Re: AWQ VHF radio
Posted: Sat Jul 09, 2022 10:56 pm
thanks for the information. I did the coursework for my radio licence last year but only got around to doing the face to face work and practical tonight.
The presenter did the usual intro/why do you need a licence circuit of the room and after a string of barcrushers and was shocked to hear I needed it to chase tuna off a ski at Portland :lol:
I thought I'd post the most useful thing I learned tonight which actually came from a side conversation with the presenter afterwards. We were talking transmission distance and he said the boaties get 10 - 15nm on VHF with a correctly installed antenna. He said kayaks would be around 7nm and agreed with what GME told me that installing a whip on the back of the yak like Minny has, but hooking it into my handheld would have limited gain on signal and would still be less than what a boatie is getting.
I was telling him how I dropped fully out of comms coverage (no phone or radio) with Jordo and Shane on one of the tuna trips last year and I'm sure they were much closer than 7nm so we were getting stuff all transmission distance on the water.I asked if he had any suggestions and he said we should be using the repeater towers at Portland and Warrnambool for our tuna trips.
I usually read these kind of nrc articles for information.
So basically if we consider our working channel ie 72 has a transmission of 7nm (much less in big swells).
Portland and Warranabool repeaters pickup all transmissions within 25nm of the towers and boost then up before sending them back out Portland to Port Fairy repeater is on channel 81 and Warrnambool back to Port Campbell repeater is on Channel 80.
Legally you have to run a dual watch ie 16 and 72
But he suggested we run a tri-watch 16, 72 and 81.
That way if we drop out of comms on 72, we can switch to 81 and still be heard.
Unfortunately it only works if everyone's radio has the tri-watch function.
The presenter did the usual intro/why do you need a licence circuit of the room and after a string of barcrushers and was shocked to hear I needed it to chase tuna off a ski at Portland :lol:
I thought I'd post the most useful thing I learned tonight which actually came from a side conversation with the presenter afterwards. We were talking transmission distance and he said the boaties get 10 - 15nm on VHF with a correctly installed antenna. He said kayaks would be around 7nm and agreed with what GME told me that installing a whip on the back of the yak like Minny has, but hooking it into my handheld would have limited gain on signal and would still be less than what a boatie is getting.
I was telling him how I dropped fully out of comms coverage (no phone or radio) with Jordo and Shane on one of the tuna trips last year and I'm sure they were much closer than 7nm so we were getting stuff all transmission distance on the water.I asked if he had any suggestions and he said we should be using the repeater towers at Portland and Warrnambool for our tuna trips.
I usually read these kind of nrc articles for information.
So basically if we consider our working channel ie 72 has a transmission of 7nm (much less in big swells).
Portland and Warranabool repeaters pickup all transmissions within 25nm of the towers and boost then up before sending them back out Portland to Port Fairy repeater is on channel 81 and Warrnambool back to Port Campbell repeater is on Channel 80.
Legally you have to run a dual watch ie 16 and 72
But he suggested we run a tri-watch 16, 72 and 81.
That way if we drop out of comms on 72, we can switch to 81 and still be heard.
Unfortunately it only works if everyone's radio has the tri-watch function.