nokones

Randy's plate is a Personalized Plate that was issued not in conflict with a regular sequential issued series plate. The three Alpha and three numerical series plates are still in service and were originally issued in 1963 with yellow characters on a black background plate. In 1970 they reversed the three numbers and three Alpha characters and were yellow characters on a blue back ground plates. After a couple decades most of the 1963 series plates were no longer in service and DMV allowed the 1963 series letters and numbers combination be used for personalized plates providing there were no conflicts with an existing in-service record. I bet when Randy requested that plate, the Sunrise reflectorized plate was the only style plate issued during that era. It wasn't until about 2017 that the State allowed people to request Personalized Plates on the Legacy Yellow Characters on Black background plates. Since Randy's license plate number is the old letters and number series combination that were issued starting in 1963 with the black plates he should make an application to request his number be put on a legacy plate. Just my opinion, I'm an old black license plate fan. I had several of them. Although, he may want to keep the existing plate because those plates are rare and discontinued in the interest of saving money in producing those plates. They discontinued those plates during an extreme fiscal management crisis period back in the 90s. If my memory serves me right I think he is using a Legacy black plate on his "Notarubicon" now and I know what his plate combo is. His license plate number combo gave my the idea of my license plate number combo for my "ISARUBICON" My old plate:

After the Teresa Saldana (sp) stabbing took place after the stabber made a public inquiry to DMV on her plate to get her address, the State has made it extremely difficult for the public to get information from DMV. Also, law enforcement employees are now held accountable for misusing the system for personal gain and criminal statutes are now in place for those violations. DMV does sell the Driver's License and Vehicle Registration Information in batch form to specific requestors but that information is very limited.

Government records are subject to the Freedom of the Public Records Information Act with some limitations, and very limited information to Personnel Records.

That was true for California, especially back in the day when the vehicle registration inquiry system was less automated as it is today. In those days when a license plate inquiry was submitted, you had to insert a license plate type so the system would search for that type of plate. Thus, a passenger car plate is "A", Truck/Commercial Plate is "C", Trailer is "T", Motorcycle is "M", and Amateur Radio Plate is "H", Personalized Plate is "L", Pro-Rated Plates is "P", Dealer Plate is "D" but those plates were only a telephonic inquiry and not automated. So, if an "A" was used for an Amateur Radio License Plate inquiry the system would return with a response of "Record Not On File". 99% of the Amateur Radio Plates were issued to passenger cars so Officers would call in the HAM plate as an "A" plate and the dispatcher would run it as such. Nowadays, the inquirer no longer has to insert a license plate type code.

In Arizona it is very easy for a special group to petition the State and be approved for a special plate. Arizona has 104 approved special groups with license plates.

I think most "Nutjobs" wouldn't have a clue if they saw a Personalized Plate with a KAJ0097 or WQJT335 rather it is a regular sequential issued plate or a special plate with a FCC callsign.

It's very easy to understand why a person would want to not program a receive tone and suggest it to a new person. Is it very possible why you don't understand the reasoning is that you are inexperienced yourself with the subject? I based that on the fact that you only had your GMRS license for less than a year. Is that the case? If you don't know why, don't be ashame or bashful if you don't know just ask in order to learn.

If you are able to effectively communicate between A and B and A and C, and points in between, a home base station with a base station antenna will most likely suffice and meet your needs for staying in contact with family members. If there is a need for family members being in locations B and C at the same time and there is a need to communicate between those two points and the communication between those points is adequate a repeater is still not necessary. A repeater would only be necessary if family members are out and about and have a need to communicate and direct communication was not adequate. In that case, a repeater station at location A would help in that regard.

The MXTA26 is an excellent performing antenna for GMRS. Do you intend to purchase a NMO mount and cable from Midland or another brand like Laird from a supplier like Arcadian Antenna? Midland has both a standard NMO mount and cable and a NMO lip-mount and cable. Either one will get the job done. I believe for simplicity and convenience Midland installs the PL259 connector on the cable which is approximately 17 feet in length? In that case, you will have to whack off the connector and reinstall a new connector. Don't go cheap with a POS Chinese connector from Amazon. If you want it to work properly, buy a quality connector, like Amphenol, from a supplier like DX Engineering. It would be easier to just tuck the excess cable under the carpet/mat or into an interior trim panel than whack off the connector if you are not comfortable with crimping/soldering on a new connector. You mentioned that your fenders mount antenna will stick about 6 inches above the roofline. What make and model Truck do you have?

