Do those foldable radio antennas you see on PCs work at all while folded, or do they have to whip out the big black antenna every time they want to use it?

They work while folded

@Red Korvo for future reference they're called whip antennas

It’s generally not the best to transmit while folded

ehh

if you go full retard and bundle it up to be super small and somehow not break it then yeah you're gonna get stupid small broadcast range

iirc whip antennas like that are more so meant to talk to aircraft when you have LOS anyhow

could be wrong about that

Whip can refer to other types of antennas such as a long, flexible vehicle mounted antenna

@Red Korvo did you mean this: https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tacticalgeartrade.com%2Fmedia%2Fcatalog%2Fproduct%2Fcache%2F1%2Fimage%2F800x%2Fac18e0e97509bbc39c861d26f1c1ff5e%2Ft%2Fr%2Ftri-harris-folding-antenna-for-prc-148-152-radiombitrdevgru3m-peltorthales.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tacticalgeartrade.com%2Ftri-harris-folding-antenna-for-prc-148-152-radio.html&docid=qp4YD5QKXpp5AM&tbnid=IJGIPPAjuFnh1M%3A&vet=1&source=sh%2Fx%2Fim

makes sense, though I think it's pretty obvious that we're discussing antenna used on portable radios like 148s and such

Right, whips, specifically those tape measure style ones you linked.

@Red Korvo what're you even trying to do with a radio that requires a whip antenna

Someone <@&558119990725705748>’d me by proxy on telegram which one of you

I've got whips on my fengs to talk to my frens

<@&559951530955112458> <@&559943777024737292> <@&559943292029239296>

<@&600465023772524565> <@&559943363785392129> <@&558103330405220383>

cause like if you simply want to boost the range on your baofeng a whip isn't entirely necessary, cause then there's whole discussions about UHF vs VFH and what environment you're transmitting in and a lot of other nerd shit that goes into it

Pretty much anything you do with a handheld is going to be LOS unless you get a repeater involved. Or possibly HF at night.

Basically yeah. Radio seems a little dead in jacksonville, especially APRS, and I'd love to get reliable aprs running.

Ham is dead for the most part

All the aprs stations are far from me.

Then what's replaced it?

zoomers with fengs

The internet

....that's ham @uzidead

shrug

@All UCP Everything
Long term goal is to get man portable Morse transceiver stations between two teams for long distance comms

@All UCP Everything wat

I’m still practicing my Morse

neat

I’m going to take AE next month

@j e F f neat pants. Eat burger and lift heavy things more

The internet and cell phones made ham even more niche than it already was

HAM is more robust than the internet. It should make a comeback among younger people serious about prepping.

It’s just people who like dicking with electronics and prepper/m word types now

Tf you want @yergo

@tacticoolyourjets that ain't mine

Right, but ham is p2p and/or adhoc, and in the case of aprs and other increasingly popular protocols, includes the internet.

And just buying ham capable baofengs doesn't cut it