My mobile future

   My current project is making preparations for my new mobile arrangement. I've ordered a 45W UHF monoband mobile (CS-800) that operates on analogue and DMR. 

  I've never had a "real" mobile rig, instead using various HTs connected to various exterior-mounted mobile whips for a long while. Then, I put the Leixen VV-898 in my car about a year ago. It's a 10W dual-band rig that's worked okay for local use and even road trips. Most hams would sneer in derision over such a feeble mobile setup, but I actually spend very little time in my car, so I don't need much to reach a few favourite local repeaters. 

  Using DMR, however, has made the deficiencies in this mobile setup painfully clear. My DMR HT (CS-700) doesn't really reach the 442.425+ repeater at the East Bank campus of the University, though it receives very well. It's only a ten or fifteen mile distance in my driving range, but the de-sensing of the repeater's receiver from the MARA UHF remote link demands a stronger signal. Also, UHF coverage is highly dependent on topography. In a year or so, the situation should improve considerably with the addition of the Dayton site and the use of new frequency pairs on the other two sites. Even with the potential for improvement, I'd really like more reliability in my UHF coverage -- both for DMR and analogue. Improving my mobile rig is something that I can do on my end, rather than waiting for others to make my life easier. 

  Making a change like this has required me to think long and hard about the various trade-offs, and about what I really want and need in a mobile setup. The CS-800, as I said, is a monoband UHF rig. It will most likely let me get into most of the metro UHF repeaters reliably, wherever my local travels take me, but I'd be giving up two-metre FM entirely in my car.  

  For a lot of hams, that would be a big deal-breaker. For my uses, however, it's not that much of a sacrifice. My 2M FM activity is almost entirely limited to the 145.450 HandiHam repeater in Minnetonka and (to a much lesser extent) the 147.000 repeater in Maple Plain. And, as I mentioned, I don't really spend even two hours in my car total over the course of a week. My (very infrequent) road trips would be the major consideration, as VHF rules outside of the metro. My experience over the past three years has been that these rural and out-state 2M repeaters are pretty dead, though. On a camping trip this past Spring, I went to a fair amount of trouble to reach the Rush City 145.330- repeater from the campsite -- only to discover that there was absolutely no activity on this machine over the course of the entire weekend. In the same situation (where I hung a roll-up J-pole from a tree and ran it into my 10W mobile), a 45W UHF mobile would have allowed me to reach the (linked, but similarly dead) 444.575+ UHF repeater in Hinckley. 

  There's something to be said for having 2M FM simplex capability when travelling outside of the metro, of course. A full-powered dual-band analogue rig would cost about as a much as the monoband DMR rig, after all. Hence, my dilemma. I reconciled this by realising that I could always put my Leixen dual-band in the stash box on road trips. 10W isn't much on two-metre FM -- just about enough to get you laughed at -- but it would be better than nothing. Plus, I could leverage that with a beam when I was stationary if there was sufficient local VHF activity to warrant it. My tape-measure Yagi doesn't take up much space in the trunk when it's broken down and folded up. Even if I didn't want to bother with the Leixen, I always take along a 5W dual-band HT on trips. Putting a dual-band whip in the trunk isn't much trouble.

  So, with the infrequent road trip scenario addressed, I came back to the issue of local use. The state of local UHF repeaters has improved a lot over the past three years, though activity hasn't improved in a commensurate way. There are linked Fusion machines on the band that will soon provide continuous coverage almost up to Mille Lacs Lake. The local 442.075+ repeater links to the entire State of Wisconsin, as well as reaching the metro widely. There are several wide-coverage UHF repeaters, including the ostensible "emergency" repeaters. More importantly, the local UHF scene is still growing, while the local two-metre FM scene is locked into stagnation. New UHF machines can still be added, linked, and improved. Nothing will change on VHF in the foreseeable future, other than at the margins. 

  Here in Plymouth, I'm at the edge of the UHF world, however. Locking myself into one band is a gamble. The 444.375+ repeater in Plymouth is pretty much the western edge, and there's virtually no activity on it, though it has good coverage. The HandiHam 444.925+ repeater is not easily reached, and the 444.650+ machine has "issues". I could live with losing access to the (nearly dead) 147.000 2M machine, but giving up the 145.450 would be a sacrifice. 

  The solution that I've settled on is a bit unconventional. My plan is to add 1.25M capability with an HT that can go in the stash box. I may add a second mount in the future for a monoband 222 MHz whip, but for now my scenario is swapping out my UHF monoband whip for the monoband 1.25M whip when the need arises. I've been testing access to the 223.940- (100.0 PL) from my common routes, and the results are quite good with a 5W HT. The 223.940 is linked to the HandiHam network, so it's as if I'm accessing the 145.450 machine. Of course, this arrangement would also allow me access to three or four other nice 1.25M repeaters with good coverage in Plymouth. Yeah, those repeaters are dead, but somebody has to make the first move to make the 1.25M band viable locally. It's possible that one or two of these repeaters could be made cross-band in the future, too. The 1.25M FM band is wide open with more than fifty empty frequency pairs, affordable repeater solutions available, and more user radio options than ever before. 

  The only thing that I see in the future for the local 2M FM scene is more and more consolidation into two or three repeaters, with the remainder sitting unused (except for nets). The disdain for linking, EchoLink access, cross-band, and actual conversations is making the band irrelevant. Additionally, the insistence on a full-quieting signal as a requisite for a 2M FM QSO is slowly turning it into a swamp of boring elitists much more concerned with the rig an operator is using than what they actually have to say on that rig. Of course, "it's not everybody", but it doesn't need to be "everybody" to make something irrelevant. Most of the people who own two-metre frequency pairs are locked in to a world that only exists in their own minds and memories. I'm still hopeful that N0FKM (Dan), N0YNT (Matt), N0BVE (Don), the Richfield Radio Club (W0RRC), and the minds behind the K0MSP repeater can still do something innovative locally with their VHF frequency pairs, but the challenge is largely one of resources and time. 

  I'll still have access to 2M FM at home, of course. It's easier for someone like me to gamble on an unconventional mobile setup, and DMR figures largely in that picture. I'm choosing a path of future potential, and betting on the local amateur community to create the future-proof infrastructure (cross-band and linked networks, particularly) to make this kind of move viable.