nokones

90.739 miles for me in my Pickup with a Laird B4502 on the roof. Hmm, I need to find a few more miles. It'll be interesting to see how my Jeep with the Glass-Mount Antenna compares with my Truck.

There are several marine antenna manufactures and marine electronics dealers that can help you. Also, there are some that will custom build your antenna to your specs. You do have several choices and all you have to do is do the research and pick who you want to do business with.

A standard for a "Travel Channel" and its history is well documented and established probably way before many people on this forum were born or took up this hobby and that may be the reason why there is this confusion between Channels 19 and 20. My position the standard hasn't gone away its still there I just wish that people would honor it.

There are several GMRS repeaters in your area. What part of San Diego do you live in?

Is this repeater on Saddleback (Santiago), Mojeska, Sierra Peak, or Elsinore Peak? Just curious.

Only if you're using a Yagi on a very tall remote mountain top then you may want to tilt it to point into a canyon, valley or gorge, or if you are using it at a lower elevation for a control station and trying to hit a repeater on a high remote mountain top very far away.

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.

According to the mygmrs.com map, all the GMRS channels are not overly used in Sonoma County. I just took a quick look and the "725" channel pair appears to be a good candidate for a county wide GMRS channel. You will need to get a good simulcast system designer so you can start designing and identifying the transmitter sites. You just can't plunk down a simulcast transmitter on any site and have a good working system. It'll take careful planning. I know what it takes to plan a good working simulcast system in Sonoma County. I spent a lot of time and driven many miles in Sonoma County to get a simulcast system to work. To save time and effort you should try to acquire the space and services for the remote sites and mirror the Sheriff's UHF Simulcast system. Acquiring the remote site space and services is going to be your biggest problem if improvements are required. The County should be receptive in providing services for renting mux channels for a fee of course on their Microwave System. You will need to identify where you will be locating your system control equipment.

Tony: You should consult with the Sonoma County Communications Department. I'm not sure if the Sheriff is still on UHF, I believe their system is still a simulcast system.

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.

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

I have all the confidence in the world that you can make your CCRs make the trek because you have those special CCRs that were blessed by Zenu. I think I better pass on that bet.

Wow that is not bad for a CCR. I can do a ton better then that with my Motorola XTS5000 UHF Type 3 that has front panel programming using a Motorola 5 1/4" flex antenna and a Motorola 11 year old battery that still has about 94% capacity after a complete recharge . And on some days I can communicate from Phoenix all the way to Albuquerque with that portable. I bet your CCR can't do that. If I need to listen to NOAA I can whip out my VHF XTS1500 and as for AM-FM stations, are they still on the air? I haven't listened to a commercial-laden AM FM broadcast station well over 20 years. I have commercial-free XM in all of my vehicles and trailer, except for one vehicle. That vehicle is only equipped with a Motorola XTS1500 Type 2 UHF Two-Way Radio that is connected to a Phantom antenna.

I would rather buy an used Motorola radio for the quality and longevity and the features rather than a new $18 CCR junk that does not have near the features of a professional Motorola.

Just use the antenna that came with the radio. Most of the other types of antennae is just foo foo stuff.

If you're just trying to access nearby repeaters any appropriate antenna for the frequency will be fine and will not make any difference or change the price of rice in BFE if you use a mobile antenna. The end result will be the same and it's not like that you'll be trying to shoot skip to BFE anytime soon on GMRS freqs. Now, for simplex base to mobile communications, that is a different story and the appropriate base station antenna will have a huge difference in performance. In this case, you would want a quality base station antenna like a Laird FG4605 as high as you can get it.

Read your installation manual. Some manufactures require the ground be grounded to the chassis and not directly to the battery. Those same manfacturers state run the hot/positive lead only directly to the battery.

For less than $350 you can get a Motorola XTL5000 UHF Dashmount radio with 1,000 channels, programming cable, windows CPS software, microphone, and speaker which is a lot better radio in more ways then one as compared to a Hytera. Also, I wouldn't pass on a comparable model Kenwood.

I wouldn't buy any cable from Amazon. Buy it from a reputable communications supply outlet such as DX Engineering or Show Me Cables, etc.

I finally got a chance to look up the two feature sets on my XTL4999.9 radio since I was doing my monthly updates on all my radios and the two features that are flashed on this radio are G241 (Analog Only Operation) and G51 (Smartzone Systems Operation). Interesting that whoever ordered this radio with the intention of using it on a Trunk system wouldn't order it with the Q806 Digital Operation feature. At least they could use that feature for some privacy on a simplex channel if the radio was used in a Law Enforcement environment. So far its still one of my many backup radios.

I would say the Wouxun brand is the better brand of the Cheap Chinese Radio junk.

And read it again, many times and over time even after you get your station authorization. You don't need to concern yourself with Part 90.20 because you're not eligible for any Part 90.20 freqs. Just focus on Part 95.35 and on.

My repeater station has a female "N" connector for the transmitter and a female BNC for the receiver. As for my mobiles, all of my XTL5000 XTL2500 radios have a female mini UHF connector and my Midland MXT500 and Kenwood TK880 radios have a SO239 connectors. No CCRs for me.

There's that word again, "moral" coming back in a discussion. Yes, there are not too many XTL4999s these days and if "some people" need to have a radio flashed for digital modulation that you will probably never use, then go for it. If you are looking to buy a Motorola radio, you should always decode the flashcode before you make purchase so you know what you are buying. Most sellers on eBay don't have a clue on what they are selling. In my case, I knew the radio was analog only by decoding the flashcode prior to buying the radio. I rarely use the channels I have set for digital modulation these days. Back in my competitive racing days I used them quite frequently. So, when I bought this radio, I didn't think that I would ever have a need for using a digital channel since most of my radios are used these days on GMRS freqs and the fact that this radio was purchased as a spare. And it's been eons since I had a need for using a digital channel. Please note: There were no marbles from Denmark harmed or abused in this posting.

Yes, there are some analog only units. I happen to have one, a remote mid-power unit with the "S" band range. I think I paid around $125.00 for it but I knew what I am getting and for that price it was not a bad price and it is just one of my many spares. About a month or so maybe two months ago, there were several 450-520 MHz, "S" models, on eBay that only had two features flashed, conventional and one other and it wasn't the Q806 code for digital modulation. At that time, there a ton of them for sale at a cheap price for the transceiver only on eBay.