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P as in psychology. K as in knife. G as in gnome.

There was someone who used to be on this forum who was local to me. He complained about this type of conversation happening on the repeaters, here on this site. So, a few of us who know him would get on the repeater everyday for over a week, at a time we knew he was on, and would talk about nothing but our medical conditions, prescription costs, what we had for lunch and where we were meeting for dinner. LoL

This was one of the first threads I delved into when I first got my GMRS license and joined this forum. It should almost be required reading:

JamesBrox - If you are considering putting up a repeater the first thing to consider is what do you want to do with the repeater. Is it primarily for local ( 5-10 mile) service or do you want a longer range? Range will be the primary cost consideration. More range, more expensive - period. Local service can be handled with one of the little 5 watt units on a 35 foot high antenna. Longer ranges mean high cost towers going up 50 or more feet and higher output transmitters. A 50W GMRS transmitter unit will cost new around $1500 - $2000. The tower another $5 to 25,000 depending on height and construction. As you are in Florida, think highest cost due to hurricanes. Then there is the antenna and feed line costs. You'll want an antenna with gain, 3 to 9 dBd or better. The transmission line should be hard line, not normal coaxial cable like RG8 or LMR. Hardline cable starts around $4 a foot so 50 feet is over $200 plus connectors. The antenna ranges from around $100 to over $2500. A 35 foot mast can be aluminum or fiberglass, you can even make one from PVC pipe. It will need guy wires to keep it straight and vertical in normal winds but will have to be taken down during a hurricane. You are still looking at spending a couple hundred dollars for even PVC. The Ed Fong J-Pole antennas work, but have no gain which means any power losses from your feed line and antenna mismatch won't be compensated for.

My suggestion would be to not make up new ones. Just use the ones that already exist. The whole point is to have clear communications. That is why the phonetic alphabet came into existence in the first place.

There's one from Alaska I hear on nets sometimes that uses "Frozen Radio" for the FR in his call

It really depends on the ability of the final output transistors to dissipate power. It’s wrong to say that every radio will blow its finals immediately if operated without an antenna, but it’s also wrong to believe that every radio is capable of operating without an antenna.

The same exact wording, huh? I doubt it, because no part of what I wrote came from a google search. Forgive you, because it looks like HAM equipment? The Bird is one of those tools that many commercial radio technicians are likely to own. I’m sure there are quite a few hams that buy them as well, but probably not on the new market. I don’t have one, but I wouldn’t turn one down, if someone gave me one with all the necessary elements. You can be successful with or without one, but there’s no point to having one if you don’t know how to use it. A digital SWR meter, like that SW102 you have, looks at both forward and reflected power simultaneously and does the calculations for you. Its usefulness is limited by the accuracy of its measurements. There’s a reason Bird meters cost what they do.

Like anything else in life, in moderation is fine, but in excess you go blind.

Is the other end still connected to the tv?

I have heard a Ham near me with MTW in their call use Monday Tuesday Wednesday. It may not be traditional but it couldn't be easier to understand. I like it.

I'll stick with the phonetic alphabet that I learned in the military, which is the same as most amateur radio operators also use. It is not hard to learn.

Sorry for all the Confusion. We will be setting the repeater on a temporary tone just for anyone wanting to check in and give us a distance check. RX 462.7250 T Squelch 141.3 TX 467.7250 T Squelch 141.3. The repeater will go live sooner than expected. The new day is Friday, October 27th, 2023. Hope to hear you on there.

@back4more70 If I did that, my wife would roll her eyes like @OffRoaderX.

Ok, THIS I support!

Yeah, it’s like bad parents trying to scare their kids into a pattern of behavior, or bad government trying to control its citizens opinions with a “big lie.”

I'm not blind but I do need glasses.

The specifications for the unit show it measures up to 454 MHz in the UHF spectrum which is below the frequencies used in GMRS. It will however, give you an idea if there are interferers present.

With Respect To Grindr 259

@WRYU400 thank you for the information.

