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I wonder if being in a metal rack is helping with shielding. Unfortunately that isn't something I can try in the field. At one point, I did run a 3 foot grounding rod and made sure the case of the radio was well grounded, but that didn't do any good either.

They released a press statement saying their engine failure was due to a stray radio transmission.

This is true. Guys were having issues with the HF radios causing issues with the VHF/UHF radios in the trailer last year. Come to find out even some of the more experienced guys never thought to use common mode chokes at the antenna feed points and there aren't any toroids or clamp on ferrite beads on anything inside the trailer. I've been working on correcting all of that along with rerouting the different coax cables for some separation from each other and from all of the other cables. Poor coax shielding is why I will always suggest to buy the best quality coax that one can afford. The cheap coax will have very thin coverage on the braided shield which causes issues. I've stripped the outer sheath off of cheap Amazon coax and higher quality coax to show people the differences.

A friend of the family works for Northrop, and invited us and a few others to go out and watch the SLS booster test at their test range north of SLC yesterday. Of course, being out in the middle of nowhere means spotty cell service, which means "I packed a bunch of radios to hand out to the drivers in our group when we rendezvoused in town" a ways before the launch site. And as always, they did exactly what we needed them to, to coordinate as we went through the huge amount of traffic and people who were out there for the test.

While this is for repeaters the same consideration applies to radios in close proximity. Crappy coax with high RF leakage can cause issues too. https://www.repeater-builder.com/antenna/double-shielded-coax.html

Like I said in an early post, the fact that both 7300s are in a mini rack along with the Morgan High Performance band pass filters works well for us inside our trailer. I do need to double check to make sure that the common mode chokes get put in place on both HF antennas before everyone starts transmitting for field day tomorrow.

That's likely helping more than you think. You can test that by taking the radios and just air spacing them.

Having the radios sitting on solid shelves helps, at least in our case. The mini rack shelves are solid without any holes in them.

Congrats on passing the General This weekend is the Field Day contest - very easy exchanges (check ARRL rules) If you can get on HF I think you can have some fun working several stations all over the country.

That's true of most electronics you buy today. Mostly gone were the old days where the radio/TV etc came in a metal box. Now all you get is a cheap plastic one and people wonder why they get garbage pickup from their LED lights and other crap. There is a section on an Anytone D878 site where there are instructions on how to spray a nickle coating inside the case to improve the shielding. You might try this with the IC-7300. AT-D868_D878_Info_and_mods_20240607.pdf

Late to the thread, but bored and going to post anyway. Unless we're all using the same equipment, any circles like this will only cause frustration. I'd be more interested in color coding based on verified last useage. ie: You could drop in and click on it if you recently used it. Then those clicks would age, green to red. It sure would be helpful to see this, and eliminate the guess as to whether the issue with the repeater is your setup, or a now dead repeater. It's not as big an issue here as it is on repeaterbook, but I still see them here and there. (Usually repeaters imported that are older than the site itself)

Terri’s post nailed it. The only thing I would add is that when asking a question like this it’s helpful to include a link to the precise item ordered. There are often several listings for each model, with listings by different vendors. Yes, you ordered “from Amazon” but it’s more important knowing who the actual vendor was. That also greatly affects the return policy. Personally I try to limit my purchases to Prime, but that’s not always possible.

thanks for all the input guys, that RF line of sight chart really helped. there is one little spike betweengst me and my target area, i wish there was a way to just attach a jpeg image so you guys could see and tell me if you really think that would impede my signals. i played around with the RF chart to get an idea of where, if i were to need to add a repeater to get the job done, the best location(s) would be. i have 3 possible locations for that. one possibility is a 250ft tower that i (as of now) have permission to access. the chart says i would only need to go up 50ft to have clear line of sight to both locations. so my next question is and i know the higher up you go the better coverage you get but realistically just how far would i extend the coverage area? 20miles, 30miles?? would i need a 50w repeater or would a 25w repeater suffice? also, on a side note, the aforementioned tower is owned by a telecom company which happens to have 3 separate tower locations. i have already spoken to the CEO of the company and told him my plans and he himself was actually interested is possibly doing something himself for the company as a possible backup form of communications during extreme weather events and what have you. so, if that works out i may not have to worry about purchasing that equipment. he also seemed to be ok with having all 3 locations open repeater sites.

this i can try, didn't think about it before but i have a couple of Baofeng UV-5G Plus with the 15" antennas i can try. both locations are roughly 2 story structures so i would already be about 20ft or so AGL, won't hurt to try i reckon. i really don't want to get into ham if i can help it.

Still normal for me on FF and Chrome

Those are likely Amazon Marketplace listings (look for "Sold by" on the product listing). There are good marketplace sellers and not-so-good ones. I don't know which exact listing you were looking at, so I can't check. A 15" antenna is not going to fit in the standard Baofeng box without folding it, which will damage most antennas except for the "tacticool" tape-measure ones. So the seller would need to provide Amazon with either an oversized box with the radio box inside, along with the antenna, or securely tape the antenna to the Baofeng box and put a "Sold as a set - do not split" label over it. Both are going to drive up the seller's costs (for increased per-unit warehouse space at Amazon in the first case, or for a non-robotic handling surcharge for the second case). You may need to do an "item not as described" return through Amazon. They will likely ask you to work with the seller to resolve the issue, and the seller may try to drag things out, so start the process ASAP so you don't time-out on the Amazon 30-day return window.

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We are using the Morgan High Performance band pass filters with great success. And the two IC-7300s are sitting one on top of the other in a mini rack in our e-com trailer. I'm not trying to argue or say you are right or wrong. I'm only stating my club's experiences.

@RogerSpendlove I found replacement clips for the GM-15 Pro but they didn't come with screws. Went back and forth with the seller about the screws. It sounded like they didn't understand me. Of course that could have been intentional.

No idea, but if the screw threads don’t match you’re screwed. Pun intended.

It seems to work for everyone else. The only thing I saw was the password reset requirement. The website always resolved correctly within one refresh for me.

I found replacement belt clips on Amazon saying they're compatible with the Baofeng UV-5R series. Can anyone confirm whether the screw hole placement on the UV-5R is the same as on the GM-15 PRO ? My GM-15 PRO unit measures 1 inch on center. They sure look the same, but I'm just trying to be sure before I commit to spending $. Thanks!

Here are a few sweeps of one of my band-pass filters. I'm confident the filter works fine with about -60dB of attenuation on the other bands. The assumption is that key parts of the radio are not shielded well enough. 10m 20m 40m 80m

Check your com settings. Mine defaulted to com 1 but needed com 5. There's a target on or near the top left that say "set" or "settings". It let's you change the com port.

Clear your history.