#36c3 will be my first visit to Congress. Tips and tricks for a n00b like me are welcome although I'll be going with some seasoned veterans 😊
@graffen I'll be there. Quite new to ham radio, but I've been to several congresses. Happy to connect :) DO8AB
@abrain cool! Will you be bringing a radio?
@graffen yes. A 2 m / 70 cm FM handset for sure, and probably my portable HF setup. The parameters you listed above are DMR only or could I also reach you with my FM handset?
@abrain that's DMR only but I'll probably listen on 145.500 analog as well since that seems to be the "official" calling freq in Europe. What are you planning for an HF antenna? I'm just planning on bringing my Anytone this time since my baggage space is limited.
@graffen Great. I have a WhizzLoop v2 to directly attach to the radio. Haven’t tried TX yet, but heard several stations across Europe even indoors. And if all goes well, I‘ll receive an external sound card today that I can hook up to the HF radio for digimodes. Really curious to try out FT8 and others over the weekend.
@abrain The WhizzLoop is for QRP operations right? You should be able to make some contacts with it still, though. It'll be interesting to see what the noise floor at ccc looks like. At BornHack I got 9+30 noise consistently on all bands due to all the cheap Chinese switching power supplies running LEDs all over the camp :)
@graffen Yes, it’s for QRP. And I was worried about interfering with other devices during TX 😄But you are right, there could be quite some noise around. Worst case I‘ll do HF only from the hotel room.
I‘m a bit confused by the second paragraph here: https://events.ccc.de/congress/2019/wiki/index.php/Static:ROC But I would be surprised if you could not bring your ham radio equipment.
@abrain I hope you get a chance to test it on-site as well. I'd be interested to know how the band conditions look :) Maybe I'll bring an SDR in my laptop bag so I can at least look at some waterfalls.
@graffen Gave it a first try yesterday, and I'm even struggling at home :D Part of the problem is that my Novice license doesn't allow me to use the 40/30/20 m bands. In combination with the WhizzLoop I'm stuck on the 15 and 10 m bands, which seem not to be widely used. Tuning the WhizzLoop is also a bit tricky. Have to give it a few more tries on the weekand and also on the roof :)
How many license classes do you have in Germany? Here we have 3. D, B and A. D is for 70cm/2m/6m, B opens almost all HF bands but at limited power (100W max) and A is the full license. B corresponds to CEPT Novice and A is the full CEPT license.
@graffen We have two: A and E. A is the full CEPT license and E the CEPT Novice license. With the license class E (call sign begins with DO) I can use the 3cm/70cm/2m/10m/15m/80m/160m bands with limited power.
@dude @graffen Oh and here is the full list of bands and power limits for Germany: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/afuv_2005/anlage_1.html I'm already thinking of upgrading my license next year :D But first I'll see what I can do with the current limitations, that's probably more interesting and challenging.
7poXTV3gf-EJQw.jpg