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Hi everyone! Recently I created a 3D printed Tabletop Cradle Mount for the OpenSPOT 3, 4, 4 Pro. Not everyone has access to a 3D printer, but I'm trying to make it as accessible as I can. I've placed the Cradle Mount on Etsy with a significant price discount, and free shipping! Price: $12.96 USD Shipping: Free Warranty: 1 year warranty with free shipping of replacement if the mount does not fit as desired, or breaks due to natural use. The openSPOT fits snugly into the mount by way of a friction device at the bottom, keeping it from moving loosely while standing upright. This cradle mount is ideal for ham radio enthusiasts who want a stable place to secure their device, while having the option to charge the device while in its mount. It stands upright, allowing for ease of use, while being able to monitor the LED display at the bottom of the device. It is customizeable with your CALL SIGN, up to eight characters! WHITE primary color, with BLUE call sign color, which makes the mount look FANTASTIC! We have customizable colors, so please inquire if you have a specific request. This design was created by That Medic Andrew, as seen on TikTok and MakerWorld, using 3D printers by Bambulab and FlashForge. Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions. I'm always looking for new ideas and quality input to improve my designs for those of us in the hobby. https://www.etsy.com/listing/4298063353/ 73 all, Andrew, N2AL / WRTD229

I am with the original poster. As a repeater owner, part of it is either listing the repeater as open and shutting off the requests, or checking the requests. The system does email repeater owners at their registered email address when a request comes in. So it's not like they aren't seeing it. If they have the function enabled for requests, then it would seem they want the requests. So they need to answer them in a timely manner. If they want the repeater listed but be private, to help eliminate interference, then it needs to be listed as such. But putting a repeater up, listing it on the site and then not bothering to answer requests is crap. If you don't have the time to do it, turn off the function or remove the listing. It's not rocket science. I understand that it cuts into your time. I had mine listed with requests for a while and after answering 200 something requests, I set the request function to off. It clearly states that requests are NOT needed and the PL for the repeater is accessible for any member of this board. It is open to all licensed GMRS users.

If I can catch the storm I disconnect the coax from the radio and put a shot glass over the connector. Plus it's lightning. It jumped from the cloud to the ground. It's going to do what it wants. A good grounded system will definitely help guide it to the ground but there is never a guarantee. It might find another path it likes better no matter how short the ground is through the wire. It's just as unpredictable as most of nature is.

Yup, you’ll loose your radio but you’ll save your house. The few local lightning storms here, I unhook the radio and place a dummy load on the coax.

If you get a direct hit your radio is fried. Doesn't matter if it's a polyphasor or cheapy cheap. Close calls is where they do their work.

Use a Polyphaser arrestor with N connectors and grounded with least an 8 awg wire to the house earth ground. Don't screw around with cheap junk.

I was actually reading your thread while I was messing with mine and the SWR meter this morning. Seems I fared better than you with 3 out of 4 units working. I'm trying to file a warranty claim on the janky one (I assume they'll get back to me on Monday) since I'm outside of the Amazon return window. I'll probably hang onto mine and use them as loaners or something if I ever get nicer radios.

Thx for checking. The repeater listed in Prosper TX is down. Looking to hit a couple of others via Hustler mag mount on pizza pan. Will see that that does. If not, stick with Ham for repeater and distance stuff and use GMRS for 2 way radio stuff. Let’s see what the pizza plan can do! Thx again

Don't buy cheap Chinese Lighting Arrester's.. Like i did and learned the hard way..

My multimeter doesn't read out OL instead it reads out 0 but I get what you're saying, I'm replacing the coax all together. Yeah my run is 49 ft in total as my antenna is sitting on a 30ft tall mast (because of the terrain where I live.)

just a little bit of Trivia, if you look at the 'Stale' Repeaters most show expired Lic as well.. I know of two 'stale' repeaters in my area, the owners died years ago and obviously have no way to remove themselves ..

Oh, no. You’re not getting off that easy!

RG-213 has 5.28dB/70% loss at 100 feet and LMR-400 has 2.87dB/48% loss at 100 feet. The calculations were made using 50 watts in and an SWR of 1.5. You can get away with using RG-213 but LMR-400 will definitely work better. Cheaper alternatives to LMR-400 is DX Engineering 400MAX or R&L Electronics Jetstream 400Flex. As @nokones stated, stay away from the cheap stuff from Amazon and eBay. The cheaper stuff will have less ground shielding plus some use aluminum instead of copper shielding. You definitely won't get as good of a solder joint on your connectors with aluminum shielding, if you can even get the solder to stick to it.

Your multimeter continuity reading on the coax cable should be reading "OL" meaning no resistance. Your coax has an itty bitty short, that's not good. And more than likely it is at one of the connectors. If your coax run from the radio is more than 20 feet you should be using LMR400 coax that is purchased from a reputable radio electronics supply retailer and not from an operation that specializes in cheap discount inferior products.

LOL. Dear Sir, your contributions to this site more than make up for any beer deficit. Please consider the accounts balanced.

Agreed. I have mine hooked up to a DB-25G, but I've come to the same conclusion: Nice, cost-effective way to do GMRS. Simple, no holes to drill and highly portable (I move it inside atop a pizza pan when not in one of several vehicles). I'm a lightweight user and you are hard-core, but we both agree that the combo is a lot of GMRS for $150.

Two 25 ft lengths, sorry forgot to add that part.

I agree, so ive decided to just replace it with two length of RG213/U that should be sufficient I think.

Me too and I still owe you a beer!

I still don’t know what the length is, but rg213 still sucks for uhf.

The coax is less than six months old at this point, yes yhe connectors could be the issue. I am looking at just replacing it with two pre-made lengths of RG 213/U cable.

You don’t mention the lengths of your RG-58, but for UHF almost any length is too much, but lossy cable like RG-58 will always make your SWR appear artificially low because less forward power reaches the antenna than passes through the meter so there’s less power to reflect AND much less reflected power reaches the SWR meter after reflecting from the antenna. So although the losses in RG58 is a problem, it’s not the cause of your SWR reading higher. Second, although a short or an open can be detected by a multimeter, the effect of RF frequencies is completely different. Yes, detecting a short would be reason to discard a connector or a cable, but resistive losses, the 002 (I assume that’s 2 millions?) that you measured are nothing to worry about. Without a dummy load and antenna/coax analyzer or nanonva your best option is to simply remove a piece at a time, replacing it with a known good component.

My 4 non transmitting tdh3’s all receive exceptionally well. They work great on receive. FWIW.