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Freaked my little sis out so much, and she didn't want to tell our parents, she slept on the floor in my room for days. Then they made the sequels.

Welcome to the new world of written communication brought to you by young people with limited education.

Oh great crappy 80's movies will be on all day. Time to make popcorn .

OK, so barry's philosophy of you didn't build that. You know what I mean.

Which is BS. If we were trying to do anything 100% on our own we'd still be living in caves eating whatever grew on the land and whatever squirrel we could manage to hit with a rock.

i would defiantly go with a military grade faraday bag. Ebay & Amazon would be the last place i would go to buy one,,

I've had them say to me well I had to pass a test and endure ongoing education. Well big whoop. I had to learn my trade 100% on my own without help from a myriad of teachers and employers. School of hard knocks as it's known. I'm sure they'd have a harder time with my profession then I'd have with theirs. Love it when they say carpenters are a dime a dozen. Ya, crappy ones maybe.

And you shouldn't be. Plumbing and electrical aren't really that hard until you get into big commercial. And the majority of people don't do the big stuff, only residential. Most competent people could do plumbing and electrical and get it done right. Biggest hassle is the ever changing code book.

Every occupation and hobby has some people who look down on others. There’s no denying that. But if you feel that anyone who has had to pass an exam to get a license looks down at you, the problem might not be entirely them. I’ve been taught a lot over the years by licensed plumbers and electricians who have been very helpful. Not one of them gave me the feeling that they looked down on me.

Well, I'm one of those that had to pass three tests to get my license and I'm not on a pedestal looking down on anyone. And that first bunch of hams that I met didn't know I was active on CB either. They were just a bunch of douches, which is why I didn't hang around their club much longer after I found out their true colors.

Just like anyone who has to pass a test to get a license they look down from their pedestal at you like you were trash. I see it in the contracting world all the time with plumbers and electricians.

The group of guys that I met on air on CB, and in real life, were a lot more welcoming to me than the group I met on air when I first got my ham license. We had more fun than the hams at that time too.

I’m bad at counting also. But at least I use an occasional period and paragraph breaks. Every so often I see a post that is one long run-on free association. Those make my head hurt.

Have to say, I miss the hay-days. Back in the `70s and `80s (a little of the early `90s, too), I had an absolute blast on the CB. I had a base station and also a mobile in every car. My base setup had an ERP of 122kw. When I would fire it up full power, none of my neighbors could watch TV. One of the people closest to me said he was pretty sure my radio caused his refrigerator to hum. LOL Compared to back then, it sure feels like nobody is using it.

Hi Brad, Antennas are much more than simply a good SWR reading. A dummy load will provide nearly perfect SWR while emitting very little RF. All antennas have gain, which is a concentration of the emitted RF in a particular pattern, expressed in dBi or dBd. If you have time, knowledge, and the right tools it’s possible to make and tune an antenna to perform as well as a commercial antenna. I wouldn’t advise it for someone who’s eager to get on the air though. And if your time is valuable it’s unlikely you’ll save money. Most antenna are already made of materials unlikely to corrode although sometimes manufacturers screw up and use set screws that are not stainless.

No. As long as you do it right/dont screw it up, you lose nothing.. The SWR is a good indicator to let you know there are no shorts in your coax/connectors and the antenna is not way out of tune - but yes there is more: Does it actually work?.. and the answer is probably yes... You are already WAY over-thinking all of this. Just install everything, double-check with your SWR meter, then go enjoy your radios.

Hey guys, I’m new to radios. Sorry if this is a dumb question. I’m in the process of building my base station. I’m good there. Got a Comet CA-712EFC antenna, LMR400 coax and a Kenwood to-8180 30 watt. I’m getting around 1.2 - 1.4 SWR. I just ordered a couple used tk-8180h 45 watt radios on eBay. I want to put one in my jeep and another in my electric Cushman cart (for shits and giggles). My question is now that I have an SWR meter I’m thinking about getting a generic antenna for my vehicles and tuning myself. I’d prefer stainless for corrosion resistance. By tuning my own antenna and using stainless am I losing much? Versus getting a pre-tuned GMRS antenna?? thanks, Brad also, at the end of the day is it just getting a good SWR reading or is there more?

Not all faraday bags are created equal. Better double up on them if using cheap bags from Amazon or eBay. Or stick them in a faraday bag and then into an all metal container.

our stick your phone in a Faraday Bag

That's only 4 paragraphs...

It seems I have a reputation to either change or uphold. Here are the ten paragraphs and big technical sounding words. Sorry. Lossy cable will always make your SWR appear artificially low when measured at the radio. If lossy cable is attenuating your forward power there will be less power that reaches the antenna and then whatever power is reflected by an imperfect impedance match is attenuated before if gets back to the radio. So an RF power meter/SWR meter placed at the radio will see erroneously low reflected power, resulting in an erroneous calculation of forward power and an erroneously low calculation of SWR. If your radio has an ALC circuit, it limits output power as SWR increases and allows greater power if the SWR appears low. Where are you measuring the power? At the radio or at the antenna? If you want an accurate reading of the SWR of the antenna, you must read at the antenna feed point. If you want to see how much power is reaching the antenna, measure it at the antenna feed point. If you want to see how much power your radio is emitting, measure at the radio. Sometimes it’s very helpful to measure power at both places at the same time to see the difference. How are you measuring it? Some RF power meters are simply better than others. Expensive ones are calibrated to a standard for a specific frequency and power range. Inexpensive ones may lose accuracy at different frequencies and power levels which can make things appear better or worse than they really are. Are all measurements at the same transmit frequency? Our radios often (always?) have a range of power output levels that change at different frequencies.

Seeing higher return power would be due to the antenna having a high SWR as it is reflecting power back down the coax. That's why a dummy load should be used to test power output as the dummy load is a perfect 50 ohm match and should show a 1:1 SWR. That takes out coax loss and reflected power returning down the cable.