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Except for the term “sad ham.”

It means you were talking to a Sad-H.A.M. doing a poor job at disguising himself as a regular GMRS user. Next time ask him to reply using simple, plain, regular english that normal people understand.

Mercy sakes there good buddy, you're wall-to-wall and treetop tall.

Because they know that for something as important as NOAA people will purchase the correct radios to receive them. And, what if they DO start transmitting on UHF? - then someone will want them to transit on HF, because their HF radio can't receive them.. Then someone will want them to transmit on commercial FM, becuase their car radio can't receive them. Then someone will want them to transmit on CB, because their CB radio cant receive them. Then someone will want them to transmit on 1.2Ghz because their cellphone cant receive them. The more i think about it, the dumber this question gets.

I found this info here https://www.fjarskiptastofa.is/english/telecom-affairs/registration-and-licences/temporary-licences/

It looks like you will be able to operate on amateur radio bands in Iceland with a valid US license. Here are a few links for you to read. https://www.arrl.org/us-amateurs-operating-overseas https://www.arrl.org/reciprocal-permit https://www.ira.is/english/ I did not find a definitive answer on GMRS.

By the way, there is no "GMRS vernacular".

A signal strength and readability report is a standardized format for reporting the strength of the radio signal and the readability (quality) of the radiotelephone (voice) or radiotelegraph (Morse code) signal transmitted by another station as received at the reporting station's location and by their radio station equipment. These report formats are usually designed for only one communications mode or the other, although a few are used for both telegraph and voice communications. All but one of these signal report formats involve the transmission of numbers. ITU-R Radiotelegraph Signal Reporting Formats Signal Question Answer, Advice, or Order QSA What is the strength of my signals (or those of...)? The strength of your signals (or those of...) is... scarcely perceptible weak fairly good good very good QRK What is the intelligibility of my signals (or those of...)? The intelligibility of your signals (or those of...) is... bad poor fair good excellent

Probably something to do with VHF propagating better/more fars than UHF and because NOAA does not care if you bought the wrong radio. I'm sure some radio-dork will chime in with a 10-paragraph explanation saying the same thing unless i'm totally wrong, in which some radio dork will chime in with a 20-paragraph explanation saying I'm wrong.

As above, about 2 feet separation would be ideal for UHF freqs, and about 4 feet for VHF. Also, if the antenna(s) all have good solid connections to the body of the vehicle, (not mag mounts!) then the entire vehicle would act as the 'ground plane.' (it does not necessarily need to be an actual 'plane' or metal sheet just below the antenna, although that would be ideal, and why the optimal location for antennas is the vehicle roof!) If the antennas are mounted on separate body panels, (hood and trunk) it is often suggested that they be 'bonded' together. This is usually done by using flexible 3/4"-1" wide braid. for example, running a piece of braid from the hood hinge (or door hinge) to the body of the car; running braid from the trunk/hatch back to the body and not just relying on the hinge to maintain continuity.

Please don't double post. Two threads on the same question will lead to confusion on everyone's part.

My callsign being 559 makes the 5 by 9 terminology quite confusing. I usually try to report by telling them how their volume, signal strength, and background noise comes in. Also too many people lie about "loud and clear" when someone actually sounds weak. Better to be honest so they know and can fix it.

Some of these response are funny, and true. LOL I wish that people would us plain English on GMRS, but if someone is going to use a scale, they would be more helpful if they said something like I would give you a 3 out of 5 or a 4 out of 5. That is something most people understand. Unless you're a radio dork or was in the military at a very specific time in history, you would have no idea what "Q3" or "Q5" is or what someone means when they say "you're in the pipe 3x5."

