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Funny story (since the statute of limitations has long expired) - in the mid-1980's a fellow ham and I drove his lemon yellow Vista wagon (think "That 70's Show") to Ohio, which was the closest place to buy legal fireworks at the time. We picked up an entire car full of commercial-grade ones (packed to above the window lines), put some blankets over them and drove back to New Jersey. Just after crossing the Delaware River back into NJ, the car conked out (again, think "That 70's Show"). We had a bag phone and called for a tow to bring us the whole 60 miles back to Wyckoff, NJ. We kept getting "helpful" police pulling over and asking us if we needed help, and we were "Nope - all good - called for a tow" and showed them (newfangled at the time) Mobira bag phone to distract them. The tow truck finally came and brought us to Wyckoff. We paid the tow truck driver and let him take whatever he wanted of the fireworks as a tip. We had enough to last several years. The second year, 2 friends and I went in a windowless van to see the official Holmdel (near Bell Labs) fireworks show. We thought the official show was pretty lame, and had a van full of fireworks, so... we set up our own show behind the bleachers. The people putting on the official show began to notice that people in the bleachers were looking behind the bleachers at our better show, and eventually some burly guards came strolling over. We packed up everything into the van and took off back to the house in Holmdel. As we were driving away, I remarked to my two friends that "I just realized I've become the person my parents warned me about".

I want to thank everyone for their help! I have not been on here for quite a while! I have stage four brain cancer and it has really taken a toll on me! I am feeling better for now thanks to the treatment! I still have difficulty with simple things, I am not sure I am putting my thanks in the correct place??? But everyone on here has very helpful with my questions and I see I have been on here for a year! Doesn’t seem like it!!! anyway my thanks to everyone!

Well, that trailer makes a darn good RF block.

I appreciate your reply. Thank you

Thank you very much!!

PMR (Professional Mobile Radio) is basically the European version of LMR

Best wishes for you 521. I'm glad you are here to post.

Terri, Again I want to express my appreciation for your calm and thoughtful comments and informative posts in response to curmudgeonliness. Happy Independence Day!

Nit pick time - a private repeater that carries only traffic from the owner is not required to ID as long as the owner does.

Thank you very much!!

I hope you lick this thing. You are very brave.

This is the perfect place. I’m glad you’re feeling better and I hope for the best for you.

There are few areas where the 1.25m/220 MHz band is pretty active,. But those areas seem few and far between. I can only find one 1.25m repeater here in Missouri and it is permanently linked to a 2m repeater. There are two reasons why the 1.25m band is not more popular. One is that there are only two 50 watt mobile radios available on the market and both are from China. All the tri and quad band radios with 1.25m are limited to 5 or 10 watts max. Wouxun has released their KG-XS20H that is 20 watts on 220 MHz but they are not in stock at this time. The flip side is that the big three aren't interested in making a 1.25m radio with more than 5-10 watts since no one really uses the band and North America is the only market for it. It's a vicious circle. I have found that even expanded metal like what most hitch mounted luggage racks are made of makes a good ground plane for the 2x4SR. I cut down one of these racks to fit the back of my SxS and have the 2x4SR on a Midland mag mount on the rack and it works well. I'm using a 20 watt radio on the SxS.

Besides the cable losses there are other factors you need to consider. The cable will be installed outside so it has to be water/weather resistant. The jacket has to be UV resistant too or it will rapidly deteriorate. Finally you need to be concerned with the quality and installation of the connectors if the cable comes with them.

For some people it isn’t about the cost. It’s the satisfaction of building something yourself and the knowledge gained doing it. I’ve picked up cheap magnet mounts at swaps along with some generic whip elements that screw in to them. I wanted a cheap and quick 1/4 wave antenna for the Ham 1.25M band. Didn’t take much to trim one down using the antenna analyzer. Also doing some simulations it looks like a 1/4 wave could be made to cover the Ham 2M band and the MURS channels. The same with the Ham 70cm band and GMRS. The later I built using a cheap BNC circuit board socket and stiff bus wire. I can cover the frequency range of 430 MHz to 470 MHz with under a 2:1 SWR with a nearly 1:1 match at 450 MHz. I have one I use at the office on the top of a bookcase. Another one I used tie-wraped on the top of an old baseball type hat at the Dayton Hamvention a few years ago. Worked much better than the rubber duck antenna with the radio hanging on the waist. Sure I could have purchased them, but where’s the fun in that?