Be able to use voice and APRS in one radio is one of the best features of that radio. The local club here supports a bike tour every year and uses APRS to track the support vehicles. By the way this also a good air band receiver.
It's not just in my house it's everywhere. LED lights with switching power supplies, compact fluorescence, switching power supply Wall warts. Plasma televisions. And that's just in my house. My neighbors on both sides both have big plasma TVs that they still watch. It's always been bad but it got a lot worse in the early 2000s when all the plasma TVs first started appearing. I have tried shutting off the power and powering my radio with a battery and it's almost as bad. Just too many electrical things in my neighborhood causing noise. I have set it on more than one occasion when I step out in the morning to go to work "I love the smell of marijuana growing in the morning" referring to the stench of all my pothead neighbors growing their own. Lots of folks growing weed with their big powerful lights which generate lots of noise.
I opted for this over the Icom, because it's newer, and because it had analog APRS support, since I think I'm more likely to see 'actual activity' on analog APRS.
@@12voltvids I'm fussing with APRS myself today on the radio. There is activity here in Las Vegas, but not sure anyone is communicating with this or not.
@@12voltvidsyou wanna see some excitement, try using it for ISS APRS . I will say this rig is a pain in the ass for composing messages in reply to a message when you only have maybe at most a good 9 minute window to get that reply composed and sent. At least it is for me. They should have made it where you can compose messages with the dtmf pad like old school SMS.
Great video Couldn't help noticing the supply voltage on receive is rather high at 14.5 volts and drops to 11 volts on TX. A better power supply might be a good addition to the shack 🙂 I love my FTM300 Andy VE3ORE
It's an astron 35 amp. The voltage drop is the power wire. Not quite heavy enough for 50 watt radio. It's the same called that powered the old rig which was only 25 watts and is 16ga. Should be probably 12ga for the amps this draws at full power. The PSU powers 3 radios
If you just want to listen to VHF/UHF a Baofeng handheld with an external antenna (can be as simple as a magmount for a car) can be had for pennies nowadays.
@seandrake7534 It has FM as well. 80% of the time i am on FM. The advantage of C4FM is pricacy from scanners and those with FM only radios. You can also do aprs with it. I like it because of the privacy and your call is automatically diaplayed so you dont have to say your call all the time. As soon as you key up it is broadcast. Unlike the other digital formats there is no complicated setup. Its plug and play.
@seandrake7534 yes fusion is the trade name, c4fm is the modulation standard. Just like tdma, cdma, odfm, fdm, qam, psk, fsk, Hispanic ect. DMR stands for digital mobile radio and was a protocol developed by Motorola, but it is also open source so anyone can make the radios. Dstar is icom only and fusion is yaesu only. Because c4fm is a modulation format I believe others can make the radios they just can't use the name fusion. The holy grail is if other companies back the standard and license the technology from yaesu. The advantage of fusion is you don't have to know much technical background unlike DMR which you have to set id and slot and other parameters. With fusion you just tune the frequency and hit the ptt.
@@12voltvids thanks for the help still new to ham radio and I would love to have that radio but the fusion repeaters ant very faw and few around here and I Am not ready for my radio to be dependent on a hotspot in my car while I drive lol
HELP I have a new ftm300d that flashes on screen TX Prohibited You're the 4th video I found . I followed 3 videos step by step & still get TX Prohibited. Any ideas whatz causing this? ThX
Have you found help yet? Is your squelch open on b band? If squelch is open or you're receiving any kind of signal it will say tx prohibit when you try to send an aprs beacon or message.
@@ARC928 i never run full power anyway. Not needed. The power supply is 30 years old and has 3 radios running. Power supply is more than capable the power lead on the other hand is not quite heavy enough. It actually gets warm to the touch on full power, so ya I fully expect a drop of a couple volts. Power lead is 14ga and it would be 10.
Hamradio repeater callThe frequency it receives on is called the input frequency, and the frequency it transmits on is called the output frequency. To use a repeater, you must have a transceiver that can transmit on the repeater's input frequency and receive on the repeater's output frequency.
