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Wait, did he say something to me that I missed?

You just acted like a hors’s ass to one of the nicest and least pretentious members (WRUU653) of this forum. Thank God for the Ignore list.

This relatively simple article does a good job of explaining what is required. There are also some pretty good YouTube videos that I can recommend if you want. https://reeve.com/Documents/Articles Papers/Reeve_AntennaSystemGroundingRequirements.pdf The most important thing is that everything is grounded together and to a single point. That helps prevent current flow along other paths, such as your coax and house electrical system. And you certainly should also ground your coax at the base of your tower and then connect that ground to your system ground using at least #8 awg. But you should still want to install an arrester right before your cable enters the house. Why there instead of four feet away? Because if anything happens in that four feet, such as a power line landing on your coax, having the arrester right at the entry to the house is your last opportunity to divert it to ground. Arresters aren’t perfect. They simply represent your last best chance to keep the surge out of the house and divert it to your system ground. You certainly can disconnect your coax to prevent lightning from following it inside, but if you do, do it outside, not inside. Putting it in a mason jar on the inside is silly. If that lightning jumped a few miles in the air, bringing it inside and then putting it in a glass jar will do absolutely nothing, except create glass shrapnel for the firefighters to wade through.

I can’t tell anymore.

It might be!

Since you’re using the radios for ranch operations, a business use, you would likely qualify for one or more business “Common Itinerant and Business” frequencies which doesn’t require frequency coordination. You can also run digital voice with encryption legally for private communications. This would be an alternative to using GMRS. National Business and Itinerant Frequencies.pdf Common Itinerant and Business.pdf

Dude has only 10 posts (at the time of this post) and he's already on multiple ignore lists. Is that a record?

Still, a belt pouch might reduce the stress on the battery clip by supporting the battery.

Thanks! Tim WSAC215

I have not ye tfigured out how to reply to individual answers to my question, so a thanks to all who have helped me. to WRUU653, "Puddle Pirate" is a sarcastic name for the coast guard (served from 1969 to 1975) as well as "shallow water sailor" it's taken in good humor

I guess you missed my post where I posted from the NEC, but yes that is what the NEC says. "as near as practicable to the entrance of the conductors to the building". I don't think the push back of your statement "don't ground and why" has to do with hams attitude but rather the statment is encouraging unsafe practice. You wouldn't say don't lock firearms up when children are in a home on a gun forum (I hope) and I can assure you not following the NEC on grounding and bonding can have grave consequences. To answer the question "are you an electrician?" Yes I am. 35 years IBEW. I have endless stories of electricity doing things people didn't expect. Discussion is good, though I would start with a question rather than an untrue statment if info is what you are seeking. As for Randy and the Sad Ham debacle... gate keepers are everywhere in life unfortunately. It's not exclusive to hams. @Sshannon's link is very good info. Be safe. 73's

Like I said in my first reply, this can be an argumentative topic at times. It can be as bad as asking what type of oil to use in your vehicle or what type of lube to use on your firearms. Read the NEC concerning antenna towers/masts, etc along with the link provided above, watch some videos and then decide what YOU want to do.

I have one. I will be your friend.

They are better radios out there if you really don’t need the high power. You could be better off buying some simple commercial grade radios. Many of those are designed to take a beating from hard use and also survive in poor weather. Of course they will cost a wee bit more than a $25 to $50 Baofeng.

Although I personally have yet to buy anything, take a look at Mercari. There's a lot of radio gear in addition to pretty much everything else you can (legally) imagine. It's not an auction site, it's more Poshmark-like, FB Marketplace-ish, or OfferUp-esque.

Live in N.H. & last year picked up a Cobra 50WXST - seems to be a geat handheld, but there's no traffic here. - I do get A LOT of traffic though from folks with great southern accents.

Possibly e-Bay would be another option ...

