Understanding Meters vs Frequencies (3 Questions)

[4WattBill]

Greetings all,

Been away due to personal issues and . . . been studying my butt off to train for Tech License. Assume that you can hear my head pounding from wherever you are with all the info I've been absorbing, because it is. For reference, my current equipment (so far) is at the bottom of this post.

Quick prequel, this is not a "what radio should I get" or "what antenna should I get," I have several viable candidates in mid.

Question 1:
I have been up, down, around, and through understanding the concept of meters vs. frequency (and amplitude, all that.) This question arose when I mentioned to a VERY good vendor I was interested in setting up a home station. "So you mean 2m /70cm?" This threw me, I did not have an answer, and have been investigating it since.

I know you can derive frequency from wavelength by frequency = speed of light / wavelength, and wavelength wavelength = speed of light / frequency, what I'm not getting is why some of these devices are described in terms of meters (like 10 meter radio) and some in frequency. Many of the frequency charts I see don't even have "11 meter band" listed, which I am guessing is the 40 channels in CB band. Articles that try to clarify it basically say "some people talk about it in meters, some in frequency," seemingly arbitrary. Can anyone provide the magic key to getting this?

Question 2:
I have read up on various bands and the times of day they are most active (3 3 3 rule as opposed to 3-3-3, for example) as well as the frequencies on those bands. While it sounds like 2m /70cm would give me access to much more involvement and higher potential of DX, the problem with that is this would require another antenna. The Sirio will support the 10 meter band. Would it really be worth the effort right now to get another antenna and go with 2m /70cm (or something else) or stick with 10m for now?

Question 3:
This question is a two-part, mostly directed at @Bozo because he is in my geographic area. The other thing I'm reading is many of these bands and frequencies will vary with geography, read lots of articles on this. So to @Bozo, in your op what is most active in our area? Second part, I see the local ARRL meets 1st Thursday of the month 7pm, do you ever go? I'd hate to show up and buy an overpriced pizza to find no one attends.

Summary: At this point, I'm leaning toward 10 meter because I can use the current antenna without suffering the wrath of my "financial manager." They are also more - ahem - economical compared to 2cm / 70cm, but if I've learned one thing, I need to stop throwing away money (the SWR meter is an example, should have gotten the nanoVNA in the first place.) I'm sure in a decade or so I will have collected much more and probably have a ton of antennas sticking out of everywhere, but for now I'd just like to make some actual contacts and begin using this equipment.

Current Equipment:
- HOME Cobra 29 LTD classic
- 50' coax to antenna
- Workman lightning suppressor, tuned
- Sirio Boomerang A, base appx. 24' up
- 8' bonded copper ground at base of mast
- #6 ground wire bonded to house ground
- #12 ground wire from coax to bonded ground
- SWR: under 1.5

- MOBILE/TRUCK Cobra Ultra 6 in vehicle (rebranded mini)
- 18' Coax
- 4' Firestik FS (it fits in the garage!)
- Workman Bandit noise filter on power line
- Direct 2A fused battery connection
- All grounds solid to frame
- SWR: barely over 1.0

- Workman SWR meter
- NanoVNA H4 4" screen

I have confirmed these are indeed functional, put the wife at the home station and drove away. I got 3-5 miles before it started to fade, mostly because . . . .
Environment: suburban, lots of trees but we're on a slight incline from the valley (i.e., definitely not optimal)

[MDYoungblood]

Wow,, good topic! I'll try to give it a go.

1. Frequency is remeasured in wavelength. To get the optimum distance they (back in Marconi's day, and he was Italian), meters were used in the mathematical equation formula. The second part is you won't find a lot of ham instruction manuals talking about 11m band. The base setup answer by the vendor was because you probably mentioned you were studying for your "Tech Exam" hence the 2m/70cm. BTW, I studied for the "General" and took both exams the same day.

2. Propagation (skip) does better on the lower frequencies, 160 to 6m, very seldom does VHF and UHF skip but there is that rare occasion called "Tunneling".

3. I would say the ARRL is a source for information but don't guarantee it is right. Since Covid a lot of clubs have folded up. You could try locating a repeater club by checking out RepeaterBook.com for some close by hopefully.

Yes we all did the SWR meter thing and everyone upgraded to bigger and better, that is why CB stands for " Constantly Buying" and Ham, "Haven't Any Money"

3's

Greg

[De_Wildfire]

This is a great topic, I'll take a crack at it.

