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If you using the MXTA25 antenna on your vehicle and having issues I'd recommend a standard UHF 1/4 wave as above. You will see a noticeable difference in both TX and RX. Those pepper shaker antennas are good for close by stuff but for any distance they suffer.

Yeah man - I love the nanoVNA, and I got the cheaper one. Pretty sure I got the 4.3" screen, but it'll only sweep up to 1.5ghz - there's a 3ghz one thats a little more expensive, still under 100 bucks though. Definitely not nearly as good as a lab grade instrument, but it's also not 10 grand. You can also connect to a computer and do everything from there - I'm looking to get that going at some point. Ohms vs SWR - yeah, if you're tuning for a single frequency or very tight range and you tune for 50 ohm impedance - you're going to have a low SWR just by default. The opposite doesn't hold true. You cah measure a low SWR and still have an impedance mismatch. I forget exactly how that works but I seem to remember that bieng the case?

Thanks G. Wish I had known about the RSSI meter in the radio. If you are ever looking for a road trip to Cincinnati and some field testing, you know where to find me. Would have loved to have had you around to lend a hand and offer additional insight. If you ever do come down, let’s do it when the temperatures are above freezing. [emoji23] Regards, Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

I would recommend keeping it about 12 inches away from large metal objects. The top part of the antenna, about 75 percent of it, is where the RF mainly radiates from. If you don’t need to use the antenna often you can try hanging it from an eye-hook screwed into the ceiling.

Follow up: So the HT/mobile desense issue....was not the issue. The problem was no one was on the radio last night when I tried. Both are able to make the 17 plus mile trip to the repeater. The static sounding "tail" is exactly what I was hearing from both the HT/mobile units. From the testing I did, I learned several additional things. I am shocked and impressed with the range this Wouxon 805 has! Repeaters are game changers. And lastly this forum is an invaluable info source. Thanks for all the input!

You will probably find that just getting a Wouxun 805G for $80 is a lot cheaper than trying to find some special triple band radio. Many commercial radios (I think) can only be programmed with a computer. I'm also a long time ham and bought a pair of 805G's so I can use with the wife and fishing friends etc. It just worked out best that way. You will find that your 440/70cm antennas work well though. Also, Wouxun works with some Kenwood accessories like speaker mics. Vince

Hello, Well this is a lot to take in. so lets start with the hand held. At best your going to be limited to users within a mile. This also takes into account most of the bubble packs you hear have a PL or DPL programed on them so they will never hear you. I live in a condo and was lucky to get second floor with attic access. I run several commercial UHF and VHF antennas in the attic and am able to talk simplex 25 miles with other base users. As far as repeaters, I can work 11 from my house with my attic antenna and 50W radio. You can purchase a Motorola CDM1250 in the GMRS band for $100, Power supply for $50, a good mobile antenna in the GMRS band with mag mount $50 and a 16" round pizza pan $10. Try to get the antenna outside for best result. This would greatly increase the chances you will contact somebody simplex or finding a repeater you can access with humans using it. I am not going to lie this is exactly how I get into GMRS, a TYT UHF radio, laird antenna cut for 460-470 a pizza pan and recycled power supply, look at me now...

I currently pay $100 an hour for my climber under 500'. I supply everything required for the install, the ground crew, hard hats for the ground crew and a set of quality HT's for tower to ground coms. Climber comes with all his own gear, cable tools for grounding and connector installs, ropes, safety equipment and the key Insurance. No commercial tower operator is going to let an uninsured person climb a tower so if somebody tells you otherwise its most likely not true. I can asure if something goes wrong you will most likely get a trespassing citation as I am sure Crown Castle or American Tower did not wave the insurance requirement.

Its called hang time. the difference between the receiver closing and the transmitter unkeying. typically 2-3 seconds is the norm, some are longer or shorter and/or have tones to let you know someone has let go of the key. agreed

my 2 cents....the specs look good, and leave headroom to power other equipment at the same time. the reviews do give me a little pause, but amazon's return policy is good at least. i believe others on the forum have used some other Tekpower stuff with good results (this one or the version with digital meters).

You are correct. Turn off your privacy codes (DCS or CTCSS), turn your squelch down low, and monitor ch 15-22. If there is a repeater near you, you should be able to hear it on one of these channels. Your radio may have a scan function which might make it easier to just leave the radio scanning until you find an active channel. A repeater will likely have some sort of automated ID. Enjoy!

Good point, Kirk. While repeaters are the big one it comes into play, it really applies to any time you'd want to use 2 different tones on the same frequency, for different recipients.

Sounds about right. Here is the attenuation chart, that agrees with the online calculator: https://w4rp.com/ref/coax.html Better cable would be RG8X and LMR-240. I tend to use LMR-240 for permanent car installs, where you do not move radio around often and NMO mount is drilled through the roof. RG8X is more robust cable, suites better temporary installs with mag-mounts, but loss is higher. RG58U is not a good cable for UHF. And if it's in a car, you certainly don't need 20'.

