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The guys that installed our 7/8" and 1 1/4" Heliax purged and filled the coax with nitrogen. That has been years ago so no idea if the nitrogen is still in the coax or not.

You mean pull a vacuum....

Same here. I find I grab my RigExpert Stick Pro most of the time. A good antenna analyzer is definitely more expensive. I do find that the Stick Pro does most of what I need and I hardly use my NanoVNA anymore. There is a bit of learning curve with the NanVNA's but there are plenty of YouTube videos about how to use them.

I was looking on the map today and don't see the above repeater. If I remember correctly it was just south of Eureka. I also had a second repeater listed that had the same name, but a freq. of 462.725. Did this get taken down, storm damage? I showed on listed on Pinkham Mt., the other on Black Butte. Thanks, Dave

Make sure you pressurize and ground it

I picked up one of those mini Spectrum Analyzers. Interesting device, seems to work o.k.

I actually asked that about the Heliax cables because the center conductor was hollow. Turns out it's a weight and flexibility thing.

I had the coax assemble made by buytwowayradio and they looked like quality connectors. I got my Heliax coax assemble from theantennafarm. The only difference in the installation is I asked for shrinkwrap on the Heliax. Not sure if it was an option on the 239. Much better of a quality connector than in my younger CB days.

I have not used any radio tube amp but have used and repaired a few guitar/bass tube amps. The one machine shop was still using a larger surface grinder that was used tubes. So I have some experience working with them. Our club's VEC has an old 2000 watt tube amp that came out of the local AM radio station decades ago. We keep teasing him by asking when he is going to install that in his pickup truck. The amp is out the same size as a small 18 cubic inch refrigerator I remember working on the old TVs as a kid. one of my uncles owned a TV repair shop.

all things that normal people, aka the average GMRS user that this radio is marketed to, do not care about. This radio is marketed to normal people, not radio-dorks - It seems like you may be out of touch with what normal people want.

Another gimmicky radio on the market. There is no real need for having the ability to monitor the Aviation Band, FM, etc on a two-way radio. I wonder how often people really need and listen to that stuff. I'm not sure if the Queen stated if this radio was a hetrodyne or a SOC radio. Also, there was no mentioning of real radio features such as, talk around/simplex/direct, Monitor/PL Defeat, Radio Zone/Banks. The only feature that I see being a benefit is the channel capacity. Maybe this radio will motivate Midland to increase the channel capacity of the MXT575, and hopefully they don't follow suit and add any of the foo foo gimmicky features. It's best to keep it simple.

I like my NanoVNA also. It can do a lot, including measuring insertion loss and SWR. But I bought two different RigExpert analyzers and I haven’t used the NanoVNA since. However, the difference in price was a few hundred dollars.

i think everyone should start using Waveguide

I like the stealth approach, perfect for Jeeps ets.. For the price, hard to beat.. I like the Bluetooth programing, wish more radio manufacturers would do this.

Actually, the most used 'tool' i use.. Wished it worked on allegories. Hot Damn-it

If your coax is good I would cut both connectors off and install quality new ones, preferably N connectors. Professionally installed connectors are the worst for quality and reliability. Only premade cables I would use that had "Professionally installed" connectors would be Heliax or RFS hardline.

Works fine with the Firefox browser.

You really don't want to get bit by the high voltage from a tube amplifier, it will wake you up. You youngsters missed the good old days of flyback transformers connected to CRT, they hold their voltage for a long time after being de energized.

@WRXB215 yes, I tried swapping the "tx" and "rx" even, all combinations. I returned them and am looking for a higher wattage HT.

lots of reading and coordinating so your repeater doesn't bleed onto another frequency or step on someone else's toes. I think it would be cool to get a few repeaters up and down the 24 corridor. obviously not linked but just to be able to turn a dial and hop onto the next repeater.

Are you that guy that’s always hollering out “Breaker Breaker, Can You Give me a radio check” all the time? You need to lighten up and say something different, You sound like a broken record.

Ill leave that version to the guy/gal who calls himself a queen.

I need my radios to actually work.

Does this model last longer than the 50V2 before crapping out?

1/2" Heliax if you can afford it. Otherwise LMR400 will work even though it is not optimal for repeater use. Here are the losses for LMR400 and 1/2" Heliax for a 50 foot run on 462.600 using 50 watts out and antenna with 6 dBd of gain: Power loss per 100 feet LMR400 - 48% 1/2" Heliax - 30% ERP -effective radiating power LMR400 - 143 watts 1/2" Heliax - 166 watts You will not see 50 watts out of the repeater due to the duplexer. Most will output 25 to 35 watts. Here is the numbers for 35 watts out. EPR LMR400 - 86 watts 1/2" Heliax - 99 watts Those numbers are from using the kv5r.com coax loss calculator. @WSFF627 is correct when he talks about receive signal strength. You have to keep that in mind too. You will be okay with either LMR400 or 1/2" Heliax. Go with what fits your budget. Don't skimp on any of the components such as coax fittings, etc.