How do you plan on keeping in touch and contacting your friends while at the con?
FRS (Family Radio Service) is pretty popular way of keeping in touch. Unfortunately it is mainstream and you'll find alot of non-defcon traffic from other vegas tourists.
Cell phones are another form that's popular but it usually requires giving someone your number. A lot of the people I communicate with are people I've met for the first time and sometimes you don't want to give your number out to strangers.
Ham Radio is my preference. I have a Yaesu VX-5 and a VX-7. I'll probably leave the VX-7 home because if I lose this VX-5 I won't be as heartbroken, although losing it would still suck.
As far as ham radio goes, there is a lot of unlicensed activity at the con. I managed to get my technician license a week before defcon 10 and my callsign was issued while I was at the con so I was able to broadcast legally.
For those of you who don't have a license, this is what I will "suggest".
1) Get your license. The test is easy.
2) Have your radio modded for mars/cap. You'll be able to broadcast out of band, meaning you won't be limited to transmitting only on ham frequencies. Several of my unlicensed friends were talking simplex slightly above 450mhz on an unused frequency.
Also with the mars/cap mod, you can program your presets for FRS frequencies which will keep you "legal" if you keep your power down at half a watt.
3) This is still about the mars/cap mod but I dunno how many people know about it. There is something called MURS which stands for Multi-Use Radio Service. It's like FRS where you don't need to be licensed. There are 5 MURS frequencies and you're allowed to transmit up to 2 watts of power which gives you a larger range than FRS. Here are the MURS frequencies.
MURS has a channel bandwidth of 11.25 KHz so you'll have to set your radio to half deviation when using MURS frequencies. MURS is relatively new and there aren't many radios out there on the market. The ones I've seen cost a lot more than FRS radios, which makes it a good frequency for use by unlicensed ham radio operators.
I plan on using a combination of all of them. I have my radio programmed with FRS, MURS, and ham frequencies. The first day I'll probably listen in on the national simplex calling frequency at 146.52MHz until I find the active defcon frequencies and monitor FRS to see where everyone is talking.
FRS (Family Radio Service) is pretty popular way of keeping in touch. Unfortunately it is mainstream and you'll find alot of non-defcon traffic from other vegas tourists.
Cell phones are another form that's popular but it usually requires giving someone your number. A lot of the people I communicate with are people I've met for the first time and sometimes you don't want to give your number out to strangers.
Ham Radio is my preference. I have a Yaesu VX-5 and a VX-7. I'll probably leave the VX-7 home because if I lose this VX-5 I won't be as heartbroken, although losing it would still suck.
As far as ham radio goes, there is a lot of unlicensed activity at the con. I managed to get my technician license a week before defcon 10 and my callsign was issued while I was at the con so I was able to broadcast legally.
For those of you who don't have a license, this is what I will "suggest".
1) Get your license. The test is easy.
2) Have your radio modded for mars/cap. You'll be able to broadcast out of band, meaning you won't be limited to transmitting only on ham frequencies. Several of my unlicensed friends were talking simplex slightly above 450mhz on an unused frequency.
Also with the mars/cap mod, you can program your presets for FRS frequencies which will keep you "legal" if you keep your power down at half a watt.
3) This is still about the mars/cap mod but I dunno how many people know about it. There is something called MURS which stands for Multi-Use Radio Service. It's like FRS where you don't need to be licensed. There are 5 MURS frequencies and you're allowed to transmit up to 2 watts of power which gives you a larger range than FRS. Here are the MURS frequencies.
- 151.820 MHz
- 151.880 MHz
- 151.940 MHz
- 154.570 MHz
- 154.600 MHz
MURS has a channel bandwidth of 11.25 KHz so you'll have to set your radio to half deviation when using MURS frequencies. MURS is relatively new and there aren't many radios out there on the market. The ones I've seen cost a lot more than FRS radios, which makes it a good frequency for use by unlicensed ham radio operators.
I plan on using a combination of all of them. I have my radio programmed with FRS, MURS, and ham frequencies. The first day I'll probably listen in on the national simplex calling frequency at 146.52MHz until I find the active defcon frequencies and monitor FRS to see where everyone is talking.
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