Yes, it could. Especially, if the frequencies in use overlap or are harmonics. Even if they aren't overlapping or harmonics of the same frequency, the fact they are close to each other will effect performance. Rule of thumb is try to keep separation of antennas at least one wavelength apart of the lowest. You won't really know the effects till you try. Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

Why does every new license holder want to setup a repeater? I would like to shed a little light on some of the important things to consider if you recently got your GMRS license and now want your own repeater. First thing to consider, are there any open well placed repeaters in your area that you are able to use? I can assure you most repeater owners want people to use there repeater. Owning several repeaters I can assure you all are welcome and encouraged to use my machines. Do you have access to a location to host your repeater? If your answer is your garage roof you should reconsider. Your garage roof will give you about the same coverage as simplex. Unless you’re on top of a mountain and all your users are at the bottom you will never be happy with this setup. GMRS is not as popular as one would like to think, unless your repeater covers 20 miles or more you may find you only have 1 or 2 users in the area. Unless you already have a group of friends together you may want to consider this before spending money on a decent well positioned site to install your repeater. So you found a nice high site and the price is right, all you need to do is get the repeater installed, sounds simple right? Some thigs to consider first and foremost are the costs because they can add up quickly. Are you on a commercial tower that requires a license and bonded climber? If so this could be by far your largest expense depending on your area. I have spent $600 to $1200 on a climber; I have had quotes as high as $2500 depending on the amount of work and heights involved. Keep in mind commercial sites require certified mounts, hard line cable, cable clamps, engineered grounding solutions and commercial grade antennas. No tower owner is going to let you install a comet antenna and 200’ of braided shield coax. This brings me to my next point, the antenna. Because of the costs involved with climbers you will want to expend your budget on the antenna. Remember a $2000 repeater on a $200 antenna is going to work about as good as a $200 repeater. Whereas a $200 repeater on a $2000 antenna is going to work like a $2000 repeater. On my first repeater I was gifted use of a 150’ tower, I installed a DB-420 on the top and 160’ of 7/8 hardline. Total cost of equipment for the antenna install was $2500, with the climbers labor coming in at an additional $800. This left me with enough to purchase an old Motorola R100 repeater running at 25W. To my surprise it had 30 miles of coverage, all due to the cash spent on the antenna and waiting for a decent spot. Things happen, more so if you have an antenna 200’ in the air with a conductive cable connected to sensitive electronics. Antenna issues, feedline issues, repeater issues all cost money and I promise at some point you will have issues that need repair and require your money! It is my opinion that the GMRS community does not need another 2 to 5 miles repeater as it just becomes background noise. What use is a public listed repeater if somebody in a mobile can’t use it 5 miles away while moving or the portable coverage is only a mile? If after reading this you are still going to build a repeater for your garage more power to you, just don’t expect 20 people to show up if it only reaches a mile. As the owner of several GMRS and Commercial repeaters I can attest to the amount of money and effort go into my repeaters. I have only touched on the basics, if you add in any kind of testing services, duplexer tuning, addition of a combiner channel to an existing tower system, RF engineering, rent and insurance your costs can sky rocket. The best advice I can give any new licensee is to try and use the available systems in the area. Take the time to learn a little about what you’re doing and to assess the usability of the service before investing in a repeater for the sole reason of saying you own one.

Normally a Lightening Arrestor is placed inline within 16" of the antenna cable entering the building. Ground would go to a suitable ground.

It's not RF. It's demonic.

It is really no different then cb. Just really the wavelengths. Hence why we jokingly call it uhf cb. Hopefully, it doesn't get as bad. Yes you can mount two gmrs antennas on the same plane. I would recommend unplugging (antenna port on radio) / turning one off when the other is in use. Rf will still leak into the other radio's finals. 11m/cb is not a damaging harmonic (not even sure if it a harmonic, to lazy to check) of 2m/70/gmrs. As long as the antennas aren't too close shouldn't be a problem. My 11/10m antenna is on the rear hatch (driver side of hatch). The 2m/70cm on the hood and the gmrs on the center rear hatch about 3 ft from the cb antenna. Never had problems with it even when using 10m at 50w. Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

