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I actually use a wide footprint to tolerate high winds. You can bring them in and reduce the footprint, but it will reduce total tolerated wind speeds. There is some math that can be done to find the critical angle if you want to go that route. I don't have any issues with a ground plane. All of my vertical antennas have built-in ground planes in the mount or are half wave antennas that don't need a ground plane. So, the actual ground quality doesn't matter. It does play in if you try to use a dipole for HF, though. I have seen some creative engineering... and I aways ask "if it works, was it really a bad idea?" LOL Yeah, I was thinking pulling the seat and putting a short mast (5', maybe) and rotor would be good. Not to mention you can climb up there to work on it easily, which is awesome.

I purchased the KG-1000G a while back, but never got around to setting it up or installing it. I didn't feel comfortable running the wires and whatnot. So I found a place that will do it for me in the next few days. And no, it wasn't cheap. But I don't care. This will be my first mobile radio, so I'm excited. I'm currently using two of the KG-935Gs and I like them a lot. They're able to hit my local repeater about 30 miles away, which is pretty awesome, but I can't reach any other repeaters. Hopefully this new mobile unit will help out. That's all I have to share. I didn't really have anyone else to share it with. This stuff is super neat to me for some reason, so I spend money on it without any real world use for it and without any people I know IRL that's also into it. I suppose I need to start making friends through the repeater soon.

Has your house or radio antenna ever been hit by lightning? We had a violent storm float through here yesterday (in Sierra Vista AZ), and I saw this amazing damage report from someone who lives close by and I thought it was worth sharing here. BTW, yes about 20 years ago I had a lightning strike that blew up my Comet antenna and when I was a kid in the 1960s lightning hit my tent pole.. Luckily I was not inside the tent but I was close! Ken WQXQ522 ".....That VERY LOUD clap of thunder you heard during the thunderstorm tonight was the sound of lightning striking the chimney chase cover on our house (in Country Club Estates)! It traveled down the chimney and blew a hole in our wall."

The great thing about a good quality GMRS HT is that when you are unsure about hitting a repeater, you can take it with you for a drive closer to the Repeater. Pre-Program two channels with each digital tone on the output so you can experiment further.

Thank you and your welcome. In hindsight the rt97 would have been cheaper, with less frustration. I start out the build ($200) to test antenna designs. Starting on 3.5 watts and dropping to .7 watts for performance testing. To see if I could due better than that vertical dipole. Which still needs to be explored. Who knew I would be getting in this deep. It's a illness without a doubt. The next step is a ISC controller with Id broadcast and to many controls to think about. WRJA397

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That's a nice pole, but with the guy wires has a pretty big footprint. Do you encounter any issues with no ground plane, except the ground of course. While the hunting tower has the expanded metal..Here, where I am, the ground has very little reflective properties. Mostly limestone and sand. I see people using aluminum pipe from the top of a wire fence, or a few sticks of PVC, and all sorts of redneck engineering. For your heavy rotor and a set of moon rakers, you could remove the seat and use the pedestal. I'm just kicking around ideas right now.

This thread is interesting to me. I have been a sucker for the Q.R.P. craft ( low power 5 watts or less) for years. The most amazing prodject I was involved in was a 440 3.5 watts output repeater. Place on top of a very high hill. It reached 60 miles into the valley east with full quiting and could be tickled 60 miles west (rolling hills). The antenna was a diy vertical dipole design. I got another GMRS license to build a Qrp repeater for family activities. It has been a 6 year off & on journey at a estimated cost of $1500.00 plus. Buying the Retevis rt97 could be lot easier and cheaper. These are a few of things I have learned. It's frustrating and fun, these are very technical machines, Chinese duplexers are junk, R.F.I. was a challenge, brasing rod J pole antennas work better the expected, and I must like mental torture. LOL Here is a picture of what I have built. 3.5 watt reapter version 3.3 with Pl tone squelch, optional DTMF on/off control, diy J pole antenna, 18 ah lithium battery, 2.5 amp solar panel. From ten feet above my shop the range is a round 7 miles. We sit in a hole. From a small rise 70 feet higher and a 1/2 mile south the range increases to 20 ish miles. I hope everyone has fun with this hobby. WRJA397

