All Activity

I’ve used ArcGIS Earth for that (and line sight analysis)—I’m more suggesting a compass-style feature for the app for when traveling, to quickly discern if programming the tones in the mobile is worth it given mountains possible in the way.

Big 'Pop' vs small 'Pop' .. Love Shooting and i love Parump, my Ammo Depot

That's only 3 paragraphs! Dont worry, the 10 paragraph answer will come.

And here it is. Antennas are tuned to specific frequencies. When they’re used at frequencies other than those they’re tuned for, the results are usually bad. Also, the cable used for a CB antenna is usually very lossy at GMRS frequencies. So, as Randy said, no.

Short answer: NO Someone will come along shortly with the 10-paragraph longer answer but it will say basically the same thing.

maximum pew vs minimum pew

We run separate duplexers with all of our repeaters. The repeaters and duplexers are all mounted in a server rack so no coax going between the repeaters and duplexers are not longer than 2 feet, most are closer to 12-18 inches in length. If the cables are going to longer than 3 feet then definitely go with coax that has less loss since you are going to always lose some power after the duplexers.

Google Earth works great for a heading..

Yup,, pretty much what you see used for Repeaters with Duplexers built into them. . Keep the lengths as short as possible, defiantly no longer than 3'

Even small coax like RG8X, RG316, and RG58 will work just fine for short cables. RG316 is popular to connect repeaters to duplexers. They are generally 3 foot or shorter so loss is not an issue.

Mine was at 274.32 Meters

Very good explanations in this thread. Ground because lightning. Bond because potential.

Okay, now it makes sense.

Another one: in the app, a compass-based tool to estimate line of sight (or lack thereof) in while traveling. In the mountains I live in, that would be INVALUABLE. I’m thinking compass pointer when you select a repeater, a distance-to readout, and (perhaps) a range field from the owner’s input too.

I have a gm21 baofeng handheld that I am wandering if I could install an adapter to connect to my cb antenna and cable installed in my jeep. I know the range will not be optimal but would it be better than the 8" whip that came with the radio?

Seems like the site has been a bit buggy lately, I got it to show up with stale turned on. Looks like it’s been over a year since the owner updated. @Ark1 try sending the owner a message and ask him about the repeater. They might appreciate knowing that their page fell into stale and that they just need to log into their repeater account to make it update.

My AR 9 is dead on also.

A Glad Ham!

To explain it really simple. If you have a ground rod on one end of your house for your service and another one at the other end of the house with your radio gear and they are not bonded together. If you have a strike, even a ground strike at one end of the house, a tree near the house, or whatever at that end. The lightning will COME IN the one ground, go through your equipment via the safety ground (bottom pin on power cord) across the equipment / power supply, into the radio then back out to the coax or ground wire, then out to the ground rod it's all hooked to. That is the difference of potential that is talked about. The ground is NOT a perfect conductor. And it's not unreasonable to see 50 Kv or more across 10 feet of ground during a strike. I install public safety radio sites, including ones that are co-located dispatch centers with radio towers. Key part of this is the dispatchers wear headsets that as far as lightning goes, a direct path exists between the top of that tower and their headsets. You BOND everything. The headset jack gets bonded, the furniture, the equipment, the racks the equipment is in, the radios, the wiring between the radios and the console electronics, the coaxes entering the building with a surge suppressor, then outside the building, at the base of the tower, every 100 foot up the tower and then right at the connection point to the antenna. The tower gets bonded to all this. Then there are ground rods on every leg of the tower. Those are bonded together, called a tower ground loop. Then the building has a ring around it with ground rods every ten feet again in a loop. Those rings are bonded together, there are lines that go out into the property with more ground rods that are every 10 feet. All the connections are done with CadWeld or 15 ton compression connections with a hydraulic press. All that is bonded to the service entrance ground. Then in the building, everything that is metal that is a fixture gets grounded. Meaning file cabinets, conduits, desks, window and door frames. Anything that not immediately movable. Of course, air handlers, plumbing, and the like are also bonded back to the ground along with the building frame if it's conductive. A lot of people will question the required wire gauge, stating that a number 2 wire could never hold the current of a direct strike. And that's only partly true. Lightning is very fast. Wire will carry a very high amount of current for a very short amount of time. Anyone that's ever shorted something across a battery will recognize that whatever it was didn't instantly turn to plasma and vanish. It takes some time for the wire to heat up and then catch fire. And longer for it to burn in half. It's that fact that allows a number 2 conductor to take the abuse of being hit across and not just being vaporized. Yes, there are instances that heavier wire is needed. Like the ground rings, runs longer than 50 feet and situations where a multipoint grounding bar is located where a number of devices are connected to a single point with number 6 wires. But a number 6 wire, at least with the R56 install standard, is the minimum required wire gauge for any ground and if it's connected to a ground bar with other devices or grounded objects, then the wire going from that ground bar back the the master / main ground bar needs to be a number 2. OH, and what you are referring to as a 'house ground' is the electrical service ground. And at a tower site it IS bonded to the site grounding system. Google the R56 standard and read over the site grounding requirements for a tower site.

It still appears in the database, but browsing the map it doesn’t appear. I don’t know why. I tried it with offline and stale both turned on.

Vary Strong 462.7000 Using a Tone of DPL 351 in and around Monco and Philadelphia area. I normally use it but no one seems to answer depending on 822 Anthony answers you back .

You are the opposite of a “Sad Ham”. Great job!

I just came back from our club's Field Day exercise. I spent about an hour as a control operator with an unlicensed operator, showing him how to make contacts and a little bit on how to operate the radio (tuning, notch filtering, RF gain vs AF volume). He had 22 contacts on 40 meter phone (7.2-7.3 mHz) when I turned him over to another licensed operator, most across the country and a couple in Canada. He was very excited and was having a great time.

I programed my AR-10 today.. Its dead center in tune.