I think Randy gets his info from Zenu (sp) so you know that it has to be accurate.

This is my permanent antenna installation. It actually works very well.

This actually worked better than I thought it would. It was just a temporary thing while my glass-mount antenna was on order. My body panels are composite.

DCS/DPL "411" is a standard DPL code and used a lot throughout the radio land.

No problem, it's your faith and you can have all the faith you want or not want in this matter. It's a freedom of choice.

That means there is about a .0000002% chance that it could affect a repeater.

Back in the day (many decades ago) with the use of Single (Burst) Tones (there were five tones to select from 1800-2552 Hz), I use to tone out Mary Had A Little Lamp on the air.

Let me check my notes for the specific dates and times and of course the exact details and I'll get back to you as quickly as I can.

I don't believe they are saying that you have to join to use the "free airwaves". They're just saying that you can't use/activate their private property, the repeater station equipment, with the "free airwaves" unless you are a Club Member, which is their right. You can use the "free airwaves" to your heart content providing that you do it in compliance with Part 95, subparts A and E.

It is my understanding that the "Roger Beep" tone(s) will and have interfered with the control of some Linked Repeater Links.

The Midland MXT500 mic jack is an 8-pin jack port. Do you know if all 8 pins are used? The pin-out information should tell you that. If so, you will need to find a Desk Mic with 8 wirings and the diagram/pin-outs for the Desk Mic in order to match the pin-outs for the MXT500 mic-jack. Are you able to obtain that information? One thought is cannibalize a donor MXT 500 mic for the Midland mic connector and mate the wirings to the recipient Desk Mic. wirings. The desk microphone impedance will need to match the radio microphone impedance. If you can obtain all the information and the required components, I can do the soldering for you. I have a MXT500 that I can test it out for you after the soldering. I won't charge you for the work but you will need to cover the shipping cost both ways and include the prepaid shipping label when you send me the components. There used to be several radio accessory shops that would do custom twoway radio audio work with audio accessories such as Setcom, PVP Communications, Klein Electronics, and Planet Headset. Some have stopped doing custom work and they just focus on production work only now. You might want to contact the aforementioned and see if they would be willing to do custom work for you.

Can't go wrong with the brands used by Public Safety agencies if you want reliability, longevity, performance, and cost-effectiveness over a long period of time. If you buy cheap, you get cheap. You don't see Public Safety agencies using some of the cheap antennae previously mentioned.

Dual band HAM antennae are essentially compromised and not efficient for GMRS freqs. You need to determine what is your target freq for efficiency and get the antenna that resonates the best on that freq and take the hits on the other freqs.

You should put a quality antenna analyzer on your J Pole without the cable and sweep it and see what the antenna resonates at. Then try with the cable attached and sweep it. Then put the MXTA 26 at the end of the coax in place of the J Pole and sweep it. The results should indicate where your problem maybe located. If you need to replace the cable "Do Not Buy Cheap Cable" from Amazon.

Then more than likely you will need Intrinsically Safe certified radios, the one with the Green Dot. An used Mototola or Kenwood Intrinsically Safe radio would more than meet your needs for just a few hundred dollars and will last you many years. As for applying for a frequency, it appears you will need to apply for an Industrial/Business Pool IP frequency and coordinate your application with a Petroleum Frequency Coordinator. I think you would be better off to consider the VHF Highband for your operation. As mentioned in the above response, an itinerant frequency for the reasons stated would be easier to apply for and won't require any frequency coordination or other application approvals. However, I believe all the itinerant freqs can only be licensed as a mobile (MOI) with only 5-6 watts of RF power. I'm not sure if a base station, even a Temp Base (FBT), operation would be approved with an itinerant freq. You may have to have that operation approved by a Frequency Coordinator.

You may need to check the plastic inserts in each antenna/cavity port. I believe the XLT Duplexer is one of those cheap duplexers that are susceptible to the insert being burned out easily by RF.