Since I got back in the hobby, I had heard murmurs of Hams repurposing commercial equipment for operation in various bands. I never really looked into it as I figured that it involved mucking about in circuits and soldering, two skills I am not good at and didn’t want to try to learn on a semi-expensive radio. When I volunteered at the AMSAT table in Boxboro, Steve Meuse, N1JFU, while showing me a Motorola Maxtor radio he recently picked up at the flea market, explained to me that not all radios needed hardware modifications and that there were plenty of radios that were ready to go and just needed to be modified in the software. He pointed me to the GEMOTO and NEAR-900 groups which I subscribed to soon after and lurked.

The nearest repeater to my location was Fall River. A bit of a chip shot, but far enough that I didn’t want to risk buying a radio in case I couldn’t talk on it. I live in a bit of a low-lying area, so it’s often difficult to hit repeaters even if they are close by. However, come December, SCMARG installed a repeater in Dartmouth, the next town over from me. I was sure I could talk on it, so I started looking for a cheap radio I could buy.

The NEAR-900 folks were very helpful in suggesting radios for me. Also, after the repeater went live, Jeff, N1ZZN made another helpful post on the SCMARG list. I started stalking eBay for a cheap used radio. By some small miracle I was able to get $75 from @Beaker by sending him a picture of a bunny with a pancake on his head. (Long story.) Within a week I found a great deal on a used MTX9000 B3 and charger for $70. Santa arrived early and it showed up on my doorstep just before Christmas. I needed it programmed, and again NEAR-900 came to the rescue. John, N1OTY, responded to my plea for “Help! I need it programmed” with an offer of assistance. Sunday I headed over to his house and he graciously programmed my radio. He answered all my questions and made sure everything worked.

I have since had the radio for a few weeks and I must say it’s a great band. While Dartmouth is the only repeater that works from my house and I’ve only heard a handful of SCMARG people on the system, in Boston the Waltham repeater, which is tied into a few other 900MHz repeaters, works great and is fairly active. I can talk on the repeater througout the downtown area and I monitor it from my desk at work during the day. During the GEMOTO “900 Days”, which are Thursdays in which we try to make the band active as possible, the Waltham repeater almost always has a coversation on it. The people I’ve talked to and listened to are very friendly and fairly technical, unlike a lot of the small talk-esque conversations you find on 2M.

There are a few things to get used to: Most of the 900MHz repeaters do not have a “squelch tail”, which is a common “feature” of Ham Radio repeaters to let you know it had heard you. This was very confusing to me at first as I wasn’t sure I was making it to the repeater. Also, my radio, despite lacking a display, has a scan feature. When scanning, if a signal is heard, I have to manually tune the radio to the channel I want to operate on. This can be confusing if the transmission is short. A lot of people solve this by annoucing the repeater they are using. Finally, since my radio is a bit older, it uses NiCd batteries rather then the newer NiMH type. This means that I have to drain the battery before I charge it, which is something that I haven’t had to think about in years.

So far I am pleased, it’s fun to try out a new band  and it’s a feeling of being on something a bit “experimental” as it’s still fairly limited. Coverage is great, and the Motorola radios are very solid, albeit a touch heavy. If you are a Ham in the southern New England area, I highly recommend you give it a try. If you are outside of the area and are looking for a band relatively free of interference and users, I suggest you give 33cm a look.