How Belgian legislation discourages HAM-radio

1. After passing the practical exam in your local HAM-section, the theoretical part of the exam only takes places at the BIPT offices in Brussels
2. You require an operating certificate, which allows you to use a radio.  The allowed bands and transmission power depend on your HAM-license.  This license allows you to use radio equipment, not to own it.
3. If you own radio equipment, this must be registered, resulting in a station permit.  This permit only allows you to own radio equipment, not use it.  Station permits are only distributed to people with an operating certificate.
4. Costs:
   1. Theoretical exam BIPT : €50 (includes operating certificate for first five years)
   2. Operating certificate renewal : €25 (5 years valid)
   3. Station permit : €51 (file cost) + yearly €51. 

So if you own only a single €100 VHF-UHF handheld, you'll have to cough up €50 for it every year.  That's only for owning it.  If you want to use it as well, that'll cost you another €5/year.  This will surely turn out to be a very expensive HT in the long run.

HF

• Choose the right SDR
• SDRplay RSP1A is a PITA to setup in Linux.  Luckily someone has the hard work for us already and created install instructions.  You'll also need the binary driver from the SDRplay website (Version 2.13.1 on FEB 2021).  It worked only once.  After that, the RSP1A was detected in CubicSDR, but it no longer became active.  I had to delete the ~/.CubicSDR/ to get it working again.
• GQRX seems even more of a hassle to setup in Linux with this unit.
  • In Windows there's SDRUno which is easy to setup, but it's complicated to work with. SDRUno is for advanced users.

RTL-SDR:

• Hardware extensions for RTL-SDR

Antennas

• PA0RDT Mini Whip Antenna and a note about grounding. You can buy an SMD version online.
• flower pot / sleeve dipole / T2LT antenna (TechMinds, Fred in the shed, CB DX antenna)

11m & CB-band

Allowed TX-settings for CB (without license): 12W SSB, which corresponds to 48W AM.  See more legal info here.

VHF/2m/144MHz-band and UHF/70cm/440MHz-band

• Hackaday : The $50 Ham
• Dave Casler KE0OG

Radios <€100

PMR446:

• Midland G9 Pro C1385 LPD/PMR
  • popular for airsoft
  • PMR446 + LPD433
  • 0.35µV sensitivity (@12dB SINAD), 70dB adjacent channel rejection
  • headset only costs €3.64 on AliExpress.  This can be cut to allow for connection to an audio interface.
  • has accessory port for mic and speaker pinout

Ham:

• HamShield on Kickstarter
• Other HamShield on Tindie
• Which BaoFeng Radio Should I Buy, Are There Better Options?!? | HAM Radio Crash Course!
• Handheld Radio Comparison & Review
• Yaesu HT Deep-Dive, which is the best?
• Top 7 accessories for Baofeng UV-5r ham radio

Baofeng UV-5R	Baofeng BF-F8HP	Yaesu FT-65
most popular spurious emissions bad menu interface AliExpress €22 (might be conterfeit)	3rd generation of UV-5R AliExpress €30 (might be conterfeit)  Buy through Amazon links of HamRadioCrashCourse	Inside review seems to be an improved Baofeng UV5R (uses same chipset) newer version of FT60 TX power: H = 37dBm M = 34dBm L = 27dBm 0.2 µV sensitivity (@ 12 dB SINAD) M-plug style (earpiece) spec sheet Hamshop.nl €86 DIY programming cable

Antennas

see more on 434MHz antennas.

What can you do with it?

Satellites (if you attach a high gain antenna)

• When does the ISS pass overhead? (145.8MHz voice down-link from satellite)
• $50SAT Dropbox info
• What amateur satellites are currently passing over?

Commercial FM stations

• 88-108MHz
  

Listen to extra info during cycling races

Belgium : 164.63125 MHz & 160.10625 MHz, both channels are 12.5kHz narrow-band FM.  It wouldn't be Belgium again if it didn't require an extra license : €25/year.  Set the Yaesu FT-65 to 6.25kHz frequency steps.

Local repeaters

• List of repeaters world wide
  

Modem & TNC

• minimodem Ubuntu package
• Mini-modem with RPi
• RadioShield (RTTY, Audio FM)
• linpac & direwolf
• soundmodem Ubuntu package
• FDMDV modem
• TNC
  • NucleoTNC
  • OpenModem (improvement over MicroModem): ATMEGA1284P
  • Arduino KISS TNC
  • ESP32 TNC
  • Arrow TNC
  • LightAPRS

Packet radio

• APRS-map
• APRS and the UV-5R
• Frequencies :
  • Europe : 144.8MHz

Weather

• NOAA (geo-stationary above Americas)
• NOAA weather satellites: better to use an RTL-SDR dongle and a circularly polarized antenna.
• NOAA weather bulletin : US territory only :-(

Marine VHF radio

• wikipedia
  

LPD433

• wikipedia : 69 channels, FM-voice, 25kHz channel spacing

PMR446 (€U), GMRS (U$ & Canada)

• Private Mobile Radio, 446MHz : "walkie talkie"
• license free (only using type accepted radios, which the Yaesu FT-65 and the Baofeng UV-5R are NOT)

Paging systems

• POCSAG (might be more easily implemented using an RTL-SDR)
• In Belgium, ASTRID uses pagers on 169.625MHz POCSAG1200 for emergency services and fire brigade.
• It's illegal to listen to these frequencies.
• Relive the 90s with a Ham Radio Pager! POCSAG!

Unknown signals

• 137.21250MHz S10-strength: Lenovo Thinkpad after Linux has fully booted.