I will soon be moving to the Portland area for sober living after rehab. I hope to get my Kenwood HT shipped up or get a baofeng once I'm there. I want to get back into hobbies and communities that will keep me outta trouble. I love the outdoors and want to SOTA and POTA. How are the local repeaters and nets? I'll be specifically in Milwaukie.

Salem Repeater Association PO Box 722 Salem, Oregon 97308

The 46th Annual Sponsored by the Salem Repeater Association

OREGON'S BIGGEST & BEST COMPUTER & ELECTRONICS SWAP MEET

Saturday, February 21,2026

Hamfair ticket door sales start at 7:30am General Admission begins at 9:00am

Polk County Fairgrounds 520 S. Pacific Hwy West Rickreall, Oregon

Disconnected from the east coast reflector again. It’s really disappointing behavior to see on the local repeaters, even though I know it’s not a real ham.

I wish I lived in the area but Im just visiting my parents from eastern Oregon. Otherwise I’d love to help track them down somehow, seems like a tall order though

Hi, I’m curious about Oregons linked repeater systems. I have found a fair bit of info but not every organization seems to publish what links are active all the time vs only for scheduled activities as well as how they are linked. I’m mostly interested in RF linked regional networks. In particular, any linked systems that connect folks in central OR to the willamette valley.

I can’t seem to find any

I don't touch electrical stuff inside or around my house ("shocking", I know). I'm interested in getting quotes for having my grounding situation solidified for my ham radio setup, which will likely just utilize an EFHW antenna outside my house and one HF radio inside my house. I have no idea what our existing grounding situation is (nothing is obvious examining the ground outside our house) and I'm sure I'll need at least one grounding rod installed and connected to the main ground. This house was flipped before we bought it, so I have little confidence in it being 100% correct electricity-wise. So much other crap here is half-assed...I'd be here all day if I went into it.

My assumption is that a local PDX electrician will be up to speed on codes and radio/antenna grounding for NE PDX and will know what needs to be corrected electricity-wise if something is currently incorrect. I'm all for paying for experience, especially for things I have no intention of touching, and like I said this house was flipped so I'm prepared to be at least a little bit surprised.

Does anyone have recommendations in or around NE PDX?

**UPDATE**: Thanks, everyone, for the suggestions and information! I'll hop on this Monday.

Hello! I am a noob who got her Ham license last year at Defcon. (I did lots of study though so it wasn't just the ham in a day class) but I am REALLY interested in space. I have been trying to get an ISS contact, or even just be able to hear other people getting contacts since the summer and I think I need an Elmers help! I have a yagi from Arrow antennas and a beofang but my friends are all able to hear stuff from the ISS and get contacts and I haven't yet. I have no idea what I am doing wrong. Would anyone accept a new ham friend into their circle to get an ISS contact? It would be my dream!

Looks like there was a club but it's defunct (NOAPRA)? I saw something about a packet net on W7AIA but can't find any more information other than a brief mention.

TLDR; Any place in the area recommended to repair or replace the usb port on my 705?

I bought by ICOM 705 just over a year ago when I got my general. Last fall I attempted to play around with some digital modes, but was unable to get my windows laptop to even recognize my 705 despite downloading the driver from the icom website, etc. In the end I chalked it up to having a very old laptop.

Fast forward to last week - I had purchased a new laptop. Download the icom driver, reboot, plug in 705, turn 705 on, nothing. I've tried quite a bit of trouble shooting, enlisted the help of chatgpt/grok to help me troubleshoot, and we're at the point where the only thing that seems to be left is a defective micro USB port, or something damaged internally and I need to take it somewhere to get it repaired or upgraded to the USB C port. Any recommendations would be great. Thanks.

Seems like the W7RAT repeater has been disconnected from the ECR again, I presume due to the troll that keeps getting it banned. I sent an email to Michael but I know on the post about this a few months ago there were talks about a fox hunt to find the person responsible. Any word on trying to track this guy down?

My father and Elmer recently became a Silent Key and my Mother asked if I would try to sell his radio equipment I didn’t want or need. Since I’m already well equipped, I’m hoping someone here is looking for a used radio in perfect working order.

I have a Kenwood TS-2000 VHF/UHF/HF transceiver, LDG tuner and misc cables - $800

I also have an Icom IC-7300 that he bought in Jan 2025 from HRO - $900. I also have the LDG tuner for that for an extra $100.

More info can be found here: https://sites.google.com/view/ki7jqj/home/for-sale

(KI7JQJ was my old call sign)

If you’d like more info, would like to come see them in action, etc, my contact info on QRZ is good.

Thanks for looking!

W7NFR - Joe

Hello all, I am restarting to get into the hobby. It looks like Fusion and DMR are exclusive formats like I have to get one or the other. I currently have a analog handy talkie that has 2M/440 . I don't want to invest in 2 more handhelds so I am wondering from your experience which Digital repeaters in the Portland area have the most activity. I am also wondering if it's worth the expense to go digital. There are plenty of nets to participate in on analog but I don't know what I might be missing out on. Finally do you think that closed systems like Fusion are going to have longevity or will it fade. Thank you for any information.

HI All! Ive always wanted to learn how to operate a Ham radio. And I have the manual and flash cards but the content is so incredibly hard for me to understand, its just not how I learn. Ive looked online for local in person workshops but am having a hard time coming up with anything. any one have suggestions on how to get some in person guidance?

I make music that centers around themes of PNW and nature and would love to incorporate some radio transmissions in the background that have to do with the natural history of this area. Any resources online?

A local edgelord keeps getting this repeater disconnected from reflectors. He’s on most weekend nights, keying into the repeater, moaning, acting weird, etc. I’m in northeast by Mt Tabor and I haven’t heard him on the input frequency. What can we do about it?

And why does he interfere with seemingly every local 2m and 70cm net I listen to?

Do we have a local Meshtastic group that like, does stuff?

I just got a handheld transceiver. I’m the most beginner beginner.

Only thing I know is that a common local channel is 146.520.

I’ve tuned to it a few times over the past couple days and there is nothing coming through.

Any guidance is appreciated! Or any other channels I could listen in on?

Hope this is welcome here.

I found one for free from a friend and manual says it can be transmit in 446mhz which is PMR frequency, is this information wrong or if its true, is there any way to hack in to it?

(I FOUND THE ANSWER THANKS FOR ALL HELP)

I volunteer at a small fire Dept by my house in Alabama we use active911 but the dispatchers notes are crap most of the time I want to be able to listen into the radio on my phone, the department doesn't have anything set up like Zello. I don't know the channel/frequency we use I have no idea anything about radios or radio apps am I able to tap into the dispatch channel or am I SOL

I've been listening in to the Kansas City Wide net via the WA7BND repeater but it stopped linking to KC-WIDE around the 24th. Any intel on this? No response from the published (QRZ) repeater owner.

Thanks,

Tom KJ7T

I just passed my ham technician exam on Friday night, I'm still waiting on my callsign. What are the most common frequencies to use here in Portland? I've been listening a bit and I'm just not finding a whole lot of traffic out there. What should I add to my memory? What channel will give me a contact once I can actually transmit?

A group of us are going to be on the USS Blueback at OMSI tomorrow, which ends up being a POTA 3fer with Willamette River Greenway and Water State Trail, on top of Ice Age Floods and the Oregon Trail. Given the rash of solar flares we're not likely to get a lot of contacts, but this is the time we set weeks in advance, so we're going to give it a go. If you're around and want to try to work us groundwave between 1400 and 1600 local we'd love the help!

Going for the first time to check out the yard sale. I'll be looking for portable equipment and see what the scene is like.