The only time I give signal reports in numbers is when operating on the HF bands. I will just say if they are clear, sound levels, how much static, etc when on 2m, 70cm, and GMRS. A lot of new amateur licensee's don't even understand numbered signal reports until they start using the HF bands. My brother and I will use strictly military jargon or CB jargon sometimes out of pure fun to mess with others

I hate to sound like a broken record, because this is common advice on every site, but the first thing you need to do is read the manual. There will be instructions on how to set up your radio to access (not connect to) repeaters. Take the information about the repeater that you gleaned from the MyGMRS database, such as the CTCSS tones and repeater frequencies, and go step-by-step through the instructions. Also, there are pantloads of videos that show how to do this. Trying to follow anyone's instructions here may only frustrate you, because they may be rewriting and overcomplicating the instruction manual you already have. Specifically which Rugged Radios handheld do you have? Some of them are (or at least used to be) relabeled Baofengs at three times the price.

You show the center as 462.53188, that a whole lot closer to the standard FCC spacing of 462.53125 than 462.5325. Close enough for margin of error on most radios. I know you talked to Deltacom who has a repeater less than 7 miles away on 462.53125, running trucked radios (probably Motorola's) and they said it wasn't them but what's the hurt in confirming it? They might have a lobe of the antenna pointing line of site that is bouncing off big metal object such as the water tower. You know what the traffic looks like, try parking under their tower confirm it is not them.

Randy do you have a term for a salty GMRS user.? Way too many coming out of the woodwork nowadays. Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

I should add I have a ham radio with the antenna mounted almost in front of the driver on a hood hinge mount. The other antenna for gmrs is about 9" in front of the rear hatch on the roof. Roughly about 6 feet of separation and not even on the same plane. Welp, I have blasted the ham radio with the gmrs radio and vice versa, remember 70cm is real close but far also from gmrs frequencies. The Yaesu xtm400 (ham on fender) doesn't seem to care when I use the 70cm portion on the Motorola xtl5k (gmrs and ham p25). But the other way around the Motorola gets pissed (overloaded). It seems the Motorola is a lot more sensitive than the Yaesu. So normally I shut down the Xtm400 when using the Motorola and vice versa. Makes sense to me about the sensitivity. I mean new the Xtl5k were like $3k new and the Yaseu was about $500 new. Curious to see if the Harris 100m is going to be the same situation. Especially, since the harris will be on a triplexer with 3 different antennas. Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

I totally missed the part about having two antennas. Not enough . Half a wave length for 70cm band and GMRS is about 12 to 13 inches. Half a wave length of 2m band is around 40 inches. I am running a Comet SBB-1 dual band antenna and a Nagoya UT-72G GMRS antenna on top of my Ford Escape. The antennas are approximately 2 foot apart (full wave length for 70cm/GMRS). I haven't had any issues with that setup. I haven't tried having the antennas any closer than that.

I imagine that the entire plate is something like 8x12 inches in size? If so, you might find that tuning the antennas will be difficult, since being so close to each other they might interact, even though they are on different frequencies. As far as use, I agree with kidphc; I would not be comfortable transmitting 20-40 Watts on one antenna while another radio (even on another band) antenna is so close. Possibly OK if only one radio was on at a time, but I would opt for putting only one antenna on that plate. Also the cable you show in one photo looks to be a very small diameter. so hopefully it will be a very short run to the radio, since losses will be great.

A 3 X 5 is an Index Card. https://www.grainger.com/product/10R346?gucid=N:N:PS:Paid:GGL:CSM-2293:99F1R6:20501231&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwnv-vBhBdEiwABCYQA-Oks7zKch__SP6G2r5GATaxNpbBAGXCBQV2UWKx6ruIopnXgsID-xoCkmEQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

What's "anti-virus?" Oh, right: Windows!

Yes that should work as a ground plane. I have my Comet 2x4SR with a magnetic mount on an expanded metal rack on the back of my SxS and it works just fine for 2m, 70cm, and GMRS. I modified one of those trailer hitch cargo racks to fit my SxS.

