Ham Radio-Technician Privileges: What You Actually Get to Do

0:30Hey, it's Propcom's podcast, I'm Caleb and I'm recording the podcast episode live here like in my space. So if you're watching on YouTube, you're seeing what I'm talking about and if you're listening, you can go see it at YouTube. It's terribly incredibly boring and you can see how much I'm really concerned about that. Anyway, hey, I'm back, it's been a little while, still cold in the upstate but we had a really nice fake spring for like a week. This is the fourth episode where we're talking amateur radio, ham radio and I wanted to get into the privileges as a technician. Now we just had the big last episode was the big talk about when we were talking about the test and got some thumbs up and I got some thumbs down and all that, it's fine either way. But you got to take a test to become a technician.

1:31It's the first test that you have to pass, you do have to pass them concurrently. So you can't just come in and take the third level of exams, you have to take the first test as a tech, you have to pass it and upon completion either that sitting or whenever you choose, you can go take the general license exam, which is the second level. You pass that one at the same time or the next time you will to test, you take the third level, which is known as extra. Back in the day, there were a lot of different levels. So anyway, there's just three levels now, technician general and extra. I'm a general class licensee. Two reasons I'm not an extra one, I'm lazy and I don't care a whole lot about the minuscule amount of privileges that are available with an extra license and two, I don't have to be known as an extra to feel good about myself, although some people are and do and it just doesn't matter to me, I don't have the time to study for that, it's the smallest bit.

2:34So I'm not going there. I may one day, I'm not saying no, I'm just not going to do it right now. Anyway, so if you're unaware, all right, the technician class licensee holder has some privileges within the amateur radio hobby. And for a lot of people, it's all they really want. Now, it is an entry level exam, it is an entry level license, but it doesn't mean that it's weak or underpowered or what's the use or immediately have to get the general things like that. So it's really probably the most underused license in the hobby in the set of three that are out there. And here's the reason why a lot of people get their technician license and they never progress and they only know what they have seen or had experience with. That is the, I don't have one in here, the Balfan radio for 16 bucks on Amazon and they

3:41take that and they get on their repeaters and they talk to a couple of ham club guys and realize, hey, this is really not for me. I just have 16 bucks in a radio and maybe 30 or 40 bucks in the test. I'm done and they bounce and here's the reason why is because they don't understand and you may be listening and not understand the power that your technician privilege is give you. Now, the reality of the license is, yeah, it's limiting. I like to say it like, think about your technician license as a license for your region. Okay. So with a technician license, let's just say in South Carolina, I can talk around the upstate of South Carolina into, into Western North Carolina, maybe into Northeast Georgia from where I'm at with a technician license pretty easily with the local repeater systems. There's other things I can do. But we're just talking just, you know, just the periphery here.

4:44But a lot of guys don't know that there's a lot more you can do with your technician license like get on HF radio with a Morse code or maybe on 10 meters HF or 6 meters HF and make contacts at distance. So both of those 10 and 6 can be used regionally, I will grant you that, but they can also be used for DX, which is long distance contacts or maybe even coordinating your buddies around if you want to do something a little different than the typical two meter walkie talkie. The thing that a lot of guys don't get and it's just, it's inherent in kind of the draw that the hobby brings, the people that come into it, a lot of folks that come in the amateur radio nowadays, see that you can get a walkie talkie on Amazon for $16 or so dollars and think that that's all you should have to spend, hey James, hadn't seen you

5:44in a while, they think that's all you have to spend. They think that it is anything beyond a $16 walkie talkie is too much, is asking too much, is too expensive, it's not worth it, they don't understand why they should have to pay more for anything, whether it's a better walkie talkie or a mobile radio or maybe a nicer antenna, there's a lot of questions people have and there's a lot of misinformation, a lot of bad information, let's just be frank in every aspect of our life there is, bad information out there, I'm not trying to sell you anything here, I'm just trying to help explain what it takes. One of the most important tools that an amateur radio technician licensed holder has is the ability to use the VHF and UHF frequencies allotted within Simplex operations. Simplex, as we've talked before, it's simple minus the X, you know, simple, you get the ability to talk radio to

6:45radio station to station and every bit of this requires you to have a good antenna and how many times have you heard me say antennas are very important, you can't get away from that fact, elevation will make your good antenna even better and will encourage you to always remember elevation and antenna antenna and elevation, those are the game changers in every aspect of every band of this entire service, okay, like we've talked about for everything before we got to this point, it's all antennas, it's all elevation, then it's feed line and then it's your radios, okay, so Simplex is station to station, honestly, let me just lean up here, if you're not using Simplex for amateur radio communications, you're missing out now, some of you may be GMRS users and you're like, oh, I talk about walkie talkie to my buddies, walkie talkie, that's Simplex and now with GMRS, you can have 50 watts, that makes a really

