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I've seen some good reviews online for the 10 1/2 foot comet gmrs (commercial) base antenna, I ordered one and it should be coming in by Monday. I'm replacing my current existing antenna and ordered a 239 to n adapter. Anyone have experience first hand with the comet?

My current antenna is attached to my roof on an old existing directv mount that was already on roof and grounded, I'm hoping the new comet will swap right in with the 239 to n adapter and I wont need to much else

Looking at this page: https://fccid.io/WVTWOUXUN16 I see that 467MHz channels are below 300mW and narrow-band. As it should be! Make sure you are testing on 462MHz channels and on wide-band. I did similar test with my equipment some years ago. I have Kenwood TK-3170 with a proper receiver, not the "radio-on-a-chip" kind. Antenna is stock 1/4 wave. 1. HT-HT, flat suburbia, almost no trees, 1-2 story buildings: 1 mile reliable, after that unpredictable. 2. HT-HT, flat field, no trees: 1.5 miles reliable, after that quickly drops to nothing. At 2 miles it's nothing. 3. HT-HT, dense coastal redwood forest: 0.5 miles is a max. You can go to 1 mile maybe if one HT is elevated on the edge of the canyon or something like this. 4. HT-HT, rocky canyons: unpredictable. Could be 1 mile, with no line of sight. Same HT with TK-880H mobile (40W), antenna 5/8 wave on a flat roof of SUV 5. HT-Mobile, flat suburbia, almost no trees, 1-2 story buildings: 4 miles reliable, after that unpredictable. 6. HT-Mobile, flat field, no trees: 5 miles reliable, after that quickly drops to nothing. However, if one of the points elevated, then range is much longer. Max range I had a chance to test with this combination was around 10 miles. 7. HT-Mobile, dense coastal redwood forest: 1.5 miles is a max. However, if you hike above the tree line with your HT, range becomes very long. I haven't been able to hike far enough from the parked car (maintaining LOS) to not have a somewhat reliable communication. 8. HT-Mobile, rocky canyons: unpredictable and surprisingly long range. My personal best - crystal clear voice at 2 miles (as crow flies) and 1200 feet of mountain range between HT and car. It was at Pinnacles park, car was at Chaparral parking (west side of the range) and I was at Old Pinnacles trailhead on the east side of the range, for those who know the place. Same HT with TK-880H mobile (40W), no-gain antenna 25' above ground: no sport to test. It covers pretty much the whole valley where I live. In some places there is a shadow from big buildings, but besides that it is mostly reliable with static at the range of 8 miles.

As a follow up to this: I went back and looked at my earlier notes from other posts and couldn't figure out where I was getting the "Not allowed to use the homes electrical ground" until I did a search online and came across the original post (From here coincidently) from 2013 which does say it's a not legal to tie into the ground for the electric service. After reading it again (This time with a full measure of coffee in me) I realized the reference ("power company grounding system") was to the Utility company's electric service. IE: the pedestals they maintain on the property and not the electric service for the house. As freaking foolish as I feel right now, I am also REALLY grateful for getting the correct information from tweiss3 and having Jones warn me off using the lightning rod grounds at my home. Finally, thank you berkinet for asking the question about whether there are any stations I can't reach with my existing setup. The way I was setup in the attic was having a 6db omni antenna for hitting the local repeaters and a yagi that was aimed directly at my brothers house 15 miles away since the onmi directional didn't have enough "oomf" to have clear communications and the repeaters were pretty scratchy and noisy when I used the Yagi since it was not aimed in their direction. I had 2 separate runs of LMR400 that went into a coax switch that allowed me to flip between the 2 antennas. This worked as long as I had the switch in the correct position depending on who I was trying to reach. After pondering all the stuff I was going to go through getting an outdoor setup to allow using just one antenna I played around with the Yagi in the attic (And man was it hot up there this weekend!!!) and after several trips up and down the ladder I found a compass position that was between what the heading would be for the repeater I frequently use and my brothers house. The end result is having useable communications with the repeater and my brother!!! Granted I do a have slightly higher background noise. But is is REALLY slight and from everyone I talked to they can tell a difference but it's nothing objectionable. Maybe I can sell off the extra LMR400 cable and the omni directional antenna and put the proceeds towards a rotator for the Yagi. For now I will enjoy not having to check which antenna the switch is on to make contact with whoever. And I will wait for the temps to cool down a little. Thanks again to everybody who responded to this post!!!

I would differ on this view. It depends on what the goal is. If you want to know the maximum possible useful GMRS range in an area, then yes, equipment will matter a lot. However, if you want to know your maximum useful range, then you, by all means, need to test with the same equipment you are going to use. An old developers saying goes something like: Test what you will use. Use what you tested.

True. And the higher gain they are, the more narrow the bandwidth will be, and more difficult to tune. There are no antennas that have enough bandwidth to be used from 420 MHz to 470 MHz without tuning, but the most bandwidth coverage is from quarter-wave antennas, which are about 6 inches long. A quarter wave can cover from 433 to 468 with good results and fairly low SWR. ...and watch out at ham fests and flea markets for quarter wave UHF antennas that seem too cheap. I saw a guy once selling UHF quarter-wave NMO antennas for $1 each. I measured one, and it was only 5-1/4 inches long. Those are to cover 470-512MHz, and won't work for GMRS or ham. If they are too long, you can grind them down. If they are too short, . . . _ _ _ . _ . . Guys, if you are looking for a super high gain antenna for both Ham and GMRS use, just give it up. There will be a compromise on one end, or the other. If you must use just one antenna for both UHF ham and GMRS, then use a quarter wave tuned to 450.

Several members here have done so. Search the forums for reports. There seem to be three issues that are commonly reported and which may, or may not, be important to you. The Midland radios operate on narrow-band FM while most repeaters operate on wide-band FM. This tends to result in the Midland's broadcasts being heard at a lower volume by listeners. The Midland radios must use the same tone or digital squelch on transmit and receive. So, if you have a repeater that uses different schema on transmit and receive, you will not be able to easily use the repeater. The Midland is missing a small number of PL tones. If a repeater requires one of those tones, you will not be able to access it.Again, I suggest you search the forum for reports and to determine if these issues are significant for your planned usage. And, note also, the built-in search feature tends to miss things. I'd suggest doing a google search for something like: site:forums.mygmrs.com midland review repeater

Still have the RT97. Still works. Small, pre-fabbed portable repeater that I ordered pre-programmed to GMRS. Since there's no ID board (and no trivial way to attach one), it's basically a single-license (eg, family) repeater, and I use it as such. Works fine.