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You got some good advice by kidphc. Get that antenna up higher. You have an 8' tall antenna with only 2' in clear view. Shadowing from the home is likely making a noticeable impact. I would recommend the base of the antenna be at least 3' above the highest point on the roof. If you could make it higher than that, more height equals more range.

Not really, but height would. No real magic in antennas, especially from manafacturer to manafacturer. Hence, why you see similar bandwidth and gain values. But if you can get the antenna above the ridgeline, then you will see improvements. Maybe even huge gains in reception and transmission distances. Once up there you can look at yagia (trade more gain for losing omni direction pattern) etc and all the usualy yada yada. Your antenna can only really get out to places it can "see". Sounds also like your antenna is very obstructed by the house. Usual recommendations are try to get ²/3 of the antenna above any near field obstructions at least. Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

If your interactions with hams are generally limited to their freebanding then likely you're only interacting with the subset of hams that are willing to freeband. This would be confirmation-bias. I wouldn't be surprised if there's significant overlap between licensed amateur radio operators freebanding and 'whackers', the wannabes that, once they have a license to operate a radio, end up buying an old Crown Vic or a cargo van, painting "REACT Team" or "Emergency Communications" on it. This sort likes to assert that they have some kind of authority, whether they're actually associated with the organization or not, and whether SAR or public safety officials want them there or not. Freebanders stand out because their behavior stands out, and whackers may be attempting to justify their unauthorized transmissions based on the the clauses about operating on frequencies one isn't licensed for during emergencies, disregarding that the rules are supposed to allow that only when other forms of communication are not available. Regardless, this isn't the majority. This is a very noisy group that stands out due to the high-profile nature of what they're doing. Regardless, this is not a majority of hams. In my experience the sin that hams are most guilty of is navel-gazing, using ham radio to talk about ham radio, rather than using ham radio simply as a medium to communicate about other things. The phenomenon is similar to so many silver-screen-era musicals about making a show or a musical, the novelty wears off quickly.

There is always static on any radio frequency. You set squelch to raise the receive threshold so any stronger signal will open the receiver to listen. Monitor disables the squelch setting.

Latest update, I have built a package for Linux and am learning about building packages for Win32 and Mac. I needed a crash course on Python, anyway, hadn't had a reason to learn it before. I went back to your original messages and noticed that what precipitated the removal was the request to make the "403" error more user friendly and tell the user they needed the Premium sub. So I fixed that in the code and it should tell the user "Premium subscription required to use this feature" when a 403 is returned from the API. I tested by forcing the message to come up since my account is already Premium and I shouldn't get a 403. I did notice that there does seem to be a problem with the data imported (I think around that cross-tone DCS code issue you mentioned before.) I'll tackle that after I figure out the packaging and make them available. First I have to learn what "cross-tone DCS codes" actually are, I suppose (totally new to radio...) Rich, if you'd like to take the code discussion off the forums feel free to message me. I get the feeling that sort of discussion could put many to sleep.

In order to rock that you need to wear dark glasses, a suit, and talk to your wristwatch.

They probably spent so much on weapons & etc that Baofengs are all that they can afford with what they have left

Let’s not get carried away…. it’s about scoring hot chicks, not a revolution.

That's discussed in the book at the following link. http://www.w3pga.org/Antenna Books/Reflections III.pdf

I heard that having an equal number of firearms will offset the CCSD.

Well let's see, I only own one CCSD and that's it, no more, and no way in hell will I buy another CCR. With that being said, I do own 28 (23-Portable Handhelds and 5 Mobiles) non-CCSDs.

Boofwangs and other similar units are referred to as CCSDs (Cheap Chinese Spy Devices) and I own 6.

Also, when yelling important stuff on your HT, hold it sideways. It looks much cooler that way.

Air always works as long as the pressure isn't too high. For canned air, keep the nozzle at least 6 inches away from the part being cleaned.

I am trying to get someone on site to read my FR4000. Its been on the air for 10 years and it does ID. Normally hear it after a conversation. If I can get someone on site to read it I'll advise. If you want to add the ID-O-Matic I would think using the MIC jack may be simpler that the rear but either should work. Manual for it is here - https://www.repeater-builder.com/icom/pdfs/fr3000-4000-im.pdf Also here is the document from ICOM on CWID - https://caraham.org/resources/Documents/Learning Conference 2013/ICOM/ICOM CWID repeater setup.pdf

I'm going to guess the size of the radio with antenna has a lot to do it with it. A radio that fits in a shirt pocket with an antenna that's about 6 inches long is far more convent than a bulky 11M CB with a huge wipe stuck on top. Then you have the advantage of taking it and using it just about anywhere. Then there is the mobile option. If one sticks to the simple 1/4 wave antenna you can still park your ride in the garage, go through the drive through window pickups etc. without having the antenna ripped off the vehicle.

This is ideology is a result of the constant barrage of ham radio operators acting like snobs, idiots, and whatever (take your pick) in online forums every day seemingly doing their best to chase away newcomers to the hobby. And yes, GMRS users also do this, but strangely, many of them also have ham callsigns listed on their forum signatures.

“According to the FCC account, a Forest Service supervisor drove to the airstrip, identified Frawley as the person and told him to stop.”

The joke kind of lost momentum