CQ CQ, Five-Two!

With so many of us that will be out and about traveling to our holiday destinations this week, this would be a good time to put 146.52 in your radios’ memory channels in your car or in your shack. This is of course the designated United States VHF calling frequency, allocated by the ARRL.

I have been traveling with my trusty Kenwood D710A. When traveling, I always keep one side transmitting and receiving on 144.39, the APRS frequency. On the other side, I keep it tuned to 146.52, especially if I don’t know of any repeaters in the area. I’ll usually call CQ a few times, especially if I’m not in range of repeaters or if I’m not in range of any broadcast radio stations other than country and Christian (northern Missouri, I’m talking to you in particular). Most of the time, I just don’t want to bother with fiddling with the radio to find a new repeater every 30 minutes so I keep it set on 146.52 until I reach my destination.

146.52 is considered as a calling channel — so to most people, depending on what region you’re in — you should call CQ and if someone comes back, you should probably QSY to avoid trying up the frequency. It’s also a popular frequency for emergency help or information, and just an overall handy tool for travelers who aren’t familiar with the area repeaters. But again, this all depends on where you live. On an early Saturday morning, I heard a fairly large roundtable ragchew on 146.52 in the eastern Kansas City suburbs. Just be mindful and don’t be offended when someone else asks you to QSY.

Only once has anyone come back to me. A ham in Lamoni (southern Iowa) who had been monitoring 146.52 for years had responded to my call and told me that he’s never heard anyone on that frequency. Pretty surprising for a town that has a major interstate passing through it. He gave me the information for the Lamoni repeater and we QSY’ed over and had a pretty good ragchew.

I’ll be traveling from Des Moines to suburban Kansas City to see family this week, and it looks like I might be driving through a decent winter storm. You can bet I’ll have it set on 146.52 in case anyone needs help or if I am looking for a ham that could get online and check road conditions for the highway ahead of me if I need it. Or, if anyone just wants to ragchew with me, I’ll be up for that too.

I’ve added 146.52 to the radio in my home station, which is actually located less than a mile from Interstate 35. I monitor the frequency in the background or at the very least I scan it with area repeaters in the memory bank. Other interesting simplex frequencies I scan: 146.55, which is frequently used by storm chasers during weather events; and 145.67, which is kinda sorta becoming the unofficial D-STAR simplex calling frequency in Iowa.

So, give it a shot. If you’re mobile on the highway, call CQ on 146.52 and see if anything happens. If you’re at home, monitor the frequency in the background this holiday season. There will undoubtedly be a lot of mobile hams out and about this week, and you might make the trip a little shorter for them if they find someone on 146.52.

73 and safe travels in this holiday week!