Frustrated over my new "hobby" of ham radio

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for some reason there are hardly any translators in my neck of the woods. neither for radio.

There are sites that list the TV stations in your area like www.tvfool.com, www.rabbitears.info and www.antennaweb.org and for radio, www.radio-locator.com. I know there are a few translators around here, WTRF has/had one, I did receive it on a good day but I get the main station so there is no need for it in my case. It was around channel 28, UHF. I only get two VHF stations and that's it. I do miss PBS though, I always liked the local WQED produced programs about the Pittsburgh are, my favorites are about the history of the area and the documentary about the French and Indian War, for you Europeans and elsewhere, The Seven Years War. It was where Colonial George Washington led troops to Ft. Duquesne, later Ft. Pitt and shots were traded with the French and the war started. In a way, it was the first true global world war, from those shots, battles were fought in the Straits of Malacca, India and elsewhere.

BTW, back in the old analogue TV days, Pittsburgh had a second PBS station, WQEX on channel 16 (WQED was on 13). Back in 1953, there was a UHF station, WENS on the air briefly on channel 47. I think New Castle, PA wanted WENS after it closed down but never happened but WQED took the old transmitters and it kept on going. WQEX broadcasted only in black and white, even as late as 1986 when the transmitter gave up the ghost. It was the last all black and white only TV station in the U.S. It came back on the air almost a year later, finally in color. Before and after, WQED was basically like a broadcast version of Britbox, mostly British TV shows. I remember Mom always loved to watch "Red Dwarf," she always laughed hysterically at that show.

^^^wow i had no idea there were stations in monochrome in the 80s! i wonder what their Nielsen numbers were?

I don't know but it was popular with the people who love British TV and the Dr. Who crowd. WQEX was run on a shoestring so they basically kept using the old early 1950's equipment until it could do no more. I know the parent station, WQED went color in 1969, the early Mr. Rogers shows was filmed on videotape in black and white.

if they were videotaping in monochrome, that tells me they weren't even using a quad machine, but mebbe something closer to a sony portable. had no idea about the monochrome mr. rogers either. during the anniversary of his death they were showing clips from the old shows but i don't recall if they showed any of the monochrome ones.

Mr Rogers basically when national in 1967 although he was filmed in Pittsburgh. I was on his set once although he wasn't there at the time, my father was an industrial and commercial photographer and he knew a lot of influential people at the time so we were on his set at WQED. I was hoping to meet him though but he was not there. I used to watch his show religiously from that time, I just turned 53 on July 8th, I was born in 1966. At that time, we only had a 1959 Philco black and white TV so everything was black and white to me. It even had no UHF tuner. I know at that time, it was called NET for National Education Television, a forerunner to PBS, I think NET became PBS in 1971 with that famous bumper. Mr. Roger went color in 1969 I think and that same year, Sesame Street rolled out, it was in color. I also remember "The Electric Company," came out in 1971 and it starred a young Morgan Freeman.

Hmmm, I know WQED was given old equipment that KDKA-TV did not want or need anymore when they upgraded from the early 1950's. I do remember WQED having a late 1950's era Ampex Quad 2 inch videotape machine in one special WQED did in the 1980's and the host was saying how they try their best to keep the old equipment running. I'm sure they had the 1 inch Sony's you mentioned, they were very popular and I remember my father using them too. I remember in grade school (1973-79), sometimes we would watch taped off the air TV programs on the Sony 1 inchers, sometimes we would see the old show "Big Blue Marble" about people around the world or holiday specials like Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving and Christmas, of course in black and white. The school did have a color TV or two but we mainly used the old Setchell/Carlson 21 ich black and white TV's designed for academic use. In junior high, we his have VHS and the 3/4 inch video cassette format, we watched the musical "1776" on the latter.

So Mr. Rogers was in black and white until 1969. I do have a link to one from 1967, it does not look too clear although I've seen an episode from 1968 that was so clear, it looked live, even if it was black and white. I've seen tapes from the late 1950's that looked so crisp and clean, they still look like a live TV program and those few in color from that time, the colors look so dang good. I'm amazed at the quality.

Mr Rogers, 1967 - https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2r4wun

^^fascinating! your jr. high school was more advanced than my high school, we didn't have VCRs in ours or even VTRs. we just had 16mm projectors. no tv sets in the classroom. btw, happy birthday

Well, we still used 16mm projectors for most things and even filmstrips too although as time went on, VHS became more common. I graduated in 1985. I remember when I went to 7th grade in 1979, the school only had one computer, a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I. It had 16K of RAM, a thermal printer and a cassette drive to save and recall programs. The tape ran at 500 baud so it took almost forever to load. You put in the cassette for the desired program, type CLOAD (Cassette LOAD) and hit enter. Then you wait.... wait..... go to bathroom...... wait.... grab a pop from the icebox..... wait...... do homework...... wait.... and finally it is loaded. It was a fun system though and in many ways, I prefer the computers of the 1975-85 era over today, back then it was easier to write your own stuff and you really had to get "you hands dirty" so to speak and when you see something you made run and perfectly fine after many debugs, it was a good feeling. Also, with limited memory, you had to be able to code your programs into the machine and have not only enough memory for the program but enough "scratch space" for it to run. We used to type in programs from David Ahl's (of Creative Computing Magazine fame, He's still out there, he's around 80 now and still active) books of games in BASIC and there were times we had to rewrite them to save memory so they would run plus I had a TI-99/4A. TI-BASIC had differences from standard Applesoft/Microsoft BASIC so we had to convert that to run in the TI. TI also handle strings differently, but it was nightmare to convert them but when you're done and you can do it, it was a good feeling.

