Leaderboard

Just a shout out of Congratulations to W6KCO on his successful completion of the Amateur Extra exam!

Thank you, Michael, for all your support and encouragement. A long way, in a relative short time, from when we first met up to program the GM30.

You can also talk to users whom are using FRS radios... usually referred to as Bubble Pack radios, commonly available at Wal-Mart, Target and hundreds of other stores that sell recreational outdoors type of stuff

You can talk with ANYONE who holds a valid GMRS license. Plus, Immediate family members (the licensee's spouse, children, grandchildren, stepchildren, parents, grandparents, stepparents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and in-laws) may do the same.

Are you asking if two different people with their own licenses can talk to each other?

I was trying to remember how long ago that was: within 12 months, yes?

Can't speak for everyone, but I get my coax loss information from the manufacturer of the cable I use in any given application. Pretty solid source.

For small tractors, Kubota or John Deere are very handy to have around. I have a little John Deere 2305 with hydrostatic transmission which is very easy to operate and my son-in-law has a Kubota just a little bigger. Both have 4 wheel drive. I’ve heard that Mahindra and Kioti tractors work pretty well and are cheaper, but I have no personal knowledge of them. Here in the lower 48 it’s always possible to find a used tractor. A friend of mine has a full sized White with a loader that I think would be pretty good for what you’re trying to do but getting it there would be prohibitive. If you follow the boom/bust cycle of the oil industry you can find skid-steer tractors and backhoes for pretty good bargains every ten or fifteen years. ?

I would recommend a LFP, Lithium Iron Phosphate, battery pack over a cheap Lead Acid type. https://www.bioennopower.com/collections/12v-series-lifepo4-batteries Lead Acid batteries, gell, glass matt, marine etc. all suffer from the same short comings. First they don’t like sitting for extended time periods in a partial state of charge. When they discharge lead sulfate forms on the plates. Newly formed its porous allowing the acid to penetrate so on charge it is changed back to lead or lead dioxide, depending on which plate it is like the positive or negative one. Allowed to sit the porosity decreases and the areas where the acid can’t penetrate results in a permanent loss of capacity. The common practice of using a trickle charger is employed to combat this. The next problem is the terminal voltage during discharge. It starts off around 12.6 volts and drops fairly steadily as the battery discharges. Mobile radios are typically designed to operate on a 13.8 volt electrical system, which is what you have when the car’s alternator is charging the battery. The range is usually plus or minus 15 percent of that 13.8 volts, so the low side is around 11.73 volts. That’s about 50 percent, more or less depending on discharge rate, of the battery’s capacity used. http://scubaengineer.com/documents/lead_acid_battery_charging_graphs.pdf At the low voltage spec radios may behave erratically, shut down and or loose significant output power. LFP batteries largely avoid the above problems. You can leave them sit around for months in a partial state of charge without damage. The terminal voltage starts out around 13.3 to 13.4 volts and remains around 13 volts for 70 to 80 percent of the discharge capacity. That makes for a better match to the typical specifications for mobile radio gear. https://footprinthero.com/lifepo4-battery-voltage-charts The LFP batteries are significantly lighter than similar capacity Lead Acid types. Much better for backpacking etc. Now the major negative of LFP battery packs is the cost.

If it comes up often then it sure sounds like there might be a need for one. DownEastNC sits back and waits on lecture about how GMRS is supposed to be for personal communications

Can one GMRS Licensee talk to ANOTHER different GMRS Licensee or is it for your immediate family only. For example can ABCD1245 talk to ABCD1333?