All Activity

For sure - I've had to reroute my cable through the door gasket a couple of times once I realized the seal was compromised! I did find better ways to tuck the cable and make use of the vehicle's existing furnishings/trim once I saw the vulnerability of my first efforts.

So this morning I finally recieved my callsign, and my retevis a3 showed up a day early. So I decided to play around on the local repeater, sounding like a retard as I do not have my callsign memorized, and am still fumbling around the controls of a new ht, but on a 2m repeater I waited until after the net had concluded to run an equipment test. I got a xxxxxx out of waco I can hear you so you are getting through to someone, mind you waco is a 45 minute drive from where I live. I doubt the ht simply transmitted that far so I likely set something up right for repeater use considering how stupid it is to program a repeater through an ht keypad. Either way up until about 8pm the repeater is fairly alive, judging by the bedtime calls I am betting most of the users are very up there in age. It is exciting though finally after all that studying got to contact someone, and after the radio confusion with the ht is gone it should be easy as I have heard no sad hams on there yet. saturday I will set up my 10 meter rig and my jpc-12 mobile antenna and see how 10m usb is. Though with active repeaters a simple ht seems to easily be able to reach out of state, some of the contacts are a 3-4 hour drive from me and this kind of range I could not ever see with gmrs or uhf short of tropospheric ducting.

I solder massive wire at work, my soldering iron does not work either for big copper. My simple fix is a small butane torch and precision heat control, if you already know how to draw solder to the heat you can make it work. Of course most of my soldering is ground and power cables for car batteries, and I solder them because most aftermarket crimp connectors are terrible and sometimes cars come in configurations where no pre made option works.

frn is still part of it, I was referring to the green light red light and wait part.

99% of what I do is on simplex to stay in touch in a convoy or use the truck as a base camp while friends are hunting/foraging the same general drainage. My main goal in adding the mobile unit is to have something I can set and forget. I don't want to have to worry about batteries, whether I left my HT in the back of the truck, etc. If I can increase my range/clarity a little over what I get with my handheld that would be great, but I'm on the Oregon coast and the terrain is usually my main limiting factor. Repeaters are a bonus, but not a priority. A mag mount might be the move, I've just had bad luck in the past running things through the door in the rain and it makes me a little leery.

What's your use case? Are you trying for distant repeaters, running in vehicle convoys, or using the truck as a base camp? A low commitment starting point might be to get an NMO mag mount for the roof of the cab and start with a ghost. You could then experiment with placement and swap out other NMO antennas if you wanted something more. Your best ground plane will be a continuous metal surface in direct contact with the mag base - I'm not sure you'd get much benefit from the rack mount or bumper condition. Others here have a lot more experience and insight though, so wait and see what's worked for them! I personally run a simple Nagoya mag mount ~16" whip on my roof and get good results with just my 5 Watt HH in the cab connected to it - easy contact with a strong repeater 30 miles away.

Option 3

Just tried to look at 47 CFR 97 and it said "this section is undergoing maintenance and will be available soon." Mayhap they're re-writing the 60m band allocations for Friday?

This will be interesting as Ch 3 at 5358.5 is the FT8 5357 Khz + the 1.5 frequency - so wonder if they'll co-opt another of the remaining 4 or just everyone drop down to the 9 watts?

Thanks for the update. Waiting to see how Part 97 is changed to match - we were, other than the 100w channels supposed to get the band similar to the allocations the ITU has for other countries. Most other countries allow amateurs to run 10w, so the 9.15w is in line with that, but one must take into account the antenna gain for that ERP. I listen on 60 a lot outside the amateur bands and there's various mode traffic there pretty much 24/7. Lots of Wide band RTTY encrypted and other digital modes cooking, not much phone.

That is not quite correct. Channels 1, 2, 4, and 5 will still exist with the 100 watt ERP power limit. Nothing is changing there. We are still going to have those four channels to use. What is changing is that we are losing channel 3 and instead get 5.351 MHz to 5.366 MHz to use. The reason for the lower ERP limit of 9.15 watts to meet ITU standards. We still won't be able to use VFO mode except for the new small portion that is in the part of the band that channel 3 is currently.

Yes grants are available for non profit organizations. Our group is registered as a 503-C non profit. We get grants every year. Most grants are small but every bit helps. It is usually local foundations that give us the grants. Most foundations are more than happy to donate to non profits in the form of grants as that is a nice tax write off for them.