7:52big difference, with amateur radio, you can upwards to 1500 if it's required, but I've found that with a decent antenna and a 50 watt mobile radio with 30 to 50 plus feed of elevation, you can talk all around your area, Simplex, no repeaters needed, so Preppers coming into the hobby and they're like, oh man, I'm worried about an AMP, I'm worried about power going out, I'm worried about backup, power, all that stuff and I get it, I get it, I'm not trying to get away from that just to share that hey, not everything is doomy, okay, and I understand that you want to be prepared, I'm that guy, but we're not talking doom here, we're just talking about hey, let's make it work while it's working, so one, a lot of people focus on repeaters and that's great, maybe one of the negatives you may find in ham radio is the repeater, although it's an incredibly powerful and extremely helpful tool, it can be a problem because a lot of repeaters in the amateur radio hobby are kind of

8:56territorial, may I say, and you'll find that they're not just territorial because that's where they are located, you may find that some clubs may or may not like new people to use their radio repeaters, now I'm just being honest, I've not experienced that here locally to a great extent, but it does happen, and I've seen it locally to the point that sadly our local amateur radio club, at least the hierarchy or the guys that have been there longer or the long gastro, or the more seasoned individuals have decided that they, for the most part, will forego using the local two meter repeater and go over to the 220 megahertz repeater to prevent themselves from having to talk to the newbies, or however you want to describe them, now I'm not that guy, although I don't turn my radio on enough, I'm very happy to talk to new people,

9:58I'm talking to seven new people live right now, so that's me and my personality, and I understand not everybody has that personality, you may not have that personality, you may not want to talk to new people, you may want to just talk to your buddies, and if you're 79 or you're 27 it doesn't matter, I'm just making an example of what I've seen here, so don't let the repeaters scare you off, and don't let it prevent you from getting your license either, I'm not saying that's nationwide worldwide, that's how everything always is, there's a lot of good people in him radio, and those are the ones that you don't hear a lot from, the ones you hear a lot from are the ones who aren't the nice people, and that's why when you get online, or you read comments in some of these videos, or you know somebody's scals that you own the air, those particularly are the the strange birds themselves, now we call them lids in the hobby, you can call them whatever you like, just don't say the negative bad words on the air,

10:58but it's real, I'll give you that, and you may find some of that on the repeaters, but don't let it dissuade you from utilizing your privileges as a technician, licensed holder in the amateur radio hobby, now repeaters are great, we've talked about them, ad nauseam, do we really have to talk about them again, I don't want to, we've talked a lot about Simplex, you know, back in the FRS, GMRS, MURS services, just want to touch on it right here in the amateur radio section for the technicians, because I think my gut tells me as well as my email inbox tells me that a lot of new hams don't understand the the extended reach and the capabilities Simplex radio gives you with your FM 2 meter radio, now let's just be straight, you're $16 about paying, Pophung, Wookson, whatever, handy talk, you will only do so much, even with great coax, even with elevation, and even with a great antenna, you'll be surprised what it can do

12:01with those three things, but if you connect a full power, and I consider full power from 25 to 50 watts, because that's pretty much what's available nowadays, you're gonna be shocked, you're gonna be absolutely shocked at what you can do without a repeater, and more than likely there's a lot of guys who have their amateur radio license, and I'm saying guys, if you're a lady, I'm not speaking to you, a lot of folks have their license, and maybe they've never tried Simplex, or maybe they've tried it with their walkie talkie in the yard at ground level, and just got so disappointed because they couldn't talk to anybody, Simplex, but they were using a, gosh, this is a GMRS, but they were using a nothing antenna, trying to connect to somebody at ground level, and so the physics tell us that's not gonna work, all right, now you can, you can try to push your way through with a 50 watt radio with a nothing antenna at ground level, and you might get a little more performance,

13:02but it's still not gonna be anything like you want to make a contact with, so I won't encourage you, if you're a new technician, and you can, not to put yourself in a spot, I'm the guy that's like, if you have to wait to buy stuff, I get it, because when I got in, had five little kids, one income, we didn't have any spare change, okay, so maybe you stumble into a good deal, maybe someone at the club, share something with you, whatever, get a mobile radio, neither put it in your car, or put it in your house with an external antenna, and then see what you can do with Simplex, 146.520 is the frequency to use for Simplex in the United States of America, it's called the National College of Frequency, 146.520, a lot of times you'll hear people say .520, and that's what they're referring to, it's the Simplex frequency for technicians, or whoever, well, you hear a lot of traffic on there, if you'll put your radio in the frequency, and listen, that's the

