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Well it's the difference between a 1/4 wave long antenna verses a 1/2 wave long antenna. The minimum length antenna to radiate RF is a 1/2 wave length long by theory. Since a 1/4 wave length antenna is "missing" the other part, the absent 1/4 wave length, it has to be made up for some how. That's where the ground plane comes in, it doubles the antenna length so it looks like it's a 1/2 wave length long to the transmitter. To make the idea simple to understand place your finger against a mirror so it's perpendicular to it. You'll see immediately the reflection of your finger touching the end of your real one. That's basically what the ground plane does for a 1/4 antenna, it "mirrors" the other half of the antenna so it looks like it's really a 1/2 wave length long. With a 1/2 wave length antenna you have a choice where to attach the coax cable, in the middle or at one of the two ends. If the coax is attached in the middle the impedance is around 70 to 75 ohms more or less. That's a reasonably good match to a 50 ohm coax resulting in an SWR of about 1.5:1, which all most all radios will have no issues with it. For a vertical antenna the most convenient place is on the end. For some complicated reasons the impedance is far higher than the 50 ohm coax cable. For those antennas a matching section in built into the base. An example is the common "J-Pole" antenna. It's really a 1/2 wave length antenna with a 1/4 wave parallel transmission line matching section on the end. The feed point is selected such that the ratio between the voltage and current is 50, which is the required value for the 50 ohm coax. If the coax feed point was exactly on the shorted end the voltage would be zero, resistance = voltage/current, so the impedance would be zero. At the other end the current is nearly zero, the un-terminated end of the one element, thus the impedance is extremely high. Thus the match point must lie someplace between those two points. This is about as simple of an explanation without getting deeper into the theory.

Not sure if we want to pull him to the dark side yet. He has a chance to lead a normal life, he will be more apt to get adopted that way. WRWQ761, before you make your choice. We hams generally come in two shapes. The round plump variety (think Santa Claus) or thin wiry type (give them a hamburger). I think it has to do with the active geeky/nerdy kind or the sedimentary(in the shack a lot) geeky/nerdy kind . Me personally, I have adopted the plumper body type. I love how hamfest sometimes look like a wannabe eccentric Santa Claus flea market. Especially, since radio attract more of the older crowd. 73, WRDD287, W3HRD

Welcome! If I have correctly parsed your message, it sounds like maybe you would also like to get your ham license. It’s as easy as it ever has been. If you need any help with that I can recommend a good teaching tool.

It snowed and I never got back up to it but it's is now the end of March and I can update on the performance. The repeater stayed up 24/7 until around the beginning of January where low total solar hours due to reduced daylight and consistent clouds resulted a "low" battery state. The solar controller shut down the repeater when it saw a sustained voltage of 12.1 or lower. During this time we had nearly all cloudy days continuing through the start of February. The few sunny days we had the controller would turn the repeater back on after about 20 minutes of getting full sun on it's panel. We were only getting single days of sun with many days/weeks of clouds between. With the low solar hours from the high latitude a single day was only making enough power to keep the repeater running for about a day during January before the battery ran "low" again and the solar control shut the repeater back off. This would increase to about 2 or 3 days worth of power by February with the increase in the length of solar hours per day. It was good to see the solar controller doing it's job consistently protecting the battery while also consistently bringing everything back up in -20 degree weather provided it had enough sun. By late February we had 5 days of full sun in a row and significantly increased daily solar hours. The repeater has since has been up 24/7 since then. I have head multiple new GMRS members exploring it's RF footprint the past few days. Once the several feet of snow melts and the mud subsides I will try and post a reading of the data on the solar controller. I know this post is super long but I think it contains useful data for anyone else looking to make a solar charged repeater with a small physical footprint.

Sounds like a use case for MURS, like Walmart. License free not much traffic on it.

INPUT Tone = TX Tone OUTPUT Tone = RX Tone The words “Input” and “Output” are relative to the repeater. So, your radio transmits the Input tones the repeater requires, and receives the repeater’s Output tones. Set your TX tone to the Input tone needed by the repeater. At first leave the RX tone empty. Once everything is working you can try putting the Output tone in for the RX tone.

I agree with the aforementioned... I used MXTA26 with a variety of radios on GRMS, including mobile and handheld. So far, it's been the best performing mobile 'gain' antenna I have used on the service.

