Narrow Band Comms Only

[PHall]

Just a reminder folks, only Narrow Band radios are authorized to be used as of 0001 hours, 01/01/2010.
Your Wide Band radios are now officially boat anchors. At least for CAP use.

[RADIOMAN015]

Just a reminder folks, only Narrow Band radios are authorized to be used as of 0001 hours, 01/01/2010.
Your Wide Band radios are now officially boat anchors. At least for CAP use.

HOWEVER, the equipment seems to work perfectly well as a passive receiver on all our narrowband channels.   For those units not having EF Johnson equipment with "scan capability" or for that matter to just make it easier on yourself, you can use that Vetex 150 as a passive receiver.  Unfortunately, because of the technical aspects of the radio, even in an emergency it is unlikely that one of the new narrow band repeaters could be accessed.  HOWEVER, look at getting your ham tech class license for "just in case" emergency situations.  Also don't be surprised if many wings get involved with the new MARS program, and it's likely that modified equipment will work on the MRS repeater networks.
RM

[RedFox24]

A sad day indeed and a charlie foxtrot for the next few years with all the BS channel plans and such.   :clap:

[redfox98]

caution on the wideband vhf equipment use on MARS.

The current USAF MARS MOI required narrowband  vhf use as of 1 Jan 2008. 2 years ago.

There is very little vhf use in USAF MARS. None here in STL, only 3 members. A little in the KC area, I travel to OKC quite a bit, and a repeater but only one person on it, the owner. The MOI states that USAF MARS has little to no VHF requirement.

To join you must have HF, and freq tolerance of 20Hz. Nothin stated about the bandwidth requirement. Usually stations with high stability oscillators set all others frequency on the air by voice count.

I dont know what Army and Navy do.

Since most of us with personal owned equip were hams anyway, I have wiped all the CAP freq and using mine for APRS.

[SarDragon]

Just a reminder folks, only Narrow Band radios are authorized to be used as of 0001 hours, 01/01/2010.
Your Wide Band radios are now officially boat anchors. At least for CAP use.

HOWEVER, the equipment seems to work perfectly well as a passive receiver on all our narrowband channels.   For those units not having EF Johnson equipment with "scan capability" or for that matter to just make it easier on yourself, you can use that Vetex 150 as a passive receiver.  Unfortunately, because of the technical aspects of the radio, even in an emergency it is unlikely that one of the new narrow band repeaters could be accessed.  HOWEVER, look at getting your ham tech class license for "just in case" emergency situations.  Also don't be surprised if many wings get involved with the new MARS program, and it's likely that modified equipment will work on the MRS repeater networks.
RM

The VX-150 will operate in narrow band mode, but certain of the transmitter specs are not NTIA compliant. I have not, as yet, made any attempt to access our new repeaters with my VX-150.

[Eclipse]

The VX-150 will operate in narrow band mode, but certain of the transmitter specs are not NTIA compliant. I have not, as yet, made any attempt to access our new repeaters with my VX-150.

Nor should you. Ever.

We have two options for VX-150's

Clear the programming and put it on eBay (personal gear).

Return in to Wing for DRMO (corporate gear).

Since the odds of anyone using a VX-150 as a "scanner" (for CAP) are slim to none, and the potential for abuse of an hacked radio is pretty high, if I see a 150 anyplace around me, it'll be either confiscated if its corporate gear, or the member will be directed to stow it for the duration, for further discussion with their commander.

For CAP use they are door stops.

[SarDragon]

Lighten up, Bob.

Accessing a repeater can be as simple as keying the mike and waiting for the tail. Mission accomplished. No harm, no foul.

[Eclipse]

Lighten up, Bob.

Accessing a repeater can be as simple as keying the mike and waiting for the tail. Mission accomplished. No harm, no foul.

What does it accomplish?  We know you can do it, and NTIA says don't.

So why burn the calories?

[SarDragon]

I was responding to RADIOMAN015's comment:

For those units not having EF Johnson equipment with "scan capability"or for that matter to just make it easier on yourself, you can use thatVetex 150 as a passive receiver.  Unfortunately, because of the technical aspects of the radio, even in an emergency it is unlikelythat one of the new narrow band repeaters could be accessed.

[RedFox24]

Lighten up, Bob.

Accessing a repeater can be as simple as keying the mike and waiting for the tail. Mission accomplished. No harm, no foul.

Your a kur-chunker huh?  Hope your not a ham and do that.  We got a couple of guys around here that do that, when we find them, we hound them unmercifully................

[SarDragon]

I'm not a ham. How about sending me a PM to better educate me.

[RedFox24]

In case there are others who don't know............

Kerchunk:  The sound made by a repeater when someone keys up long enough to send the tone to open the repeater and then unkeys usually followed by the courtesy beep or repeater ID. 

