Leaderboard

Excellent news. Now get off the Forum here and get on the air!!!! Seriously though, enjoy going down the Rabbit Hole that is Amateur Radio. I've been in the hobby/service for 33 years now and I'm still both enjoying it and learning new things about it every day!. 73 from NØTXW/WRJG283

73's! Got mine about a month or so ago. Currently putting together a POTA QRP rig and couldn't be happier.

I just passed my exam. I took it remotely with VE from Ham Radio Crash Course. I don't mean to boast. I'm just really happy that I accomplished a goal, and wanted to share it. Thank you @SteveShannon for your support.

Back to the tiger tail, yes I have used them and proven that they can make a difference. You will not notice any improvement unless you are at the very fringe of reception, as you are. What I made was almost exactly as shown in the link. I was actually shocked that the greatest improvement was observed when the ground plane was held horizontal and inline with the other station. Did not matter if it was pointed toward or away from the other station. From my experience I think you would notice a difference in your case.

The concept of most of those PTT over Cellular "network" radios is that they give a potentially HUGE coverage area, and transmit voice over IP. You gain tons of potential coverage (as long as you are in an area that actually has cellular coverage) in exchange for paying a small fee for using bits of data. As you figured out, you can kind of do the same thing already if you've already got a cellphone and the Zello app. No need to purchase a dedicated piece of equipment, but then again, it's an extra device to hang on your belt, and we all know that chicks dig a guy with lots of antennas.

Welcome to the forum. @marcspaz has put a helpful video together that has a lot of info for people new to GMRS. You can find his video here

..and you have to pay that fee again every year, but hey, it's not a MONTHLY fee! They also tote their "TransPhoneRadios" (cellphones dressed up as radios) as great for emergency/SHTF use... Too bad the first thing to stop working in most emergencies/SHTF scenarios is the celltowers and cellphone networks.

I enjoy hearing people share when they get their license, it reminds me of how I felt when I passed. That was a good morning. It’s definitely a well deserved feeling of accomplishment and @SteveShannon is genuinely a good guy and very helpful. Congratulations and 73’s.

I’m trying to understand why or if any of that would be a violation of the part 95 regulations. Were they connecting to the telephone network?

Welcome. You've picked a great place for info. If you haven't already, I always encourage new people to use the search bar here. A lot of basic questions have been asked and answered, and you might just find what you're looking for without having to start a new thread. There's a ton of info here as you may have noticed. And it's a great community of regulars to bounce ideas off and have a great time. My name's Jake. See ya around.

Welcome!!!

You can have a digital recorder which only records when sound is present. As long as your repeater has a speaker function you can just turn up the volume loud enough and set the recorder by the speaker. So, are you big brother?

What are you trying to track? Digital repeater or analog? On an analog repeater you really can’t track who’s transmitting through it except in real time by listening.

Booked all our trips for next year. 5 Jamborrees as well as monthly trianing for the wife. Looking forward to next year. Also decided drag racing wasn't going well so traded the Drag Pak for a 25 Willys JLU. Plan to take that to CA for that Jamboree as well as our family trip. Piling parts up next too it. Pick up my new 4 post lift next Friday.

Sounds like my trips. Drove from Elgin IL to SW VA yesterday. 15 hours. couple multicar pileups on 65 in Indy area. CB was pretty chatty. Heard one repeater with a WX announcement but that was about the only traffic I heard on GMRS. Was the same for my trip north 2 weeks ago.

That’s excellent!!! Good job putting in the effort. You have every reason to be happy.

I saw it on Youtube so it must be true!

But as you said, if the SWR is high enough, it could cook the radio, no? I get paid tomorrow. I'm going to pull the trigger on it and report back.

I've had the same thoughts. I'm currently leaning toward it being snake oil myself, but then I saw K8MRD do a video on them and he seemed to think that they worked, soooo....now I'm re-examining.

45 hours on the road from central MD to Waco and back, I spoke to 2 people on CB and one on GMRS. CB in a 8 mile traffic back up due to an overturned load of frozen chicken about 50 miles east of Memphis. GMRS contact was with some guys about to take their boat fishing.

He should have basic test equipment to protect his investment. Most of us usually end up with more than a pair of HTs. And once you get a mobile you want a base station etc. And it's nice to know that your setups are in line with what needs to be. Now he doesn't have to worry about his SWR and he can focus on something else to extend his range.

Some groups around here still run cb radio for off roading. I run gmrs too.

I did a road trip from OH to Key West Fl, and monitored gmrs ch 19 & 20, and heard nothing the whole time. My CB was more active, especially in heavy traffic! I did call out a few times on my gmrs radio, and heard nothing.

Just like not reading and not posting here, owners can turn off, change frequencies, change tones whenever they want. Nothing requires a repeater owner to keep it on.

This is my response to a private message I received from another member here: I joined up cuz I thought it sounded like fun. But I quickly saw how unorganized and sloppy it was. But hey, nobody's perfect. So, I stuck around. And I started seeing stuff that just seemed weird. Like asking for people to start new email accounts and sharing more information. Pictures of equipment. All tied to location markers. It made me feel a bit uneasy to say the least. But it was the constant promotion of his YouTube channel that really got me. Constant posting in the Facebook group of his new video uploads, even when they had nothing to do with the "project". And after watching a couple of his videos, something finally clicked for me. He's doing all of this for his own benefit. And that he just cares about his YouTube channel and image. Then all of the confusing parts about this whole thing became perfectly clear to me. Joe is envious of Randy and wants to be famous. He's a sad Ham with mental issues and this is his "grand idea" to become this image of greatness that he has stuck in his head. It's sad and creepy and I don't want my name or call sign associated with it anymore. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this with me. And the screen shots just confirmed what I already thought about the guy. I promise I won't throw you under the bus if I decide to publicly out this guy. If you have read all the posts in this thread, you'll see that I was skeptical to begin with. But I always try to give people the benefit of a doubt. Hoping that their intentions are innocent. Sadly though, most of the time, my instincts are correct.

Hello & Good morning from OH. Im a super newbie lol okay maybe not that new but not far off..lol. I am strictly focusing on GMRS, while peeking at the book I bought for ham. I picked up a couple of h3 tidradios, and also picked up 2 of the good brand 15 inch whip antennas. I also have a few of the Bearofang ..spelling on that isn't correct, I am going to pick up another 2 pack of the Tidradios here soon and I really like them and are pretty easy to program. Sitting back reading snd listening.

Wallet on a chain?

Just remember that any and all updates/support for Windows 10 will stop in October of this year. I think there is an option for continued Windows 10 support if you are willing to pay annually for it. Yes Wouxun radios do cost more than other brands but they are better quality and are generally clean as @RayDiddio mentioned. I have Baofeng UV-5R GMRS, handhelds along with Wouxun and Icom handhelds. The Wouxun is definitely better than the Baofeng radios and it is even better than the Icom IC-T10 I own.

Yes, and because it really doesn’t matter. Just test it to see if you can receive and transmit. Don’t get lost in testing SWR on a handheld. By the way, in one of my engineering periodicals I remember reading that the SWR for your cell phone’s built in antenna is often between 4:1 and 6:1.