Transmission1

PMR channels are being used with 4 watt baofengs and 25 watt base stations over here. Everyone and their dog is doing it! They mount up ham antennas tuned to 446, or they go up to the mountains and hills with a baofeng. Even hams are doing it!

I found this out one day when I had my radio for communicating with a friend during a car-boot-sale then suddenly "HELLO HELLO LOOKING FOR SOMEONE FROM THE PMR3 GROUP OF VALENCIA" (In Castilian of course), then after speaking to them he informed me of a hilltop near the city and there I went and made my first contacts as far as 40km! The guy who organises the group has made contacts as far as 200+km to Barcelona and the Spanish Island of Ibiza on a regular basis on a mere 4 watt baofeng! Butter my arse and call me a biscuit!

From videos I'm seeing of Italians on YouTube, it seems like something very similar is going on over there too.

May PMR become the new CB! (But without the rude obnoxious twats )

it wa sinevitable that once the cat was out of the bag, this kinda thing was going to happen.....

Of course it means legit users won;t be very happy!

Ho-hum, I can't complain, I've used 446 more than 11m this year..... and mostly on my 706mk2g

MrWeetabix wrote:it wa sinevitable that once the cat was out of the bag, this kinda thing was going to happen.....

Of course it means legit users won;t be very happy!

Ho-hum, I can't complain, I've used 446 more than 11m this year..... and mostly on my 706mk2g

The PMR pirates seem to stick exclusively to channel 3 and occasionally 5, and it also seems to be a pretty common courtesy to use the minimal Tx power possible and to not interrupt any local comms you happen to hear! So thus far it seems to be fine. 446 sure seems to be more active than 11m, probably because most of the users are on walkies

the real headline here is "ITALIAN RADIO OPS USE MINIMAL POWER AND TRY NOT TO UPSET OTHER USERS"

It's almost fake news

Good to hear that the spirit of the hobby is still alive and well though :-)

Haha I was talking about the spanish users specifically, No idea about the italians other than that they also fling about baofengs on 446