By all means, call the police. That 'll learn em. Yep. Yep, they'll issue em a warnin' notice. That'll learn em. Yep.
Ok .. the two Motorola units have "hands free transmission" or as we refer to it VOX. Getting the radio away from the pilot's body isn't that difficult. Build a lightweight aluminum arm that runs off the frame and has a holder at the end to securely surround the radio. Here I am visualizing something more substantial than the "selfie stick". There are headsets wth noise cancelling microphones that will handle the issues of being able to hear the transmissions as well as reduce the wind noise, etc. while transmitting. Seems to me, using a helmet with flip down visor in conjunction with the noise cancelling mike will position the mike inside the confines of the helmet interior further reducing outside noises. The headset/mike combos have a reasonable cord length to the walkie talkie, so that wouldn't be an issue. The radio will be in immediate reach of the pilot allowing for adjustments in flight. The antenna is away from the pilot's body. Now, if the electrical system to the engine were sufficiently shielded, as sometimes must be done in automobiles, that should eliminate the electrical QRM. What else needs to be done ?
Jim. you really need to go out where some of us are flying, get a good look at the equipment and chat with the pilots. The resistance against anything like what you've described is extremely high. I suggested the concept of an antenna sewn or attached to the risers and line and got a pretty strong no-way. Not all feel that way but anything which adds sticks or booms or extensions will certainly be refused immediately. VOX is also generally a failure unless it's well designed. First of all, hearing the motor over our voice would rule it out. But even getting past that, a vox which drops the first syllable or two of transmission is annoying enough to be unusable. That would mean some kind of buffering and delay and I'm pretty sure a cheap blister pack radio won't do that. Then cabling and connectors must be designed. While some of us use full face helmets, I'm not going to change my helmet just to reduce noise when the Sena or V6 or whichever one we have mounted works fine. (besides that, the noise we make immediately behind our heads is incredibly loud; not only is it a 2 stroke motor between 80 and 300cc (so it has carburetor and exhaust noise), there's also that spinning prop slashing away at the air. ) Currently a lot of pilots - most maybe even - have some way of communicating clearly through their phones. Many of those group have Baofengs but rarely use them, and even fewer have aviation radios and use them. Any requirement to add even the smallest piece of equipment or stuff will be a very challenging proposition unless we can bring them to accept and adopt a standard. In practical use, the easiest thing I have found was to have a manual PTT wrapped around my forefinger on my non-throttle hand (with the wire threaded under my shirt and out my sleeve), with the radio connected through a Bluetooth two-way radio transciever (Sena SR10) which is paired to my helmet Bluetooth headset. The PTT runs to the SR10. This way I can take calls, make videos and hear music from my cell phone, as well as talk and hear on the handheld. In my photo you may be able to see two microphones; I added another direct wired headset to the helmet and can also use that separately although the noise into the mic is fairly loud. All of my digging still tells me that getting people on either ham or (most likley) GMRS licenses and selecting the appropriate frequencies is the only effective fix for this. But considering my experiences with body block, the antenna is the factor that will kill this. If a group of people launch and they can't all hear each other all the time, they will not bother to keep using it. So I'm still working on a riser/line antenna idea. It's too bad you still aren't understanding this. This isn't about some organized clubs flying around blasting the ham bands, and it's not about a bunch of hunters or backpackers out in the woods. It's about a few rogue pilots who may, every once or twice in a blue moon, fire up their Baofengs and play around with them. Mostly people just use their cell phones. Vindictiveness will not work; the FCC will not respond with the necessary manpower and equipment to a hint that someone might be violating the ham bands by talking to each other over them, and only good solid evidence that a problem will exist at a certain date and time will get them to respond. If anyone feels that this is a real problem, it would be much more effective to tell me, with date and times of flights, frequencies used and any names used, and let me expose it in the paramotoring community. That's why I was - and still am - asking for solid reports of actual paramotor pilots using the ham bands.
Yes I do understand it and understand it very well....Maybe its you that don't understand what I am saying.....Now move along!
