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[VE7TGT]

    I live in a apartment - 3rd floor. Where underground parking has 7' clearance. Antenna limitations - which fold able UHF/VHF should be used. 

2. I need two equipment - one at home and one in truck. I am mostly in remote forest roads where there is no cell service - how to communicate back home ?
I am in BC-Canada
Please help !

[K5LXP]

So how much antenna clearance do you actually have?  I wouldn't use a folding antenna at all, I'd use a quarter wave 2M whip (which will work OK on 440) or a short dual band whip, both of which will easily flex going under a low clearance. 

No idea what "equipment" you'd need to communicate "remote" to "home.  You'll have to come up with some specifics.

Mark B.
Albuquerque, NM

[VE7TGT]

I passed exam yesterday.

My clearance is 7 feet.

Equipment I mean is - if handheld is applicable on any two requirements? Spent good deal of a day and found that Handheld may not be a good idea.
So what are options available with basic certification.

ID-5100A ? [ I read on this site ] - with https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/dmn-k9000lrmo will be good for truck ?

My main purpose was to communicate back home - and I understand someone back home need to be licensed too - thats ok.
mostly I am within 200-300 kms distance but would like to have good equipment which can cover more as I drive out of province too. [ Hunting, camping ]

Hope - I explained my scenario well..

[KA4WJA]

VE7TGT,
Welcome to the wonderful world of the Amateur Radio Service....i.e. Ham Radio!
I'm sure you will love it, and grow into, and learn a lot....and, have fun.

I hope you don't mind some friendly / helpful (but very blunt and direct) advice and answers to your questions....because it might sound harsh, but below are the facts!


1)  The issue of a 7' antenna height clearance for your truck antenna is a rather moot point for your question....'cuz what you wish to accomplish is all but impossible, using the equipment you mention.  (But, read below for ways that you could make this communications work....and, yes, if you bend a long whip over, in an upside-down U shape, it will fit in/under a 7' clearance garage...)

 

2)  As I understand it, in addition to participating in all the incredible aspects of our wonderful service / hobby of ham radio, you desire to communicate from your 3rd floor apartment to/from your vehicle (truck of some kind) when out on remote forest roads, mainly over distances of 200 - 300km (150-200 miles)?  Yes?

You are not going to be able to do this with a handheld ham radio / VHF-UHF "handie-talkie"!  This is not possible (unless by some miracle, there were a series of repeaters / linked-repeaters along your routes / remote forest roads, that were also connected/linked to repeaters in town near your apartment...and, even if all of those were installed and available, it would be a one-in-a-million chance you could reach them with a handie-talkie.....in short if this were the case, there would already be much infrastructure along those routes/roads and there would already be cell service.)
So, this is not going to be possible, at all!

Although, if there were some good, wide-area-coverage repeaters in your area and along your entire route/path, there is a slight chance that a couple "50-watt" VHF radios with good antennas, might make some contact....
I have no idea what type of terrain you're driving thru....nor what, if any, VHF Ham repeaters are available along your route....but, my guess is it is VERY doubtful this would provide the communications you desire. 



3)  However, if you were to equip both your truck and your home with HF radios and antennas, to cover both the 80m and 40m ham bands (and possibly 60m, etc.), and had good low-noise-level receiving at your home (that is a challenge, especially in an apartment!), then you could be all-but-certain to be able to maintain contact from your home to/from your truck, along a 200-300km route, along remote forest roads.

The type of communications you'd be using is called High-Frequency Near-Vertical-Incidence-Skywave (or HF-NVIS) comms....which generally takes place between ~ 2mhz and ~ 9mhz (although freqs as high as 12mhz are used in certain areas of the world, primarily by gov't/military), and along paths/ranges from ~ 20km out to 300-500km...

It would be rare to be able to use the same band / same frequency both daytime and nighttime, along the entire route/path, so provision needs to be made to have a "primary" and "secondary" band/freq pre-determined...

