid for instructions. You can also use two transceiver on js8call to adjust this, or adjust based on AFC in Winlink
8.6 R shunt: 18
8.7 LPF config: low
9.7 Firmware: 2.00x (don't touch this setting)
Pse tell us more about cheap low power laptops?
I only have experience with the Evolve III Maestro. I have two of them. One takes the 3.5 x 1.35mm plug, and the other takes USB-C. Each one can charge from a 12 v source, but the USB-C one requires a 65w PD adapter, which is bo big deal. The battery on each will last 6-10 hours depending on use, which is usually plenty to get through a shift if not used continuously.
@TerminalElement what antenna are you using?
Some cheap, no-name Chinese EFHW from Amazon. amzn.to/4djevbQ
Although I have an idea for another antenna. Comin' up.
@@TerminalElement Tested a Chameleon CHA LFES 4010 this weekend. No tuner for 40/20/15/10. Installed 7ish feet...as high as i can reach. NVIS worked well.
Were you using digirig?
Yep. I haven't had good success with the direct usb connection. DR also seems to provide a louder, cleaner sound when I listen to it from another receiver. If I had a problem with the DR I would use the USB line as a backup though.
@TerminalElement I have a Trusdx also and seriously thinking on using that setup while with ARES. Just need to make sure I have everything setup correctly. Yours was a sweet setup.
Thanks! I hope it lasts a while.
I was wondering, did you follow Julian’s settings on his channel?
@@Rabbitears1 I love his channel! Yes, I actually followed the settings on his blog, but he wrote that post before an update so some of his info (like baud rate, if I remember correctly) was only applicable to the older trusdx firmware. It was still incredibly helpful.
Apple SOS Sat messaging works with iPhone 14 and up.
Also search "Apple SOS Messaging" in TH-cam and you'll get a bunch of videos.
support.apple.com/en-us/105097
I'm not so sure the 911 dispatcher would be interested in sending a casual email to my wife for me 🫤
Then ya discover Starlink.
Starlink basic monthly plan = $120/month. Starlink basic equipment = $300. Sure it is a much faster bandwidth.. But, he is using ~$300 workth of equipment with no monthly fee.. and could fit it all in a cargo pocket, minus the small 12v laptop. By the way, that all can be operated from a 12v battery (no need for 110v). I power a similar setup with a batter backup charger which is the size of my cell phone. Starlink is cool.. But this is more versatile and much less expensive.
Oh yeah. The REMS team had their Starlink up yesterday and it definitely made the day fly by. They're gone now, so I passed the time with radio today. Satellite is certainly the most reliable way to go if one can afford it.
100%
DJ I was thinking if I needed to pack this I could ditch the laptop and just use a raspberry pi outputting an off-grid wifi Hotspot, then connect with my phone using RealVNC. But I would need to learn how to use PAT Winlink first. KM4ACK has a tutorial series but I'm still confused!
@@TerminalElementI’d like to check that out. Trying to learn cw now.. working on general too. k4ORE 🍻