Ham Radio

[JDDavao II]

Personally, I think this thing is a total waste of food.

 

[Tommy T.]

17 minutes ago, RobH said:

Hi Tommy. I have a reciprocal licence, my original licence is UK. You need to email PARA they will give you all the requirements. Its not terribly expensive or difficult but you need your home country valid licence. They do like you to Join PARA which is useful. I had an antenna stuck in customs for 3 weeks, because they didn't know the rules, email to PARA here in 2 days. they also prefer you to get a Philippine licence, but I won't take 5 trips to Manilla to do the exams. I finished all that in 1976.I am just too old to do it all again. The 2 Meter and 70 Cms bands are not policed, lots and lots of bootleggers, so bad I dont use either now.

Buying equipment, second hand stuff is mostly cheap Chinese hand helds or 30 year old crap, best to import, beware of the customs they make it up as they go along. Check Australia or the US for best prices. Very little HF stuff for sale here. No towers or antennas available. the population here is about 100 million, 8 thousand hams, 98 percent VHF/UHF only even those that have the full licence can't afford the equipment UK 65 million 60 thousand hams.

 

Hey Rob, thanks for your response!

Okay, you answered my biggest question about the licensing - doesn't sound too difficult or expensive - good! And no, I am not going through all those exams and trips to Manila.

Equipment shouldn't be a problem - maybe... I have my own HF rigs (2 Icom IC-735s that do all modes) in storage in USA. Both are set to transmit 150 watts on high power. Next trip to USA, I will just bring them in my luggage - so far, customs has never even looked at me or my luggage when arriving in Manila. For antenna, I was going to try starting with a single wire, or maybe a simple dipole(?). The house will be located at about 300 meter altitude so should give great DX. I just used the insulated backstay on the yacht and could make contacts half way around the world on good nights.

I know HF is not so popular as in the "good old days," but I am looking forward to messing around with it again - it's been a few years.

I have a 2-meter hand-held, and will bring it with, but may not use it.

Thanks again... 73!

[GeoffH]

An amateur radio thread!  I’ve thought about emailing and joining PARA to get a reciprocal license here but haven’t got around to it yet.  I’m licensed as VK3LZ (advanced class - Australia), formally VK3DMN and much earlier VK3PAU.

From the bit of reading I’ve done I thought reciprocal licensing was limited to short term tourists?

Although I guess that could be up to 3 years with extensions...  to be honest the whole idea of requalifying again is a bit off putting to me also.

I did find some reference to amateur radio clubs in Mindanao but not anything about Cagayan De Oro.

73 

Edited September 4, 2019 by GeoffH

[Tommy T.]

2 minutes ago, GeoffH said:

An amateur radio thread!  I’ve thought about emailing and joining PARA to get a reciprocal license here but haven’t got around to it yet.  I’m licensed as VK3LZ (advanced class - Australia), formally VK3DMN and much earlier VK3PAU.

From the bit of reading I’ve done I thought reciprocal licensing was limited to short term tourists?

Although I guess that could be up to 3 years with extensions...  to be honest the whole idea of requalifying again is a bit off putting to me also.

I did find some reference to amateur radio clubs in Mindanao but not anything about Cagayan De Oro.

73 

Hi Geoff.

I am not going to get into this quite yet - I will be spending a bit of money to get the house built plus furniture plus plus plus.... But I may contact PARA just to get the story. I hope reciprocal licenses aren't limited to short termers...that would be a bummer. I will have to go back to USA in another year or two so can pick up my gear then. Worst case, I will ship it. I would also need to import connectors and things like that which I expect to be difficult or impossible to find here.

No way I am going to go through exams again either. I would have to study up on everything I've long ago forgotten.

I'm not so much of a joiner, so not sure if I would get into any clubs.

73

[RobH]

You need to be careful of bringing in radio transmitters. The licence here has the serial numbers of all the rigs on it. the reciprocal licence is the permit to posses and to import. of course the bootleggers just go out and buy what they want. Its a typical Philippino arrangement. Just like road traffic.. The exams are spread about around the country so you wouldn't have to go to Manilla, its just the nearest one to me, a 5 hour bus trip.  might see if I can get a full Philippine licence without jumping through all the hoops when I go to renew the reciprocal. I should have my SRRV by then but I am not holding my breath, Cant see why not if you are living here permanently.

HF is very popular, especially with some of the new digital modes, FT8 you can work the world on 100 watts, but for me its an automated system with computer to computer on HF. I like computers but not so much integrated with radio. And I use a Mac not much software for radio.