It should be noted that it is perfectly legal for them to buy an air band handheld and use it without a license as long as they follow the channel plan. The FCC no longer requires a license for domestic non-commercial aircraft. I would suggest when you run into such folks that you point out to them that they would be legal using air band radios. I suspect they are lured to 2 meters by the $25 Chinese radios. An air band radio will set them back about $200. Might be good if you find a bunch of them in your area to locate their landing zone and bug the FCC to sit there and wait for them. It will be a hard push, but the FCC has shown in the past if handed offenders on a silver platter they will usually do something. Speaking as a pilot I wish these guys were on air band. I fly gliders. I monitor 123.3 Mhz (glider air to air) while soaring the ridge. If one of these guys appears along the ridge I would have no way to communicate with him. This could be bad.
"Not all feel that way but anything which adds sticks or booms or extensions will certainly be refused immediately." Mark : I understand what you are saying. It is confusing though. Honestly ... not joking here or stirring the coals. The pilots will hand carry a cell phone and/or an altimeter and/or a speed indicator and/or a GPS (some of these are all-in-one units) and selfie-stick and/or a Go-Pro. Some Go-Pros are hand-held, foot mounted or helmet mounted. All of the listed items are subject to falling from 1,000's of ft in the air. Yet the opportunity to have these items permanently mounted, within reach and safely installed presents resistance. Mind you I am not doubting the reality of the situation ... Were someone to offer me an all-in-one solution to secure hundreds if not thousands of dollars of electronic equipment in a safe manner -- I'd jump at it. It would make my flight time so much more enjoyable and easier. Oh well ....
Speaking as a PPG pilot, when a plane approaches me, I wish I knew reliably what frequency the pilot would be monitoring and could communicate with the pilot, and I wish more gliders monitoring a know frequency would circle me . I would bet there are a ton of PPG pilots who own Baofengs and can connect them to their helmets but have never used them. I assume this is because the price point for the radio is painless but they don't know which frequencies they can legally or safely use. The much fewer numbers of people who purchased AV radios did it because they were told they are necessary to fly from a local airport but they are also very rarely used even at the airports where they are required. So yes, they are legal to use but 1) there is no legal aviation band frequency we can use for "chatter" types of communications and 2) they are much more expensive so that $200 would be a difficult roadblock to widespread acceptance. but still, ... so I researched this and it took a long time to filter out the expired and ancient stuff from what is current. What I found is that Title 47 → Chapter I → Subchapter D → Part 87 lists the frequencies and how they are to be used. There are frequencies designated for training, gliders, balloons and other lighter than air aircraft, and air-to-air frequencies, but nothing expressly permitting ultralight aircraft to communicate. I have sent a request for clarification to the FAA, can't wait for the response. Yeah, gotta get that selfie and publish it in YouTube or the flight never happened lol. I didn't mean to suggest you were stirring the pot, I meant that you should really see the equipment first hand, and talk to a gaggle of pilots. I'm not sure how your acquaintance is which got you into this conversations but maybe he or she can help connect you to a group of pilots somewhere. The nearest place I know of where they fly fairly often would probably be the Home Depot parking lot in Winder GA. It looks like a two hour trip (one way) from where you live so it's a haul but it's an option. There are other groups in Charlotte and Mountain City TN which may be doable but those locations are farther away. The Winder HD group usually flies weekends when the weather is good (low-ish winds, no rain expected, temps not extremely cold.) They mostly fly in the afternoon but sometimes in the morning and there are other sites with which I;m not as familiar that you may be able to visit and just talk to them how they feel about communications in general, if they are happy with status quo, etc. If you're interested, send me a friend request in Facebook and I'll let you know when they are flying where. If this weekend is good weather, I expect them to be there because they just mowed the grass today.