Hello everyone! I am a ham listener but licensed gmrs operator. I have been listening to 2m/70cm for a year or two now but only just got my gmrs license. The only repeater (I know of) is in pa but is just out of reach from me! So I am just wondering if anyone else is in my area. My wife and young kids do not care nor understand my infatuation with this hobby. So trying to meet like minded people so I stop driving them insane with all my random knowledge. Look forward to FINALLY talking to someone!!! 73 WRWQ761

If the number is just 3 digits, like 023 or 412, it will be digital (DCS). If it's 4 digits, 3 numbers, a decimal and then a 4th number (141.3 or 146.2), it's analog tone (CTCSS).

CTCSS and DCS do the same thing, just using slightly differently encoded tones. DCS encodes the tones as digital signals, whereas CTCSS actually generates an analog tone between 62 Hz up to almost 300 Hz. It’s just a choice, but there are more digital tones and they can be inverted as well. Just use whichever the radio or repeater you with to transmit to requires. The receive tone can be left off. If you leave it off you will receive everything transmitted on that frequency. If you correctly program the receive tone you will only hear signals that are transmitted with the same tone. That may prevent you from feeling interrupted, but your radio hears everything so there can still be interference. I tend to leave the receive tone off. It’s one less thing to go wrong and I live where there’s very little traffic.

I have the KMC72 which sounds amazing, and is nice and loud for noisy environments, but it has the Kenwood data port connection.

A similar speaker mic is the KMC-17. I have a couple of those and my buddy says it sounds good on the air. It might also be cheaper than the -45. KMC-45.pdf KMC-17 Revised.pdf

This is were the service naming is backward. "Family Radio Service" is for general use. "General Mobile Radio Service" is for anybody in your family (and other families with a licensed user). It is very common for a boss to get GMRS radios and communicate with his unrelated employees though.

There's a whole lot of theory behind it, I'm sure someone will try to explain it. Bottom line, it's a half-wave vertical antenna with a matching circuit in the base. It doesn't need a special type of coax. Just 50-ohm coax like RG-58, RG-8x, something like that.

That’s alright; I’m old and demented.

Back in the early days of GMRS, businesses and corporations where granted GMRS licenses. Those licenses were frequency and location specific. If those licenses were originally granted before July, 1987, were eligible to be grandfathered and if they were grandfathered and renewed and valid may continue to operate per the specified restrictions and limitations of the grandfathered Radio Station Authorization (License) per Part 95.1705(g).

You don't need a Commercial license to operate and/or repair stations operating under Part 90 rules. You only need a Radio Station Authorization (License) for operating on a specific Part 90 Frequency(ies). This means you can operate your Motorola Any Series/Model radio that is "type accepted" for Part 90 operation on GMRS without possessing a Commercial Radio License providing you have a GMRS Radio Station Authorization (Class ZA) (license) A Commercial Radio Operators License is only required for the operation and/or repair of specified Aircraft and/or Marine stations within the United States. And a radio station operating under the authority of Part 90 rules, regardless who the licensee is, by FCC definition, does not require the radio user to possess a Commercial Radio Operator's License. If the Radio Station is used for a commercial operation as defined by Part 90.35(a)(1-4), the licensee must meet the eligibility, and operate only on the frequency(ies) granted and per the stated restrictions and limitations, per the Radio Station Authotization (License).

You said you used to be able to hear this repeater so something changed. It may be that you programmed in the wrong RX tone or that the repeater has changed their tones. @Sshannon explains well the reason to leave the RX tones off when diagnosing an issue with receiving. Now you can check to see if you are accessing the repeater and you will be able to tell having eliminated the RX problem by turning RX off. Based on the RX tone not being correct as you now know it’s possible your TX is wrong also but now you can diagnose that separately.

As @BoxCar and @WRUU653 both said, the first step in diagnosing reception issues is to clear out the receive tone or turn off tone squelch. The reason is that a radio without a tone for receive will hear everything within range on that frequency. A receiver with a tone set will only break squelch for transmissions that match the tone. Some radios have a “Moni” button that gets around all of that. But you said you get absolutely no sound. If so, check to see: are you able to receive audio from other channels? If not, then have you recently plugged in a cable to program your radio or an earphone cable? It’s not an unknown problem for an earphone or microphone jack to fail, leaving the owner puzzled why they cannot hear or why nobody can hear them. A friend of mine with a UV5R was transmitting to the repeater and we all saw a good signal strength, but none of us could hear him. His microphone jack failed, leaving the radio in a state where the internal microphone is bypassed. It sends carrier (and roger beep, which is how we knew who it was) without audio. He’s able to plug-in a microphone and use it though. If there’s a possibility something like that happened, plugging in an earphone might help.

