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Then do that. If you have a tipping mast then there is no real down side to using the temp ground plane.

Access is just a matter of tipping the mast up and securing it to a post with hose clamps. I just now emailed Comet about the radials. In the meantime, I'm going to stand it up and do some tests with the improvised radials. It will be easy enough to tip it back down and change them when the "correct" ones arrive.

If you have easy access to your antenna I say go for it. In my case my antenna is only accessible by bucket truck at my house. Trying to be one and done but that didn't work because I had water infiltration on my last setup. No idea how, I waterproofed the heck out of it and when I took it down I saw no signs of water. Yet since my setup worked at 26ºF and stopped at 32ºF I can only conclude it was water and when it froze it let things be right.

The rods I got are also stainless steel. I'm going to email Comet, but I'll use what I have until the new ones arrive.

Either way, bad things can happen when dissimilar metals are put together and exposed to the environment over time.

Nope, probably cheap chynese SS. I still have a 712 in it's bag. Maybe later today or tomorrow when I'm back at the shop I'll take a look. 95% sure it's not aluminum, too heavy.

Here is the USCG page for channel/freq assignments: https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/us-vhf-channel-information. Even though I'm just a recreational boater, its still fun to monitor some of these channels, especially when overseas.

Hmmm. As cheap as they sell the Comet i'm thinking the radias are made of threaded aluminium rod or tube.

Amazing to think about.. Here is a neat video, long but very interestig about communications to and from space

takes 20 hours to receive a signal from Voyager and the same amount of time for Voyager to receive a signal from earth.

I agree, go with the correct radials made from stainless steel. Cheap all-thread will rust and seize in the antenna housing.

The originals are stainless steel. Always stinks to have delays. But... do it right, do it once.

And it takes a while for the signal to be received after it is sent. Get's longer every minute. Still, it is pretty cool that we can still communicate. I'm waiting for someone to respond on that frequency. Could be interesting.

Nope, no stars between us and Voyager. Voyager is 15 billion miles away. The nearest star (other than our sun) is 23 Trillion miles away.

Interstellar dust Asteroid fields Kuiper belt The heliosphere

But a hell many of stars.

I'm of the opinion that on 2m/70cm, anything more than 50 watts is just wasted, with perhaps a few exceptions under very unusual circumstances.

There aren't any buildings in the way.

I thought it was probably just an oversight, but I figured I'd ask if this was normal. I found an easy solution and I don't want to wait on radials. I'll probably email them anyway so I have spares.

Yeah, I figured it was probably something like that. I found an easy work-around, so I guess it's okay.

what amazes me is how far we can communicate into space.. For example Voyager 1 is some 15 billion miles into space and we are communicating with that spacecraft to and from with ease.

There is movement, international so far, to go digital voice on the VHF marine band. Then it will likely happen here sooner or later. Implementation of digital voice radio telephony in the VHF maritime mobile band.pdf

I use the Icom SP-35 speaker for my Wouxun KG-1000g and my Icom IC-2730B. You can usually find the SP-35 on Amazon for $35. They are plenty loud. The Wouxun will drive the Icom SP-35 just fine. I normally don't turn the volume up past 5 or 6 on my KG-1000G in the car. A common mistake that some make is trying to use a y adaptor plugged into both speaker ports on the KG-1000G going into 1 speaker. You get an impedance mismatch when trying to run one speaker plugged into both radio speaker ports and the sound level will very low. The only way I have found to run a single speaker is to use a dual mono to stereo y adapter AND a stereo speaker with dual speakers in the housing. A single channel speaker will not work. Now if you need something louder, there are the Midland 20 watt speakers. I have the 20 watt SPK-100 speaker on my SxS and I can hear the radio just fine while cursing down gravel roads at 35 mph. And I don't have to crank the radio volume way up either.

I was aware that you are required to monitor 16 while out on the water and why. The info of recommended channels for “chatting” was new to me. My dad had a commercial fishing boat. Sadly I get pretty sea sick so I’ve kept my boating to the bay, lakes and streams. Still I liked the info.