14:05thing, a lot of people say, I never hear anything on the calling frequency, and they'll tune by, once every seven days, at 830 in the morning, and stay there for three and a half minutes, might be worth trying, I also hear, and I've done it as well, I drove from South Carolina to date no hyo, and made one contact on Simplex. Yeah, well, I did that, and I did make one contact, just outside of Dayton, my first year going in, actually, the second year going in, we were driving, made one contact from South Carolina to hyo, calling on the National College of Frequency, it's just what it is, but here's the deal, if you're looking to make contacts, and you don't be part of the repeater's scene, or maybe you've got that down, and you as a prepper won't something a little more less dependent on someone else's infrastructure, gives Simplex a look, it's awesome, it's awesome, it really will shock you what it can do. Now, the thing about the repeaters,

15:10we know that they give you coverage, they do require power, of course, they gotta stay going, and they work like a champ until they quit working, I also can speak from experience there, with our friends at our local club, Hurricane Helene comes in, I got the little mini column set up in the living room of the house, the wind's blowing 60 miles an hour for like four hours that day, and the repeater was working great until the repeater's sight loss power poof, it was gone, it took us two days to get somebody to get the backup repeater working at a different location, but it happens. Luckily, there were other repeaters in the area, we could use them in chat, but most everybody was so busy, excuse me, just trying to survive the aftermath of the storm down here, we weren't necessarily worried about what our buddy was gonna do because the golden corral was closed. So, don't put too much, I guess all this is to say, don't put all your eggs in the repeater basket as a technician, there's a lot more to what you can do, excuse me, and looking

16:13at this, I don't even know that we're gonna have time to go through the whole thing, it would just one call because man, there's a lot you can do. So yeah, repeaters are great, but also learn how to use Simplex. Simplex is gonna be great for you if you have a bunch of elevation or you have a great antenna with some elevation and a full power radio, okay? For instance, a friend of mine, Anilmer, Gary, K8HID, lists 45 minutes up the interstate from me, almost in the North Carolina. Back in the day, I had an 11 element directional antenna, all the top of my barn at about 20 feet. I pointed it at Gary's house, he pointed his at me, and we could talk like it was an intercom on two meter FM Simplex. It's great, that's a long way to go, very long way to go, but the antenna made the difference and the power definitely helped. All right, so again, elevation and antenna matters, you've got to have those, you've got to have

17:14that in place, which leads me to my next point, digital and packet radio for the technician. Now, don't, don't fret, I'm sure there are plenty of videos out there if you want to talk about slow scan TV, moon, bounce, EME, all these different things, and whatever, all these other things, I'm talking about practical application for ham radio inside the preppers fear, got it? Okay, so let's talk about digital and packet radio, because technicians had the ability to do all of this. Okay, let's talk packet radio. Very simple, it's ones and zeros, this old school ones and zeros before there were ones and zeros from way back in the late 70s, early 80s, and your radio connects to a device that connects to your computer and you're able to type a message, the device makes it encodes it with some beeps and squalcs and

18:17squills, and it transmits over your radio. There are other stations that are listening for beeps and squalcs and squills, their device, their radio receives it, their device decodes it and gives you that message on the screen, and you're thinking, oh, he's talking APRS, that is one way to do packet radio as a technician operator, it's not the only way, and actually packet radio is much bigger than APRS. APRS is a version of packet radio. Is it the easiest way to get started in packet radio? Probably, most especially in 2026, maybe not back in 2014, but in 2026, APRS is your easiest way to get into packet radio. Now, here's the deal, doesn't mean that you have to just look at a map and see people driving around. We utilize APRS around here for the messaging capabilities. It's

19:18really robust. I built a bunch of digit peters where we live. I don't, I may be talking above your head, so stick with me, but there's different nodes throughout our county that I put up in here and around there, and they're able to bounce the messages around and get them to the operator on the other end. As well as you can see where people are on the map, you can see the weather conditions, it's just if you want to learn more about APRS, go check out Jason, KM4ACK, maybe the number one guy in my opinion on where to go and learn, plus he's easy enough to understand. All right, so packet radio is more than APRS, and what we're doing now locally is we're going way back to before APRS to just the dry bones packet. So before the internet, there was a thing that folks use called a BBS, a bulletin board service, and for instance, if there was a bulletin board service between you and I, I would send a message to the bulletin board service directed to you and the bulletin board service would

