Here's Why 6 Meter Ham Radio Repeaters Are Awesome!!! 

Back in the 1990's one night I built a Ramsey 6meter kit. tweeked it at the shop I worked for back then. I found ASP made a through the glass meter antenna. And put that on the windshield of the Astro van I was driving for the company. I had a couple repeaters with a tone encoder made by CES(I think). I made quite a few East coast contacts from Gainesville Floriduh. Around Noon I would us my lunchtime to QSO to Connecticut, another in Main and New York. Lot of fun on 6. The Ramsey kit was clean on TX as I used a spectrum analyzer, and service monitor to bend coils to get a whopping 9.5 watts. One day I heard something hit the roof and looked in mirror and seen the top of my antenna bounce off in the woods beside the road. I looked for awhile but had a trouble call awaiting. I could not get another until couple years ago. I still have that one in the original package from ASP. I waiting on a vehicle without 298,000 on it to install my antenna. My clunkers may not last too long. KD4IPN 73 YA'AL

5/8+32 fahren .... . . _

Thanks Hayden!

I am with you - 6 and 220 are also my favorites.

I heard quite a bit of activity on sideband and CW segments last night, the 11th of June 2023. It is very rare for me to hear anything on 6 meters. Yesterday was fun to listen to 6. I only have a 54 inch antenna.

6 meters is a great band

Awesome!

Glad you like it!

I'm glad you enjoy my videos. I'm in tolland county

Still watching. Your in the mobile. Lol 😆. Nice job

It took me months to build up the courage to punch a hole in my roof for an NMO mount, but I am so glad I did. It's a clean installation and I can swap out different antennas as I want. I do find that my NMO mount does not provide a particularly strong connection to the roof, just two tabs. It works great mobile for steel whips (including 1/4 wave on 6m) but for anything with a bigger wind loading I'm hesitant to drive with it due to the increased moment forces on the mount.

I've put holes in my older cars but it's not worth it to me on a newer car that's not rusty.

@@stuarthall3874 Stuart, Greetings. If you look above the vehicles headliner at the metal underside, and structural framing, you can punch both a structural support, and the roof vertically, and use a longer nmo barrel connector. These look like so239s, but are various lengths, with a nmo ring. I acquired mine thru tower electronics, out of Green Bay, Wisconsin. Good luck,.sir,.and hope to heat you on the band. 73s, John, N8SGM.

@@johnmayer158 I didn't know about the longer barrel connector. That sounds like a great idea. Thanks for posting. When the weather warms up, I might take a look at that.

Let me know if you make it in. I have a buddy who moved to Maine who is planning to try it too. Give the 53.310 mt Wachusset machine a try too.

@@SevenFortyOne Will do. I'm gonna try a bunch of 6m repeaters and see what happens. Maybe I'll get some time this coming week to put the antenna up.

Sure

I can hear it well at my house but can't get into it reliably until I'm at the CT/MA border on 84. From there it seems pretty sid all the way out to 128 but then it gets sketchy through Waltham and I loose it in Burlington where my office is. I've checked into it a few times over the last couple of weeks when I've forgotten to bring my 6m radio

I ended up getting a new car and haven't been able to install a 6m capable radio yet. Having said that, I purchased a radio to install and have an mounting point on my car ready for an antenna but still need to buy an antenna and figure out how I want to mount the radio in the car. Aside from monitoring from my shack in northern CT I haven't done much with 6meter repeaters since posting this

Thank you for getting back to me. I look forward to your upcoming adventures and maybe one day catch you rolling down the PIKE 😊

I'm there most Thursdays and sometimes Mondays usually between 6:30 and 8:00 pm...I monitor 146.52 so give a shout if you're out there.

I'm up that way twice a week...I'll check it out. I usually check in to George's old timers net on Thursday evening on my way home

@@SevenFortyOne I don't believe I can reach that repeater from my QTH. If you were ever interested in becoming a member the MMRA allows members to link and de-link the repeaters on the network. Not sure if the 6 Meter is typically linked or not. 73s.

You might not need a tuner. 5/8 wave on 2m is roughly 1/4 wave on 6m

yeah that's part of the reason I bought it. I am using it on a knockoff radio that probably has no SWR protection but outputs somewhere around 60 watts on 6m@@SevenFortyOne

I'm thinking about getting one of those...thanks for the info!

