Chile Forum

by **admin** » Mon Mar 07, 2011 12:55 pm

Is the Icom IC-7000 really the same radio, with new bells?

by **El pescado** » Mon Mar 07, 2011 2:48 pm

nerdplanet wrote:Actually , ham radio in chile is pretty dead , ive been into radio since i was 8 , there more registered amateurs than ever , but many of them are what we call "radionecesitados" they have a valid radio liscence but they use radio for other purposes rather than experimentation , like taxi drivers and truckers that you can hear on the lower portion of the VHF band , if you turn your HF radio early on the morning , thing i do allmost everyday on my vehicle , you will only hear the argentininan stations on 40 meters , but no chileans , thats basiclly because they tend to cluster on VHF , a bad practice , cause VHF is only local , Used equipment prices are insane , what 600 USD for a 30 year old radio ! just check the infamous Zona12.cl , i actually use CB for commercial things , i have my liscence for CB , about 4200CLP and a form that you have to fill in subtel specifying make , model , power , antenna , use , if its mounted on a mobile , plate number etc , then they give you a small receipt that says "licencia en tramite" , and dont forget that here in Chile SSB is the norm , you can actually have a AM radio but will be practiclly useless , Truckers are on the CB channel 30 , Civil defense monitors CH9 , but all on SSB , mode used here is USB , but if you want a real radio system try to get something like a VX1700 from Vertex they usually cost 450.000 CLP from Equirad.cl or Zona12.cl and are very rugged , that kind of radio can be coupled to a broadband antenna like a Barker and williamson or a copy of it ,they offer broadband foolproof operation , actually getting a ham radio liscence is actually simple , you have to fill a form from subtel.cl , study for the test , and call Osvaldo acuña , who is in charge of the linscence dept of subtel and book for a test at the subtel building . i have my liscence and if anyone wants to contact me call CA2VMP in valparaiso on 146.120 FM or 7095khz LSB .

Good to see you on here nerdplanet. You need to PM me your direction so I can ship that power supply equip. that I was saving for your lab. I know you sent me the test on another link but I have been to lazy(& to tight to buy a radio) to take the test. Next time I´m stateside, I will pick one up to bring down.

by **admin** » Mon Mar 07, 2011 3:15 pm

Yea, I think I am going to bite the bullet and study for the Chilean one in Spanish. I ran through some of the online test in English, and without studying anything was able to get like 60% in the States. But after looking in to trying to get a foreign license, and then get the guest license here, I decided it would likly just be far easier to go for it in Spanish.

Besides, when it counts, I am going to need to able to talk the talk in Spanish and network with operators inside the country. Building those connections before a distaster hits will be worth the extra time.

by **El pescado** » Mon Mar 07, 2011 3:27 pm

When we DO get our licenses and equipment, we should consider working on some sort of warden system or contingency plan just for the relay of info & to provide help to those in need. I know most of my info I got after the quake was from nerdplanet which he got via his ham but that was only because we had cell service

by **admin** » Mon Mar 07, 2011 3:58 pm

Well, here is a sketch of my "someday" ideal plan involving ham radio, based on what happened to us after the earthquake and the communication problems and needs.

Be able to operate a station from Southern Chile, that at least gets me local in country communication with everyone, then be able to route communication out of the country. Ideally to our servers in the States or elsewhere, where it can be pushed out to more conventional means of communication.

By this I mean, goal would be to for example be able to broadcast messages to the forum via ham data transfers, or the other way around.

Still very very in the preliminary planning and wondering stages, but if I can get text messaging at least up and running internationally and patch local communication problems, then I think we can patch both for our clients and larger community emergency communication to bridge the lack of information that expats in Chile suffer after such a disaster (i.e. being out of the local loop on news and communication).

Again, just a preliminary goal, but so far my research has turned up that none of that is technically impossible.

If I can get my linux computer via ham radio, able to send text messages that can be routed back to the internet, I can do most anything I need to do.

In the first hours after the earthquake, we had to send text messages by sms to Santiago, find some family members that still had internet, and have them relay messages to the forum.

What if we could already have a gateway for expats and others in Chile setup to handle all the normal communication infrastructure not working?

by **admin** » Mon Mar 07, 2011 4:03 pm

Besides, it would be incredibly geeky and fun to setup an expat ham radio network in Chile. Think about posting to the forum from a ham radio in the Patagonia.

by **nerdplanet** » Sun Mar 13, 2011 11:12 pm

actually there is some thing that can bridge internet to ham radio , is called the AX25 protocol , all you need is an HF radio , a working node , and lots of time properly configure it and surf the web at the awesome speed of 9600 bauds ! , ohh there is one thing more , there are libraries for linux AX25-utils if my memory is right . also there is sea mail that is a HF mail service very useful if you are in your yacht .

by **admin** » Mon Mar 14, 2011 8:42 am

wow 9600 baud, is that the internet super highway everyone keeps talking about? Likely faster than my flaky claro connection on a good day.

That is more than sufficient. I come from the generation of computer users that remember 9600 baud as being impressive speed. I manage servers in the states and at my office by ssh off my blackberry now. I can reinstall an entire operating system while fly fishing in southern Chile. Just did an update to my secretaries computer while walking my dog in a cow pasture the other day. With text, and / or email (and linux) there is very little I can not do.

There is a pile of good software for managing ham radio with linux (ham radio the orginal open source project), and the configurations are not that bad (as that sort of configurations go). The trick is to setup dead drop email accounts with triggers as email is mostly stateless, then write scripts to parse the email and perform tasks. For instance, I could send an email to an account, and have it parse the email text and post to the forum (there is software out there I have considered installing on the forum for general use that does this already).

I use a simple one right now for my security cameras at our office. It sends an alert email to private email address on my blackberry when it is triggered, that triggers an alarm on my black berry. I have a bunch of other for instance that monitor when this web server goes down, and does something similar to let me know there is a problem.

I don't expect to be watching u-tub videos, but then in an emergency I would not be watching them anyway.

by **patagoniax** » Mon Mar 14, 2011 11:55 am

admin wrote:Besides, it would be incredibly geeky and fun to setup an expat ham radio network in Chile. Think about posting to the forum from a ham radio in the Patagonia.

Just think of it.

Chile Forum

Re: Any Hams Out There?

Re: Any Hams Out There?

Re: Any Hams Out There?

Re: Any Hams Out There?

Re: Any Hams Out There?

Re: Any Hams Out There?

Re: Any Hams Out There?

Re: Any Hams Out There?

Re: Any Hams Out There?

Who is online

Need Help In Chile?

Phone From Outside Chile: 1-917-470-9653 ( USA to Chile)
In Chile Land Line: (56) 65 421 024
Cell Phone 747 97974 (From a Cell Phone in Chile dial with no other numbers)

Chile Forum

Who is online

Need Help In Chile?

Phone From Outside Chile: 1-917-470-9653 ( USA to Chile) In Chile Land Line: (56) 65 421 024 Cell Phone 747 97974 (From a Cell Phone in Chile dial with no other numbers)

Phone From Outside Chile: 1-917-470-9653 ( USA to Chile)
In Chile Land Line: (56) 65 421 024
Cell Phone 747 97974 (From a Cell Phone in Chile dial with no other numbers)