Official 2020 Silverton Colorado Planner

[Herbie]

My first ride with HondaSXS club was very enjoyable. Both myself and my wife enjoyed everything about the week. The people, the food, the rides, the location, the Hondas that didn't fail us, but most of all the good people. Made many good friends, and hope to see you all again in the next year or two, if not sooner.
Tom and Teresa

 

[Admin]

 

[wrwtexan]

Months of planning and 5 days of riding are now in the books! Thanks to all who attended and hope everyone had a good time. As group lead, my goal was to give all attendees a good ride with lots of beautiful scenery and some great trail riding experiences. I hope that was accomplished for all. Thanks to those who helped or provided for the group dinner and raffle which was a success!
Safe travels to all still on the road home.
Switch over to the Silverton ride picture gallery to post pics and see a few snapshots of what all we saw.
Thanks again to Honda SXS for a way to pull this off!

 

[Montecresto]

Months of planning and 5 days of riding are now in the books! Thanks to all who attended and hope everyone had a good time. As group lead, my goal was to give all attendees a good ride with lots of beautiful scenery and some great trail riding experiences. I hope that was accomplished for all. Thanks to those who helped or provided for the group dinner and raffle which was a success!
Safe travels to all still on the road home.
Switch over to the Silverton ride picture gallery to post pics and see a few snapshots of what all we saw.
Thanks again to Honda SXS for a way to pull this off!

Yep, you’re a veteran now captain....🤣🤣🤣

 

[Tramguage1]

Thanks to @wrwtexan and his wife Sara for the gret event. Sorry we had to leave early. We will ride together agian soon..

 

[stellarpod]

@wrwtexan, RADIOS:

• So, did you get the radio situation sorted?
• What frequency/channel did you settle on?
• How well did they perform?

Steve

 

[Montecresto]

@wrwtexan, RADIOS:

• So, did you get the radio situation sorted?
• What frequency/channel did you settle on?
• How well did they perform?

Steve

Yes, with the much needed help from @Tramguage1
467 I believe was the frequency. We had to have repeaters though. I pulled up the rear and often couldn’t hear or understand @wrwtexan when we got strung out over a mile and lost line of sight.

 

[stellarpod]

Yes, with the much needed help from @Tramguage1
467 I believe was the frequency. We had to have repeaters though. I pulled up the rear and often couldn’t hear or understand @wrwtexan when we got strung out over a mile and lost line of sight.

Honestly, I'm not so sure that 2m or 70cm FM "ham" radios really afford any advantage over classic CB in the mountains, even with their higher wattage ratings. The line-of-sight aspect of FM transmission/reception is really hampered by mountain terrain in my experience. Repeaters are a possibility, but they bring another level of complexity, what with the offsets required to operate on them. Also, a flurry of non-licensed offroaders utilizing repeaters is certainly going to raise the ire of those licensed hams who maintain and pay for those repeaters, perhaps leading to reports of violations to the FCC and subsequent action. Of course, I could be wrong...........

Steve

 

[Montecresto]

Honestly, I'm not so sure that 2m or 70cm FM "ham" radios really afford any advantage over classic CB in the mountains, even with their higher wattage ratings. The line-of-sight aspect of FM transmission/reception is really hampered by mountain terrain in my experience. Repeaters are a possibility, but they bring another level of complexity, what with the offsets required to operate on them. Also, a flurry of non-licensed offroaders utilizing repeaters is certainly going to raise the ire of those licensed hams who maintain and pay for those repeaters, perhaps leading to reports of violations to the FCC and subsequent action. Of course, I could be wrong...........

Steve

My bad, by repeaters, I meant that I had to have each rider with a radio repeat what @wrwtexan said down the line until I copied it. If I heard him myself, then I’d copy and all the rest didn’t have to repeat him.

 

[Herbie]

We were using FRS channel 12.

 

[orangecrate]

We were using FRS channel 12.

Thanks again Tom for setting my rugged radio to the proper channel .

 

[Magleto]

There was some talk about encouraging some of the members of this forum to get their technicians license. I'm on board and plan to test in October. (I wish now that I hadn't let my old license lapse.)

 

[100Acre]

View attachment 221993
Last year a few of us saw 5 moose in that far distant center field. Spectacular country!