Many Kerchunkers run a group of repeaters and kerchunk them  to see if they can hit them from their location.  It is not uncommon to hear repeaters get kerchunked in in a series as someone tries to "check their radio".  You often can hear this when scanning repeaters.

Kerchunking of its self is just bad etiquette, but kerchunking and then moving on to the next repeater without transmitting your call sign is a prohibited practice on the ham bands.  If you are going to "check out your radio or the repeater" at least ID with word "testing" afterwards.   

Edit by me: Ker instead of Kur after an email to stop spelling it with my southern twang. 

[SarDragon]

Thanks for the education. I also Googled kerchunk and got further info.

[Major Lord]

It is generally not a problem to open (or "kerchunk", from the days when repeaters had big mechanical relays) a narrow band repeater with a wide band transmitter. Some repeaters have very narrow "front-ends" that prevent this from happening. What ham radios call "narrow band' is generally just reduced modulation, not a true narrowing of the receiver, so when wide band operators key up in your area, they bleed "splatter" all over your nice clean, narrow banded signal. Receiving narrow band signals on your wide band radio results in a sort of muffled, low volume signal, that is often very difficult to understand. For these reasons, and more, its a good idea not to use your VX-150's on CAP repeaters unless in dire distress ( when it is legally permitted anyway) since being caught doing so could result in a 10,000 fine for each day of operation and one year in jail. Usually, these kinds of penalties are saved for people causing intentional interference, but the FCC is a stern and evil adversary when provoked! CAP would probably take away your radio privileges or worse.

Major Lord

[RADIOMAN015]

Since the odds of anyone using a VX-150 as a "scanner" (for CAP) are slim to none, and the potential for abuse of an hacked radio is pretty high, if I see a 150 anyplace around me, it'll be either confiscated if its corporate gear, or the member will be directed to stow it for the duration, for further discussion with their commander.

For CAP use they are door stops.

Well all the corporate owned Vertex 150's were directed to be turned in, so those fair game to find out why the unit still has it.

HOWEVER, if someone has a personally owned transceiver (e.g. Vertex 150) (with the briefed understanding that they will not transmit with this radio on CAP frequencies)  or passive receiver (scanner), o r any other communications device (e.g. cellphone) I see no authority in CAP regulations to tell them they can't carry other communications equipment with them on their person while engaged in any ground type activities (air wise the PIC has every right to have them turn off the device).  IF they are properly licensed as amateur radio operators, it might be a good idea to allow it anyways for a "just in case, when all else fails" communications situation.

BTW one of our wing net control stations use their personal vertex to monitor the other CAP repeater output frequencies when running some of the weekly nets, because they don't have a CAP radio that has scan capability.  Also this NCS can't access one of the repeaters, and a few stations can't access the repeaters he is accessing but can hear the repeaters that NCS keys up.  NCS can hear the distant repeater with the Vertex, so will hear the other stations checking in and acknowledge on the repeater NCS accessing (and the distant stations also listen to that other repeaters output).  So there is some "innovation" left in the CAP communications program.
RM

[Johnny Yuma]

A sad day indeed and a charlie foxtrot for the next few years with all the BS channel plans and such.   :clap:

What're you talking about???

We're getting 33 percent more simplex channels and one standard channel plan for all the EFJ radios. One. Your wing has 2-3 groups they can program to their tastes but an EFJ in CAWG will look and work exactly like one in MEWG. Same goes with the NAT and Technisonic radios, too.

Some of my Wing's repeaters were 25 years old and long in the tooth 10 years ago. Not any more.

[scooter]

So up to now, we have been instructed to monitor V1 while in flight. Now that's dead and we have no communication from the wing communication troops on what we should monitor now. Maybe they don't know!

[Eclipse]

Why would you not still monitor V1?  The freq may have changed, but the idea hasn't.

All CAP airplanes are supposed to have compliant equipment and should have been reprogrammed already.

[Fubar]

All CAP airplanes are supposed to have compliant equipment and should have been reprogrammed already.

New equipment means new training. New channel plan means new training. Apparently the training schedule is lagging a bit behind the equipment replacement schedule for some wings.

[arajca]

So up to now, we have been instructed to monitor V1 while in flight. Now that's dead and we have no communication from the wing communication troops on what we should monitor now. Maybe they don't know!

The wing. region, and national comm folks have been busting their backsides over the repeater replacements for the past year. Have you asked about a plan? Have you suggested one?

FYI. V1, V2, P1, P2, etc are the wideband channels. CAP no longer has authorization to use these. PERIOD. (Yes, I know about the 'life or limb' stuff - it doesn't apply to ROUTINE communications.)