Leaderboard

Might be faster, cheaper and easier to just buy a new radio.

I would also be weary of adjusting the power using the input voltage. That sounds dangerous for the long term survival of the circuits. That typically isn't the correct way to adjust a transmitter.

My wife is heading up to NYs to babysit our 2 grandsons while my boy does his bowling tournament thing. I came home for lunch to see her off. After she got settled into the car I took off and by the time I got to the shop she's calling me on the radio. She doesn't have a radio in her car so she was in the house. Turns out she couldn't find her phone and radioed me to call it so she could hear where it was. I did, she found it LOL. And that's why a radio is better than a phone, in this case LOL.

Most Ace Hardwares & True Values carrie an assortment of unusually small screws.

Alright, I passed my general, so now I can talk to anonymous men across the country instead of just anonymous men in my area. Since I don't have an HF rig yet, I hopped on someone's public KiwiSDR and started poking through the 40m/80m bands and heard... old dudes talking about soup. I can't get away from it. Apparently radios are meant for soup chat.

That's the way I do it these days.

Try Ace Hardware for the screw. Lowe's has them as well, but in blister packs.4

Thank you Rich for sending me the link, I'm on and Ill try to be an active member. 73 Greg

Also, they are going by what is at the antenna connector of the chassis. "Output Power listed is conducted power." Conducted Power: This refers to the RF (Radio Frequency) power that is supplied by the transmitter to its antenna, measured at the point where the cable connects to the antenna. This is different from radiated power, which is the power emitted into the air from the antenna. Based on what I read from Cornell, the FCC's definition of "conducted power" primarily refers to the total transmit power delivered to all antennas and antenna elements when the transmitter is operating at its maximum power control level. This is also referred to as "maximum conducted output power."

Also if you do a ctrl F5 it will clear your browser on that website and reload it. Maybe something wonky happened with some data. Not sure if that's universal, I know it works with Firefox

This is what I have in Firefox. Looks normal

The excessive RF power will take a toll on the circuitry of the transmitter as well as being non-compliant with GMRS regulations. I would suggest adjusting the RF output down to 50 watts at the transmitter output, before the input to the low side of the duplexer. Many times repeaters are run at reduced power levels to prevent early failure.

Everyone should review this old thread.

Hmmm... I can't help but wonder if it is an over-power issue with the duplexer. It's rated for 50w, I tested with about 45w after tuning it, and you're using 70w, which exceeds it's power rating by 30%. Exceeding the rating can cause overheating that can warp/melt internal parts and even cause internal arcing. That will definitely cause detuning and poor isolation, If I was a gambling man, I would say that it was off frequency when I got it, because parts were partially damaged inside (plating damaged, parts warped). I was keeping the power within spec, so I was able to tune and use it with the parts warped to the position that they were in. Now that it's being over-driven by 30% again, you are likely warping parts further, possibly causing plating to peel with excessive heat, which is causing arcing and detuning the duplexer.

I still go outside during sever weather so I can make accurate reports to the Sky Warn Net. But I sure am not going to go chasing any storms. And I will head for cover if I see a tornado heading my way.

If it gets you the distance and clarity you want, it's a good setup. "Good enough" is a valid concept.

There may even be one or more on this forum who has participated in it. A long time ago. When I was they were younger and more reckless.

You have to start somewhere. We have a neighborhood group that currently is all simplex. Our biggest issues are earthquake and tsunami. Though after the Palisades fire, my area is similar geographically to that area, fire has popped up on our radar. It began after a neighbor had a home invasion and the LAPD showed up two hours later (she was hiding in her home on the phone with 911 as it happened). So now some of us have a secondary means for summoning help. Help that will be much quicker and probably better armed. A secondary use is we just check in with those more limited in mobility.

