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Your radiation pattern from an omni antenna would look like a beach ball with a weight pushing down at the top making the top and bottom flat. Tilting the antenna lifts one side of the ball but pushes the other side down reducing signal strength to the horizon. The side pointing up will send more signal toward clouds and possibly also reducing signal strength at te horizon. The best result is keep the antenna vertical and increase height.

Many/most radios allow this but to know for sure just try it.. You aren't going to break anything.

1. You only need the TX tone. 2. Yes, if your radio allows it, but not all do.

I wonder if you understand what the intended use of GMRS/FRS is? It's not social media. You come here for that. LOL! The reason the license covers your family is so families and friends can stay in touch for things like camping, hiking, off roading, use on the property, farm etc. Amateur radio (ham) is better for reaching out to strangers to make contacts if that is your interest. Sure there is some of that with GMRS but that's not really what it's for.

I'm easy to find, but if someone reached out to me, I would ignore them. That might just be me.

The other rumor was that DX Engineering might be interested.

Alright, if I can figure out how to lengthen it...like loosen a set screw or something...then I'll see if I can improve it. If not, I'll just leave it as it. Appreciate the help.

Thanks! That's the kind of answer I was looking for...rather than "jUsT bUy a nEw aNtEnnA!" I appreciate the explanation.

Well, my disposable budget has been eaten up by other unexpected obligations this month, and with the hobby getting rather expensive, I told my wife that I'd wait to upgrade anything else until later next year...other than the cheap extension I'm adding to the mast. So, a different antenna is out of the question at the point, which is why I'm trying to make the best of what I have available. I'll add the extension and see what I think after that I guess.

The funny thing is that if you enter this young man's name into the Google search engine, you can come up with a lot more information than just his address. Where he went to school, who his fellow students were, when he graduated, where he works, when he started, what his job title is, his baseball stats, his college activities, other business he's involved with, I mean this guy's life is an open book. And that was with about two minutes of searching. I'm not saying it's cool to put every GMRS license on a publicly accessible map without at least asking them, but let's be real... all someone needs is your name.

Spectral purity info would be nice. As well how sensitive receive is. Maybe a flir/thermal image after some usage. I am curious about were energy is most wasted in the radio. Only to see what part may fail first. Edit to add flir request. Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

GMRS repeater channels share the same channels as Simplex channels. We will use channel 17 and repeater 17 as an example. The repeaters output will be on 462.600 MHZ and Channel 17 (simplex) is also on 462.600 MHz. So if you don't have a receive tone set on your radio, you will hear the repeater traffic and any simplex traffic (with no tones). And yes you can still hear the repeater even when it is using the output tones even though your radio does not have a receive tone set. Setting the receive tone just filters out any unwanted traffic on the channel so you don't hear it. We have tones set for both receive and transmit on our repeater. Last Saturday there were a bunch of kids on Channel 17 simplex. I did not hear them at all since I do have the receive tone set on my radio, others that don't have the receive tone set did hear the kids.

Maybe MFJ can be "parted out" to save the brands. All those different companies under one umbrella must be hard to manage as a whole and still stay profitable.

Rept18 should be the correct slot for the site you are trying to access. The question I have for you is what mode are you using to send the tone? If the repeater uses the same tone both in and out, the Tone Squelch is the correct entry. If the repeater uses only a receive tone, the you need the tone on your transmit and the mode as Tone.

Simulcast is not cheap. You can "roll your own", still about $1000+/site with https://allstarsimulcast.com/. Note, you cannot link into Allstar/Echolink. Second option, which is widely commercially available is JPS: https://jps.com/products/snv-12/ I would also suggest you reach out to your Motorola vendor and discuss if there is a Moto solution to simulcast on analog for your chosen hardware.

The Southwest Community Radio System (SWCRS) has two separate simulcast systems. I believe both are a three site system with one in the Tucson Area and one in the Albuquerque Area. You can reach them at swcrs.org or tucsongmrs.org for the specifics of their systems. They have the Tucson system phased pretty good very seldom do I here any wah wahs and warbles.

