Leaderboard

There are several reasons for side mounting. First is increased gain based on height. A taller antenna will talk farther. But unlike GMRS and HAM commercial radio operators are limited by their license on how far their equipment can be talked on from the tower. It's typically on the license as a radius in KM. Legally you can't operate at a distance further than your license allows. To limit that a properly designed system will only talk that far or only slightly more. Another reason for limiting coverage is system design. If you have a DMR system that has multiple sites, you want to limit how far each site talks so the subscribers will vote the sites and switch to the better site as it approaches it. If the system was installed by the old guard types that believe it needs to talk as far as possible, it will not work right. We have such a system that the 100 watt repeaters are turned down to 20 watts. Why 20, because they will not go any lower and it still talks farther than it can hear. Antenna is 675 feet AGL. Cable length is 780 feet and 7/8. Cable loss is 6 dB. Combiner output is 5 watts, and it's DB-420 antenna's. It can be heard forty miles away in some directions but it will only hear for 30 miles and less in some directions. Now that is as extreme as I have seen. But my crap talks and hears at 30 miles on a bad antenna with 6 watts forward and 3 watts reflected on the current antenna. Antenna height is 110 for transmit and 240 for receive. Vertical Real Estate (commercial tower space rental) is calculated by the foot, and by the load. The higher you are and the more you load the tower the more you pay. A tower also has a limited amount of wind loading that it can take. If you significantly exceed that rating bad stuff happens. So it's also a juggling act with the renter to figure out how high they NEED to be for the coverage they want without needing to pay for unneeded height. While we sit and discuss the cost of antenna and line, we typically don't consider the reoccurring cost of rent. We look at a DB-420 and 300 feet of line costing 3 to 5K installed with a side mount arm and wring our hands at the idea of that expense ONCE. When there is a 600 dollar difference PER MONTH for a higher or lower place on a tower, that 5K number seems mundane compared to the cost savings going lower on the tower if the coverage is adequate for the customers need.

I thought that way for a short period time and It was probably because of the ham crowd that I hung around with. When you look at any radio service out there, it's not the radio service that's the problem. It's the people involved in it. Ham radio can be the same way at times depending on the band. Sadly, I've heard stuff come over ham that made me cringe, because I have always operated it in a professional manner and always viewed it as a highly respected radio service.

My recollection is that when it is in the "GMRS" mode that comes from the factory, there are only a limited number of programming channels that will allow alternate CTCSS and/or DCS tones and still transmit: Channels 1-22 can only transmit simplex; Channels 23-40 can only transmit with the +5 MHz offset already factory set (so not simplex). Channels 41 through 500 cannot transmit. If you do this, you can "open your DB-20G" to transmit as you want to program (remember the FCC rules for frequency and power output as well as narrow vs. wideband), as well as find out your firmware version: Turn off Hold down V/M key Turn on Write down Firmware version listed on the bottom line. If you want to "open" your DB-20G, do this: Using the Up and Down Keys, change the Mode from GMRS to: (136-174) (400-470) Now turn off. ----------------------------------- You can also accomplish this in the Radioddity programming software by clicking Model -> Model Information:

Nobody likes you any less! ?

I notices that sometimes I can receive audio of the transmissions and some times not even though the play button shows active. Any answers?

@marcspazHamburger day is coming up fast, but just like Christmas, I never know what to get for people.

Not to mention there is only one 'top spot' and, not every user requires a full omnidirectional pattern. However, many (commercial) tower sites have one massive antenna at the top spot and feed it through RX multi-couplers and transmitter combiners, for customers who want, need, and can afford the 'top spot'. Side arms, in addition to the previously mentioned reasons, are a way to generate even more income to the site owner (more customers). None of this necessarily has anything to do with range, although height rarely is a bad thing. While coverage/range can be predicted, anything short of that is speculation (it depends). Even coverage prediction tools have their limitations. ?

Side mounting antennas is done for several reasons including those already stated. One of the more common reasons is to restrict the radiation pattern from the antenna. The tower is used to cancel a portion of the radiation pattern often to prevent interference to other stations on the same frequency. This often happens with public safety and commercial installations as another user just a few miles away can be on an adjacent channel and their application was approved for coordination with the non-interference requirement.

Good catch, both. Thank you for filling in the details...I clearly haven't used mine under gmrs mode enough.

I Sorry, didn't see the reply by @MichaelLAX Follow his procedure. It's not a bug. By default, there are a finite amount of memories that permit transmit in the GMRS mode. Do yourself a favor. With the radio off, press and hold V/M button and power the radio on. You will get a menu of configurations/frequency ranges. If you select the 400-480 range (or whatever roughly matches that) the radio will revert to that setup and all memories are usable for TX/RX. Your existing memories will be reset to new defaults, but assuming you only want GMRS, you now have as many usable memories as the radio offers. The same is true for the AT-779UV and other clones of that radio. FWIW, this 'mod' is completely reversible, at least it was for all of my radios.

My understanding is: It’s easier to mount an antenna to the side of the tower (picture the poor tower climber trying to wrestle the antenna into position while being strapped to the tower), lights can be mounted to the tower (but not many antennas), and the tower provides some measure of lightning protection for the antenna.

There is some Utoob hobo that makes a similar claim so I ask, what model of couch?

Yeah, his golden days. ? I just thought it funny that he literally said “I don’t condemn an entire radio service, but I condemn CB!” But you’re right; he’s not worth wasting time on.

May as well not waste your time, unless this is entertaining to you. You're trying to argue points of view with someone who believes a seriously hobbled service is the best for emergencies because the most amount of untrained people who will never actually engage in emergency responses has near untethered access to $9.99 FRS radios they can steal from retail stores or from their kids who got them as Christmas gifts. I think its funny that he keep taking jabs, implying Hams are old and senile, but then brags about getting his license when he was 10 and the chics dug it when he was a kid.