Looks like you've done a fair job of researching your options. Lets start with the antenna system. First off I wouldn't worry too much about a few extra feed of coax cable. Likely the mount you will use has RG-58 type cable. A few may use the thinner RG-316, noticeably higher loss, but easier to route through small holes and other tight spaces. With RG-58 the difference between 13 feet verses the typical 17 foot long ones isn't worth worrying about. More on that later. The antenna is where you shouldn't compromise. The same goes for the location on the vehical. Your usage case may justify two antennas. You would use a cheap quarter wave, about 6 to 7 inches tall, for local communications and repeater access. Then a much taller higher gain one for out on the highway traveling. Both would be better off mounted in the clear on the roof. The quarter wave is so short you could almost forget it's there, even when parking in a garage. While swapping antennas is a bit of a pain some of the folks here do it depending on where they are going to spend most of their time. Oh, the quarter wave is likely the best option when traveling in mountainous or hilly terrain. The radiation pattern gives much better coverage when two or more stations are at significantly different altitudes. About an extra connector or two and comments about extra losses. I see people frequently get two things mixed up in that area, SWR matching and power loss. Good quality connectors have very low losses when used within their design frequency range, about 0.1 to 0.2 db. The real issue is the typical SO239/PL-259 "UHF" connectors are NOT really recommended for use above about 200 to 300 MHz, but you see them all the time used on UHF, on the back of radios and on the ends of the coax from antenna mounts. The problem with those is the "impedance" doesn't match the coax impedance of 50 ohms. This results in a higher SWR. The more of these you have the worse the match gets. Myself I try to stick with "N", BNC or RG-8x mini type connectors. Those are all 50 ohm types, and have very low power loss. If you want to go down the rabbit hole with the antenna system design evaluation I did one for my current ride as an example. Most people don't do this, and likely wouldn't need to anyway. I did it just out of curiosity. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/483-cx-5-antenna-system-analysisjpg/?context=new For antenna choices the CA-2x4SR from Comet gets mentioned frequently. It's a good high gain wide-band antenna. If you ever plan on getting your Ham license it's usable on the VHF and UHF Ham bands as is. The price is very reasonable. https://forums.mygmrs.com/topic/7914-how-is-the-comet-ca-2x4sr-antenna/ There is a very similar antenna now available from Diamond, of course more expensive. Be careful, I see two slightly different model numbers. I believe the one you want is the NR240CA. I see the NR240C sold too, which I think is tuned a bit different. I asked Diamond about this and never got a reply. The spec's for the NR240CA seem to show a slightly wider bandwidth than the CA-2x4SR. Now lets talk about radios. As mentioned a 25 watt radio would be good for most every day usage. A higher power radio would be a good idea if you had to communicate through heavy foliage, trail riding on your 4-wheeler for example. A lot of good recommendations for radios here by other members. Personally I stick with commercial grade radios. A number of the cheaper consumer grade types, including some modified Ham gear, I've played with suffered from poor sensitivity, and worse, poor selectivity and de-sense issues in moderate to high RF environments. The commercial grade radios tolerate the later two much better. I have a large collection of mainly commercial grade hand held radios if you have any questions on these I would be happy to answer them. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/249-my-radio-collection/?context=new This is typical of some of the Kenwood mobile radios. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/250-nx-820ghjpg/?context=new CA-2x4SR.pdf NR240CA.pdf

Welcome to the fold. I'll leave the technical stuff to guys like Steve. But I want to warn you someone here will likely tell you GMRS isn't a hoot like HAM. But take heart, their opinions hold no sway. And there's a good thread on how to block this individual. GMRS user is clunky. I going to start using GMRS'rs. Hey, it's a couple of letters shorter.

Yes, we'll take them. That's down near 6m territory.

That scenario Raybestos described is just about any situation a family might use GMRS for. Going to the beach, a campsite are all going to be a hour or so away from the "home base" where you have control. What if the home base is the mobile in the car? Now you are in full control because you brought it with you. I had HTs when I signed up for my license. Is that my "control" unit? My next was the mobile unit in my truck. My base station was last. So if I bring that 1st HT with my I have all the control I need over it and my license.

Maybe Mom doesn't want to go through the daunting exercise of bouncing from govt website to website in order to manage the jungle to obtain said license. It's only $35 in monies but it's 3 years off your lifespan because of what you need to go through to get it.

Hi Marc! Not trying to be contrary, although I do have a knack for it at times, but consider the following scenario. Your wife (or any GMRS licensee's wife) is about to take your (or their) kids to visit her parents, four hours away. Your job won't let you off to make this trip with them. She has a GMRS mobile in her car and operates under your license, as your kids occasionally do, also. She has packed enough GMRS ht's to allow one for herself and each of the kids. The kids love exploring the expansive farm their grandparents own and the radios provide a measure of convenience and safety while they are away from the house. You (or any licensee) see what she is doing. You go out to the car and disconnect the microphone from her mobile radio. You also collect all of the GMRS ht's she packed and replace them with non-licensed FRS radios you had laying around from the days before you took the plunge and got into GMRS. She is walking to the car to be sure everything is packed before getting the kids ready to get in the car. She encounters you, walking towards the house; a mobile mic and several GMRS ht's burdening your arms. The dialog that follows goes something like this: Wife: "Where are you going with my mobile mic and the GMRS ht's????" Licensee: "You will be four hours away and 95.1705(f)(2) says "The licensee must maintain access to and control over all stations authorized under its license." Being 4 hours away is definitely not maintaining "access to and control over" the licensee's station. Sorry, but I am not risking the sanctity of my license by trusting you guys with GMRS radios while you are four hours away." Being this is a family-oriented site, I will not go further with the dialog which followed. Yes, this is a reduction to absurdity, but there are some people out there in the world who practice absurdity and practice it often. Going back and reading the original poster's comment, his mom will be using ht's and simplex to communicate with family. I doubt anyone will notice or know if they are using GMRS or FRS since all frequencies are shared, except for repeater inputs. In fact, if they don't use call signs or have a license, I doubt anyone would care on simplex. The only way anyone would probably care is if his mom finds she enjoys chatting on repeaters in the area. In most areas I am aware of, if on a repeater, all the owner(s) cares about is that you are using a valid call sign not pirated from someone without their permission. I know the repeater that I am part owner of, that is all we care about. Of course, there are some really an-l owners out there, too. In my state, there is one guy who I understand, wants to know your name and call, and the names, Unit numbers, and their relation to you, of anyone operating under your call, before granting permission to use his repeaters. In another part of the state, the owner wants to know what make and models of radios you will be using. My group, we just want you to ID and generally follow the rules. Any discrepancies regarding relation to people using your call sign or type of equipment is between you and the FCC, as if they care.

Years back I learned Morse Code while debating on getting a H.A.M ticket. I regret it now, as the noise from my ceiling fan at night keeps saying "Im watching you from the AC vent".