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As SWR is a constant topic in radio, and since it may be difficult initially to grasp the concept of, I thought it would be helpful to provide a link to an incredibly effective video that allows you see it in action. The video is 60 years old and was produced by AT&T labs. It is worth watching from start to finish. You will get to see standing waves, reflected waves, impedance matches, mismatches, shorts and opens. It does not get visually any clearer than this. Enjoy. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

Thanks. Moral of the story. Don't get to ambitious and the more expensive route might be easier and actually cheaper Thought about that ball mount. Too bad the tank is on the right, since that would have been ideal having it on the rear right. On the left side I was worried about clipping trees and such. On the right, at least I can move to the center of the lane to clear stuff. Not so much wiggle room with a left rear ball mount. Lots of low hanging trees in Potomac and Tacoma Park, Maryland.

Well, I was not able to get on the site at all yesterday, as the system kept wanting to "link" my two accounts... ...when I've never had but one account to begin with. Whatever was 'wrong' seems to have been fixed as I'm able to do a simple login as has always been the case. As for the forum software, I was not unhappy with how it was, but I expect I'll get used to the "new look" eventually!

The Antenna. I really wanted a Laird CWB270b. Well guess what they don't make it anymore. Couldn't find coil numbers or anything. It seemed ideal about 65" and wide banded. So I started searching. Found an article from the ORF/3730 Group in Canada. Apparently, they wanted something similar. Hence, a Larsen NMO30 with 64" whip for 11m/CB and NMO34 with 64" whip for 10m. I have those now. REALLY BIG CON This combo wiggles more then jello. At about 70 MPH the whole thing is canted back almost 30 degrees. Simply getting in and out of the truck the SWR was all over the place on the nano vna, from the jiggling. When tuning for 10m. I couldn't get the SWR lower then 1.6 at 28.540 or so. After talking to folks at MYGMRS and others. I probably went as short as I could with the coil in question. So I ran around with this for a while. I really wanted 1(one) antenna for both bands. I really took Marc's words about the antennas being too short now a days into consideration. Part of the reason the antenna is not center line roof was due to height. The NMO30/34 64" whip combo put it after tuning about 4 inches higher then my Larsent2/70b. In comes my birthday in a couple of days. Wife has been hounding me for weeks as to what radio I want. Well the THD74a is like a gazillion dollars now, due to the shortage. So that is out. I asked for an MFJ 1610T 10m Hamstick and Hustler quick disconnect on top of a Tram NMO to 3/8 adapter. Below here she is tuned in at CH20 on the with a beautiful SWR around 1.14. On 10M tuned in at 28.400 at with an SWR of 1.09. Pretty close to under 1.6 across the band width in both bands depending where I have it set on the whip. Interesting enough, the marks between 10m and 11m are only about 2 inches. Overall height? Under a couple inches below 13'. So objectives met.

Another great video on theories and why we do what we do.

And it is back. Learned that just within the last hour they got the software that allows it to work installed. Thanks Team! Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

Actually, just about everyone should be fixed now. I ran a script to compare the myGMRS email to the forum email and for anyone that had them different, I copied the myGMRS email over. Glad you were finally able to link up the accounts!

I used your Gmail account as the new email, and I fixed all the other accounts that had the same mismatch between email addresses. I tested one such account that kept having trouble, and it's working properly now. Can you see if you can log in normally now?

So...on tones...ctcss is more common, and usually expressed in hz, almost always with a decimal. 141.3 hz is a common one. Dcs will be 3 digits, often with a letter N (normal) or I (inverted). Either will get saved on the channel you're using, and these are effectively the "key" into the repeater, working kind of like a filter....signals with the right tone get through, and others are ignored. (If your radio is set with a receive tone of 141.3 hz, you'll only hear signals from someone using 141.3 hz as a transmit tone, for example) On programming (disc and cable), it isn't a necessity, but its useful, especially with one that lets you receive such a wide variety of bands, you may want to add things like local public safety, or pre agreed presets (channel/tone) to use with family. At least on the kg1000g, you can likely accomplish the same manually via the menus (not 100% on that, but others that own one may be able to confirm). Hope this gives a little bit of clarity.

Hi, I'm from the HOA and we're coming for you! Just kidding. I use the icom AH4 random wire auto tuner with my icom 718 HF rig. It really works great with 42' of wire on 80-10 meters. You have to use a wire length that is not resonant on any frequency that you will be using. You can use shorter or longer lengths depending on the bands you want etc. The reason this tuner works so well is that it goes outside and there is NO transmission line between the tuner and the random wire. The random wire feed point is right at the matching unit - and the voltage can be rather high so mount it out of reach. This is why it needs to be an auto tuner - because it has to be mounted out at the antenna feed point. It's not a cheap solution but it works very well and is very convenient. I have no complaints about it. Vince