Midland is a good manufacture of two-way radios and follows the FCC rules and regulations to the letter. So, I couldn't imagine why an FCC Part 95 E equipment is unable to be programmed to it's authorized use. I contact Midland to find what the reason is that the bandwidth can't be change.

I know my test was not even close to professional since I used a SureCom SW-102. I tested a total of four radios using the same 32 feet of LMR400 going to my Comet CA-712EFC antenna. The base of the antenna is 18 feet above ground. I tested the Midland MXT500, Wouxun KG-XS20G, Wouxun KG-1000G and KG-1000G Plus. MXT500 - 35 watts KG-XS20G - 25 watts KG-1000G - 47 watts KG-1000G Plus - 48 watts I updated the MXT500 to the most up to date firmware before testing. All radios were powered by the same R & L Electronics 30 Amp power supply. I used the MXT500 and KG-XS20G while we were testing the repeater antennas at 400 feet and 21 miles away from me on simplex. I received better signal reports when using the KG-XS20G compared to the MXT500. Granted Midland radios are fine for those wanting a very simple radio. But there seems to be an issue with some MXT500's not putting out anywhere close to the advertised 50 watts. I would not complain about only getting 45 watts out but 35 watts was too low in my opinion.

Just for giggles, I decided to test my Midland MXT500 that has the latest Firmware update with 128 channels to see how much power I am putting out. I normally let my friends use the radio as a loaner when they are radio-less when I am on a Driving Tour with one of my car clubs or one of my Jeep Clubs on a Trail Run. This is a great radio for that purpose. I ran my tests with my recent recertified Bird 43 Watt Meter and a recertified 100 Watt 200-500 MHz slug and a brand spanking new 10 Watt 400-800 MHz slug to check the reflection. I also used two 12" test leads with N Connectors to connect the radio and an EMR Corp. 0-1 GHz 125 Watt Dummy Load. The first phase of my test was transmitting into the dummy load and the results were, on 462.550 MHz was 52 watts and transmitting on 467.725 MHz with a result of 51 watts. The second phase of my test, I connected the radio to a Midland MXTA25 3 dB Phantom Antenna with a Midland Mag-Mount and cable sitting on a cookie sheet and I measured the VSWR at 1.4:1 at 465.000 MHz with a RigExpert Antenna Analyzer. On 462.550 MHz I measured 52 watts with .6 watt reflected and on 467.725 MHz I measured 51 watts with .7 watts reflected. I had my Midland MXT500 radio powered by a Powerwerx SPS30DM Power Supply set at 14.3 DC Volts and the power draw results for both frequencies on transmitter keyed are as follows: 462.550 MHz 8.61 AMPS at 13.59 Volts; and 467.725 9.71 AMPS at 13.51 volts. I guess I can't complain about the RF Output Power with this radio. However, I do have some minor complaints with this radio such as, no Talk Around, Monitor (PL Defeat), Zone/Bank of Channels features, and the absence of some CTCSS tone freqs. Other than that its not a bad GMRS radio.

We get it you don't like Midland but thousands are fine with them. You recommend what you want and I'll recommend what I feel is an appropriate radio for the user. Additionally Midland will sell thousands and continue to fill a void in the service for true simple devices that work fine.

I pulled out those MP31s I have to use while I was in the attic last night working on the AC. They still have my call sign taped to them.

Write it on a piece of tape on the radio or mic until you have it memorized.

ok well it seems I got my answer from Btech

Based on my tests of both radios, they absolutely will talk virtually the same fars.

I like all the Alinco radios I have or have messed with. They already made commercial radios, so this is a logical step for them. Nice to have another not CCR in the game.

Its a ham radio. Why open it up. Use it for ham radio and buy a GMRS radio for GMRS. Its not certified for use on GMRS, or MURS so just dont do it.