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Thanks .. When I posted a comment in this forum saying that this has been posted online, "Some people" decreed that what I said was: "a deliberate and blatant lie. No one ever said anything close to that." I thought it was weird how "some people" could claim to know that "NO ONE EVER SAID ANYTHING CLOSE TO THAT". I guess this just demonstrates how stupid and arrogant "some people" actually are - it seems that the harder they try to show everyone how smart they think they are, they just make themselves look more ridiculous.

This guy seems to have established proper spacing between antennas for different bands.

I think it may have been one of those Ham guys saying something to that affect. I do remember the Jeep guy that drives a Nissan had a video to the contrary on that subject. No antenna definitely affects your farz. Its best to use the right antenna.

Yes. I have seen online and/or been told "If I transmit without an antenna my radio will be damaged." Generally with no qualifiers. Also, I have read a similar warning in the manual for every radio I have bought over the last 30 years, usually with the qualifying "may" instead of "will".

I have, but only anecdotally, never from an authoritative source such as a manufacturer. Here’s an example from quora: The problem with no antenna is the output port becomes improperly terminated. This generally will cause the system voltage to be too high or the current too high, and this might damage components in older unprotected equipment.

November Oscar India Tango Delta Oscar Echo Sierra November Oscar Tango.

Well I sure won't try to transmit on 70cm and GMRS at the same time with both antennas on the roof of a vehicle. I probably won't even tune to 70cm while the GRMS is on. They are close enough in frequencies to cause issues. I was more concerned about 2m an GMRS. ANd I do appreciate all the helpful input from everyone. So please do not turn this into a pissing contest.

You have headroom to spare. (Time for another radio? ) My 20 watt rated at779uv runs around 5A draw on high, and even my 45 and 50 watt radios (btech, vertex, icom) don't top 11A on high power. Haven't checked the idle draw for the anytone, but with 2 vertex single band vhf/uhf radios and a btech 50x1 all monitoring, my psu was only showing around 0.5A draw (yes, half an Amp).

Yes. The current drawn by a 20 watt radio when transmitting will probably be about 5 or 6 amps. It’ll be under an amp on standby.

Whiskey Romeo Tango Golf. Doesn't get any easier than that after military service.

If you have ever been told lies or heard myths about radios that you would like to see tested, please post it in this thread. Good/common ones will be featured on the interwebz largest and most beloved GMRS Related YouTube channel. Some examples that have already been debunked are: If you transmit on any radio, for any length of time without an antenna, your radio will vaporize If you coil your coax you will get a high SWR and your radio will vaporize If your SWR is higher than 1.x:1, nobody will hear you...and your radio will vaporize Ghost antennas do not work and are nothing more than a dummy load Any radio not costing $300+ and not made in 'Merica or Japan is "junk" If you press the PTT button without a license the FCC will fine you or put you in jail "Sad Hams" do not exist Feel free to keep this thread going as long as necessary. I will not rest until all myths/lies have either been debunked or proven true.

No. In fact the wording of the requirements allows an individual to operate “stations.”

Many radios have a status bar that shows receiving signal strength as well. That's a good indicator that someone is using the channel even if you don't hear them do to some tone settings.

I have the Baofeng GT-5R which is the same price and it works well for a $26 HT. The GT-5R definitely gets better reviews than the standard UV-5R. I can stand outside my house with the GT-5R and hit the repeater 20 miles away. Granted it is pretty flat around me. I am using a Nagoya 771 antenna on the GT-5R

my current radios have 'monitor' button... Some of the Baofangs i used early on did not, but i believe you can program the monitor function on those somehow.... Waiting for someone to ping in that can answer that... But in a nutshell to answer your question,, It's operator responsibly to insure they dont interfere with other parties.. A monitor function does that well.. A monitor button simply breaks the squelch so you can hear traffic on the channels.. In other words, it breaks the privacy tones enabling you to hear anyone on the frequencies

you are suppose to press 'monitor' button which breaks the squelch to confirm you will not interfere with anyone before transmitting.. Now you may ask, 'all radios do not have a 'Monitor' button so how do you break the squelch.... And my answer to that,, I don't know..... But i do know, as an operator, it is our responsibly to make sure we do not cause any interference with other parties.

Play Time! I just got my (2) Baofeng UV-9Gs. I was surprised that they came with 2 standard 8" antennas (thin flexible) and 2 additional 15" whip antennas in the box. I don't think that was in the description. They included a programming cable, so I will play with that now. I saw a review that all channels have a privacy code set and are set to a narrow band, so I will check to see if that is so and change it if it is. I think I have to use the Baofeng software. I don't think these are Chirp-compatible. I can also program a lot of scan-only frequencies into these HTs but I have no clue what frequencies I should include at this point. BTW- I ordered (2) Baofeng UV-5R Ham radios a week ago but I am going to send those back even though they were cheap as dirt. When I get my Ham license I will get something better.

This is the most important thing if you ask me.

