How do you exactly talk to astronauts and people farther away on a ham radio? How does it work.so many things
Dan asked:
Can it be done with a good handheld radio? If so, recomendations?
On a budget…
Can it be done with a good handheld radio? If so, recomendations?
On a budget…
What’s the farthest a handheld can reach?
All amateur radios, including handheld units in the 3 meter band require a license. Join a local club and get a license first. You will also get much better advice in person than here.
PS “Handhelds” don’t have a specific range because most of them on the 3 meter band key off repeaters. As long as there is a repeater you can reach, literally, “the sky is the limit”. As I said, join an amateur radio club and get some good advice.
I have talked to an astronaut in Texas and you can talk to them on the space station if they are in “range” and have a license. [By the way when did you get your license?] If you want to talk a long distance get a good inside radio and a good antenna. Distance mostly is because of “skip”. Between my husband and I we have talked to virtually all over the world. Your hand held will “reach out” if you happen to be on a repeater and the “skip ” is coming in to it” . The majority of our equipment is made by Kenwood.
Handhelds can reach almost anywhere, depending. One of our local repeater system has links on bands from 10 meters to 1.2 GHz. Using one of the 440 MHz links, I’ve chatted with England and Australia – all rf paths, no Internet.
Many repeaters are now linked into the Internet and you can access that using the keypad on a handheld. You can then connect to many repeaters all over the world. If you wish to try it out without a radio, check out Echo Link. Here is the URL:
You will need a license before using Echo Link. You’ll need to give them quite a bit of information and it can take some time before it is verified and you can connect via the Internet. Once you can connect, you can link to repeaters all over the world using your computer (and microphone and speakers of course LOL).
Best regards,
Jim