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We are having a heat wave today. It's currently 12 degrees with a predicted high temp of 17 for today. Thats a heat wave compared to highs around 1 to 4 degrees over the last couple of days. We will get above freezing on Wednesday but the temps will be back into the teens this weekend. We got around 6 inches of snow over the weekend. I won't even think about doing any POTA activations for a few months.

I'm going to play on 10M, 12M and 15M with the QT80 for a while and I have that little QRP 5w coming that'll do 8 HF bands. From what I understand lower frequencies travel closer so maybe I can get some closer POTA contacts on 40M and 80M.

And to think I was complaining about it being down to 19 degrees this morning, now I feel guilty.

I got 5 but only 3 have posted so far. The DX from England really blew my mind. I'll take a 3/1 with my humble set-up that far away.

Not snowed in up here in MN. -22 and both cars started. Was deep into operating Winter Field Day for the amateur side of things on PSK31 mode and chatting with the local crew of friends and family on Ch. 19 on GMRS.

As much as people disparage 11M it does have propagation characteristics that are better than VHF/UHF for long distance communications and in terrain that blocks higher frequencies.

Everyone has given great advice. LMR 400 you can’t go wrong with but will need a mount and NMO connector. Magnetic mount would work too but because you mentioned upgrading to a base station I would skip that. Antenna choice can be tricky( kind of ) some just work better than others just because of there SWR , frequency resonance, and other variables. But don’t over think it. May want to order a few different ones from Amazon and try them out and see how each one performs then keep the one that sounds best.

Sounds like your radio works just fine, but being inside a metal box isn't conducive. A magnetic mount antenna on the roof thereby using the roof as a ground plane and gaining height over your HT. That is where I would start. If you don't think that'll work, you can mount an extendable mast to gain height over the other trailers. Be mindful of overhead lines.

RoadApple is correct. All you need to know for your application is LMR-400 or equivalent, short length, but even more important HEIGHT. You are correct, you need your antenna higher than the surrounding metal radio frequency Faraday cage barricades. In the VHF & UHF ranges the saying is: HEIGHT IS MIGHT.

When it comes Sunday early afternoon we are expected to get 10-15" of snow. I'm sure the radio will be working if the power doesn't go out. I have batteries at the shop, an inverter in the truck and a generator in the shop that I just started up today to make sure it works. 5 gallons of gas in the can and a full tank in the truck. I don't think this will be a big deal for us. It's a lot of snow, but nothing outrageous. Nothing like some of these states that are going to expect up to an inch of freezing rain. Back in the day we had almost 2" of freezing rain and it killed the power for close to 2 weeks. Got HTs and my mobile in the truck.

Nice if not a bit cloudy day here in AZ. Had mid to high 60's all day. Up North near Flagstaff is catching it bug the Valley is fine other than a bit of rain in spots.

I keep hearing on the news that we all gone die. But so far, it's cold and dry here in the great state of Georgia.

So I am fairly new to gmrs, the common ht antennas are easy enough to figure out. My issue is at my house I am surrounded by other trailers with metal siding, and my trailer house has metal siding as well. Inside the house range is terrible, outside it depends on the direction. I want to get an external antenna setup that can connect to my handheld but can also be later used for a dedicated base station. My problem is I do not understand db loss or cable types enough to figure what setup would work good with the 5 watt output and not be counter productive. I have 2 ht types both baofeng gmrs locked fcc compliant versions. I already figure the antenna would have to extend beyond the height of the roof to get past the faraday cage row aka the trailer park.

No different than someone who drives a $125k Car on the street or takes a $2500 O/U out for dove season. Sometimes it's nice to treat yourself by using something "expensive" in your hobby.

That's a really helpful video. Especially the part about which band bends most upon refraction. It helps me understand why, on 10m, I can't hear anybody near me. 40 and 20m are going to be fun.

I remembered my dermatologist's advice and applied SPF 50 yesterday while at the track for the Rolex 24 hour at Daytona. Central Florida high was forecast to be 86, but I think it only made about 82 or so. I'll leave now. Swing by this summer and we'll talk Florida weather.

Yes! Amazingly many use them for POTA!

That's a pricey radio. Does it work outside? I passed the last seven I took on hamstudy so I thought "strike while the iron is hot." The guy administering the test did say that no one before had ever "put dinner in the oven" during a test. He laughed about that for a long time. I mean, a family's gotta eat, right?

Last 2 practice test I've taken were 27/35 and 28/35 and I've not gone over everything yet. I should be ready by February 18th to take the test then I can join ya'll on 15M(best my radio can do)until I save up for an IC-7300, which seems to be the Standard most folks are using.

My longest is to La Serena, Chile. 4,503 miles. 20W and 1/4 wave vertical in the dirt.

And by this approach, I now have my General. 20m POTA, here I come!