Isn’t CB a radio service?

I've been doing that around my house. I recently got a Simplex repeater and I've been testing with my HTs in my area to see where dead zones are to have an idea on where it'll work (the answer seems to be "very far away, but still limited by terrain at some point". I am going to test down in town and at the bottom of the river valley soon. I suspect I won't get reception from my HT, but I might from my mobile radio in my car. Maybe. Large terrain obstructions, but it isn't like half a mile of hillside in the way. Or at least not depending on exactly where you are. But it works a good mile from my house HT to HT even with a couple of hundred yards of hill in the way. I just got my base station and attic antenna setup to work with the simplex repeater, so it'll likely work even better through that stuff. Of course I can also hit a repeater about 13-14 miles away from my house and attic antenna with okay reception. Though if I walk half a mile from my house, up the ridge I have LOS or at least very NLOS to the repeater and I can then get very good reception on my HT. No 25w radio and 6dBi antenna 15ft off the ground needed.

Yes - the FM Capture effect. Basically, in FM the stronger signal will win. Once the stronger FM modulated signal is about +6dB or better (stronger) than the interfering or weaker signal - you won't notice that there's another signal present, or your ear might be able to discern a slight very slight warble/wobble in the background if the interference is fluctuating right around that 6dB level. This also gets into the reason why Pre-emphasis/De-emphasis has become the standard for FM radio transmission. You can read entire books and articles dedicated to the study of FM capture. It was one of the reasons that Armstrong pushed FM as his preferred modulation method. Compared to AM - it certainly did have less static. Armstrong pushes "staticless FM" technology - Free from interference...

Up here in Maine there is a repeater 13 miles from me and one that is 65 miles from me. I live in an RF toilet bowl ( one of the lowest points in my area surrounded by tall hills) and I can hit the one 65 miles away, but I can't hit the one 13 miles away, all with a portable radio. UHF is more line of site with little curvature of the signal, meaning that, you can't have a lot of obstructions or you won't hit the repeater. In the same way, the repeater, the higher up it is, the farther away the signal will reach. Also note too, on this site, I have come across many repeaters that claim a large area but in reality they may only reach that long in only a few directions due to terrain. Sadly, this site only shows a big circle around each site, not an actual specific mapped out area showing dead zones also. That's where some studying of the repeater signal will come into play. I do it with ham repeaters all the time and then just make a mental note of where the dead zones are. It helps if you are having a Convo mobile. You can pause your Convo until you get out of the dead zone.

Yes. But actually, I didn't condemn an entire radio service, I made clear my view that ham is overrated and not the best for emergency communications. It's a perfectly acceptable hobby for the type of people who enjoy that sort of thing. At the very least it gives particular people something to do besides mistaking the brake for the gas pedal. Now, CB on the other hand, I strongly condemn and believe it has no place in a civilized society. You didn't look hard enough.

Yes, 200 feet is a magic number. And it's not a huge deal to exceed 200 feet, depending on location, but you do need to have FAA approved obstruction lighting on it and it needs to be registered. We deal with that at the site and it's just a hoop to jump through. But if you are considering going that high you need to contact the FAA / FCC before beginning construction. They have to grant you permission to do it and they will need to do a location study to verify it's not too close to an airport or in a flight path.

Same here. If I figure out they have no license, whether it's GMRS or ham, I ignore them. And like you, I got the GMRS license so my wife and I can keep in contact on repeaters when I'm off exploring outside of cell coverage, since she's not really interested in the ham license.

Honestly, I don't really have any interest in "carding" whoever I'm talking with to see if they have a license. I also don't get too wound up if they don't use their callsign. I use mine, but that's just me. I see GMRS as just another form of communication and I have no interest in the radio hobby as such. For a while I thought I may get my technician's license, but decided it wouldn't be useful for family use. It's impractical for each family member to have to learn a bunch of radio trivia just to be able talk back and forth.

The Spectra was the last radio that was given to field support specialists to 'beat up on' (in real world use) in an effort to uncover any serious issues, before it became a released product. That use to be a common practice in the Bob Galvin days of Motorola, and so the Spectra was perhaps, one of the most reliable radios ever produced. Not saying later model radios are of lesser quality, only that the Spectra was the last radio produced when 'do it right the first time' was an actual practice within the company, and not simply a 'slogan'. Bottom line, it was and remains a great radio! ?

MotoTRBO fw 2.10+ definitively has the option to lock the channel knob from the CPS. CPS 2.0, however. If you don't have/want 2.10 and the CPS 2 abomination, then there is a knob guard that you can 3d print, or buy from eBay... well, if it bothers you that much, that is. Accidental channel changing hasn't been a problem for me after I got a good belt holster. CPS16 has a way to set the min volume on the volume knob, and a way to disable the On/Off switch as well... but I've been EDC my XPR7550e for ~2 years on my tactical belt, every day, and never had my radio shutdown on me. Ever. If I was to pick an issue with the XPR7550e ergonomics it would be the large PTT button, which sometimes I tend to accidentally press when picking the radio up, especially if its dark. G.

There are 2 types of people. Those who have time to sit around gabbing on a radio, and cool kids who hang out with each other at the bar comparing antennas. Putting the two groups together would probably cause a tear in the space-time continuum. They're just too different. To stir up interest in radio stuff you have to overcome its outmoded nature and attach its usefulness to more modern hobbies. Breaker, breaker 420 code 69 on tik tok QSY BYOB. CinnamonChallenge clear. Or whatever BS is the thing now. I'm good emerging from the bunker only once a week for my Taco Tuesday/Disaster Prep meeting and letting other people do the public outreach.

The correct answer is "It depends" .. anything else is only a guess.