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Channel name? I watch YT more often than "regular" TV anymore, always looking for new things to watch.

It will work. That's what you want, no? You want to talk to hand-helds (HT) about 3 miles? You will be fine. If you stand on the TX, you may warm up the antenna, a little but not hurt it nor the equipment. The HTs' OEM antenna's will do 3-5 miles on flat earth to each other. And if they were HAM spec'd (which most people buy, because of power, and know no better) they are 144/430 OEM antennas and people use them all the time. You can buy a (advertised) 10watt HAM radio with a 144/430 OEM antenna and use it on GMRS channels and never know it; most of the time. That said: I have GMRS HT antennas from everyone and prefer the tiny, inefficient, stubby ones because I seldom need 5 miles in the leafy woods. If I stand on TX, they will warm up. In the woods or a crowd antennas make a difference. Line of site is not, nearly, as affected.

I thought it was back again? The majority of the Kenwood commercial radios I have were manufactured in either Malaysia or Singapore. My understanding is the country of manufacture determines the tariff taxes. The other question is how does this all apply to used radios? Does customs still consider the country of manufacture or the country where it's being exported from if the tariffs apply? I just got, a few days ago, a used Kenwood TK-3701D dPMR446 radio from the UK for example. I'm thinking about MAYBE buying a second one so I have at least two that can communicate on FM/Digital modes on the Ham 70cm band for experimenting. The seller,on the UK eBay site,has a couple left for about $122 at the current exchange rate plus about another $33 for eBay international shipping, then there is the Michigan 6% sales tax on top of the $122. If the cost goes up another 10% to 15% because of import tariff taxes that's going to be an expensive radio. Bugger is nobody seems to sell these used radios here so buying internationally is about the only option. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/640-tk-3701djpg/?context=new This business is getting confusing to keep up with.

I have used a RigExpert Stick XPro clamped in a tripod that gave a good repeatable picture of the overall bandwidth of some commercial antennas. I was able to see how "bad" the Harris UHF antenna was compared to the AllBand antenna on VHF was. For the other basic designs, i.e. 1/4 wave, 1/2 wave, etc., those have know performance from physics and aren't worth even sweeping.

No. It's probably a colinear array. Unless you want to redesign the whole array, it's not worth touching. If you are less than 3:1 at 462, leave it alone.

Without knowing what is really in that tube I’m not certain. It could be a couple pieces of wire with a trap between them. If that’s so I would think (low confidence!!!) that the first (lower) wire is the UHF element and both elements together form the VHF element. The trap serves as a conductor at the lower frequencies so the two wires are connected together and becomes high impedance at UHF frequencies so only the bottom wire is the radiator. The difference between full wave GMRS and 70 cm is just a few centimeters and if the UHF antenna is intended to be a quarter wave it would be a quarter of that. But I don’t know if you can get the fiberglass radome off the base anyway. Mine appears to be epoxied.

I live in the Orlando area, so I can't help with the Naples nets. Sorry. I grew up in western Michigan and lived in Milwaukee for a few years. What kind of setup were you using to get across the lake? That's about 85 miles due east to Grand Haven.

This appears to be a fiberglass tube. So, I should be able to tune it to 462 by shortening it roughly 7", right? A little less to split 462 and 467? (<PE but not an EE)

And from what I can find, the de minimis exemption for China and Hong Kong ended on May 2 of this year. The CCR seem to still be cheap.

I didn't find 85256011 but I found 85256010 and it looks like currently it's 35%. From here: https://hts.usitc.gov/search?query=8525

Yes, remove the bolts that hold the bottom tube on and you can easily get to the coax connector which is probably just a pl-259 on the cable and so-239 on bottom of the antenna.

Aha, learn something new every day. Interesting.

Yeah, I noticed the cabling was not working in my favor for GMRS -- and, as you point out, there's a lot of it. I'll need to disassemble everything to be certain, but it appears the cable has a simple threaded connector, so it can probably be easily replaced.

No because i mounted the antenna on my chimney.

Thanks for the antenna type update. Little big for mobile use. Also rather expensive too. I haven't noticed hardly any MURS traffic by me. Anyway by the time you feed in the legal limit of 2 watts, no one uses their modified 50 watt 2M rig do they, and get maybe 1 to 1.5 watts at the antenna it still isn't going to go far.

Has anyone done any research on what the new tariffs will be on imports for two-way radio equipment? The "de minimis" $800 exception on imports is set to end on 8/29/2025. The import code for radio/TV/Sound equipment seems to be HTS Code 85256011. However I can't seem to find any up to date reliable info on what the tariffs are. In fact some sites claim there is an exception, zero tax. Since this seems to change almost daily it's hard to track down any info that is usable. If there is an exception then it going to be business as usual. Otherwise might have to change "CCR", cheap Chinese radios, to "ECR", expensive Chinese radios.

Do a search on YouTube for VNASaver. There are a bunch of videos on how to use it and have you up and running in under 10 minutes.

I'll have to look up NanoVNA Saver. Also, I know ground plane plays a big part in the efficiency of the antenna and it hit or miss with an HT. I just wanted to get an idea of where each antennas "sweet spots" were so I'd have a better idea of which one to use for what. Plus I think it'd be a fun video for my channel.

Comet GP-6NC dual band GMRS/MURS. SWR is as close to perfect out of the box as you can get on GMRS, pretty dang good on 70cm, decent on 2m but sucks on MURS (151.8MHz and 154.6MHz) - what it advertised for but still usable. I'd rather have 2m than MURS anyway.

What antenna was this? The results look VERY good! This is my 20 plus year old Comet Dual band SWR scan. They don't make this model any more. They should. I have one new in the green shipping sleeve. Look at the top center photo, the green sleeve on the left side. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/469-antenna-collectionjpg/ https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/471-mobile-mount-with-antenna-rear-view/?context=new This is why I really hate to give it up. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/282-ca-2x4mb-scansjpg/?context=new

Hey everyone. Is anyone aware of any GMRS clubs in the SE PA (specifically Bucks County) area? I'm not having much luck finding any, or any local repeaters that I can hit (outside of a very powerful one that seems to belong to LEARN - I won't poke that bear...). The closest club I see listed here on the site is Berks, which isn't that close to me. Thanks!

I would go ahead and try it! Even if the results are a bit "screwy" there is some benefit if comparing different antennas on the same test setup.

Did that include an 80 foot tower and concrete footing? Along with the coax to reach the antenna on top, and the antenna? I paid $1500 for my Btech RPT 50 which included the duplexer and can use any of the 8 pair whenever I feel like it.

This! Nano VNASaver is just so much easier to use and gets you more easily viewed results.

I usually do a sweep of 430MHz to 470MHz (70cm and GMRS) and 140MHz to 155MHz (2m and MURS), the bands I'm most interested in and document it with VNASaver. I've never actually used the interface on the VNA itself (small screen, bad eyes) when I can use the computer to do it all on a 27" monitor.