20:21hold onto it until you came by and said, hey, do you have any messages for me? And the service said, yeah, matter of fact, Kale, since you want, you can go in there and pull that down and read it and reply, post it up for me in the next day when I decided to get up and check, check online again, I'd get in there and I checked the message that you sent me, the reply. The great thing about that is it's simplex, but it uses nodes, you can direct your message to get even further than just your local area, and it works great. It's very robust, it's very old school, it takes a minimal amount of equipment, which we're not going to discuss here. Matter of fact, let me refer you to the tech prepper. Gaston did a great service, a great teaching series, I should say, in regards to packet and BBS working. You can do that over HF as well as VHF and UHF, but this is not the place for that. I'm not the guy, I'm just explaining the possibilities for you. So check out the tech prepper and K

21:24for ACK, they can both educate you in those regards. Here's the thing, the packet radio service, the service of packet radio inside and with your technician license will give you and your compatriots, friends, Fellow Mag Group, guys, whatever you want to call them. It'll give you a way to communicate without having to speak. It's a very robust service, so that a point that your voice may not make it through, the packets may make it through, and then you can pass messaging there. It's very fast to send and receive a packet message, and again, it doesn't take a lot in 2026 to make it happen. I'll go so far as to say, right over there, are two brand new UV50 pros from G BTEC. I've got three now. I love them, by the way, and they're going into my life and my

22:24daughter's cars, and the reason I put them in there because the microphone is basically the radio, but at any time I get in either of those vehicles, I have the ability they do too with their technician license, have the ability to send and receive messages with the radio through the radio without having to speak to anyone. Also do win, link, email, all these sorts of things, guys, but here's the deal. I want to talk to Prepper into things, but I'm not trying to make it do me, so just bear with me for a second. Let me see the best way to say this. You hear a lot about mesh-tastic, right? You can do that with an amateur radio license up to, gosh, I can't even remember maybe 50 watts or something. There's a certain level of power that's afforded to do UHF transmissions for data like that with the amateur radio license as a technician, but there's not a lot of people on those frequencies because everyone that's doing mesh-tastic

23:24are doing it in a 900 megahertz band and enjoying the encryption and all that. And that's great, especially if you live in an area that has a concentration of that service. Now this video is not about mesh-tastic. I'm not here to beat it down or tear it up. I mean, I've already tried it. It didn't work, but I live way out away from everybody and it takes a lot of brute power to get my messages to someone else because of someone else's that can get and receive and I want them to receive the messages. Live, you know, 45, 50, and I want to have a way from here. So we have no mesh-tastic infrastructure here, so we have to use a higher power and older school kind of method in what we end up with is packet radio. But if you're watching the mesh-tastic videos, Combs channel, Madgurico, if you're watching those videos and you're comprehending what they're teaching you about the mesh radios and how they pass the messages along,

24:25that's basically packet radio for 2026 with ultra low power and ultra high frequencies. That makes sense. So if you've got an idea about what mesh-tastic or mesh-core or whatever that is for you, if you understand that, that's packet radio from back in the 1970s. And some of us where we live are better suited to use the packet radio than we are, the mesh-core, mesh-tastic and those different types of brands. I've dropped a bunch of names. I probably need to put those in the show notes, but it was KM4ACK, the tech-prepper, and the Combs channel and Madgurico. So make sure you check out all those guys. They can help you with these different things I'm talking through today. I'm not getting in the weeds. I don't have time for all that. So for me personally, as a technician licensed holder, in the preparedness realm of things that we're talking about here, I would definitely want to encourage you to one spend time with Simplex. Get your head,

25:32get your equipment around operating Simplex. And that's going to allow you to utilize the digital modes and packet a lot easier and more efficiently than without it. So digital, the packet stuff is Simplex. So if you have a good Simplex station, no, I'm not an extra. I'm still just a no-code general. I think it's what we used to laugh about, but I've never taken the test, not even given much time to the steady James. I'm responding to comments, by the way, if you're curious if I'm just rambling off to some random voice in my head, back to packet radio is Simplex. So if you can work out Simplex for a voice, you'll be able to crush packet radio on two meters or 440. So for me personally, if I'm using my technician privileges, I'm a general, but if I'm using my tech privileges,

26:35I'm learning to focus on the digital and the packet end of things and the reason being, as a prepper, those are the most robust and least infrastructure-dependent modes that you can operate on outside of just Morse code, single-side ban. But most people don't have either of those equipment or the training for that. Packet radios, very easy to establish, especially again, with the GMR, are the UV50 Pro radio from BTEC and the woad app or whatever airmail or whatever it is for the iOS users. Here's the deal. Simplex radio and packet, it's the power that you don't even realize you have. And people are like, well, that's, you know, I'm not even trying to do that. That's fine. You don't have to. But for me, it's so incredibly powerful. We use it every day. And I've got more stations coming online because it's that it is that powerful. And anyway. So gosh, I'm already, I've exceeded my time. And I'm not even a third of the way through the list.