The way I see it, the vendor knew you were going to shoot for your Tech license and he assumed that you were going to start out on 2m and 70cm which many of us started out. I started out with an HT (Hands Talkie) hooked to a power supply and a Cushcraft AR-270 vertical hanging in the attic. Later I bought a dual band 50 watt mobile. Those bands are line of site and if there is a temperature inversion, you will get "short skip" maybe a few states away or more. Think of early morning skip coming in over your favorite FM station and it sounds like static and you try to tune it back in. You will hear other stations trying to come over during this inversion. Locally, line of site you can get greater range on VHF compared to the 11 meter cb band or 10 meters. The vendor assumed you were going to start there because there are a lot of repeaters and many hams to connect with especially when repeaters give you huge range. The vendor overlooked the 10 meter band which you will add to your station later when you branch out like I did. Once you pass the test and start talking to people that have stations, you will want to add a HF radio. 10 meters will act like CB. I use 11 meters 28.385 LSB and listen for the skip to come in and then I go over to 10 meters and start calling. As a Tech, you will have privileges on 10 meters but limited as you study this in your book. A clean 10 meter radio will be fine with your new privileges. 10 meters is an inexpensive way to get on the radio. Later when you upgrade, you may want to get a radio with everything in it and it's called a shack in the box. We won't go into that right now. For a base, I would recommend a dual band mobile which has higher power.

When we talk meters, it's s short cut when you tell someone you worked someone on 10 meters. Now if they ask where on 10 meters, then you give them the frequency on 10 meters. If someone calls me on the phone and says 10 meters is open, that's good enough for me and I jump on there scanning up and down. If they tell me they talked to Antartica, I would want the frequency fast and they give me the frequency. You will need two antennas, one for 2m/70cm and for 10 meters. I started out with a cheap dipole for 10 meters.

I hope I shed some light on your questions. They are great questions. If you get that VHF station going, you will have fun talking to all kinds of locals on simplex and the repeaters. Everyone has something going on with HF and the new people in the hobby want to move into HF. What I am doing now with a lot of new ones, we are using the local repeaters on VHF and UHF as a "table" to come to and talk about the skip. If I hear good skip coming in on 10 meters, we will jump off the repeater and go to a 10 meter frequency and call the skip stations. Great topic here! I've been in this ham hobby for 33 years and CB for 47 years and we all try to help the new people out. The best starting place is 2m and 70cm. There are lots connections to be made with people regarding equipment and where to buy inexpensive stuff on the secondary market. If there is a better place to buy equipment, you will know about it fast on the dual band VHF/UHF radio. Think of the dual band radio as networking with people and making new friends all the time.

[De_Wildfire]

Your current equipment looks great. When you get the Tech license, you may need a cheap hand held manual antenna tuner and tune the 11 meter antenna to 10 meters so the SWR's are are flat. I'm using the iMAX 2000 vertical CB antenna with a tuner and I left it on the CB band frequencies which is resonant at 27.255. I have no problems with the tuner on 10/12 meters with it and talked all over the world on low power.

[4WattBill]

This is all great, thank you . . . just a note, using the NanoVNA I can see this Sirio Boomerang A will indeed work for 10 meter frequencies as advertised. It has a wider low SWR range for 10 meter frequencies than CB frequencies - barely a curved line as opposed to the sharp V in CB frequencies (all below 1.5.)

I probably should mention . . . I have a really back L.O.S. environment - trees, in a suburban area, etc. My other option is to move the antenna to the roof peak (2/S house) but that presents a ton of additional challenges with likely little improvemrnt being a suburban area. I've seen simple dipoles and how to make them but none of these trees have viable candidates for branch hanging (Aspens.)

Yeah I've been drooling over the shack in a box radios. Not on the radar right now.

[De_Wildfire]

I have a lot of trees with branches and I used an air cannon with a PVC projectile with thin rope, When it is falling down the branches, I yank on the line a few times as it is going down the tree until it hits the bottom. When gets hung up on a branch, I keep yanking it and it keeps dropping. Sometimes it does get caught in the tree, I have to pull it back out and launch it again. I usually can get it on 1-3 try's because of the branches. You can also use those push up poles they sell on line and put one on each side of the tree line. I tried two different types of air cannons. Don't use the double one with the fishing line reel. The fishing line is too thin and is a bear if you have to try it again. I use the straight one with the PVC and two PVC end caps glued with an eye hook at the top to tie string or very thin rope.