I have the uv-5g and the gm-5rh baofengsm they both work good but I prefer the uv-5g just due to simplicity. They are not the greatest gmrs radios but the plus side they work good enough and if you use them outdoors or on a hunting trip or in construction work if one breaks you will not be crying about the loss. Enjoy the uv-5g it is the gateway drug of gmrs.

Got my Platinum Aware for 40 Hunts. I have 42 so I'll be looking for 8 more to get the 50 Hunts award. I really enjoy Hunting POTA Stations. It'll be nice when I get my General so I can give 15M and 20M a try and also I noticed some were just outside my privileges in the 28.512 or 28.027MHz area so once I get the General I can Hunt those as well.

Happy so far with a pair of UV-5Gs. I plan to use them soon for a cross-country drive with two vehicles to keep in touch. Interestingly they ID as "Radioddity UV-5G" which works fine with Chirp. I programmed as many open GMRS repeaters as I could find between CA and WV into the higher numbered memory channels. We'll see how they perform on the road.

We started out chilli here, mid-40's, currently 57. I did get two more parks and a DX to England(he was a 5/6 i was a 3/1 but we exchanged call signs so it counts) and I hope to make more POTA contacts as the Band move over head more.

Got 12-16" up here in northern CT. The official report from Bradley International said 12", we got more than that easily and I'm only 2 miles from the airport. Took me about 3 hours to clear my driveway, sidewalk, my neighbor I gave him a hand and did his front walk along with doing the sidewalk up the hill so my wife can walk the pooch safely. I do half the neighborhood it seems. Radio has been somewhat quiet, still a few voices being heard. Lots on the police frequencies and emergency and public works last night. Not so much today since the snow stopped and the plows caught up.

My crew in Heath, OH is hunkered down with 14" of snow. People are working from home remote if possible, and only first responders allowed out on roads. Radio is working great in VHF, UHF, and 7/800 MHz bands. Radio-over-Internet-Protocols links were checked as well. Everything working right now, and that is my only site "snowed in"......Ridley Park, PA and a few others are used to it and in the office though.

A few notes on 1/4 wave vertical telescoping whip antennas that use a coil for the different bands. An antenna with a 17 foot telescoping whip does not need a coil for the 20m band and higher. A coil is only needed for 30 meters and lower. If the antenna has a center loading coil then it must be used even for the higher HF bands. A 1/4 wave antenna with the coil in the middle, like the HF-009, will be more efficient that a base loading coil. An elevated 1/4 wave antenna with elevated radials must have the whip and radials tuned for each band. It is way easier to adjust/tune a telescoping 1/4 wave with an antenna analyzer, NanoVNA, or a radio with a good SWR sweep function. Having one of these will save time and headaches. This type of antenna is fast and generally easy to set up for portable use but are not the greatest for permanent installations since you have to adjust them for each band. The Radioddity HF-009 is well built and gets good reviews. You won't go wrong with getting one, especially when there is a bundle special. If you want to step up for a better quality antenna then look into the REZ antennas brand. They have the Ranger 80, Recon 40 and Scout. The Ranger covers 6-18 meters, the Recon covers 6-40 meters, and the Scout covers 6-20 meters. You can mix and match the coils/bases along with either their ground spike or small tripod. REZ also makes a delta loop kit that works well with the Scout base. The Scout can also be using as a dipole with two telescoping white or wires. The REZ system will get expensive if you buy everything. I bought the Recon 40 and Scout a part at a time so that I didn't put a big dent in the wallet. I would have considered the Radioddity HF-009 if it was available at the time I bought the REZ antenna.

It amazes me how we have all this technology in the radios we use and it's all dependant on a piece of wire. The EFHW I made probably cost $35 bucks for the 64:1 Balun and the 16' of 14 gauge wire.

@Northcutt114 thanks for sharing your ups and downs so that others (myself included) can learn from what you went through. I’ve just been following along and glad to hear things are working again.

From what I have seen, gmrs is not a social network like cb radio was in the past, rather other than kids with frs walkie talkies it is mostly used by friends/family. If you can reach a repeater that is the easiest way to get contacts as repeaters will get more traffic due to a higher coverage area. If there are local gmrs clubs you can check those out. Otherwise try radio checks and see who responds, though keep in mind many in your local area on gmrs that are interested in contacts are not looking for friends or just simple chat, but rather a network of people they can contact in emergencies. For example the people local to me are more worried about callsigns for gmrs or handle or name for frs so they know who to pass info along to during an emergency or cell phone outage, and generally have no interest in idle chat.