From my experience the handheld units just don’t have much range. I’m in Ohio. Pretty flat and lots of trees. My range with handhelds is 1-2 miles and that’s with extended range antennas. My mobile unit is the MXT575 with mxta26 center mag mounted on pickup roof. At least 40 miles hitting repeaters. Working on a home base unit trying to get antenna at least 30ft up. The consensus here is antenna height is king.

I would suggest 12” or more. Sent using Tapatalk

Except that most of them have changed since the late 1950s to what we have now... because people made up new ones.

She hasn't stopped!

I'm going to use fired bricks and build a tower up into the heavens and... ...oh wait, someone already tried that, confusion ensued.

I chose my amateur call sign (W7SXY) so I could request that my wife refer to me as Whisky Seven Sexy

This is why i always recommend purchasing from Amazon whenever possible and NEVER directly from the manufacture website especially if it is in Chyna.. That way if you get a radio that does not work as advertised, instead of jumping through hoops and running in circles, you just send it back for a full refund - something that Amazon makes very easy to do.

I have decided to go with a magnetic mount for now on the Escape. I will have to use a 15-16 inch tall antenna so I don't tear up anything pulling into the garage. Next question for the gurus. How far apart should I keep a 2m/70cm antenna and a GMRS Antenna while mounted on top of the Escape?

Don't know about that exact model but every radio I own will stop a scan as soon as you press the PTT (transmit switch).

A serious answer: No. You won’t be able to get a perfect 1.0:1 SWR, but you should be able to get to 1.5:1.

You're welcome...

But that is exactly what all the online "experts" keep telling us.

One of my fellow repeater owners regaled us one day with a tale of his oozing wound. I about projectile-vomited in the few seconds between when he said that and the time I was able to find the power button on the radio.

(Myth) HAMs rag chewing about their medical conditions, daily prescriptions and doctor visits is quite valuable information and does wonders for advancing the hobby.

GMRS is mostly line of sight (LOS) so anything you can do to improve that will help. Taking your hand held up on the roof of your house can make a big difference by getting your house and many near by buildings and obstructions out of the way. The same with a car, getting out of the metal box will help. Elevation will usually make the most difference. Hill top to hill top with nothing in between you might get a hundred miles depending on conditions and the antenna (some HT antennas are better than others). If you are operating in a neighborhood of buildings on flat ground you may only get a couple of blocks. There are lots of variables as you will learn and terrain will play a big roll. Also every barrier that the signal must pass through such as walls, forests even your body absorbs energy and will reduce your range. Keeping the antennas in the clear will do the most good. An out board antenna on a car or home can make a big difference, keeping the above in mind. Good luck, have fun and don't be afraid to experiment. It's the only way to know for sure what works for you in your situation.

I use four 10' sections of that galvanized top rail used in fencing. It was only meant to be temporary, but so far is working good. Yes, there are guy wires

There are some really good books/guides that have been published on station grounding. There are some important specifics, but it involves tying ing the home ground, adding ground stakes and lines, and lightning arrestors. I recommend checking out some of the publications that are out there. Some of the folks who have done it may have some author/title recommendations.

Yes, you can go directly to the battery with nothing in-between... though I do recommend a fuse on the ground and hot leads. I have a circuit breaker on mine so I don't have to replace fuses in the field.

The emissions around 450-470 MHz will directly mess with the receiver (if talking about GMRS). They will be making Signal-to-Noise ratio worse. The higher frequency emissions, when strong enough, may have an effect on internal electronics of the radio. The lower frequency emissions unlikely to cause problems, but there are cases when they have an effect because close enough to intermediate frequency or any harmonic of it. Radios are constructed to be protected from the off-band interference, but if signal is strong enough, or/and radio is cheap enough, you will have an adverse effect. Biggest problem is always the in-band interference, 450-470 MHz for the GMRS.

All the above.

Necessary or not, phonetics are helpful on any radio service (not as much though on ones that don't have callsigns). I even sometimes use phonetics on the phone but some of the dippity-doos have trouble understanding them.