This is the tower I have access to that was bought and paid for by a ham. I am gonna say that jealousy doesn't really play into it. But I could be wrong. As far as the misappropriation of taxpayer assets. Gonna have to say that, yes, that tends to irritate me. Now i am not gonna say that every ham group is full of idiots that would pull crap like the OP was talking about. But those guys and groups are out there. And I have seen where hams had gotten into agreements that were out of bounds. If a ham repeater is in place for EMCOMM for a county or other served agency that is being hosted totally free of charge, no insurance, power bill or anything else, then that equipment, at least in the eyes of the state of Ohio is to be tested on a regular interval and NOT used for general communications. There were two ham repeaters that were installed for an ARES group locally that were actually pulled from service because they were specifically paid for with a federal grant and then were used for general communications. The tower access agreements were also written specifying emergency use only and were granted free tower access due to them being for that specific use. And like I said, we can't approach a street department and borrow their tractor, dump truck, put crap in their buildings for storage or any of that. It ain't allowed. Because they are government (taxpayer) assets. A tower really should be no different. Tower rental rates. Have multiple customers on ATC sites. Paying between 1000 and 1600 per site for two antenna's and a microwave dish. Antenna's are at 130 and 150 and the dish is up at 200. These prices are common in this area. They are also on private sites and are paying less than that. But if you are renting from any of the major players, then you are paying these sort of rates for relatively low mounting positions on the towers. The pricing structure in your area may not be the same. I can only speak to what I have first hand knowledge of. This also applies to the way hams and ham clubs conduct themselves. If what he's saying is 100% correct and you are REQUIRED to be a member of their club to access a tower that doesn't belong to them, they are not doing it right. I have been to sites that hams were allowed full access to and they are typically a total mess. Cable held to tower legs with electrical tape if at all, improper cables used in the radio hut to protect from interfering with other tenants at the site. Skipping on proper grounding (of course I am R56 certified so I am a grounding and install NAZI and immediately notice such things). And I directly deal with it as a ham and a tower site manager. I get requests, some that almost sound like a mandate, that some ARES group NEEDS access to a tower for EMCOMM for free. I know better, the problem is that elected officials typically don't. They hear it's for public safety and disaster preparedness and immediately agree without any actual research, or it was done years ago by some verbal agreement by a friend that was also an elected official that never really had the right to do it and now it's just in place. I am all for providing hams access within reason for both EMCOMM and hobby use. And I don't believe they need to be made to pay the standard going rates that a cell phone company is required to pay. But they need to install to the same standards, use good equipment and not mobiles screwed to a sheet of plywood and hung on a wall with wires going every which way. But then again I have seen commercial radio companies that had install quality that made most ham install look good. But that's another story. And as far as the government being aware. The guy that owns that tower shown above is an IT admin and a ham. Of course he also climbs towers, since he has that one, but is not a licensed bonded climber. I went at the request of a county EMA to oversee and test antenna's and lines once the climbing and work had been completed by the tower climber that the hams were bringing in. The county had been told the guy was a TOWER PROFESSIONAL by the local ham group the work was being done for on a county owned tower at a city owned site. The guy that showed up as the TOWER PROFESSIONAL was the guy that owned this tower. They had told him little about what he was going to be doing, and I questioned what was gonna happen so I brought MY rigging equipment and tower winch in case it was needed. We pulled 300 pounds of stuff off that day and replaced 4 antenna's and two feed lines. He was totally unprepared for the job, because HE wasn't told what it was. I had a feeling that something like that would happen and was prepared for it with equipment. And the whole situation stuck me between my buddy and my customer that I HAD to tell them he wasn't a tower pro. And I even had hams coming up to me trying to tell me how to rig the tower, tie proper knots, and all sorts of crap. I ahve spent to last four years working all over that tower, rigging it, installing and removing antenna's and I was the one with the gear that was even gonna make the job possible. And I am getting told I am using the wrong knots. BTW, I was using bow-lines and figure 8 knots. So yeah, my personal experience with hams has been questionable at times for the last 20 years I have been a ham.