Your assumptions are correct. You will be well served by an outside GMRS antenna especially if you can get the antenna higher up in the air above all that metal. GMRS radio operates in the 462/467Mhz UHF frequency range. At high frequencies such as UHF, you can realize a lot of power loss via coax cable. There are several coax options on the market depending on how much money you are willing to spend. A reasonably low loss coax such as LMR-400 will help keep more of your output wattage going to your antenna rather than being lost in the coax. Also try to keep the length of your coax as short as possible. There are many, but here is a place where you can do a little reading on coax loss Coax Loss Calculator | KV5R.COM

You say "narrow banded" as if there is something wrong with that?!? You are spot on here: HOA Ham has a good YT video going into more detail about what to buy to make these improvements and my order from Amazon with his suggested items is due to arrive this upcoming week: I plan to add a 3mm Banana Plug to 4mm Banana Jack adapter or just use that huge clip to handle all my different antennas. Although I did buy a nanoVNA and I keep it in my Radioddity HF-009 bag, I find that my instincts are good enough to work around having to use it, if I want to save time, since I always have an antenna tuner with me (either my CCT: the Antuner AT-100M Pro; or the one built in to my Xiegu XPA125B amplifier, which I often use QRP just as a tuner). It's real simple: I tune my Xiegu G106 to the FT8 frequency on the band I want to transmit, turn up the volume, and slide the tuning coil's adjustment knob up and down until I arrive at the loudest sequels of delight from the FT8'ers! I am then close enough to use my Antenna tuner to compensate for the rest! At some point when the excitement of using new toys has diminished a bit, I will whip out the nanoVNA and use a Sharpie to make marks (and note in my log) the two portions of each band that I want to tune to: FT8/FT4 and SSB. Today I did another park Activation on 20 meters, since the HF-009's coil was already tuned for 20 meters and again put it on top on the HF-008's PL259 base to 3/8x24 so that the HF-009 was elevated to the roof my my SUV with the HF-008's triple mag-mount: I straddled 4pm again so that I Activated this Park on two separate days with both FT8 and SSB QRP; and when I wanted to experiment on 40/80 meters as the sun was going down, the Park Rangers threw us out as it was closing time! So I found another POTA park 15 miles away, had some dinner and drove over, as that park's closing time was 9pm! I took down the HF-009 and installed my MFJ-1880 80 meter telescoping HT-style whip (originally sold as an adjunct to the wonderful Yaesu FT-817 Shack in a Box QRP battery powered rig; and HRO had one on sale that I could not resist)! Again I instinctively got it down to 1.5:1 SWR by dropping the lowest most section and a bit of the next one and the tuner got it to 1.3:1. Sure enough the Rangers threw us out at 9:10pm and I had just hit my 11th FT8; one more than needed to Activate this Park! I did try earlier to use my Xiegu XPA125B as an amplifier with my Xiegu G106 and I got a call back that my audio was crap due to RF bleeding into the transmission somehow, a la @Northcutt114's problems with his G90! I managed to find myself on the Northern Utah WebSDR and I could hear the problem. So today was again, all QRP. Strange as this Amp does not bleed into my other non-Xiegu QRP radio and they work fine together. Some research is due here, or I just will bring both rigs in the future to mix QRP with QRO work! FUN WITH QRP - FT8 and SSB from two separate Park Activations:

South of St. Louis, Mo. Looking at 10 to 12 inches last checked 3 degrees out side.

From Paulden just north of Prescott we got some sprinkles but that is about it. I would hate to have to drive on I-40 in the Williams to Flagstaff areas and then east bound. Going to be a lot of ice and lots of accidents.

Since you have a laptop with a SDR dongle, try giving Spektrum a shot, it might help you out in scanning across a wide range of frequencies. It turns your SDR into a makeshift spectrum analyzer and works pretty good for what it is. Download: https://github.com/pavels/spektrum

Yeah, I made a list of my needs and wants in a new radio and have been reviewing lots of radio specs, reading user feedback, etc. looking for those radios that best meets my criteria. I finally pulled the trigger earlier today and ordered an Anytone AT-5888UVIII. We'll see how it works out... Thanks again to everyone who chimed in and shared their experience.

Hi folks! I'm James at WSKV697 and my kid, Everett, and I checked into the repeater net last night and really appreciated how friendly it was! We just got our license in December and he's been itching to find anyone to chat with besides me since then. We are in South Nashville, between Brentwood and Antioch, so the Brentood 600 works great for us. Thanks again!

The 1980's Fisher Price Sky Talkers were my introduction to two way radios. My cousin and I had a blast with those. Loved the Morse Code chart on the front. I wonder what frequency they used. I see there are some still around on Ebay. I should try to get my hands on a pair again. It's funny how much of the eighties was centered around Star Wars. Just the play on words for these radios is a prime example.

I wasn't snowed in, but the cold temps gave me a chance to make some serious progress on my arduino program for adding channels to the Uniden 980SSB. I was able to ignore my responsibilities and play radio hacker all weekend! I heard other parts of the country got hammered, we just got the cold up here in northern MN. I came into work and found the septic overflowing. Someone left a door open and the pumps froze. Half our drain field also froze. We had to have the septic pumper truck come get us caught up while I thawed pumps. The driver said he had been getting calls steady with frozen drain fields and tanks that need pumping. -40 isn't bad when we actually have enough snow to insulate things.