Using my Yaesu FT-897 to call the Fayette County Amateur Radio Club VHF simplex net

My home amateur (ham) radio club is the Fayette County Amateur Radio Club. We have a monthly VHF simplex on the fourth Sunday of each month at 6pm local on 146.535 MHz.

For the 2023 Memorial Day Weekend edition of our net, I decided to dust off my very first ham radio - the Yaesu FT-897. It’s an all mode, all band transceiver that still works great. In addition to the radio, I used a Diamond super gainer antenna, and powered it with a deep cycle marine battery for 50 watts of RF output.

VHF is line of sight so I called the net from a known high point within our county. Running a VHF simplex net is fun and it’s helpful training to ensure we can still communicate without our repeater network.

Follow along as you hear how we conduct our net. Special thanks to KD4CHW who recorded some video from his side of the radio and shared it so I could include it.

73, KI4ASK

PS - please help me grow this channel so that others will see it. I’d appreciate a subscribe, like, and comment if you feel inclined. This channel is not monetized and I upload content for fun. The video was shot on an iPhone and edited with iMovie on the same iPhone. Thanks for watching

#hamradio #ft897 #vhf #simplex #ares #emcomm #auxcomm #fayettevillega