Yes, there are effects from what I learned was a parasitic radiator. The amount of effect is determined by the percentage of a quarter wavelength distance between them. At a quarter wavelength the parasitic radiator will boost the signal from the transmitting antenna and at a half wavelength will have no effect. At 1/8 wavelength there will be maximum affect as the reflected wave will be in full opposition to the radiator. A simple visualization can be done by drawing a full wave on a piece of paper and then moving a mirror representing the second antenna along the X axis, You will have a visual representation of the affect of the two antennas.

Yes a 20 amp power supply will be plenty for a 20 watt radio. You could even run a single 50 watt radio on that power supply. Most 50 radios will draw around 12-13 amps at full power. Now if you think you might end up running two 50 watt radios at the same time then get a 30 watt power supply. One thing to remember with power supplies (and generators) is that they are rated for the maximum/peak amperage. On average the continuous amperage they will run is 80% of the peak amperage. So with your 20 watt PS, you can easily run up to 16 amps continuously.

I knew from the get go that there can/will be an issue running 70cm and GMRS at the same time with antennas close together like on a roof of a vehicle. I do have a little more room with the Escape versus a sedan to space the antennas out a little. Right now I am mostly using 2m and GMRS occasionally. The use of GMRS will change now that others in our club are starting to get GMRS radios. We discussed looking into a GMRS repeater on the 900ft tower that the 2m and 70cm repeaters are on.

A better power supply (IMO) is a Mean Well LRS series unit. A Mean Well LRS-12-360 supply can be bought from Amazon for less than $40 and can supply the 13.8V needed by the radio with medical grade power. It doesn't have the fancy meters and you'll need a cheap volt meter to adjust the output voltage but once set you can forget it for the next 20 years or more. I know of several public safety sites that use these supplies in their repeater sites.

There are several brands that have a good reputation for quality units. Spending a little time perusing the various threads will give you the information you want.

You can enter Dealer Mode in the standard software by adding a couple of letters to your program shortcut when you run it - I dont remember what it is but you can search for it here - it's something like "/D" after the .EXE .. Once in dealer mode you can enable CW-ID and a bunch of other stuff. Warning: Dont change something if you dont know what it is.. But no sexy voice option.

Found it!!! One, two sentence paragraph that basically says "enable via the dealer programming". There's a GMRS repeater in Northern Michigan I'm on all summer long. His repeater has voice identification with a hot chicks voice and I kinda liked it... My Vertex has only been online for 36 hours replacing a couple Motorola mobiles. I should be content with the upgrade. But, that voice...

But these are not Yagi antennas these are omnidirectional quarter wave antennas or 5/8 wave antennas. Everything I read states to keep them at least a quarter wave of the lowest frequency apart: https://forums.radioreference.com/threads/antenna-spacing-on-roof.206774/ and even when stacking Yagis they recommend some distance to avoid affecting the lower frequency: https://directivesystems.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/04/Stacking-Dis-similar-Yagis.pdf

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.

She hasn't stopped!

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

Ok, THIS I support!

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.

I'm not blind but I do need glasses.

Done that one! With a 5W handheld and 50W mobile! (spoiler: after several minutes of TXing, nothing happened to either other than getting hot)

Is the other end still connected to the tv?

This may actually cause damage... but, how about transmitting on high power too close to another radio will break the other radio's receiver. My radio has the pre-amp enabled. A buddy of mine started talking to me while stopped at a light. Our antennas were less than 2 feet apart. My receiver had an epic melt-down after just a few seconds. Everything i received after that sounded like it was under water and on fire at the same time. After power cycling the radio a few times and leaving it off for a few hours, if seems to have fully recovered. Depending on the radios used... I may be willing to fund this experiment.

I definitely have the feeling that I shouldn't post anything here, as in being serious, but... Myth (GMRS): Fixed stations are based stations when using repeater. Truth: those two are separate things and you can't just claim to be whatever you want at different times. Myth (HAM): Can't discuss religion and politics on air. Myth (HAM): You aren't violating the regs by using a UV-5R or other HAM radio for GMRS. Myth (HAM): HAMs are nice, helpful people and will even give a newbie all the gear you need to get started. Myth (HAM): Nets are useful. Myth (any handheld radio): you can talk for 50 miles from your La-Z-Boy chair. I may think of more later; they're probably lots more for HAM than GMRS.

Kind of hard, you've already debunked all the ones I can think of.

How it started: If you bought the New GRMS UV-5R BAOFENG, please let us know how it works. How its going: Currently I have 10 of the 3170’s and 8 of the 3173’s, which is the same radio except it as trunking / What about the software for the nx-1330?

I didn't have to change any clock settings to enable wide band on my repeater. I just created a desktop short cut to the application and added the "-d" switch to the filename string in this format: <filename>.exe -d That's what worked for me, though your mileage may vary...

I have never messed with any of those settings on my 7000.. For me, those are in the "if you dont know what they do, dont F with them" category.. The only other thing you might want to enable is the Courtesy Blip, aka the RRB or Repeater Roger Beep. The narrowband thing is a PITB .. To get around it you have to set your computer clock back to something like 2003 before you open the software - then you can keep your wideband setting.