Agreed. It's been on the market for what a year? Maybe there were no offers that came close to what they wanted. Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

They would seem to be a reasonable suitor, but if such interest were ever expressed MFJ’s announcement would seem to imply that it is unlikely.

Thems rookie numbers.

This just arrived in my mailbox - video to follow in the next few days... Please post your questions below and I will address them in the video (if they're not stupid)..

Good day Fellow Enthusiasts, My name is Tony the Chief Radio officer for Sonoma County Neighborhood Auxillary Communication Service(non agency, volunteers). We have created a 20 plus repated system here using the Motorola SLR5700 series repeater. we have deployed 1000's of radios to neighborhoods and teach resilency and self preservation using GMRS/Amateur/Cup and string/smoke signals/bullhorns you name it we will try it, to communicate. I understand that we have very few GMRS frequenciesto use and we want to be good stewards to our neighboring counties. So i want to simulcast to minimize power output and fequency usage. We also plan to install backbone and redundancy using ubiquitous and LoRa radio. i am asking you good people for advice, reference material and/or experiences in how you have done this. Presently i am looking at using the RTCM thin client or a stand alone RPI. I know my way around a RPI enough to ge tmyself in trouble and would prefer a more plug n play approach. of course money is a big consideration since we are a volunteer group. i apprecaite you folks for doing what you do providing that redundancyfor your communities Tony Goodwin Chief Radio Officer: Sonoma County Neighborhood Auxillary Communication Service Sonoma County, CA.

I totally agree. That way the system users can operate under the system license authority and don't have to worry about getting an individual license. I have several Part 90 Business Radio Service frequency pairs licensed statewide in California and if I need to I will give permission and/or give up a pair for his system.

2.18:1 is acceptable, but not great; I’ve used worse. 1.50:1 is just fine. I probably would not do much. If 470 MHz is even better SWR then the element is slightly too short.

But its legal it there is nothing you can do about it... Other than change your address to a PO Box or use mailing service.

I found the same thing with pins 5 and 7 swapped. It was the same with the short cable and the extension cable. None of my cables showed Pin 2 shorted at all. I tested the short and extension cables on my KG-1000G and KG-1000G Plus.

Interesting... when I tested both the short and the extension cable.... it looks like they are wired 1-1 through 8-8 (like a standard ethernet cable) with just pins 5 + 7 flipped. I also noticed that on my extension cable, the second pin is shorted. So... it may work (depending on what pin 2 does), but I'm going to reach back to buy2wayradios to see if they can swap it out. (before I go through the suck task of taking apart half the interior of my vehicle to install it).

Actually makes me wonder about advance programing functions. Like stun, deny list by radio id's, split tones etc. As well as what they have rated for duty cycles. Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

I'm curious to see how it compares to the Bridgecom repeaters if that is possible.

The advantage of RX tones is simply that your radio will not break squelch for any radios transmitting with no tone or a different tone. Because the simplex channels receive the same frequencies as the repeater channels that might reduce the amount of traffic. Im sorry, I don’t know how those radios work as far as allowing you to program additional channels.

I would still clear out the receive tone to see if you hear anything.

My first thought is how close to the repeater are you? Do you know for sure that you are in range and that no hills or mountains or large buildings are in between you and the repeater? GMRS is line of sight and if anything substantial is in the way you will not get through. Can you drive close to the repeater so you can test it?

No, you’re correct in using one of the repeater channels instead of the simplex channels. 15-22 are simplex. REPT15 - REPT22 are dedicated to repeaters. Could either of you hear any repeater traffic? At first it’s a good idea to leave the receive tone empty so you can hear everything on the frequency but you must have the correct transmit tone. Also, if you and your wife were too close to each other it’s possible that the receiving radio was desensitized. Normally I would not expect that if you were 100 feet apart but it depends on the radio. Welcome!