 

[stellarpod]

There was some talk about encouraging some of the members of this forum to get their technicians license. I'm on board and plan to test in October. (I wish now that I hadn't let my old license lapse.)

I feel your pain, Chuck. I let my General Class license laps many, many years ago (N5FPI). I only retested and got my Technician's Class a couple of years ago (KI5FOE). Now, I guess I'll have to retest for the General Class. There's supposedly a facility that would allow me to grandfather my General Class status, but trying to navigate the labyrinth that the FCC/ARRL has put in place to re-obtain is an absolute pain in the arse.

Good luck with your Technician's test.

Steve

 

[Smitty335]

There was some talk about encouraging some of the members of this forum to get their technicians license. I'm on board and plan to test in October. (I wish now that I hadn't let my old license lapse.)

What is a technicians license? I applied for my FCC yesterday and got it and turned around and applied for my GMRS license and the site froze up?

 

[Herbie]

These files show the routes we took on 4 of the 5 days that we were with the group ride. I have a rearview dash cam with GPS that took front and rear videos of the entire time the Honda key was in on position. The software I used to view the video from the dash cams exported these files, that will open Google Earth on your computer, and show the routes we took on days 1,2,4,5. We did not go on day 3.
Enjoy

 

[Tramguage1]

There was some talk about encouraging some of the members of this forum to get their technicians license. I'm on board and plan to test in October. (I wish now that I hadn't let my old license lapse.)

Its on the short list of to dos when i get back home.

 

[stellarpod]

What is a technicians license? I applied for my FCC yesterday and got it and turned around and applied for my GMRS license and the site froze up?

Technician Class license is essentially the entry-level ham radio license. there are three more classes above Technician, which are General, Advanced, and Advanced Extra. Like the Technician class license, each of the others requires passing a written exam, each of which gets substantially more difficult. The tests are a mix of electronics theory and operational and regulatory aspects. Each ascending class affords the operator a broader selection of legally-useable frequency bands.

The Technician class pretty much fits the needs of offroad enthusiast, as it allows transmission on the 2-meter (144-148 MHz) and 70cm (420-250 MHz) bands. These are the bands that the vast majority of mobile ham users operate on (and therefore the manufacturers offer a plethora of different mobile radio units), although there are certainly mobile units available for the myriad other bands afforded to the higher classes of operation.

Steve

 

[Biteme]

Technician Class license is essentially the entry-level ham radio license. there are three more classes above Technician, which are General, Advanced, and Advanced Extra. Like the Technician class license, each of the others requires passing a written exam, each of which gets substantially more difficult. The tests are a mix of electronics theory and operational and regulatory aspects. Each ascending class affords the operator a broader selection of legally-useable frequency bands.

The Technician class pretty much fits the needs of offroad enthusiast, as it allows transmission on the 2-meter (144-148 MHz) and 70cm (420-250 MHz) bands. These are the bands that the vast majority of mobile ham users operate on (and therefore the manufacturers offer a plethora of different mobile radio units), although there are certainly mobile units available for the myriad other bands afforded to the higher classes of operation.

Steve

Only three classes now-days, Technician, General and Extra, recently acquired my technician KI5KMS, have been a Ham wannabe all my life but could not stand CW, they dropped the CW requirement years ago but have been a victim of procrastination since then, finally gave in and traveled to Albuquerque and tested Technician, will work towards the General next, thanks for pushing towards the legal use of the radio spectrum.

 

[TimG]

We had a great time riding in and around Silverton. Got to see some old friends and make some new ones. A special thanks to @wrwtexan wife Sarah and children for the great hospitality the meal and the breakfast. Thank you to all the sponsors as well for all the goodies. I hope Sharon and myself are lucky enough to ride with everyone again. I'm missing the nice weather already !

 

[GrnP500]

These files show the routes we took on 4 of the 5 days that we were with the group ride. I have a rearview dash cam with GPS that took front and rear videos of the entire time the Honda key was in on position. The software I used to view the video from the dash cams exported these files, that will open Google Earth on your computer, and show the routes we took on days 1,2,4,5. We did not go on day 3.
Enjoy

Thanks for sharing these files. They make a great addition to all the photos. I'm impressed.