That worked! Okay I'm a bit of a newbie to repeaters. When I setup any repeater, I should always only fill that into the Tx CTCSS/DCS and leave the Rx tone blank?

The theoretical/hypothetical is fine.. A little more info on the application and usage intent. Legal or illegal could help narrow down things and get you on the right track. I am a hypothetical purchaser, my wallet is thinner then me or my ambitions. So all the sites I visit have tons of things in my wish list. BUt a Yaesu ftdx101d is going to be wasted a bit unless you contest on the HF bands. Really what it was designed for. For instance, to be used mobile (in a car) 20w usually is enough and 50w is nice to have when you are the fringes. But trying to talk to Cali on Phone (voice) over HF 100w base station and a nice antenna setup is very helpful. With UHF/VHF yeah, you are going to be using digital over the internet. So if you mind can you expand on the hypothetical. There is no radio that does it all, but some radios are better then others for some purposes.

Lol... he said smart... jk... This is one of the more helpful sites. Regardless, of the topic. Being in the radio world you kinda get the whole know one understands you and this again look often. Sometimes I think I need to choose my hobbies better. The otherside of the coin. I have met some incredible life long friends that I wouldn't have if I didn't choose some of the hobbies I have. Now you have us.. be as radio weird as you want to, we all understand to an extent. As I stare at my scrap brake line 1/2 wave antenna outside the shop. You should be able to reach, Ellicott city, Towson maybe Cumberland as well. Mt. Holly relatively close to you is a strong repeater as well as the ones up in Winchester. Get that antenna up high and start scanning.

The MXTA26 was my preferred antenna when using my KG-1000G in my Jeep, it is still the preferred antenna on my Jeep now that I use a Motorola XTL5000, and is the preferred antenna that i use with the KG-1000G PLUS that I use as a mini-base in my office.

Make certain you have no tones set on your receive frequency.

Welcome!!! I totally get the whole "my family/friends don't get it" situation. My wife and son were/are Hams and lately neither of them think I'm sane. LOL I'm a bit south from you, down in Prince William County, but there are a bunch of GMRS repeaters and users around the DC/B'more area. There are countless amateur repeaters, too. Ask questions if you have any. There are some very, very smart people here with tons of experience and willing to help. Have fun and hopefully I'll catch you on the air in my travels!

Frankly, I wish the ancients would have just left it alone. I don't know who's bright idea it was to tamper with it in the first place. Ben Franklin, George Hudson, William Willett, some dude in Canada, whatever. I like having more daylight after work but I'd be just as happy with standard time as long as we just pick one.

I really wasn’t recommending it. It was a theoretical response to a theoretical question. ? Personally, I would go with a yaesu ftm-6000.

The RAV4 has a Wouxun KG-1000G (with a Wouxun KG-S88G in the glovebox) and at home I mostly use the Wouxun KG-935G.

You're transmitting out of the designed frequency range yet you are complaining because it doesn't work as well?

I must be the only person that enjoys it.

seems like uv-5r or baofeng is a bit of a trigger word... its been working good on my local repeaters. if I was causing problems I would use good judgment and stop using it honestly if it weren't for baofeng I might not have realized my inters in radio.

Each employee, including you, would be required to have their own GMRS license and comply with all the regulations including the ID one. As a business owner you can't get a license for your business, that was eliminated with the rule changes in 2017, and hand out radios to your employees. If that's too much to deal with then just go and buy a bunch of FRS radios. Most of the same regulations apply that you see for GMRS. The big differences are the radios are limited to 2 watts on most channels, no repeater access and no ID/license requirements.

I agree with the others. The lip mount should give you a decent ground plane. At these frequencies, electro-magnetic coupling is fine. Just make sure the screws are tight enough to provide support that the antenna doesn't wave around, fall off or bend the sheet metal, but you don't have to worry about puncturing the paint/etc. to get a good ground.

Not surprised. The radiation pattern is crap. Most of the power is at very high angle relative to the horizontal. I modeled a 1/4 on a ground plane operating on the third harmonic, which is what you would be doing.