A couple weeks ago, I mentioned about the performance of my glass-mount antenna and the fact that it is not tunable. Again, I made another second mistake in life by stating incorrect information. I stated that the Larsen Glass-Mount Antenna did not have a pot to adjust/tune the antenna like the yesteryear glass-mount antennae. In fact, it is an adjustable antenna. Since, I didn't notice an adjusting pot screw on the side of the coupler, I assume that it was not tunable. Just the other day, I noticed that the rod was being held by a set screw thus, the rod can be trimmed for better VSWRs. And to my surprise, and after 4 months that my Bird 43 and several slugs were being held hostage by Bird Instruments for recalibration, it appeared on my door step a couple days ago so I decided to trim the antenna this morning. I did notice some difference in the readings before and after the recalibration. Today, as it turned out, the VSWR for a 467 MHz freq was 1.12:1 and for the 462 MHz freq the VSWR was 1.23:1 throwing 57 watts at it. At the lower power setting (24 Watts) the reflected power barely flinched the needle. So, I adjusted the transmitter high power setting and ended up with 49.7 watts. So, I have to say "NOT TOO SHABBY"

Got my GM-30 set, now going program the MXT. Thx

Exactly, a middle man acting as agent. In the group discussion I mentioned repeaters and everyone got glassy eyed except a friend who got his EE paper from MIT. He has zero radio experience but after less than a minute of me explaining offsets, tones, 50W base stations and real antennas he got it. He was curious about range so I invited him to stop by for a little demo. Using the worse radio I could find (UV-5R w/stock rubber ducky antenna) I explained that if we hit the local repeater we'd “hear a hiss and Morse code.” For someone trying to push a 2W FRS transmission through the woods he had a hard time believing the GMRS transmission was being bounced nearly forty miles – until we pulled up the map on this site. Sorry to go off topic, but I found it interesting that while many here think that hams dipping “down” into GMRS business is not helpful, many FRS users would enjoy moving “up” to GMRS if the transition were made simpler, all with no interest in additional features.

I had influenza A right after Christmas, then something that followed right afterwards. For two weeks I was pretty worthless (here’s your chance @OffRoaderX). I hope you get better quickly.

It's been a long time since I heard the term puddle pirate. We were usually too busy giving the Air Force, Navy, and Marines trouble that we would forget to pick on the Coasties. And yes you can give me trouble about being a round ponder, glorified grunt with a shovel (combat engineer) and jumping out of perfectly good airplanes since you served also. And I will give you a little bit more trouble. You have to remember the 10% rule - you have to be 10% smarter than what you are trying to operate. On subject. Yes make sure you are on the repeater channels. They will be labeled as RPT15 through RPT22 on most radios or might be labeled as Channels 23-30 on some radios. Those channels will automatically set the proper offset so that you can talk to and hear the repeaters. And make sure to set the tones correctly if needed. Don't be afraid to ask for help as there are plenty of people willing to assist new people.

At the bottom of each post is the word "quote". Click on that and you will have a reply window that includes the message you're replying to in a quote box, like above.

I do believe the KG1000G is the same radio as the KG-UV980P. What I do not know is if the UV980 firmware will work on the KG1000G. I would hate to see anyone brick their radio though. Even the Wouxun amateur band radios seem to be more difficult to unlock and I too have not found a way to unlock the KG1000G. The TYT TH-7800 and TH9800 are simple to unlock using the TYT programming software. Not that I would tell or suggest anyone do that.

Interesting. Do you see a range wider than 20kHz in the menu? I don't have an opposition to doing the mars mod, though I don't need it for out of band, if it changes the quick offset. What firmware version do you have? I need to check what I have in the radio as well. You are right. I knew that, just didn't type it correctly in my frustration.

20 kHz is 0.02 MHz. 200 kHz is 0.2 MHz. I don’t know if that helps at all or just demonstrates my pedantic nature.

Love your channel, figured since I used your music, which I purchased for $1 in my last video that you would try to get me for a content strike, I seek out negative attention due to my Daddy issues. I'm doing the KG1000G Plus Base station thing, I asked Two Way Radios to sponsor me, they said no problem. This after I explained, that I didn't live up on a mountain and the average man could relate to me better than Salton Sea Randy.