If your feed-line loss is high, your SWR appears artificially low. Add enough loss and ever the worst case real-world SWR will appear perfect at the radio. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

Part 90 vs 95E (and 95A pre-2017) in one sentence: Technical specs are identical (stability, deviation, etc); Part 90 UHF equipment covers roughly from 400MHz to 500MHz; Part 95E (A) covers few channels in 462MHz and 467MHz. Some older Part 90 equipment are also Part 95A, like Kenwoods I listed above.

I do not know of any particular RV channel or network on GMRS. Lots of outdoors people do use FRS and GMRS but I don't know how social they are outside of their circle. I have taken my Ham 2M/440 rig camping and gotten very few replies on repeaters. I decided it was kind of useless. I got my GMRS license because my wife and fishing buddies can use FRS/GMRS. I think it will be great to have around camp or when I go exploring on my bike. I can call back to the wife or others in our group. Cell phones don't work out there where we go. GMRS allows external antennas which can be a big factor. Even for an HT you can put a 14" Nagoya 771 on there and improve range further. Smiley makes some telescoping antennas. This can be a big factor over FRS. I have heard that some truckers use Chan 7 on GMRS but have never tried listening. Supposedly that is the highway channel. Or did I also hear Channel 20??? If you go camping with friends you can always hand them an FRS radio to use. They can take on in their truck if you travel together. They are great on the road as long as the lead vehicle does not have a "metal building" behind it blocking the signal. The vehicle with the rooftop antenna should stay in front. Just some ideas. Vince

Adding to the answers above, there is nothing different about a repeater. It is still a single antenna and subject to the same rules (or lack thereof) as any other GMRS station. About the only difference in a repeater antenna is if it is used with a duplexer, in which case you need to be sure the antenna design will provide good response on both transmit and receive. But, of course, that has nothing to do with where or how the antenna is mounted.

Back in the 80's I charged $8/foot for a climb plus any hardware I supplied. I carried a $2 million dollar liability policy.

I do not think anyone would argue with your points about the potential benefit of a portable repeater. However, I do think you took @Corey's post out of context. He was responding to an earlier post in this thread which proclaimed Low-altitude, low-power, and transportable systems can be extremely valuable. Given the specifics of the original post, I would have to agree, a low power low altitude (car top) repeater is not likely to offer any improvement over simplex operation on the same terrain. However, the examples you provided did not match that criteria. They were either effectively not-portable or temporary and well situated, like between you or your friend, or used antennas mounted at a significant height above ground level. As to your last statement, it would be nice if that were true. But sadly, I think there are an awful lot of cases where that didn't happen.

I'll add my 2 cents for Corey and JohnE regarding the 90 degree coax connectors. I am retired from the cable tv industry and I will tell you that we started using the 90's for cable management benefits but soon found out that we were experiencing far too many signal failure and signal strength loss issues to continue on with them. We ended up doing a massive rewire to remove all existing 90 degree coax fittings in the plant. My hands experience with those issues says I will never install a 90 degree fitting in any of my radio coax connectivity. Too many opportunities for failure and equipment loss. Craig

Talk to others directly, radio-to-radio. If there is nobody to talk to, then a repeater won't help.

There is a tremendous amount of benefits with Amateur Radio vs. GMRS. First, lets just talk about voice. On GMRS simplex, the absolute very best you can expect from a perfect setup, is going to be about 70 miles. Likely less. That would be mobile or base. With Amateur Radio VHF and UHF, the power limits are 1500 watts with no radiated power restrictions. That means with a little elevation, you are talking coast to coast on the higher portions of VHF and the lower portions of UHF. On the lower portions of VHF, you can talk to Europe, Mediterranean, Northern Africa, etc. Even in my mobile, I can talk to NY from Virginia on VHF simplex. With things other than voice... there is no limit to what you can do beyond no encryption. If you can dream it, you can do it on amateur radio. There is APRS, which provides transceiver location services. There FLDigi which is used for texting and simple messaging. There is WinLink which is a 100% radio-based email service that allows you to email other operators as well as people on the public internet. And much, much more. The benefit of HF and MF is, the ease of global comms as you drop in frequency. I was driving around in my Jeep today on an HF frequency that Tech license holders have access to. I talked to people in 3 different countries on 2 different continents with a simple 100 watt mobile radio and a whip antenna. It's really a lot of fun. As far as a base station goes, I don't use mobile radios for base a station. I have base station radios that I use for VHF, and a VHF/UHF repeater. I talk on VHF on the base for several hours a week, sitting in my executive desk chair. As far as the quality of conversation... I can't really say much about that. I would assume there are plenty of people to talk to without getting into religion, politics, etc. I avoid them like the plague. With regard to if it's worth it... that is a personal choice that each person needs to decide for themselves. I think it is. I held my Tech license for 17+ years before I got my General and had a great time. I also think the GMRS and FRS are great radio service and fill a nice niche.