BH4FHO: new ham reporting.

[borjam]

Congratulations! EA2EKH here.

I don't get why there are still license classes limiting access to HF. The troublesome idiots that pollute the HF bands tend to be old timers who have gone insane, not newbies.

[cdev]

College!? Good luck, and also welcome!

That's great.. Where are you going to be going to school?

Congrats!  Now onto class B and C.

Likely not. Taking the class B exam requires one having class A certificate for at least 6 months. And taking class C requires operating a class B station for two years. I am about to head to the States before the next Shanghai class B exam can happen, so I am likely stuck at class A for now. OTOH I will be taking FCC General class to get a similar spectrum access while in the States.

[cdev]

WA5VJB makes a PCB material log periodic that works well on 440 Mhz and is quite compact. I have one here and use it to listen to repeaters in this area. its quite directional. I taped mine to a piece of posterboard to protect it and make it easier to handle. I would guess it has around 9DB gain and the 70 cm band. It also works on higher bands. It was a good value at around $15. It covers 400-1000 MHz.

It would likely vastly extend the range of a HT like the Baofengs. It would seem to me to be almost a sure bet it would be useful to you your new hobby. If you use 440 .

Its listed here https://www.wa5vjb.com/products1.html

and you can find it for less if you look. I paid about $15 on ebay.  I would not mount it outside because it catches a lot of wind outdoors and in a strong wind, the PCB traces would get broken. But indoors it works great.