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What am I? Chopped liver?

Thankfully my education as an industrial controls electrician helped me wrap my head around this stuff pretty well. I use to wonder why things like bonding and what not were required when I first started in the career. I had great instructors who broke the ideas down to bite size pieces that were easy to understand and gave examples that supported the "science" of it all.

100%, grandma kept telling him to turn it off to save the battery whenever he wasn't using it. Kids left to their own aren't going to be thinking those invasive thoughts; they'll leave it on in their sock drawer for six months, or until years later when you clean out their room after they moved away to college (whichever comes later).

That's a very good explanation. Thank you.

Bare with me, I will try to explain this as concisely as possible but things are about to get technical. This is by no means every reason as to why you should bond the two systems but here are a few examples. Bonding creates a low-impedance path for lightning to flow to ground which in turn prevents dangerous voltage differences between different parts of a structure or different systems. Bonding reduces the risk of electrical shock to anyone who may be in contact with metal objects during a lighting strike event. Bonding can also prevent an event called a side flash. A side flash is where lighting current jumps from one conductive object to another due to the difference of electrical potential. So one of the reasons why you want to bond to the main electrical system ground (house ground) are to equalize the electrical potential of the radio communications system and its power source. Say there is a strike and the systems aren't bonded together. The lightning strike can jump to or cause what's called induced voltage on any conductive metal objects including piping, wiring, telecoms conductors etc. The earth actually makes for a poor conductor albeit some caveats and special circumstances such as soil composition, soil moisture content, yada yada; on a molecular level, the soil is comprised of elements with few free electrons. Free electrons allow for the movement of an electrical charge from one atom to another. The fewer the free electrons in an atom, the poorer the conductor. Say one system gets an induced electrical charge or there is a failure of one of the systems causing it to become energized with a charge. A charge from one system will discharge to another system that is not bonded, because that charged system wants to attempt to equalize and shed its excessive charge. Atoms want to remain in a neutral state. If an atom has too many electrons, it will dump those electrons anywhere it can, ie. another atom with fewer electrons. In electrical systems, the electrons want to go back to the source which is the main electrical panel or wherever the system is bonded to neutral. if a piece of equipment such as a radio fails and sends line voltage into the coax cable, the earth being a poor conductor will have enough resistance to allow that coax to heat up and not trip the breaker that feeds power to the radio. This will cause a fire since the coax basically turns into a resistive load such as a heating element and so do the conductors in your walls feeding power to the radio. Static electrical charges can also build up causing discharges on sensitive electrical equipment. Say the wind is creating an electrical charge on your antenna and it wants a place to go. If that antenna isn't properly grounded and bonded, it will find a path through your equipment to ground and cause severe damage. Ground connections degrade over time as well. Copper and other metals tend to oxidize causing resistance in the electrical connection. If the resistance in the grounding system is greater than an alternative pathway to ground, that electrical charge will take that alternate pathway. Most if not all jurisdictions who have authority over codes and installations of electrical systems, communications systems etc. actually require these systems to be bonded together due to the safety aspect of the examples I listed above.

I prefer the Kenwood TK-8180 & 3180s. Fleetsync is handy...

My favorite thing about the Kenwood's is fleet sync. some good videos on YouTube about its capabilities.

Yes. My bad. Fixed. Thank you.

Geesh. All we ever did was play punch bug, and Outta State to see who could see the most out of state plates. No radios needed. All we did was holler from the back of the '57 Chevy station wagon to the front. Then again radios would have made communication easier at those long distances.

Did you mean 550? 555 is not valid for FRS or GMRS.

Here’s what the menu shows for me:

Went on a road trip and my 6 year old rode with grandma. I gave him one of my radios and we kept the other. Thought it'd be a fun way to try to talk. In the 20-ish hours of driving: Kid turned off his radio "to save battery" Kid turned off his radio because he wanted to watch Minecraft videos on the iPad Kid dropped the radio and couldn't reach it Kid couldn't hear his radio over his headphones while watching a movie on the iPad Kid said "hi dad, I love you" and a construction worker on the same frequency responded "what?" and my kid went "what?" and the construction worker went "what?" and my kid panicked turned off the radio when he realized he wasn't talking to dad We talked about how big windmills actually are when we passed a blade being transported All in all, a fun experiment. He enjoyed using "dad's radios" and getting to use walkie-talkies somewhere other than the backyard (when it was turned on). Also, sorry, random Illinois DOT guy.

Thank you! I am a first level Premium Member.

With hurricane season underway, our HOA just announced that the board and staff will be monitoring 462.550. Now everyone knows someone will be listening. Including FRS means folks will at least be able to hear updates, even if they can't TX very farz with their $10 HTs. At the next board meeting I'm tempted throw out the idea of a portable, off-grid repeater. This place is too flat with too much vegetation for reliable HT simplex, but a decent antenna on the property high point would make a world of difference.

Yes, for some people. I don’t know if it requires a premium membership or that you have risen to a certain rank.

You could turn the radio off.

All I have is the GMRS and cell phone. I know when the cell phone quits the GMRS will work. But what I don't know is if there will be someone on the other end that will answer or help. But it's certainly better than having a useless cell phone and nothing else. On top of it the GMRS radio I have can transmit on a whole host of bands by just putting it into open mode. If it's an emergency, anything goes. If the eff sea seas comes to arrest me for using it without a license it still means someone is coming.

I didn't get this old by leaving things to chance. That's why I have a cell phone, a satellite emergency beacon, and CB, GMRS, and ham radios (and the appropriate licenses). It's only overkill until you need it.

I have a half-dozen or so that came that way. I don't remember if the BF-f8hps were in a different size box, but they didn't come wth a longer antenna anyway. I'm not sure because I only kept the boxes for radios I haven't used. Anyway, my point is that if it was advertised with a 15" antenna, the seller certainly could have included one by one means or another. Thus, it's most likely that OP's radio was supposed to have one and it got overlooked. The antenna is so cheap to the seller that it probably wouldn't be worth the negative feedback to advertise it falsely. Again, I'm not trying to show anyone up or be a . I'm just providing accurate information.

Can a post be deleted by its author?

Thank you OffRoaderX and UncleYoda.

Oh. "L". Sorry. That's the higher power one. Like I said in the beginning. Regular power supply and cut off the cord to attach.

If you already have the cord (others have provided link) you should be able to connect it to any power supply sold for use with two way radios. A switch mode power supply will be less expensive, lighter, and smaller. A linear power supply will be heavier and bigger but many people like them for their longevity.

They said it is a different one for the RT97L And they don't have any yet for sale.

This is where I tell the "cell phone" people you need an alternate means of communication. You know the one's. Walkie Talkies aren't crystal clear and I can't call someone on the other side of the world. Sometimes the $100 option beats the $250 billion dollar option.