Curious I wonder how many sales of Ham equipment goes for Out of band use.

[ButtFuzz]

Most "ham" rigs, without a lot of trouble, just do not sound "good" on AM, IMHO.
SSB is another story.

 

[jdobbs2001]

Some may Brag on bootlegging on the Amateur Bands, but it doesn't take long to figure them out.
Today's INSTANT access to every callsign database on-line, makes it tough to get by.
Many groups will have someone on board who when a callsign is given that is not normally part of the group, will instantly look-it up on one or several of the databases and check the validity of the callsign.
Then the're are some obvious give away's...someone trying to join a phone conversation by saying CQ or QSK or comment...etc... are almost always dead give-away's!
(by US rules those are unidentified transmissions)...
I normally will respond, "what's the callsign"...if not given they will be ignored!
The chronic Qsl'ers...... "What's your personal".
Now granted old habit's die hard and some new legitimate op's will use these terms, and to a point with many groups I frequent, we will make allowances in this regard for a time.
However if it continues over the course of a few days or weeks one joins a group in conversation, someone(not normally me) will call them out on it.
Now that's not to say we don't welcome new op's...To contrary, we welcome them daily!...
Most op's just expect over time that these old habit's, by listening and chatting with a given group tend to fade away gracefully.
I have caught a few over the years using the're Father's/Uncle's etc...callsign that may not be active on the air presently but when checked and find out that callsign has been assigned 50 years ago...it is not tough to figure out it does not belong to whom is using it.
So just a head's up if your so inclined to try and bootleg on 75/40 and 20m you most generally will be found out quickly.
Many Stateside op's and Dx'ers worldwide will instantly plug a given callsign in the logging program tied to the many databases before they even respond to a call.
All the Best
Gary

Bootlegging on Ham frequencies is dumb, I say get the ticket. I did not know people actually try to impersonate legit operators.. Stupid, just take the exam and get a callsign.

 

[jdobbs2001]

Most "ham" rigs, without a lot of trouble, just do not sound "good" on AM, IMHO.
SSB is another story.

The IC-7300 sounds real good on AM, tight BW

Hello All: Back I the 1980's I had a good friend who worked for Yaesu Radio in Los Angles some were. He said that they believed that 30 percent of their HF Radios went to other than the Ham Radio Market. A large majority of the 30% of radios going to the CB Single Side Band crowd.

As we all know these Yaesu HF Radios having better receivers and a 100 watts with a speech processor you normally didn't need a linear amplifier to talk all over. And there were CB SSB type clubs all over and it was very enjoyable to join in all the people on the CB SSB channels. Being able to have a high quality crystal filters in the radios with a Attenuator and a Beam Antenna, allowed you be able to reduce normal skip noise to a acceptable level, while being able to listen to the locals bad mouth you. And the normal bleed over from local stations was significantly reduced.

The VFO controlled Ham Radios allowed you to tune all over the bands, and get to listen in on the Ham crowd, and using these Ham HF Radios induced many a CB'er to get his Ham License. These Ham HF radios also allowed one to tune below and above the CB Bands hearing the locals on their "secret pirate channel" frequency that nobody else could go to, or so they thought, very entraining tho.

Jay in the Great Mojave Desert

I have seen quite a bit of IC-7200 doing duty as marine HF radios. so its not just CB, I remember when I was stationed in Africa seeing locals sporting older ham equipment to use for local communications.

 

[jon666]

its fine to own a ham rig. but do not transmit on ham bands without a license. your just looking for big trouble

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

............. I remember when I was stationed in Africa seeing locals sporting older ham equipment to use for local communications.

Africa......now there's a place that enforces communications laws. LOL

 

[jon666]

i had a ham rig way before becoming a ham. you can learn a lot just by listing .to other hams. it made me want to become a ham.

 

[BBB]

By all means get all mode/ all band Ham transceiver and just have fun with it. No better way to learn all those complex knobs, buttons, dials, connections, antennas and On-Air jargon/ lingo than to have it sitting in front of you. Study, get your ticket and join in.

On the flip side, I have noticed more and more Ham radio operators re-discovering CB radio. If the conversation is civil enough they break their silence. They are not hard to spot as they are usually very well spoken and have a clean "Hamish" lower modulated AM signal. I like to call them out and express that 11 meters is still alive and kicking. I re-enforce how nice and informal communications are on CB and how good it feels to "remember" all the comradery most had in their earlier years involving CB.

Now all they need to do is make up a new Handle and some DX numbers. How cool is that ?

 

[w9cll]

Now all they need to do is make up a new Handle and some DX numbers. How cool is that ?

Unit 997 on the the big snake 2000 flatside at 90 feet coming at ya break break break... I think I need a shower..lol

 

[jon666]

w9c11 just got down

 

[fourstringburn]

667 from the Northwest corner, wall to wall and tree top tall...73's to ya, byyyyye…bye bye bye bye, BYE…beep…

 

[Beetle]

w9c11 just got down

What are you going to do with all those feathers?

 

[Yeti Communications Ltd]

its 2018 and I started selling transceivers in 1984 (under two different company names and privately )
In 34 years of thousands of transceivers ,ham radio.cb radio,"exports" and commercial gear to radio ops a huge percentage were ham ops of the few thousand or so ham ops
I can count about 10 that asked for ham radio bands ONLY as in no expansion at all to what they brought ...

So thats alot less than 0.01% of all hams that have brought ham gear off me that has ONLY wanted ham radio legal band coverage in their radio be it hf or vhf/uhf.

Pretty am sure that other dealers have the same experience.
FYI only two cbers wanted legal 40 channel coverage in a export radio (even thou it was still multimode!) both were sold to the usa i think one of those guys is a member here

Some times you have a legal reason(as a ham) to have a transceiver expanded ..in my case my 2m/70cm and 6m transverters will not have full coverage on those bands in to the data/ssb sections of 2m/70cm/6m if I only had 28.000-29.700 mhz coverage in the driver radio

 

[jon666]

every cber in my area all use ham gear. good for me little to no bleed over on my end. im thinking if they listen on the ham bands they will get their license. hopefully.

 

[CB590]

Simple solution for me was Bank A is Ham frequencies I hear usual daily action on, and Bank B is CB channels 1-40 and a few other freeband channels..

I like keeping it separate.

I got lucky on my endfed as with the tuner set to bypass my CB SWR is about 1-1:2 across..

PA770 hollering.. lol

 

[jon666]

i wish all cbers got a ham radio to talk on
get them export splatter boxes off the air. it would solve many problems
spurs for one and bleed over 20 channels each way. life would be grand