When got to high school, we had a lot of Apple ][+'s, a few //e's and eventually, //c's (the portable version). I remember in November of 1983, a full two months before it was released in January of 1984, we got hold of an Apple MacIntosh. My teacher had connections. The school's computer lab though was based on the TRS-80 Model III's hooked up into a master Model III, later Model IV. That network was fast and very good, but the only downside is if some doofus hit the reset button on their terminal, you had to reboot the master III/IV to bring everyone back. It drove Mr. George crazy. Still for it's time, it was great. The school got an IBM-PC/XT in 1983 for the guidance counselors, many of us at the school's computer club wanted to take a look at it and the head of the department, Vice Principal Alexander said, "if any of you touch that system, I'll break your arms!" Well, that put a kibosh on that so we went back to our Apple's/Commodore 64's and mix of TRS-80's and Ataris. I miss the old days of 8-bit and early 16-bit (my TI-99/4A was among the first 16-bit computers, first came out in 1979).

^^^those sound like heady times. that was about 6 years after my day, i was still back in the stoned age. i figure i was born either too early or too late to be at the right time and place for too much stuff. anyways, i wonder if anybody else here struggles with not being able to hear AM radio because they live in a tin can [mobile home with metal skin on the outside].

Interesting! There’s an am station my husband likes and we have a hard time getting it in the house. The house was built around 1870 and has two layers of metal roofing and some layers of shingles in between. The walls are plaster and lathe, with wood wainscotting and drywall over that. Wood and vinyl siding. I don’t get good reception on my iPhone either, but I did with my Blackberry.

fascinating about the blackberry getting reception but nothing else, i wonder if the blackberry used a different frequency?

Ha ha, not trying to derail the topic or anything...I know nothing about ham radio aside from its a thing some people do. Anyways though when me and my sister where young teens had a couple walkie talkies, and we picked up the radio of some semi truck and talked to the driver and passenger for a bit(a lot of times seems semi trucks just have one driver, but perhaps sometimes they send two people to switch off) and that was kind of cool.

those hadda be some old walkie talkies, to have the CB frequencies on them.

I had a pair of those too, they operated on CB channel 14. Those were fun to use although they did not put out a lot of power, something like 100 Mw or a tenth of a watt. Even so, I did manage to have a few QSO's (contacts) with them.

the "new" [after 1977] walkie talkies operate on 5 frequencies in the 49 MHz band, at about 10 mw output, using frequency modulation. they are clean-sounding [low noise when within 50 meters or so]. it is illegal to replace the fixed 1 meter antenna on the transmitter, but perfectly legal to separate the receiver from the transmitter and use a full-wave elevated 6 meter antenna for the receiver or even a rhombic antenna, to boost the reception power many-fold, out past a mile. i am wondering why there aren't more hobbyists playing around using this setup.

I think there are some who did modify the 49 Mc walkie talkies for 6 meters. I'll have to look around in the old "Ham Radio" and "73" Magazines but I'm sure you can find articles for that. You can use any antenna as long as you're running on 6 meters (and a licensed ham of course), if you do it on the original band, you're correct, it would be illegal. It's like the BaoFeng walkie-talkie I have, the UV-82L, I can transmit in FM mode on any frequency from 130 to 175 Mc and 400 to 520 Mc but as long as I use it in the amateur radio bands and also if on the river in a boat, the Marine bands, it is OK. I think you can run it on the non-licensed VHF freqs in the 151/154 Mc area but beyond that, the other freqs are off limits unless you have the business to use them such as if you are a first responder. Some constables and firemen do use them because they are so cheap. You have to be very careful when you program them, double and triple check that you're in the assigned ham radio bands and/or the freqs you are allowed to use, you can fire them up on a military freq if not careful. I bought mine in January 2014, I always wanted to get onto 440 and I was depressed after Mom passed in November of 2013, so I bought it for less than $50. Those BaoFengs are a good way to get into ham radio cheap, just be careful when you use them and program them, it is better to use the computer link and software to reduce errors. There are some that are also 2 meters and 220, one has all three, 2 meters, 220 and 440. I wish they make a 6 meter one though.

I'd like to get a hold of a 10 meter handheld, the name escapes me though. I also use a Radio Shack HTX-202 as well, it is only 2 meters.