All but the very oldest radios will operate in duplex mode. On VHS the transmit frequency is either 600khz below or above the receive frequency. On the 220 band it is 1.6mhz below the receive frequency and on the 440 band generally 5.0 mhz above, but it can also be 5.0 down. Cross band repeat uses a vhf and uhf frequency
I believe that it will do Cross Band Repeat. I would think it should since you have 2 separate transmit and receive. That is handy if you have an HT and you are outside or whatever.
Not really many have moved to digital modes and unless you have digital equipment you won't hear them. There are 3 different digital systems. DMR, Dstar and Fusion. Each requires a different radio.
Thanks for this! I had already decided to buy one of these, so I was pleased to learn about some of the neat features that I didn’t know about.
Awesome clock in the background. I haven't seen a nixie pipe display since... forever.
Built that one years ago.
Before I buy a dual band radio I first need a good antenna. I'm considering a Comet gp-6. Any thoughts?
Does this radio have a tone search if so how to use it
Great demo. Taught me a lot! Thanks
Be able to use voice and APRS in one radio is one of the best features of that radio. The local club here supports a bike tour every year and uses APRS to track the support vehicles. By the way this also a good air band receiver.
Yes i have listened to the air band. I don't use it for aprs. If it was mobile i probably would.
How do you manage to have both a and b bands illuminated on the screen?
That is the default mode for it.
Super video, have you done any Vara fm on the rig, and if so can you share your settings and detailed experience? 73 and thank you
No just FM and C4FM fusion.
I have the same radio it fantastic set so easy to set up the repeaters.
Yes very easy compared to Chinese rigs
I liked the “nixy” clock. They are fun.
That was an expensive one. About 350.00
@@12voltvids ouch!
@@gordonblank6845 I built a cheap 49 Nixie clock too. This one was a little more.
Have you tried powering your HF rig from a battery and turn everything off to find the source of the noise?
It's not just in my house it's everywhere. LED lights with switching power supplies, compact fluorescence, switching power supply Wall warts. Plasma televisions. And that's just in my house. My neighbors on both sides both have big plasma TVs that they still watch. It's always been bad but it got a lot worse in the early 2000s when all the plasma TVs first started appearing. I have tried shutting off the power and powering my radio with a battery and it's almost as bad. Just too many electrical things in my neighborhood causing noise. I have set it on more than one occasion when I step out in the morning to go to work "I love the smell of marijuana growing in the morning" referring to the stench of all my pothead neighbors growing their own. Lots of folks growing weed with their big powerful lights which generate lots of noise.
I opted for this over the Icom, because it's newer, and because it had analog APRS support, since I think I'm more likely to see 'actual activity' on analog APRS.
Never done aprs myself.
@@12voltvids I'm fussing with APRS myself today on the radio. There is activity here in Las Vegas, but not sure anyone is communicating with this or not.
@@12voltvidsyou wanna see some excitement, try using it for ISS APRS . I will say this rig is a pain in the ass for composing messages in reply to a message when you only have maybe at most a good 9 minute window to get that reply composed and sent. At least it is for me. They should have made it where you can compose messages with the dtmf pad like old school SMS.
@@user-lp3cf5yn5b I rarely use it actually. Don't know why I even bought it.
Nice one Dave, I have 2 uv5r radio's & a Ba-318 ❤️👍
Great video Couldn't help noticing the supply voltage on receive is rather high at 14.5 volts and drops to 11 volts on TX. A better power supply might be a good addition to the shack 🙂
I love my FTM300 Andy VE3ORE
It's an astron 35 amp. The voltage drop is the power wire. Not quite heavy enough for 50 watt radio. It's the same called that powered the old rig which was only 25 watts and is 16ga. Should be probably 12ga for the amps this draws at full power. The PSU powers 3 radios
What would be the cheapest ham radio receiver not wanting to take a test right now
If you just want to listen to VHF/UHF a Baofeng handheld with an external antenna (can be as simple as a magmount for a car) can be had for pennies nowadays.
Ok thank you
Biafeng uv5
Thanks you just taught me not to program those buttons to change anything important as far as repeaters go!
