Ordered me a radio. A yaesu FTM-100dr. It was more money than I was initially wanting to spend on a radio but I really wanted to get something that I could grow with. The main appeal of the more expensive radio was APRS reporting. Automatic Packet Reporting System. It periodically sends out small data packets to nearby receivers and reports information like GPS position, speed and bearing and reports it for free for anyone to check in on.
https://aprs.fi/#!lat=40.55410&lng=-111.94290
It will be nice peace of mind to have location tracking on my trips and the coverage is decent for Utah.
It was a hard choice between this and the ICOM, mainly because the ICOM had more features like a bluetooth controlled app that lets you send pictures and texts as well as control the radio. That plus the D-star network is more mature. When I looked into it though the app was universally hated as being buggy, plus stuff that was standard with the yaesu was quite a bit more money on the ICOM ($50 for a mounting bracket? That Yaesu gives me for free? Give me a break). The other dealbreaker was that D-star doesn’t do native APRS, it translates it from their format into APRS which doesn’t contain all the same information.
The only real bummer is that I’m still the only person I know with HAM that I travel with regularly so some of the other really cool features like distance and bearing to the radio I’m calling and sending my location via packet to them will go unused for now.
One of the reasons I got motivated to go down this road in the first place was when we did the bears ears trip. We all separated to find a campsite one night and I was have difficulty staying in communication over FRS or CB despite being only 4-5 miles away. I had to send via CB and receive via FRS to find the group in order to get a very rough signal. Granted, this won’t change for now since our group will still be mostly reliant on CB...which really is fine 95% of the time. The hope is that down the road we’ll be able to be miles and miles apart and I can send a pin to another radio user who will be able to rock right up to camp without ever saying a word or relying on the crappy cell service in these areas.
If anyone is interested my station is KI7NNK. I’m usually listening on the VHF repeater network on my way into and coming home from the office. We have a really neat repeater network that goes down to Flagstaff Arizona and up through Idaho and from Vegas to Rock Springs Wyoming. In theory I can reach southern California but I haven’t had any luck.
If you want to get into HAM...sorry now isn’t the best time as no one is currently offering an all-online amatuer license test. It shouldn’t be more than a few weeks until we have either virtually proctored tests or testing centers reopen within the guidelines set for safe gatherings.