(also, be aware that much longer distances can be covered using the same equipment, depending on time-of-day and selection of band/freq, antennas, etc....we can get into those details later, if needed)

The details of this equipment, especially the antennas needed, is important....and, I will give you more details if you desire (but, I sense that you are not fully aware of what this will entail and are probably not well-enough experienced with HF Radiowave Propagation to grasp the intricacies of the "whys" and "hows", yet..) 
So, I'll just give you some very basic info here:

--- For both your home and truck, you'd need a decent modern 100-watt output HF radio....(depending on make/model, etc. figure approx $1000 USD each, for a total of ~ $2000), in addition at your home you'll need an adequate power supply to power the radio (~ $200 USD)....

--- Antenna on truck can be a simple 102" CB whip (or a longer one, if possible), fed with a remote tuner/coupler such as an Icom AH-4....(figure on ~ $400 for all of this).....and, you can bend the whip into a big upside-down U shape, by feeding the base and pulling the tip down with some rope over/across the top of the truck to better produce radiation as close to straight-up as possible.

--- For your home....you will need access to the roof of the apartment building, or even much better access to some trees a way away from the building, that you can run coaxial cable to....and build/install a 40m/80m "fan-dipole"....trying to get the feedpoint 30' - 50' above the ground, keeping the 40m wires no more than 30' - 40' high, but getting the 80m wires as high as possible (keeping them below 70' high)....(figure on ~ $300 - $400, plus any mounting supports/hardware, for the antenna wire, balun, insulators, coax, etc....depending on where the antenna are installed)

Adding this up....figure on $2500 to $4000 USD, if buying new equipment and doing all the installation / wiring yourself.

BUT....

But, the single most important part of the whole system is YOU and THE OTHER PERSON (at home)....you both must be licensed hams, and have a decent understanding of HF Radiowave Propagation, HF communications procedures, etc.

So, you see it is do-able....it just isn't do-able the way you initially thought!



4)  If the requirements above are too much, then you other option is Iridium sat phone....an Iridium 9555 phone, with car-kit, etc. will set you back ~ $1000 - $1200 USD, with airtime of ~ $1/minute....a simple mag-mount "puck" antenna on the roof of the truck, connected to the phone in the truck, and you're good-to-go for world-wide voice calling and SMS/text messaging 24/7/365, to/from your phone!  Easy-peasy! 
(the 9555 battery will last a few days on "stand-by", waiting for a call....or you can power it from the 12vdc of the truck and/or charge the 9555's battery from the truck)


FYI, in addition to having ~ 50 years experience studying and using HF radio / HF Radiowave Propagation, etc. etc....as well as mobile operations (mostly HF maritime mobile and VHF ham mobile....but some of both and the other, too), I've also owned/used Iridium for many years now... 

I do hope this helps?   (and, if you desire more details, ask)

73,
John,  KA4WJA

[G4AON]

As mentioned by another reply, a commercial satellite phone sounds like a good idea, both from the ability to keep in touch and to be able to call for assistance.

However, as this is an amateur radio forum… over the distance involved and the limitations of operating from an apartment, you are going to have an uphill struggle. Forget VHF/UHF, again as mentioned earlier, you need HF. Depending on the time of day, either 40m or 80m.

Antennas will be a big problem at the apartment, if you have a balcony it may be possible to fit a mobile whip to a metal hand rail. Out in the sticks, a fibreglass mast supporting an inverted V dipole should put out a decent signal for those distances, but your apartment antenna will be an issue, it will have poor efficiency and may pick up a lot of noise, plus it can cause interference.

I used to work an amateur who was limited to 25 Watts and could only operate on 80m and, I think, 15m, on HF due to his basic licence. To make matters worse, he lived in an apartment. His antenna was a mobile whip on a balcony rail, the radio was a Kenwood TS-480SAT. We used to work each other most days on 80m in the evenings over a 700 KM path between England and Germany. My setup was an inverted V dipole. We used Pactor 2 and 3 with SCS modems, and despite some deliberate jamming attempts by RTTY stations running QRO on top of us, we had solid QSOs.

While typing on a laptop might not be what you had in mind, let alone the significant outlay on equipment (if considering Pactor modems) data transmission really works reliably with marginal signals.