27:41Technician class license holders. Your license is enough. Okay. I don't want you to think that oba calls them just a lowly tech. I can't do anything. I've just got the stupid walkie talkie. I can't talk to anybody. The local hand club guys remain or whatever. No, no, no, no, no, no. You can build a very strong redundant and resilient system locally for you and your like-minded friends with technician licenses. Okay. So you and your buddies, I'll get your tech. Y'all can build a crazy strong communication system that doesn't have to depend on anybody, right? Now, we'll get down to the HF and stuff later when we talk general and extra class. But here's the deal. If you're a prepper, you want to be able to make strong communication links to your fellow like-minded preppers. And you don't want to be dependent on a repeater, whether it's GMRS or, you know, amateur radio club powered, then you guys need to really focus in on simplex and digital type

28:47packet modes. Okay. I got a lot more to talk about. I just released a new book yesterday. And it's about how I almost crashed my family thanks to prepping. I'm still a prepper, but I don't even like that word. But if you want to check it out, there's a link in the show notes, as well as maybe you've watched this and it's alive. So it hadn't been great. I'll apologize. But maybe you've watched this and you're like, you know what? I would really like to have the capacity Caleb's talking about. And I want to get my amateur radio license. There's a link in the show notes below. It's to my free 30 30 challenge. Basically, I help guide you through how to get your license. I'm not teaching you. I'm not providing a service for you to to be able to do that. I am offering you daily encouragement. We're checking in with you. We're making sure you're good. We're showing you where to go. How to go. What to use? How to get ready for your test? Where to go step where to go? Take your test. All those things are in there. It's free. It's the links in

29:49the show notes. The 30 30 hand radio challenge. I've gotten a lot of great results. Since I've introduced it to everybody else, my son used it and he got his license. So anyway, I hope you guys are having a great day. Thank you guys who have joined me live. Again, shout out to James. You know, here's the thing. Let me just, I'll throw this in since James is here in the chat. Man, this was back in the full time, 360 days. It must have been 360 at that point, but it was a field day. I went to the local hand radio club field day, which is an event that anybody can attend. Anybody can go. It was at a fire department up in town. The hand club had gotten there and would set it, set everything up. We're ready to go. This guy comes in. It's a big tall guy. I've never seen him before. I didn't know who he was. He introduced himself as James and James was there. We had a good time. We were hanging out talking to the podcast at APRS and

30:50ham and all this stuff, you know, and turns out James was at the time. He was a truck driver and he had stumbled into the podcast and found himself at our local, our local here in South Carolina. He's from California. He stopped by our local field day event. It was great. It was awesome to meet him and catch up. He got it had a great time. Eventually got his license. He's on the air. He was a mobile operator. He's a truck driver when he was driving. Anyway, I just say that to say this is a very small world with a lot of good people in it and no matter. This is one YouTube guy talking to another YouTube guy. No matter what someone else on YouTube has told you, this guy on YouTube is telling you that there's a lot of great people involved in this hobby. There's a lot of great people. Not everybody sucks. The majority of us want to see the hobby grow,

31:50the service grow to be able to help other people whether you are a prepper or not or whether you want to talk over satellites or whether you're just interested in having a hot spot and doing voice over IP with a walkie talkie or you know, maybe you want to go up and start talking on HF and make worldwide contacts and chase DX stations or maybe you want to go to the park like HOA ham radio. I mean just pick something. There's so much to do but here's the deal. We all want to see you do well because one or two people had a bad experience. Don't let that be your bad experience. I mean I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't want to. I've been doing it since 2014. Talk about some opportunities to have some bad experiences. I've had plenty of still going and I'm encouraging you if you have the knack, if you have the desire, if you need the best backup communication system available for someone who considers himself a prepper, then I've just explained it to you. It's ham radio. All right guys I'm going to go

32:54twice as long as I'm meant to go. I'll apologize on behalf of all of you sitting through this but I wish you well. Hope you have a great day. I've got to find the stop button around here somewhere and we'll see you next time. God bless 73.