Don't expect big differences with hts. However, the antenna outside in the air is certainly a step in the right direction. The higher up the better. With antennas in the attic. Make sure you don't have the metallic roof barrier, metal shingles. It will be better but not leaps and margins. I made my own indoor blade antenna with n9tax twin line jpole and electric track (to hide wires). It's mounted to the kitchen area and goes up 2 stories. Coupled with even a 20 watt radio it gets quite far. Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

As @Sshannon said I too experienced desense with my KG1000 repeater build, but after separating the radios and adding some shielding i was getting 15+ miles of farz. But switching to a VXR7000 repeater more than doubled my farz even though it outputs about half the power.

NOVA GMRS and OCD Offroad are inviting everyone to join us for an "Intro to GMRS" presentation at OCD Offroad's service location in Stafford Virginia on Saturday, November 4, 2023. This presentation is prepared for people who have little or no radio experience, are looking to learn some very basic information to understand radio principles, radio performance and purchasing options. We will cover the following: What is GMRS? Why Select GMRS over CB, FRS or MURS. GMRS Compared To FRS. Range. What is a Repeater? Radio Technology and Programing Overview. Radio Types and Licensing. This session will be video recorded and published for public viewing at a later time. Please be aware that if you attend, your image may be published publicly, electronically (online) and via other means. Seating is limited. You must RSVP below to attend. If RSVP within 24 hours of the event, message MarcSpaz to confirm seating availability. If you can't attend, don't worry. We will be sharing a video of the presentation after the event.

So, your CERT Net was going on and while it was going on when someone checked in you could occasionally hear someone else on the receive frequency. In other words, when your receiver broke squelch because the repeater transmitted a tone, you could hear the folks in the background who were trying to talk on the simplex receive frequency, is that right? Could anyone else on the CERT Net hear them, or were they local to you only? Before you started the Net, did anyone listen with squelch off to hear if the channel was in use? When you did hear them, did you transmit on 462.675 MHz and announce, politely, that the frequency was in use? They could have been on GMRS or FRS. Except during an emergency, they have as much right to be on the channel as your CERT Net. We share the repeater receive frequencies with simplex users of both GMRS and FRS radios and while it would be ideal for each of us to listen with squelch turned off to hear if a frequency is in use before transmitting, there is no GMRS training that covers that. It sounds like folks were just using their radios and it happened at the same time as the Net. If they were using a different tone from you they might not have even heard you. As far as it being “a violation”, no, it wasn’t, at least in my opinion. No more than the Net operators were in violation for transmitting on a channel that was in use already by a couple of folks with their radios. And since you liked seeing the actual regulation regarding emergency use, here’s the one that requires shared use: § 95.359 Sharing of channels. Unless otherwise provided in the subparts governing the individual services, all channels designated for use in the Personal Radio Services are available for use on a shared basis, and are not assigned by the FCC for the exclusive use of any person or station. Operators of Personal Radio Service stations must cooperate in the selection and use of channels in order to avoid interference and make efficient use of these shared channels.

Just a note I thought of as I a looked at repeater updates this week... Whether you are an experienced radio guru, know enough to be dangerous. or a beginner, keep this in mind about repeaters: If you put up the highest gain antenna you can find, the biggest low loss transmission line and set your power out to get right on 50 out of the tx cans of the duplexer, and score a site 1500 feet AAT....the question is, how much do I need? If your best radio, or a user on your repeater, his best radio can get in from a maximum of, say 10 miles out, but your repeater can be heard for 50 miles...you might be overdoing it. Not only that, you might be keeping another GMRS-er from being able to use the frequency elsewhere if there is crowding, even if your tone is different. Remember, it's a user coordinated service, it's up to us to share. I once had a customer who had a 125 Watt VHF repeater, and on a good day his reliable coverage was 30 miles with mobiles, 40 miles if you were knowledgeable. You could hear it for 150 miles depending on where you were that far out. We turned it down to 75 watts and they never knew a difference. So, just my opinion, but I do believe in the ham theory that you only need as much power as it takes, no more. -