Gmrs 18 should be simplex. Rept 18 should be the repeater pair. Which is what you should be using to try communication with a repeater. Well that is how most radios are set from the factory. So radio to radio it should be on gmrs 18. The map view of the map on this site is not very good when it comes to repeater footprint. Well hell accurately measuring footprint kinda sucks to begin with. I would kinda ignore it. Do you have the proper tones set? Where you trying inside of a car? If in doubt get as close to the repeater as as you can and high as you can. Try again at that point. Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

Regarding the usb battery pack chargers. They are not really designed to be used as power supplies. They are for charging small batteries. They can power small devices but it is likely they just don't put out the current needed to run radio equipment. You would be better off using a larger 12 volt battery.

Agree. Not sure why one would want to know who is around them ? I wouldnt answer if someone called me on the radio unless it was family or close friend.

Channels 31 and above are receive only. It's described that way on the Amazon page, and it's the same for my UV5G. Typically for these GMRS radios YOU JUST ENTER TONES ON THE PRE-PROGRAMMED CHANNELS (1-22 simplex, 23-30 repeater).

Have you tried the Roadkill network?

That would seriously be awesome.

it wont be, at least not by me. Nobody likes a spammer.

Top SIX? Geezus... I like the Eton Elite 750, but it is a bit pricy.. Raddy just released a new, low-cost Shortwave radio that also does SSB, which most of the CCR shortwaves don't do - I heard that the Youtube Queen of GMRS will be doing a review of it soon because he's run out of new GMRS radios to talk about.. But, thats just a rumor.. I fully realize that neither of these meet the requirements of a true shortwave-dork, but, I'm not a shortwave dork.

Seriously, I do to agree. A watt or two or three more really doesn't do squat insofar (ooh semi-pun?) as "Farz"

This will be valuable information for the door to door GMRS radio salesman I’m sure.

Not really that hard and I’m on my phone. One I pulled up had the name and address etc but you can click the link and it opens in Google Maps. Pick a blue dot and click on the direction arrow. This is exactly why I went and registered on Ham Registry through OffRoaderX YouTube channel (plus a month free I think )

Good one! The funny part is that its like you dont realize that you put yourself on that list and all that information that you gave to the FCCs such as your home-address is tied to your GMRS callsign, and was already on Google, Facebook, and probably a lot of other places..

Although GMRS is in the name of the site, the site also caters to ham radio interests. Radio is radio. If you’re so up-tight that the inclusion of helpful information about a radio triggers you, then you probably aren’t getting much enjoyment out of anything. Learn to ignore posts about non-GMRS radios.

Sad-H.A.M.s are a myth and do not exi....... I stand corrected...

I would replace that RG8 with LMR400 or equivalent. You will do a whole lot better with the correct type of coax for UHF.

The Wouxun KG-1000G cable is not a standard straight through or crossover cable. Pins 5 and 7 are crossed. Here is the pinout for the KG-1000G cable 1 - 1 2 - 2 3 - 3 4 - 4 5 - 7 6 - 6 7 - 5 8 - 8 I will suggest getting a cable tester for testing. Here is one on Amazon that will test 6 wire cables with RJ12 connectors and 8 wire cables with RJ45 connectors. RJ45 Network Cable Tester for Lan Phone RJ45/RJ11/RJ12/CAT5/CAT6/CAT7 UTP Wire Test Tool

The GM15 is a "GMRS" radio, correct? If that is the case then it already has 8 channels (23-30) with the offset built in. Just find the channel that corresponds to the frequency of the repeater and enter & save your TX tone. You wont need to set or worry about the offset. To use additional repeaters you will have to create a "DIY" repeater channel. You cannot use a repeater directly or in VFO mode - the only way is to create and save the repeater info as a new channel or use one of the preset (ch 22-30) channels. If my memory is failing me and the GM15 is not a "GMRS Radio", then please just disregard everything I've said.

If you need to ask, you should not be doing it.