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All radio related grounding should be done with 500MCM cable. End of story.

What is the logic behind bonding your lightning ground to the house ground? Lightning always wants to go to the earth, so grounding your antenna and coax makes sense. You give the lightning an easy path to the earth, and hopefully it will take it. I also understand why it's recommended that you bond the common ground for your equipment to the house ground. The powered equipment is part of the same circuit as all the other electrical equipment in the house and you want to keep it at the same potential. However, I don't follow the reasoning of bonding the two together. It seems to me that the most logical solution for protecting against lightning is to give the electrical buildup a way to get to the earth without directing it into your house; i.e., a lightning ground separate from the equipment ground. Yet everything I read recommends bonding the lightning ground to the house ground, so there must be some reason that I don't understand.

Awesome, thanks for that information. I will definitely be taking that into consideration. I'm just trying to get something up and going for the meantime as I build the setup I want when I have the time to do it.

I want to set up the antenna temporarily in the joists until I can get the long term setup built and in place. I don't get a lot of free time due to work, kids etc. so I was going to do the joist mount as a down and dirty temporary solution as I built the antenna setup I really want. If I do mount the temporary setup outside, I want to make sure it is properly grounded and bonded. I work as an industrial controls electrician and I've seen how lightning strikes, even indirect ones, can completely destroy communications systems.

I don't know why the quote box attributed that line to you. Probably my bad though.

Not sure about your station plans. If you "... pop a hole to the outside of my house for a base station antenna to be mounted at the roof but I need to locate a good mounting point, penetration point, and pathway to my base station setup.' then how does the joists in the basement come into play? An antenna that close to obstructions can present a higher SWR than the radio might like. Up vertically, in the clear, would be the best bet, other wise there can be many compromises. Using brackets to the side of the house should get you in the clear; I would prefer that to actually mounting it to the roof. (on a tripod or rooftop tower.) TV antennas have/had been mounted on brackets that way for years.

When choosing between horizontal and vertical polarization for GMRS antennas, vertical polarization is generally preferred. This is because GMRS is primarily a mobile and portable radio service, and most mobile and portable antennas are vertically polarized. Therefore, repeaters are also typically equipped with vertically polarized antennas. Using a horizontally polarized antenna to communicate with vertically polarized antennas on repeaters, mobiles, and portables can result in a loss of signal. This is due to the mismatch in polarization, which can lead to reduced signal strength and potentially poor communication quality. If you are considering a horizontally polarized antenna, it would be most effective if all other stations you are communicating with also use horizontal polarization, which is more common in fixed links rather than in mobile or portable setups. In a line-of-sight situation with a direct, unobstructed path to the repeater antenna, a horizontally polarized antenna might offer more gain. However, this potential gain must be weighed against the likelihood of encountering mixed polarization in the field, which can negate any benefits. For general GMRS use, sticking with a vertically polarized setup is recommended to ensure compatibility and optimal performance with the existing infrastructure and other users' equipment. If you are setting up a base station and are concerned about antenna polarization, it is also important to consider the height and placement of the antenna. Antenna height is often more critical than the length or type of antenna used. A higher antenna can provide better coverage and signal strength, which can be more beneficial than the polarization type in many scenarios.

As a preface, I should mention that I am rather green in the whole GMRS scene but I have some experience from my years in the emergency services, so I understand the bare basics. I only ever had to set up mobile systems and that was few and far between. I've maintained quite a few emergency vehicles and did a full upfit on one which turned out beautifully. For my long term setup, I want to pop a hole to the outside of my house for a base station antenna to be mounted at the roof but I need to locate a good mounting point, penetration point, and pathway to my base station setup. I also want to install the cable in conduit to protect it if i have to run most of it externally, intall a proper grounding system for lightning protection and tie it to my data grounding system I built to ensure equal potential. This being said, I have a lot of work ahead of me for that Install. I would like to temporarily set up my base station and mount my antenna inside the basement up between the floor joists near my base station location. I'm looking at horizontal mounting to keep it out of the way and looking at a ground plane. Here is a list of supplies I have so far. I plan to use a different antenna when I mount it externally on the roof. -AnyTone AT-5888UV Mobile Transceiver -BTECH RPS-30M 30 Amp Compact Regulated Bench Power Supply -Nagoya GPK-01 (21" Radials) NMO Mount Ground Plane Kit -Midland - MXTA26 MicroMobile 6DB Gain Whip Antenna -PL259 UHF Coax Cable My main question is with the antenna orientation and ground plane. The antenna mounted vertically would be ideal but I just don't have anywhere to mount it besides in the floor joists. If I mount it horizontally with the whip pointing toward the exterior butt plate of the wall, will I get decent signal reception? I should also note that some of the stuff I bought with intentions of reusing it on a mobile setup once I get the base station situated. I wanted to make sure that what I bought for the temporary solution wouldn't go to waste.

From my experience you'll have neighbors who will jump on board immediately after a motivating event. Others take more than one event but will come around. And some who won't ever get involved, but certainly take advantage of your connected group. It's hard to keep everyone involved active as the motivating event fades from memory. Sadly, so far, we've had enough events that folks have stayed involved. From the initial home invasion to somewhat frequent medical emergencies.

What’s your call sign so Rich can look you up?

Yeah, that's weird. First time I've seen that happen.

To be clear, I didn't write the line you quoted

A couple of years we got snowed in and then the power went out for a week. Cell service was down as well. We used GMRS radios to check on a couple of neighbors and to contact family members who lived at a lower elevation. My well neighbor and I were helping other folks in our area dig out and I used my radios to stay in touch with my wife while I was away from our property. I'm trying to get others in our area to get a radio and learn how to use it so we can check on each other when local crap happens. Sometimes all you need to do is talk to a neighbor.

I can confirm that during hurricanes, the same thing happens.

been working fine since yesterday afternoon..

its been working fine since yesterday afternoon

i defiantly would rather have a radio that i can program for many frequencies versus a cell phone. I remember the big earthquake we had her in 2019 and our cell service brought to its knees. Radio comms were working great and pretty busy.

True, if your definition of "SHTF" is only "massive, region or nation wide calamity or collapse." There's a whole lot of gray area between that and "normal", even more localized disasters (weather events, wildfires out in the sticks or on the edge of town, extended power outages) where they're totally appropriate for a situation where the shit has totally hit the fan, just maybe not to the point to where the zombies are chewing on the door knobs. Which is a long way of saying, they're useful in a whole lot of real world situations that might not reach the level of a massive, metro-wide (or worse) problem, but which someone is a lot more likely to encounter in reality than those larger scale problems.

I have tried numerous times to reset my password and either the link to do so is broken or something is wrong with my email.

Can't you just go to map and zoom in on your area to see the repeaters that are there?

Depends on where you are. Around here it might not be so bad. In LA it's already worthless without an emergency situation.

I guess I should at least respond to the subject title. The radios are not good for the SHTF situations. Who in the hell are you going to talk to in those situations. You'll be lucky to talk to your next door neighbor given all the channel congestion occurring.

And they may have been blondes and blue eyed!

“That idiot’s talking to a brick!!!” is less of a chick magnet than a good belt clip handheld.

They probably didn't know what he was doing at the time.