Had one of those, good radio and worked well. Sorry I sold it and tempted to order another.

Recording in the car is tricky because of the background noise so I don't often do it. If I boosted the audio it would have been full of background noise

I know how you feel!

I'm not from nm. I live in CT.

50w

Same, I would just have to swap the whip on my diamond SD330. There are also 10m repeaters.

The FT 891 as a mobile is great. You get HF, + 10 meters repeaters (and am )6 meter FM AND SSB.-I use a transverter for 2 meter SSB also. The ATAS 120 antenna is designed to use with the 891,built in tuning.

On one hand, I don't like linked repeater systems for the reasons you mentioned and more. But....220 doesn't get much use around here so having it linked to an active 2m repeater helps keep the band usage up. It also gives 220 users a way to talk with others that don't have it and encourage it's use

Bummer...

You should watch the video

Alinco sells a monoband 6 meter radio here in the us. We also have the tyt-8900 which has 10,6,2,and 70cm. I'm not sure how good tyt radios are though....I'm thinking about trying one to see

"...how difficult it would be to reverse-engineer with a digital oscilloscope using FFT and modify for 6-meter use in America." Either as simple as moving a diode or jumper, or forget it. You'll quickly find that the 'design' of modern rigs disappears into software, and then you might as well quit. A long time ago, I had a 49 MHz walkie talkie, and looked into modifying it for 6m FM. One 10.24 MHz crystal set every-single-last frequency in the entire radio.

I personally haven't but I think you are right, that would be fun. Having said that, I know 2e0ukh regularly tries to hit 10 meter repeaters in the US from the UK

Yes

Yeah

This was all just a temporary setup for testing and seems to work ok. Putting antennas on the roof isn't practical for several reasons right now...

@@SevenFortyOne Well sure, everything is temporary with a magnet mount. That's why we experiment... I run a Yaesu FT991A with an ATAS120A on the center of my trunk lid. The trunk lid is bonded to the car body with 5 Gnd straps. I get out all over SE Wisconsin. Absolutely Flat SWR on all the bands.

Why?

They get some use here but not a lot

It probably would but I don't have one

In my experience, the SS whips destroy the edge on bolt cutters. I haven't tried the big ones, though. Sawing a notch and snapping is what many manufacturers recommend.

@@patrickbuick5459 I have the big bolt cutters-doesn't hurt it

That's a bummer. Where are you located? There is tons of activities here in CT

@@SevenFortyOne I am far from Connecticut. But, I can not attend anything relating to amateur radio. I am the most basic, entry level, radio hobbyist. I am the unlicensed radio hobbyist and am limited to only listening. There are so many beautiful bands on this radio. It was created for region 0. It receives from 30Khz to 199.99Mhz then 430Mhz to 439.99Mhz, all analogue modes and one digital mode (CW). The transmit is 1.6Mhz to 54Mhz with a gap between 26Mhz to 27.999Mhz. Then it transmits 144Mhz to 145.99mhz then 430Mhz to 439Mhz. The former owner told me there is no way to open it to North American frequencies because Region 0 radios can only be modified for receive. 2 meters and 70 centimeters are heavily crippled. I try listening on the SSB frequencies for 2meters and 70 centimeters and hear nothing. There are no repeaters in the fragments of 2 meter and 70 centimeters that are available on the radio. I hesitate to get my license because of the lack of activity. The CB band is rather busy. 80 meters is a colourful band with little formality. The band right above AM broadcast band is rather interesting. But is it worth getting a license to transmit for just 80 meters, the band above AM broadcast, and empty 6 meters? The entry level license does not even cover those bands, save 6 meters. I guess I would get 10 meters, as well. Is 10 meters and 6 meters worth the entry level license? This transceiver, the Icom IC-7000 region 0 is gorgeous. But it is heavily crippled. The radio will likely keep me an unlicensed hobbyist making power supplies, antennas, manual tuners, and modifying radios from other bands.

I guess you've never watched any of my other videos. If you had you'd clearly see I'm far more obsessed with fixing my crappy cars than repeaters....