There is also the amateur Winlink system, this network operates 24/7 worldwide for email exchanges using mostly Pactor for the longer paths. The Winlink system was designed to provide reliable email for amateurs in remote locations and sailors at sea. There are dozens of stations providing the network and several servers. You can see on a map active users who choose to give their positions.
https://winlink.org/

You could experiment with soundcard data modes, for a low cost data alternative to the hugely expensive SCS modems. FLDIGI is free and has Olivia mode which is pretty effective for direct “ragchew” QSOs.

Plenty to research and experiment with.

73 Dave

[K1VSK]

 

My main purpose was to communicate back home - and I understand someone back home need to be licensed too - thats ok.
mostly I am within 200-300 kms distance….

Putting aside all the rhetoric, you can’t do this reliably with ham radio, either HF or VHF. Buy a satphone.

[VE3TMT]

The Canadian Basic Certificate does not allow operation below 30 MHz unless he has CW endorsement.

TGT congratulations on getting your license. Unfortunately you will not get the range you are looking for on VHF/UHF.  HF will get you there. Are there any repeaters along your route? That would increase the range.

[K5LXP]

Clearance in this context means the distance from the top of the truck to the top edge of the parking entrance.  If it's 6" or more, a V/U flexible whip will work fine.

There are linked repeater networks in Canada just as there are in the U.S..  Whether there's one near you, and between there and where you want to go is another question.

Another possibility is one of the digital modes - DStar, DMR, Fusion, et al.  If you have access to one of those, then you'll have access to the network which is usually worldwide.  Time spent with a repeater directory (Rfinder, RepeaterBook, et al) will give you an idea what analog and digital options you might have.

Mark K5LXP
Albuquerque, NM

[WX7Q]

 

My main purpose was to communicate back home - and I understand someone back home need to be licensed too - thats ok.
mostly I am within 200-300 kms distance….

Putting aside all the rhetoric, you can’t do this reliably with ham radio, either HF or VHF. Buy a satphone.

https://www.mobilsat.com/the-best-satellite-phone-globalstar-vs-inmarsat-vs-iridium/

If you are in an area with mountains and valleys, Iridium has more satellites overhead. (66)

Immarsat needs a view to the Southern Horizon. (3 on the equator)

You should also look at a Spot device or an Inreach.

https://www.findmespot.com/en-us/

https://discover.garmin.com/en-US/inreach/personal/

HTH

WX7Q
Jim

[VE7TGT]

Thanks everyone ...u guys spent so much time to help me out.
Learning curve- someday- I may be able to help someone.

I understood- not only i am total novice [ I am from MED background and wifi is Computers/Banking ] and ofcourse equipment- installation and then expertise to operate was a big challenge- so I am going to buy Iridium SAT phone.

I have to buy a handheld for FOREST ROADS of Canada so that I can communicate on those frequencies posted on trailheads - logging trucks !

I Thank you once again to all of you. Issue Solved !

God Bless !

[WB6BYU]

British Columbia has some excellent repeaters, but whether or not they
cover the area where you plan to be is best answered by local hams.
You might ask for assistance from one of the local radio clubs.

I knew a ham who had just 5 cm (2 inches) of clearance between the
top of his truck and the bottom of his garage door when it was open.
He used a 1/4 wave flexible whip for the 2m band that simply bent over
when it hit the door on his way in or out.  When I worked in the mountains
for the US Forest Service, 1/4 wave whips (about 50cm or 19 inches)
were all they used on their vehicles: they were nearly as good as longer
antennas, and much less prone to damage when hitting branches.

However, a critical component of the calculation is how reliable you need
the communications to be.  There will always be spots where you don't
have good coverage with any system, but we could generally drive a short
distance to a bit of a hill and get out.  In one case, I needed to call a
helicopter to pick up my crew at the end of the day, and, while I was
behind a ridge from the repeaters, I could contact the dispatcher
directly on my handheld radio - after climbing 10m (30 feet) up in a tree.

If you need guaranteed 24-hour accessibility from anywhere, then ham
radio probably isn't the ideal solution.  If you just need to check once or
twice a day at your convenience, it becomes more practical, although
certainly not guaranteed.