The issue that's usually NOT discussed is the power dissipation of the radio. Many hand held radios have a power stage that's lucky if it runs better than 50 some percent efficient. So a 10 watt rated radio draws 20 watts from the battery pack, which will die quickly at that rate, with 10 watts getting dumped into the radio's internals. There are Hams who have destroyed their HT's by running at just 5 watts and moderate to high duty cycles from heat build up. Then if the radio doesn't cook up those small palm sized radios end up turning into hand warmers, some times uncomfortably so. Oh, battery packs hate heat too, and being clipped on the back side of the case means it soaks it up, which will shorten the life. If the radio is hanging on your belt with a speaker mic attached you likely won't notice the problem until it's too late.

What sort of screws that all up is the difference in the antenna regulation requirements. FRS uses a fixed antenna while MURS allows one that's detachable. To combine both services the antenna would need to be fixed for both. I don't think that would be a big deal. Many Hams use dual band HT's and never take the rubber duck antenna off either. So, building a combo FRS/MURS radio with a fixed antenna wouldn't be a problem since most users wouldn't bother trying to use an external antenna on such a cheap radio anyway.

I can’t take any credit; I just googled it.

I knew Herr H.E.R.D. would know this!

160 m is 1.840 MHz.

It was local, the Butte-Silver Bow Community Foundation. We have several local foundations. One requirement that’s common for all of them is that we must be a 501(c)3, with the IRS letter to show for it.

Which foundation is this? Is it local or national?

FT8 3573 - 5357 - 7074 - 10136 - 14074 - 21074 - 24915 - 28074 - 50313 all USB 80 60 40 30 20 15 12 10 6 If it's on 160 I don't know the freq. as I don't have anyway to operate on Top Band.

Just don't turn your head when transmitting...

Long-time listener, first-time caller. I got into GMRS handhelds a couple years ago to stay in touch with friends while hunting. Now I'm looking to build out a 15-20W mobile rig to get a little better performance and have a backup to my HT. As seems to happen in life, practical constraints are getting in the way of optimization. So, I'm hoping folks smarter than I am can give their thoughts on a few alternative antenna placements. For context, I drive a 3rd gen Tacoma with a fiberglass Leer cap. I'm not willing to drill the roof. I regularly carry a canoe or kayak up top, so I need something offset enough that it won't interfere with the boat (I know I could remove the antenna, but I don't want to have to choose between the radio or the boat if I can avoid it). Option 1: Hood/fender-mounted whip (MXTA26 or similar) near the passenger-side A-pillar. I know it will work, but I also know that getting the antenna higher would be better. I also don't love the idea of transmitting right next to my face. Option 2a: Ghost antenna mounted on my roof rack. My cap has Thule tracks installed, each approximately 58" x 2". I also have the WingBar cross-bars installed, which are oval in shape and roughly 50" x 3.5". I could mount the antenna on the track just forward or aft of the front WingBar tower. The ghost antenna is short enough that the boat would clear it. Option 2b: Ghost antenna mounted on a WingBar. I could mount on the outer edge of the forward WingBar, which would maximize height but would expose the antenna to some tree/brush impacts. Option 3: Folding antenna on Thule tracks. I could mount a folding whip or fiberglass antenna on one of the Thule tracks. I'd rather the antenna be in play all the time, but I could compromise on a folding antenna if the ghost just wouldn't cut it. My very basic understanding is that Option 1 likely has a better ground plane but will experience more interference from the truck cab. Options 2-3 prioritize height at the expense of antenna gain. I don't want to run a tall antenna up top because the areas I hunt are extremely overgrown. I think (please correct me if I'm wrong) that Options 2-3 have enough metal in the system from the Thule tracks and/or WingBars, but that the long/skinny shape of that metal could cause directional transmission issues.* For those of you well-versed in this sort of thing, I'm curious how big of a deal that is. *It's possible that there are enough metal-to-metal connections in the roof rack that the whole system could function and one continuous ground. But I don't know, so for the time being I'm assuming that the ground plane would be either one track or one WingBar. So with all that said, if these were your options, which would you choose? Or would you do something else entirely?

It varies per band. On 20m it's 14.074.

FT8 is on 5357 KHz on 60m VarAC is a digital mode using the Vara HF protocol. I don't recall what Freq we used on 60, but not the FT8 one of course. It's normally on 7105 - 14105 etc for calling then has slots to use 750 KHZ up and down from the calling freqs. MIL - Military a station with an NNN# callsign came on in CW and told us to QSY as they were going to use the frequency we were on. They then began sending CW with 5 letter/number groups - encrypted of course.