Para don't seem to have a database for clubs, because of the low numbers of hams here the clubs are well spread out mostly citys. I found the local one on facebook. The other thing they don't have is a very detailed band plan especially for VHF/UHF. well its the Philippines its what to expect.

I am lucky here we have a big lot, I have a 2 wavelength horizontal loop on 160 M fed with open wire, and a balanced ATU. and  an Icom 7610, 7200 and a 7100, which I might sell. We are at 15 meters ASL with mountains on 3 sides, pretty but not so good for VHF I can reach just south of Manilla nothing in the other directions

 

 

[Arizona Kid]

1 hour ago, JDDavao said:

Personally, I think this thing is a total waste of food.

 

Be right back. All of a sudden I got a craving for a ham sandwich!

[Tommy T.]

10 minutes ago, RobH said:

You need to be careful of bringing in radio transmitters. The licence here has the serial numbers of all the rigs on it. the reciprocal licence is the permit to posses and to import. of course the bootleggers just go out and buy what they want. Its a typical Philippino arrangement. Just like road traffic.. The exams are spread about around the country so you wouldn't have to go to Manilla, its just the nearest one to me, a 5 hour bus trip.  might see if I can get a full Philippine licence without jumping through all the hoops when I go to renew the reciprocal. I should have my SRRV by then but I am not holding my breath, Cant see why not if you are living here permanently.

HF is very popular, especially with some of the new digital modes, FT8 you can work the world on 100 watts, but for me its an automated system with computer to computer on HF. I like computers but not so much integrated with radio. And I use a Mac not much software for radio.

Para don't seem to have a database for clubs, because of the low numbers of hams here the clubs are well spread out mostly citys. I found the local one on facebook. The other thing they don't have is a very detailed band plan especially for VHF/UHF. well its the Philippines its what to expect.

I am lucky here we have a big lot, I have a 2 wavelength horizontal loop on 160 M fed with open wire, and a balanced ATU. and  an Icom 7610, 7200 and a 7100, which I might sell. We are at 15 meters ASL with mountains on 3 sides, pretty but not so good for VHF I can reach just south of Manilla nothing in the other directions

 

 

Somewhere I should have a list of serial numbers and equipment that I had on the yacht. It was required for entry into some country many years ago. So I just have to find that.

I will be interested to find out how your renewal/attempt to get a Phil. license goes. After all your paperwork has been submitted to PRA, it takes 1-2 months to receive your SRRV visa.

Yeah... I used FT8 daily on the yacht with my Pactor II modem. It was the only way I could get e-mail and detailed weather information directly from websites. It was way cool to be able to do that, but sometimes painfully slow. I enjoyed linking with stations in Mumbai, Vladivostok(!) and even South Africa from the middle of the Pacific Ocean. But it wasn't as interesting as voice for me and sometimes presented some technical challenges when something didn't work right.

When I sold the yacht, the marine SSB and Pactor modem went along with the sale and I don't really miss either of them. I do miss the automatic antenna tuner - It was SGC out of Bellevue Washington and worked flawlessly for over 20 years.

I would probably just (or mostly) interested in HF - especially if VHF is crowded and lawless... But, even then, mountains will hinder signals sometimes. I will be on the side of Mt. Apo, so forget about some westerly propagation at higher frequencies... At least there is nothing around that will cause electrical interference.

 

[Tommy T.]

1 hour ago, JDDavao said:

Personally, I think this thing is a total waste of food.

I think it all depends on how you slice it? And don't cut the cheese!

Edited September 4, 2019 by Tommy T.

[Tommy T.]

19 hours ago, GeoffH said:

An amateur radio thread!

I am a bit surprised there seem to be only three of us as interested radio amateurs?

Do you have any gear here yet in Philippines, Geoff?

Edited September 5, 2019 by Tommy T.
alter content

[GeoffH]

No gear here yet, I was going to get serial numbers and email PARA next time I was back in Australia and then bring my Yaesu FT-991 HF rig, a power supply, LDG auto tuner and wire antennas when I return here.  So probably have gear here February or March 2020 maybe?

Our house here is 3 stories high and there is an unused room with a small balcony on the third floor which I was going to use as my radio ‘shack’ location.  So height isn’t a problem.  But we’re fairly close to a major high voltage transmission line so I might have problems with power line noise.

Mainly thinking about HF although the 991 does have VHF and UHF capability.

Although... given what I’ve read about VHF and UHF here maybe I should leave the FT-891 in Aussie and just bring the Icom IC-718 (and other stuff) here.

Edited September 5, 2019 by GeoffH