There are some Paramotor pilots who have Air Band VHF AM HTs, and can use them for ATC traffic. There is horrendous RFI from the paramotor gas 2-cycle engine's spark system, creating interference on AM mode from the impulses. Basically, a spark gap transmitter is strapped to the pilot's back. This causes extremely short range using the Air Band AM HT. Unlike airplanes, the common paramotor gas engines do not have shielded ignition systems. To make matters worse, the Kill Switch (a hand control utilized to stop the paramotor engine) is directly connected to the primary of the magneto spark coil, and it consists of a wire running along the hand-held throttle cable. This also makes the wiring of the Kill Switch and the flexible hand-held throttle cable effectively an antenna to broadcast RFI into the pilot's radios Air Band AM HTs are not as useful as VHF/UHF FM radios for essential ground chase and other comms that paramotors and paragliders often need. The use of a chest or lap radio harness for the HT helps to shield some of the engine RFI.
Oh here we go again! The little dig about CB radio operators..... Well there are plenty of Fake Ham operators too.....but let`s just have a dig on cbers as per usual!
Victor ... the use of CB may be different in Scotland. I don't have any personal knowledge of the operators there. CB usage in the States has historically been "anything goes" ... even though there are some respectful users as well. The comments made re: CB were in reference to the overwehleming illegalities which are well known and understood here. Hopefully, CB is not abused in Scotland.
In my profile photo there are two radios and two mics on my helmet. The radio on my right (left side of photo) is an aviation radio (Yaesu FTA550). The yellow one on my left is a Baofeng. Our local airport requested us to fly with the AV radios and I do whenever I fly from that airport. My first paramotor has a very strong spark but despite despite that unshielded spark gap transmitter on my back, I have been amazed to find that it interferes very little with the either radio. However, the RF generated by my cell phones and other devices wreaks havoc on the AV radio receiver. After doing a lot of digging and research (including an as yet unanswered request to the FAA), I find that there are no aviation frequencies available for use to use, especially for the chit-chat in-flight stuff we would want. There are 760 discrete (25kHz spacing) frequencies between 118 and 138 MHz which are all assigned. Even regular pilots have the desire to communicate informally and tend to surreptitiously use several otherwise less commonly used frequencies as chit-chat channels. So much so that some have even been given names: Five Fingers = 123.450 Cheap Suit= 129.950 Shotgun = 130.300 There are 3 frequencies provided for balloons and their chase vehicles which are also common for pilot training, sailplanes, and other lighter-than-air aircraft, 1 frequency for fixed wing air-to-air, 1 for helicopter air-to-air, and the rest are assigned for ATC, weather, ground operations, testing, emergency, and a bunch of other stuff. There is nothing anywhere designated for any ultralight aircraft. So far I'm still seeing GMRS as the best alternative but let me know if anyone else comes up with something better!
Have you guys tried Zello? It might be a possibility, and for a lot of applications it is cheaper and better than regular two-way radio.
Yep. Lots of dropouts, even on the ground, and that I really don't understand because with buffering they should be able to get the full message through, even if it has to be delayed for weak signal. Haven't really tried it in the air, probably will at some point just because it's there, but it still has the issue of needing to connect to a ground network that can be spotty and disappears somewhere above 3000 feet. Having said that, it will probably be a great solution for something like a large fly-in where a huge number of pilots gather, not everyone has radios and licenses, and the skies over the field tend to get really crowded - and the collision risk is dramatically higher.
I agree. GMRS has advantages: no testing required for license ubiquitous HTs can be bought locally at big box stores in a pinch can be utilized by both air and ground units can have external antenna FM and PL many channels, easy to find a clear channel high power transmit smaller antenna is efficient less spark plug ignition interference at UHF However, there are some disadvantages of GMRS: many PG and paramotor already own and use VHF several decades of para / HG use of VHF VHF FM business band is utilized by USHPGA licensed itinerant channels VHF goes further than UHF over hills and terrain
This is a well researched and very informative post. We have the location of several centers for training. Suppose a team of amateur VECs should show up monthly and offer a free, crash course and examination for the entry level amateur radio license that would allow these folks to use these radios legally. We would probably gain some licensees, establish a licensed cadre of power parachutists that would encourage others to be licensed. They would then be able to contact the general ham population and learn just how much fun it is to ham from altitude. In other words, a welcoming spirit and a willingness to help them become licensed should go a long way toward cleaning up the problem. And we get more amateurs to occupy the bands. Just my two cents worth.... Dave
