1. Making The Most Of Your Handheld
By Nicolas - M1HOG

2. Introduction
Disclaimer - Nothing in the talk is warranted as accurate, optimal or indeed sensible.
Objective - Encourage people to make full use of their Handheld radios.
Discussing - Equipment, Location and Operating

3. Equipment Know your Handheld Features and operation – 2m/70cm/6m/4m,
Scanning, Tone scanning, Memories, SSB RX, Bands 2m/70cm/6m/4m
Power - 5W really does make a difference.
Batteries
GM4SXX - 1)ALWAYS buy spare batteries (or dry cell packs) If you use and charge your handy every day, a battery will last approx 2 years. Dry cell packs are better still because you can swap the stock 1.3aH battery in many radios for a 2.7aH one at less cost (all in) than a spare battery. For the FT-60 I have one stock battery (never used), and a pair of 2.7aH DIY replacements.  They are bit heavier than the stock battery but last twice as long.
Rechargeable batteries voltage
Lithium rechargeable batteries – subject of a future talk

4. Equipment Antenna GM4SXX -
Ditch the stock rubber ducky and buy a proper aerial.  A flexy 1/4 wave whip is usually ideal.  You can buy a Nagoya one (a good Japanese.. made in China brand) from EBay China for well under a tenner (any fitting). A decent aerial makes a big difference, and although a Nagoya Dual band aerial for the FT60 is quite long, with the radio in an inside jacket pocket, the whip can be folded over your shoulder under the jacket. I usually trail the speaker mic cable across my chest and down my right sleeve, and clip it to my wristband for convenience. I've worked a 53 mile path from a reasonable location on low power with ease using the Nagoya whip.
Adapter to use with magnetic mount and antenna on your car
Manuals and Cheat sheets – Web
Repeater lists – Web RSGB site
GPS – For Maidenhead position and a track back to the car when lost!

5. Location
Around town, Hotel, Norwich multi story car park Hilltops If possible know your Maidenhead Square, SOTA, WAB etc reference.
60 mile plus range. Remember not everyone on a hilltop will appreciate you shouting into a handheld!

6. Location

7. Location

8. Location

9. Operating Simplex Repeater (IRLP, EchoLink) Summits On The Air
Monitoring other frequencies
Satellites - Over to Alex…
Contests
APRS
Simplex Operating
Contact from one station directly to another
Don’t think that 2m FM calling frequency is dead. But, only call a couple of times at a time then come back to it later. Many people monitor
Contacts on the 70cm calling frequency seem rare.
For some reason /P always seems to attract more interest than /M
Give your Maidenhead Square, SOTA, WAB etc reference. Answer or tail end anything you can hear, as from a hilltop you are often a bigger signal than you might think.
Logging can be a challenge

10. Operating
Complex Repeater!

11. Operating Repeater Operating
Understand the scan and memory facilities of the radio, for both frequency and tones. Or have note of the repeaters you might reach. But, often repeaters close by are not accessible and very distant ones are! Can be very handy to know CW to identify repeaters
I have heard French repeaters on several occasions but never worked through one.
IRLP, Echo Link – Internet linked repeaters

12. Operating
Echo Link
IRLP, Echo Link – Internet linked repeaters

13. Operating Simplex Repeater (IRLP, EchoLink) Summits On The Air
Monitoring other frequencies
Satellites - Over to Alex…
Contests
APRS
Summits On The Air
SOTA, WAB etc - Know your SOTA, WAB etc references
Monitoring other frequencies – Airband, coastguard, Broadcast FM, even shortwave

14. Operating ISS Satellite - Over to Alex…
1. Satellite communications are a very diverse area, anyone who wants to learn more about it should attend one of those AMSAT-UK meetings. They are traditionally held at the University of Surrey where I worked for 10 years in the 90s. UoS owns lots of ham radio satellites as well.
2. A sat is a repeater in the sky. It could be a digital repeater (BBS, APRS, or simply a digipeater) or an analogue repeater. It is very hard to fly cavity resonators and likewise heavy crap, so all of them are cross-band. The most popular arrangement is 70cm/2m, which is what can be achieved with a hand held as well.
3. The mode is called V/U, The uplink (ground to sat) is UHF ( ) and downlink VHF ( ) for the International Space Station (ISS), other sats: see AMSAT pages. Because the mode is crossband, duplex is possible; in fact it is necessary!

15. Operating Doppler Satellite
4. The reason why duplex is necessary is called "the Doppler shift". When a moving signal source approaches you (e.g. police siren) the frequency drops at the receiver end, and it goes back up when the source starts to move away. This effect is insignificant at VHF compared to the FM bandwidth
(6Khz) but it becomes three times that at UHF, which requires adjustment. Usually you can hear yourself on the downlink and you must continuously tune the uplink to stay on the frequency (i.e. so that others can hear you on that very frequency).
5. So it is very easy to monitor, not so easy to QSO. All you need to monitor a sat, say ISS is a VHF handheld. You can hear the bird on a flimsy quarter wave vertical. Use the web page for real-time tracking and prediction, and when you see that the bird is close ( km from your QTH) turn your radio on at the VHF frequency mentioned in point 3 and amazed you will be. If you plan to be /p, print out the prediction and watch the clock. Sats are never late: planetary mechanics are precise unlike BR trains.
6. Working the bird is little more difficult. First of all you need a portable yagi, say the "Arrow", which is hand held and is designed for this purpose. See
for a demo of portable operations. Then you need a V/U mobile (of which there are plenty) and lastly you should program various Doppler shifts as channels so you only turn the rotary thingumabob on your radio as the bird makes its way overhead.
7. there are plenty of birds up in the sky, the technique is a bit tricky but it makes it interesting and if you can learn it then you have guaranteed contacts within about 3000km hand-held, if only in a rushed, contest style.

16. Operating Simplex Repeater (IRLP, EchoLink) Summits On The Air - etc
Monitoring other frequencies
Satellites - Over to Alex…
Contests
APRS
Contests
There are some contests where you might make FM contacts. Summer lift can also open up interesting UK / European “DX” and 2m FM pile ups.
APRS
Automatic Packet Reporting System

17. This presentation is available at
Thank you !
This presentation is available at
Nicolas