Agreed. We spent the weekend with friends who do a lot of FRS on RVing and backcountry/hunting trips. When the wife and I pullout out the GMRS HTs the questions started ("How come that antenna comes off?"). By the end of the conversation everyone was eager to upgrade. The biggest problem was licensing; not that it was costly, but that it was so cumbersome. "Well, first you need to establish an FRN, then you need to apply for a GMRS license..." I loved one response: "Amazon should sell the license." Which is not a bad idea.

Getting back into it, I can't get it to work with quick, not enough range. Quick split is in kHz, I need 240kHz: Even 0.5Mhz isn't going to work, since quicksplit is 20kHz (0.2MHz). Crap. I need to work through putting a memory into VFO, then swapping it to B.

Almost everything about this post is wrong. Whether you like it or not your radio is connected to a ground. Lightning travels miles through the air to get to ground and your antenna and tower are just a convenient path for it. Current will follow your coax (either the shield or the center conductor or both) until it finds ground. That’s why you place surge arresters outside the house and connect them to your house ground system, to give static charge an easier path to ground. You don’t have to open the electrical panel or hire an electrician to do any of this.

Dont GROUND and WHY>>My power pole will be 10 feet taller than my antenna mast, thats what will get struck. For one you are creating a ground that makes your antenna more likely to get stuck, basically making a lighting rod, no amount of surge protection or ground will protect your equipment. Anything under 30 feet is not required to be grounded as per home insurance, if it's over 30 a licensed electrician MUST do the work. Why would you also wish to tap into your home electric panel, do you wish to destroy your entire homes wiring? Are you an electrician, LICENSED? didn't think so. If you are not the tallest thing around you will not be attractive to mother nature ; unless you GROUND your self and make it so. my e mail is ndi911108@yahoo.com YouTube BaaSicStuff I could be wrong but the whole Kite and Key thing makes sense to me; on a stormy day just disconnect and place your coax in a mason jar

Facebook is a possibility for members.

This site does have a classified ads section. Only premium members can post there, I believe. Or someplace like Craig’s list. I don’t know of any other places, although I’m sure there are probably groups just for selling radios on Facebook.

It is simply because GMRS is a simple radio service for people who just need a simple means of communication. It is geared towards business, family, friends, where getting a business radio license is either not worth it or impossible to get. From observing people either online or locally getting into GMRS, many are not radio smart. They are utterly confused the second you say "repeater". Could you imagine if you added DMR or some other sort of whacky form of communicating? I know Extra class Hams who's brains explode if you even plant a DMR radio in their hands, never mind trying to get them to upload an already programmed codeplug. Adding other modes into GMRS would only confuse and degrade the service. GMRS is meant to be simple for simple radio communications. Analog with simplex and repeater capability is more than enough. I suggest if Hams want to experiment with frequency hopping, encryption and who knows what new secret service mode of communicating is out there, how about petitioning the FCC to take the Ham bands from 6 meters on up and either allow experimentation of any sort of mode of operation or petition the FCC to take the bands from 6 meters on up and split them off from Ham Radio and make a new service similar to Ham radio but that allows the commercial world to enter in with its radio technology therefore allowing more experimentation of radio and making it more friendly towards those like myself who's interests border more on the commercial end of radio rather than the traditional Ham contesting end of radio? I guarantee you, you would attract a lot more people to the group of radio operators. This way, people could leave GMRS alone and stop trying to turn it into something it is not meant to be. Ham Radio on the bands from 6 meters and above are actually very restrictive when it comes to what you can experiment with and what modes you can use. In general, either the rules restrict you from experimenting or the Ham community themselves restrict you (depending on your location). If you want to experiment - use Ham Radio If you want secure communications - use a cell phone.

Hi, welcome! Start here (if you have not seen this yet) https://forums.mygmrs.com/topic/1402-you-just-got-your-gmrs-license-now-you-want-your-own-repeater/page/2/#comment-17067 How big an area are you trying to cover? What is the terrain like?

First make the repeater work locally. Its not a 5 minute endevor. Once you have good reliable repeater filling your coverage area then worry about linking. No reason to link to be honest.

Its a nifty little radio, but unless everyone else in your party also has one, most of that nifty'ness doesnt matter. As for basic use and fars, it's pretty much the same as any other radio.