WRYZ926

I live in a rural area that is an hour away from the closest big cities. I don't look for anything crazy to happen here. But I am always prepared for the worse.

Home insulation, metal siding, metal roofs, plaster/wood lathe walls, and heat barriers are basically faraday cages. A guy that lives close to me has an old house built in the 1920's that is all plaster and wood lathe. So every interior wall also has chicken wire in it to hold the plaster in place. He also has a metal roof too. We are about 350 yards apart and he can't talk to me on a hand held from inside his house. My brother built his house out of a metal building. He can't hardly use his cell phone let alone a HT while inside unless he stands at a window. I mentioned this so people take all of it into consideration when trying to use an indoor antenna.

One thing to remember abut Midland radios, their models with everything in the hand mic cannot be programmed using a computer. Out of all the GMRS and amateur band radios I have, the Wouxun KG-XS20G and KG-935G Plus are the easiest to program. Guys give me good signal reports when using the KG-XS20G with a Comet 2x4SR antenna.

Those numbers are perfectly fine. It is quite normal to see a slightly higher SWR on the repeater channels since they are 467 MHz versus 462 MHz. The SWR on channels 8-14 will probably be around 1.7 also since they are 467 MHz. And good for you on using LMR400 instead of some cheap RG8 from Amazon.

Chassis ground is the best for all the newer vehicles with a battery monitoring system.

You would have to have an inspection done on the chimney to see if it would support a 40 foot mast plus antenna. I personally would not do that unless I anchored the mast in several locations and guyed the mast at several points along the mast to at least 3 points around it. I'm using a 22 foot mast made from 1 5/8" fence post and have it anchored to the house in three spots along with the top guyed at three points. Maybe I over did things, but its better to be safe than sorry.

A bad adaptor along with tree branches touching your antenna will definitely cause high SWR. I learned the hard way. I avoid adaptors as much as possible and make sure to keep trees well trimmed back away from my antennas.

And some 20 watt mobile radios can transmit on channels 8-14 when set to narrow band and low power without any mods being done. They still transmit above the legal 0.5 watts though. A suggestion for those thinking about modding an amateur radio for GMRS, I highly suggest that you make sure that it will not transmit on GMRS channels 8-14 so you don't possibly interfere with the GMRS repeater channels.

No one will ever know the difference unless you tell them. As stated, amateur radios are not type 95 certified so are not legal to use on GMRS. Some people want to stay compliant while others don't worry about it. That is a decision you have to make for yourself. I can't confirm or deny that any of my radios have been modded

Air bands are AM and the KG-Q10H is FM only for transmit. I can't tell you if it will transmit in the maritime mobile band or not since I am not licensed nor have any reason to use that band.

I have the KG-Q10H and it is a nice radio. And yes it can be unlocked. Here is a video showing how to unlock the Q10H https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsXFtMe_-Eo Once unlocked, you can use it on MURS and GMRS along with 2m, 1.25m, 70cm, and 6m bands.

You can also use DTMF tones to call specific radios too. And the Ashland GMRS repeater is an excellent one and at a good location. I can get into it from Montgomery County which is about 50 miles east of Columbia. I do struggle a little getting into the Ashland repeater with 20 watts but normally do fine at 50 watts.

I don't suggest that you look at the prices of a good linear power supply then. And yes a linear power supply will always provide cleaner power than any solid state power supply.

You can find power supplies on Amazon that put out the correct 13.8v DC and have a 10 amp accessory port (cigarette lighter) that will work fine for a 20 watt radio. I suggest buying a 30 amp power supply just incase you ever decide to get a 50 watt radio to use as a base station. Here is one example: 13.8V 30A Bench Power Supply, Analog DC Power Supply with Cigarette Plug, Ham Radio Regulated Switching Power Supply, Noise Offset Control I know its a generic brand, but that exact power supply is sold under various names and has a good reputation. One thing to remember is that most, if not all, power supplies are marketed at their peak power output. The continuous power output is between 75 and 80 percent of that. SO a 30 amp power supply is really only good for 22-24 amps of continuous use. A 20 amp power supply is good for 14-16 amps continuous and a 15 amp power supply is good for 10-12 amps continuous.

I have noticed the same thing with the recent requests I have received. And people will be disappointed during an actual emergency. Our organization's main focus is to support local agencies so that is where our priorities will be. Plus we still need to move our GMRS repeater from its temporary spot to its permanent home in a rack along side our 2m and 70cm repeaters so that it too will be on battery backup. Our GMRS repeater is not currently on any type of backup power. I guess that more people are buying radios from Amazon lately due to what happened in the Southeast and not bothering with getting licensed. We have had a lot more kerchunking on all three of our repeaters in the last few weeks. It's a bit aggravating t say the least. And it isn't as easy to change PL tones on the 2m and 70cm repeaters since that has to go through the local repeater counsel. What was worse was today. We had to do some final tweaks on our new (to us) 2m Quantar repeater along with trying to get Allstar backup and running. And we has a ID10T or two that kept wanting to kerchunk the repeater all day. Even had a kid get on and say "breaker breaker 19" on the repeater. I guess it's time to build some hand held yagi antennas and go hunting.