Ko0M = the Ranger 2950 is a borrowed piece.
Honestly - the guy was a old CB'r and had it modified to work in the 11 meters.
The only thing I can say is that to adjust it properly, you would need a frequency generator.
I don't really think that you need a sillyscope - because there is instructions - free - on the internet and in the owners manual of some models that explains how to align it.
Our one club member here works for the state of Pennsylvania and does their tower / repeater work for the western half of Pennsylvania. Needless to say - that is one heck of a lot of towers that he has to take care of.
He has the tools and equipment to align the radio properly, just doesn't have the time.
I could take it to Bob's CB shop, which is probably where it was purchased new - but I don't believe in doing anything illegal - hence it would jeopardize my license to even use a amateur radio which has been modified for use on the cb bands - even though I have no intention of trying to use it on the cb bands.
25 watts isn't exactly a barn burner.
What I will say, and this is being truthful is that the 10 meters band will go up and down 2 kc's when the band conditions are poor, but the band is open.
Experienced hams - who worked the bands before the advent of these new modern radios will all tell you that it was common to chase a person up and down the band, trying to zero beat each other when both operators radios were a little off.
One other club member, who was married to a cousin of mine, although she is dead and they were divorced, gave me a 4 years supply of QRT magazine - hope I spelled that right. I spent many a day and night reading those magazines and trying to glean some information about ham radio out of them, in my opinion, they are a rip off - because they spend half the magazine trying to promote new items which are sold in the second half of the magazine. It's like one big one hour infomertial.
Needless to say one night, I had a revelation - when you tune your radio so the other person sounds low - you will sound high to the other person.
When you learn how to zero beat a person and ignore the frequency display - you can learn how to tune a radio - just by using a Ranger 2950.
Once I learned this - I got nothing but glowing signal reports from everyone that I talked to.
The other thing that I learned is that both your antenna and the receive antenna does the real work. If the ham on the transmit side and the ham on the receive side are both using the same exact antenna, the same exact length of wire and the same exact radio, more times then not - both people will have identical signal reports. 5/5 5/7 5/8 etc..
If the ham with the beam antenna and amplifier gives you a S/9 - chances are you will give him a S/9 just because his antenna has enough gain to pick the weak signals out of the bands.
The people with the strongest signals tends to be the contesters who are only out for themselves, that wants glowing signal reports and many contacts. Unfortunately most of these hams also tends to flock at or very near the call channel frequency.
The problem then becomes if they are a S/9 into your location and are on 28.405 - you will still hear them on 28.400 because their splatter - signal is so wide that they bleed over on everyone else.
Unfortunately those inconsiderate slobs are not real hams because if they were, they would realize that they could do everything that they were doing on 28.400 mhz on 28.800 and higher and not infringe upon other hams with their garbage.
Most of those loud mouths gets offended when you tell them this is the call channel or your signal is extremely wide. A couple has gone to far as to tell me to get rid of my cb radio and buy a real ham radio with filters so you don't hear their crap with their big expensive radios or amplifiers.
The truth to the matter is - if their big expensive radios has those expensive narrow filters and they are using them - you wouldn't hear their signal being so wide - because what it does on receive it also does on transmit. Just that they are too ignorant to know this.
There is only so much bandwidth to go around and if all the hams got on the air at the same time - such as what happens on field days, there wouldn't be a quiet place to get on the radio - because the bands would be full.
That means that we all have to share.
That would include the contester - who should reduce his / her power level down to the minimum amount of power necessary to censate a transmission and that they should allow other people to also use the frequency.
After all - if everyone in amateur radio was out for themselves, all they would have to do was get home from work before everyone else and stake out a claim on a certain frequency and hold that frequency all night long and no one else would be able to use it.
Does this sound familiar.
The other thing that comes to mind is a retired person - who doesn't have to go to work, could sit on one frequency all night long and throw anyone else off that wants to use it - sounds a lot like the old CB days huh!
My point being that hams with expensive radios should be more tolerant of hams with less expensive radios and using less power.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Jerry
