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Message: <blockquote data-quote="m0lsx" data-source="post: 155183" data-attributes="member: 29323">What do you want to do? I am not fully familiar with the American licencing system, but I believe you can only use 10 meters & up at the Technician level. But I am not sure what the power limits are for your classes of licence there.And you really do need to know what you want & what you can legally do, before you buy. 10 meters, (28 to 30MHz,) just above CB frequencies, are  great during the summer. I often work the New York repeater on low power (5 to 10 watts) from here on the east coast of England. The NY repeater use to be on top of one of the twin towers. Sun spots run on a 11 year cycle & currently we are at a low, so 10 meters is not great. But we still get odd days of decent activity due to other things happening to our ionosphere. 50 Mhz, (6 meters) is another good low power summer band due to the condition of the earths atmosphere during the summer months. I have worked Poland from my car using a small antenna & just 2.5 watts. But again this is not a every day thing, just a when the ionosphere is right thing. 2 meters & 70Cm (144MHz & 433MHz)  are for me pointless, other than for working the satellites. A small handheld radio & a small homebuilt handheld antenna can get you into these for well under $40 if you buy a second hand radio & are creative with the parts you use for the antenna. If you simply want to chat to people, then if you have a VHF or UHF repeater within range, a simple & cheap far east handheld can get you onto those bands for $20 secondhand & if you want to use digital modes then for under $50 if you look around. I can legally use up to 400 watts here, with no limit on what I can do with antennas. And antennas can make a big difference. But I often operate at low power. It is possible to work a million miles per watt, using morse code, but on voice, you are lucky to work a decent % of that. Although I know someone who has worked 14,000 miles on a voice mode from a battery powered 10 watt radio set within a backpack. so 1,600 miles per watt & that using a small compromise antenna attached to his backpack.Take a look at the following she is well worth watching.<a href="https://makezine.com/projects/make-24/homemade-yagi-antenna/" target="_blank">https://makezine.com/projects/make-24/homemade-yagi-antenna/</a></blockquote>

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