Leaderboard

Looks like the scadacore tool believes in a flat earth! Probably the paid version includes curvature but the free version leaves it out. Vince

No, a stubby antenna will not hurt the radio so long as it is designed to operate within the GMRS band. You will find that most smaller antennas are rated for a pretty wide frequency range. Check out BuyTwoWayRadios.Com, they may have one that suits your needs. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

From personal experience, the 771G offers only about 5-10% more range than the stock antenna (on my radios at least). This means that unless you are working in the absolute fringe zone of the repeater or another simplex user, you are likely to notice little or no improvement from the longer antenna. I own the 771G but have switched back to the shorter stock antenna. The minimal added benefit of the longer antenna for me did not outweigh the convenience of a shorter one. The 701 is a shorter alternative to the 771. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

I know it's slightly different tuning, but I grabbed a 701c (before they came out with the -g versions), and didnt really notice a difference vs the stock antenna (other than its flexibility).

That 8" per mile rule of thumb tells you from your eye level how far the horizon is away from you if you're laying on the surface. If you're off the deck it's not a straight linear calculation because you're perpendicular to a curved surface and your view is a line tangent to the horizon to something else perpendicular to its surrounding chunk of the sphere.. The formula you use is: So if your eyes are about 5 feet above the surface the horizon appears to be about 3 miles, not 7 like the 8 inches per mile would say. Then if you have two observers trying to talk on perfectly flat ground that means the most they can be apart is 6 miles, each seeing 3 miles and meeting in the middle at their common tangent intersection. Note that this is the optical line of sight, in reality you can see and radios can hear beyond the horizon due to diffraction, which in this case complicates the basic geometry. Remember that "flat" is relative. You're actually perpendicular to the surface of a round object. So the question is how tall does something have to be relative to the surface for you to see it. This calculator introduces that using the concept of an "obscured part." https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/earth-curvature#how-far-can-i-see-before-the-earth-curves So if your observation point is 5 feet high and the distance over the curved surface of the sphere is 230 miles the object has to be 34,414 feet tall for you to see the top of it. If you move your observation point to 200 feet the horizon becomes 17.3 miles away but something 230 miles away from still needs to be 30,144 feet tall. Think about it with things you know. Like a city skyline. When you're driving into any city with tall buildings you can watch something several hundred or thousands of feet tall come into view as you travel just fractions of a mile on the surface of the Earth. Also the military relies on this heavily, particularly for radar and for pilots and ships. Their height or altitude is a critical way to stay obscured or knowing how high something should be so you have a clue to how far away they are. For a radar antenna 100 feet high you can only see 12 nautical miles away, for example. https://www.rfcafe.com/references/electrical/ew-radar-handbook/radar-horizon-line-of-sight.htm

The ARRL has provided a free "RF Exposure Calculator" for everyone to use. It is simple and straightforward: RF Exposure Calculator (arrl.org) More information and resources may be found here: RF Exposure (arrl.org)

Which as I pointed out in an earlier post is another flaw in the certification - they measured ERP alone because it was tested with an integral antenna so that's the right unit of measure and is appropriate in that configuration. But that's not what they're selling. This radio is shipped to the consumer with a removable antenna, meaning we can hook up the gains to it. The radio should be tested also based on transmitter output, not just ERP, if they want to sell it with removable antennas. See product as tested: https://fccid.io/2AJGM-P52UV/Internal-Photos/Internal-photos-5110431 edit: For example; here's a report on a Kenwood TK3180 where it's done right. https://fccid.io/ALH37333110/RF-Exposure-Info/SAR-test-report-424905.pdf (SAR - exposure safety) and https://fccid.io/ALH37333110/Test-Report/test-report-424900.pdf (for emissions masks, based on conducted power, appropriate because of the removable antenna) Multiple antennas tested, multiple batteries tested, and a max conducted power rating is given based on actual measurement. In contrast, the UV9G also gives a maximum rated transmitter power (not tested, based on manufacturer's claims) of 3.5W. 3.5W is not 5.0W and Baofeng knows this because they stated that - see https://fcc.report/FCC-ID/2AJGM-P52UV/5110426 Yeah the consumers buying these don't and shouldn't care about stuff this far down the paper trail, nor should they be expected to, in fact it would appear the FCC doesn't really scrutinize this enough since they're obviously letting this through the cracks until it hits the "rugged radios" kind of scale, but this is exactly why it's important for manufacturers to get it right and actually sell what they claim and what is legal.

You’re right: https://www.google.com/amp/s/fccid.io/2AJGM-P52UV/amp That’s pretty ridiculous and should be a total deal breaker. The tested (and therefore actual approved configuration) also shows an integral antenna and not the removable one they’re selling now; wonderful. Sounds like these things are not technically legal as sold and if they’re set to wideband.

I've read that the UV-9G is only FCC Part 95 certified for narrowband communications.