@seandrake7534 It has FM as well. 80% of the time i am on FM. The advantage of C4FM is pricacy from scanners and those with FM only radios. You can also do aprs with it. I like it because of the privacy and your call is automatically diaplayed so you dont have to say your call all the time. As soon as you key up it is broadcast. Unlike the other digital formats there is no complicated setup. Its plug and play.
Will c4fm work on a dmr repeater
No it won't work on DMR or DStar. You need a DMR or DStar radio respectively for those repeaters. C4 is a yaesu only system.
@@12voltvids ok thanks. so c4 and fusion are the same?
@seandrake7534 yes fusion is the trade name, c4fm is the modulation standard. Just like tdma, cdma, odfm, fdm, qam, psk, fsk, Hispanic ect.
DMR stands for digital mobile radio and was a protocol developed by Motorola, but it is also open source so anyone can make the radios. Dstar is icom only and fusion is yaesu only.
Because c4fm is a modulation format I believe others can make the radios they just can't use the name fusion.
The holy grail is if other companies back the standard and license the technology from yaesu. The advantage of fusion is you don't have to know much technical background unlike DMR which you have to set id and slot and other parameters. With fusion you just tune the frequency and hit the ptt.
@@12voltvids thanks for the help still new to ham radio and I would love to have that radio but the fusion repeaters ant very faw and few around here and I Am not ready for my radio to be dependent on a hotspot in my car while I drive lol
HELP I have a new ftm300d that flashes on screen TX Prohibited You're the 4th video I found . I followed 3 videos step by step & still get TX Prohibited. Any ideas whatz causing this? ThX
Have you found help yet? Is your squelch open on b band? If squelch is open or you're receiving any kind of signal it will say tx prohibit when you try to send an aprs beacon or message.
@@user-lp3cf5yn5b yes Thanx. It was a GMRS frequency.
Is it ok that your voltage drops to 11v when you transmitting?
Why not.
When is it too low?
@@ARC928 when it shuts off.
Wouldn't you get more power if the power supply could keep it up at 14 volt?
@@ARC928 i never run full power anyway. Not needed. The power supply is 30 years old and has 3 radios running. Power supply is more than capable the power lead on the other hand is not quite heavy enough. It actually gets warm to the touch on full power, so ya I fully expect a drop of a couple volts. Power lead is 14ga and it would be 10.
Hamradio repeater callThe frequency it receives on is called the input frequency, and the frequency it transmits on is called the output frequency. To use a repeater, you must have a transceiver that can transmit on the repeater's input frequency and receive on the repeater's output frequency.
All but the very oldest radios will operate in duplex mode. On VHS the transmit frequency is either 600khz below or above the receive frequency. On the 220 band it is 1.6mhz below the receive frequency and on the 440 band generally 5.0 mhz above, but it can also be 5.0 down. Cross band repeat uses a vhf and uhf frequency
I believe that it will do Cross Band Repeat. I would think it should since you have 2 separate transmit and receive. That is handy if you have an HT and you are outside or whatever.
Hold GM + F + Disp while turning on the power turns on x band repeat. Do the same to turn it off. FM only no fusion.
What about talking on GMRS channels?
This one is locked down to the ham bands. Boafeng will go on gmrs and frs channels, not legally though.
The only thing I would want on this radio that isn't on the radio it's single side band
I Don't like memory changes being made without purposely saving them. That seems more like a bug to me than a feature.
while the radios get a lot fancier than their predecessors, there are fewer active hams on uv band
Not really many have moved to digital modes and unless you have digital equipment you won't hear them. There are 3 different digital systems. DMR, Dstar and Fusion. Each requires a different radio.
@@12voltvidsAround here, if you work second shift, nobody wants to talk on your off hours.
Nice radio. I want one..
So buy one. You have lots of bucks working where you do.
Thanks for helpful video
Most welcome
Will the FTM 300 RECEIVE the220 mhz.band?I bought the Ftm 350 it will receive and transmit on 220 mhz.but 1 watt only.W4ebx
Yes.
@@12voltvids Thanks