Leaderboard

I used to have a solar array hooked up to my system, but I took it off line due to the fact the solar regulator was cheap, and inferior. It tended to over-charge the batteries, and boil them out on very sunny days. If I had the money to spend, I would switch to a different type of charge controller, and go with LiFePo batteries, but for now, my setup is working just fine for me, and has been for several years now. It is great for temporary power outages - but if I lived in California, or someplace with rolling blackouts, I don't think it would last long. In my case, the power was out for about an hour and a half last spring during a thunderstorm, and it worked fine through that, allowing me to keep checking into the weather net on the local 440 repeater. My power is very reliable. I flickers or browns out on a semi-regular basis, but it has only been totally off for about an hour or two at a time, 4 times in the last 15 years. Major props to South Central Public Power District of Nelson Nebraska! Great job guys.

What is a good GMRS antenna to your for my vehicle

I guess this was the culmination of what started with just a couple of Baofengs UV-5R back in 2013ish... So, couple of days ago I finally bit the bullet and got my first XPR7550e, been eyeing those for a long time, form factor and performance, I've even programmed a couple for a friend, but never really tested them.... But now this one is mine... my own, my precious.... hahaha, and I just cannot even begin to describe how amazing this radio is. I ran every possible test I could think of, high RF noise, no antenna, ... everything short of an ISOTEE test (since the 7550e doesn't have an SMA connector)... and the 7550e beat every other commercial grade radio I own by an ample margin. Including EVX-539 portables, XPR6550s... and it utterly humiliated the garbage China radios... it demolished all those CCRS even harder than the EVX/6550 did... We did a 1 watt range test, on foot, one XPR6550 at home, ground floor, and the XPR7550e, along with a few other radios on us. Remember, terrain around here is very hilly, not flat, this is Madison WI, where you won't find a flat piece of land anywhere... So, we walked exactly 1.89 miles distance on 1 watt, ground to ground, before the XPR7550e was the only radio left standing, the only one able communicate with the 6550 at home. Measured RSSI Signal strength on the 7550e screen was -118 dBm @ 1.89 miles. Considering this radio would still produce audible (and intelligible) digital audio all the way down to ~ -129 dBm, I think it still had, at least, 1/4 mile of range left on it... The XPR7550e was using the PMAE4070A antenna, and all other radios used PMAE4048A antennas, except for the GD77 which used a Vertex Standard UHF antenna since it uses the sticking out SMA (female)... At that distance, 1.89 miles, even my best-tuned EVX-539 portable, with a really good Motorola GMRS antenna PMAE4048A, the RX light was just blinking but no audio could be heard. The XPR6550 was about the same as the EVX-539... the light would blink, but no audio heard either. All those LMR radios stopped communicating at about the same distance, or around the 1.5 miles mark, and at 1.6 miles the digital robotic/breakup made voice communication 100% unintelligible on all those. We also tested the following China radios on DMR: Alinco MD5 (made by AnyTone) Baofeng BF-1801Radioddity GD-77 Retevis RT-52 The Alinco MD5 was the best of the pack, it performed similar to the EVX-539/6550, and also used the same PMAE4048A antenna, but at 1.89 miles the light would simply randomly blink and no audio could be heard. Then the BF-1801, the GD-77 and the RT-52... all those stopped receiving audio completely at about .5 miles from the house, that's right, these cheap pieces of utter crap weren't able to communicate with a Motorola XPR6550 after just 0.6 miles... and you wonder why you don't have any range with these CCRs?... I think its time to stop wasting money, start saving up for a 2nd hand XPR7550e, just like I did... mine is used, it has a couple of small scratches on the screen... but those scratches on the screen certainly didn't stop it from demolishing the "mint condition" RT-52 and all these pieces of China garbage... Yes, I know, you need the CPS, you need a cable, heck, you need to actually invest some money to field a XPR7550e... I know, I know it quite well, b/c I also started with x2 Baoturd UV-5R CCR radios... but looking in retrospect I should've gone directly with an XPR7550e, I can safely say that it would've saved me a lot of money, a lot of sleepless nights trying to figure out why my radio range was measured in tenths of an inch rather that in tens of miles.... G.

I have several LFP, Lithium Iron Phosphate, batteries. Gave up on any type of Lead Acid since they tend to get wrecked if you don't keep them on a battery tender at all times to trickle charge. The LFP's can be charged up and sit around for months or longer, great for emergency use, and they don't discharge hardly at all. In fact for long term storage it's recommended NOT to fully charge them. Try that with a Lead Acid type and you will kill it. The LFP batteries have a higher terminal voltage, around 13.3 VDC to 13.4 VDC when charged making them a better match to mobile equipment that expects a nominal 13.8 VDC. When the battery is nearly discharged, 90 plus percent, the terminal voltage is still around 12.8 VDC more or less. A Lead Acid battery is around 12 VDC when its at 50 percent capacity. Most mobile equipment spec's 13.8 VDC at +/- 15 percent so the low voltage cut off is at 11.5 VDC. You won't get most of the capacity out of a Lead Acid battery before the electronics starts to shut down or misbehave. The down side to LFP batteries is the cost and you need a special LFP charger for them. If you do buy a battery make sure you get a charger for it. I also have several MPPT charge controllers for solar panels. The charge controllers are used to keep the battery packs up. The link below is for a company that is friendly to two-way radio users for batteries and chargers. I have one of the 6 amp-hour packs for portable handheld radios and one of the 40 amp-hour ones for fixed location use. The charge controllers I have are from this company below. I have several of the GV-5 charge controllers for LFP batteries. https://sunforgellc.com/genasun/#gen_product_row The company below has decent prices on solar panels. I have a couple of the 50 watt, one 30 watt, and a couple of the 10 watt mono crystalline panels. https://www.renogy.com/solar-panels/ If anybody has a need for a pure sine wave inverter this company has some good products. I have the 300 watt version with a builtin GFI. https://gpelectric.com/product-category/inverters/pure-sine-wave-inverters/ For connections I use Anderson Power Pole connectors. A good source is from Powerwerx. Also one or two of the DC inline power meters comes in handy too. https://powerwerx.com/anderson-power-powerpole-sb-connectors https://powerwerx.com/watt-meter-analyzer-inline-dc-powerpole