You can't put the number in both unless you set it to cross, which really isn't needed. If you only want to hear repeater traffic, just set the type to TSQL and add the number to the ToneSQL field. If you want to be able to hear everyone on the channel, including simplex operators, set the type to Tone and put the number in the Tone field.

If you just stick it in a tripod and don't use guys, in low/zero wind it will hold about 5 lbs max at full extension. It will not hold much weight at all. In fact, I was up on Flagpole Knob when some 40 mph winds came through and damn near folded it in half. Now, if its guyed with a good tripod, It will easily hold 25-30 lbs. I use 3 tiers of guys with one set at the top 5 inches. The guys keep the mast straight under the load for max weight capacity. I have had my 10' vertical in 80-90 mph winds. The top of the antenna was moving all over, the the mast didn't budge. The two heaviest loads I have run while fully extended is (1.) a mono-band 20m hex beam with thrust bearings and a rotor at the base, and (2.) a 10' tall 2m repeater antenna, 20m dipole and an 80m inverted V with a balun and choke. That second setup was in a massive overnight snow storm we had during Winter Field Day a few years ago.

Wow! That's actually really neat... but I personally wouldn't spend that much. The platform is only 17' high. The shooting rail is the part that is at 20', and the rail doesn't look like it would hold much weight. You will almost double your range on flat terrain, but we are talking about going from 3.1 miles to 5.9 miles. I bought this instead.... https://mfjenterprises.com/products/mfj-1906h?_pos=25&_sid=bfd1eb1e0&_ss=r I get about a 9 to 10 mile radius (in flat/level terrain) with my antenna on this. A tripod, ground stakes and guy lines, I spent less than $280. I designed it to be portable, but it can be a permanent setup with zero concerns... in fact, right now and for the past 3-4 months, it's actually behind my house in the woods being used to hold up my 80 meter HF antenna.

Here are some photos. The main unit is under the passenger seat with the face unit velcro to the phone charging cubby. I can still slip my phone back there to charge easy enough. The hand mic is the only thing that got screwed in. Although, it’s not the best position since I’ve been bumping it with my knee. Luckily it has a quick to use lock switch on it. The magnetic antenna base is a lot bigger than I thought it would be. A bit of an eyesore but it is what it is. I went out with it this morning but couldn’t reach anyone on the local repeater. 10 minutes before that I was loud and clear on my HT. So I’m not sure what the problem is with it. The wire is crimped a bit from where the hatch closes in on it, would that be an issue? I wanted to test it out some more but my dogs were going crazy barking so I just headed home after three attempts at reaching someone.

Turning off weather alerts fixed it for me. Thanks!

Here is a short clip of my KG935G running a scan and it never stops unless there is a legit signal. My scan has no weather alert or priority.. Make sure those are not enabled. Ken WQXQ522 IMG_1087.MOV

Very strange! You say that if you manually flip from one channel to the next there is zero trace of any silent signals but if you let the radio scan it always finds rogue signals that disappear when you stop the scan... That is bizarre. I would send a video of this to two way radio or whoever you purchased it from. Too bad you don't have another KG935G to establish a base line. Good Luck! Ken WQXQ522

I occasionally have the scan stop on either GMRS02 or GMRS06 when I am in the car, but it is normally accompanied by digital signal audio from some close by device. Does this happen on the same channels every time or most of the time? You might check your squelch settings. If you can get to the radio while it is stopped you might try pressing the monitor button to see if you can hear anything. Are you using Priority Scan? I am sure someone who knows more than I do will have some suggestions.

Very good point. Pressing the ‘Menu’ button operates as the ‘Enter’ function when navigating the function menus on Wouxun radios. If one gets in the habit of only pressing ‘Menu’ only when intending to make a change and ‘Exit’ in all other cases the problem of upsetting the codes can be eliminated. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM