WRYZ926

He is like the toddler that acts badly to get attention from the parents that otherwise ignore the child. He has definitely earned the Negative Nancy nickname.

I see that Negative Nancy AKA MR 200 Miles is at it again with spouting off about his unrealistic range that most people will never see. I live in Mid Missouri and our repeater antennas are on a 1000 foot tower. The GMRS repeater antennas are at 400 feet. The 2m and 70cm antennas are at 900 feet. We only get a 30-35 mile coverage radius with both the GMRS and 70cm repeaters. Again this is due to the local terrain and trees. We have lots of rolling hills and river valleys that are forested. Yes the 70cm repeater does not better than GMRS even though the 70cm antennas are 500 feet higher. It's the nature of UHF frequencies. We have one of the largest coverage areas in the state with our 2m repeater and we still only have a 80-85 mile radius with it.

Again you are wrong, especially if one is using CHIRP to program their radio. You have to manually input the offset in CHIRP even when programming a Part 95 certified GMRS radio.

This is true. I would love to run my Comet 2x4SR on my Escape but it's just too tall to fit into my garage or into any parking garages. We all go with what works best for our situation. I can definitely get buy with using the SBB1 if I wanted to but I like running a dual band and GMRS radio in my car so I run separate antennas.

Nothing wrong with that at all. I like using the KISS principle. Keep It Simple Stupid. And you did a good job of keeping your results simple and easy to understand. There are all kinds of variables that come into play. We all like to have the lowest SWR but that is not always possible. You are good as long as the SWR is 2.0 or below. I have the Melowave Shadow (same as the Midland Ghost) but I've only compared it to the Nagoya UT-72G connected to my Wouxun KG-XS20G. The Melowave does better. The SBB1 is about as tall of an antenna as I can use on my Ford Escape and it just barely clears the garage door. The Tram 1174 is a little shorter and it works well so I haven't bothered swapping it for the Melowave Shadow. I might put the KG-XS20G in the wife's car and use the Melowave with it.

I only have the Comet SBB1. My results are smilier for GMRS and 70cm but mine does better on 2m than what yours does. Using your numbering system. I would say my SBB1 is 2 for GMRS and between 2 and 3 for 2m and 70cm. The highest SWR I have seen when testing with a Comet CAA-500 and Rig Expert Stick Pro is 1.8 at 467 MHz. Everything else for 462 MHz, 70cm and 2m is 1.6 or lower. We could test several of the exact same antennas and get different results for each one. The worst antenna I have and don't use is the Nagoya UT-72G. These are not NMO mount antennas, or at least mine isn't. They attach to the magnet mount using SMA connectors. My Melowave Shadow outperforms my UT-72G. I am currently using a Tram 1174 NMO antenna that I cut/tuned for GMRS and the SWR on it is 1.4 on 467 and 1.2 on 462. I get about 30-35 miles range using the Tram 1174 and Comet SBB1 on UHF and 55-60 miles on 2m when using our local repeaters. I get around 5-8 miles range on UHF when using simplex and 18-25 miles on 2m simplex. Again it depends on the terrain around me at the time. This is not bad for short 20 inch or less antennas.

I don't want a PTT button that is hard to push in since I have arthritis in my hands. I also don't want a PTT button that is too easy to push in. I don't want to be like my brother. His hand mic slipped down onto his seat and got pushed, everyone on the 2m repeater got to hear his conversation with his wife. PS: triggering Negative Nancy is more fun than blocking him

Negative Nancy's personality is shining again. I think the whole conversation is funny as OffroaderX is giving SteveShannon some trouble all in fun.

The Queen of all that is GMRS has anointed you so. YES go forth Sir SteveShannon HERD

I agree that guy is a bit cranky at times. But he does give good information in his videos (most of the time) GMRS repeaters transmit on 462.XXX while receiving on 467.XXX. GMRS repeater transmit channels are the same as the corresponding simplex channels. So yes you can hear repeaters when on a simplex channel. You will also hear the corresponding simplex channel while your radio is on a repeater channel if you are not using a receive tone. This just how things work with GMRS since there are only so many channels available. We had one guy complaining about hearing a bunch of kids on the repeater when no one else was hearing the kids. The kids were on simplex and the guy did not have the receive PL Tone set on his radio.

Yes that is a BNC connector. I used a digital microscope to see everything. And the toroids were not fun to wrap with arthritic hands. It's tough growing young at times. I figured that I would show you that antenna toggle you ideas for light portable antennas you can make to use with the G90 if you decide to go portable with it.

The G90 has one of the best tuners I have used. It does better than my LDG auto tuner. The G90 is definitely a nice little radio. I have built a 80m end fed half wave antenna but still need to get it installed and do final tuning. It tested good when I had it up temporarily on a 40 ft telescoping mast. My last antenna project that I built was an ultra light weight EFHW antenna for Parks On The Air. The unun (without antenna wire) weighs 0.6 ounces and is rated for 25 watts digital and 40 watts AM//SSB modes. It will be a perfect little antenna to go with the G90. Here are photos of it when I finished putting everything together.

My first HF antenna as a new tech was a home made 10m dipole. I hung it as an inverted v and have worked stations all over the world with it. I still have that antenna up. It works well for 10m and 11mm/CB. Mine also has good/useable SWR for most of the 2m band. Too bad I don't have a 2m radio with SSB capabilities. I mostly use my Icom IC-7300 for HF but I do find it fun to use my 20 watt Xiegu G90 on occasion. The farthest I have worked using the G90 and 10m dipole on SSB has been Ireland. It was hard getting through the pile up with only 20 watts but rewarding when I did make the contact.

Nice job @amaff It's always nice to see what people come up with using 3D printers. And who cares what Negative Nancy thinks.

Lscott is correct. Yes RG58 has high losses on UHF. But most vehicle installations will only use an average of 12 feet of coax. You can easily make up for any loss with a good well tuned antenna with some gain. I did the calculations for 12 feet of RG58 and antenna with 2 dBd of gain and an SWR of 1.8. You will be pretty much break even on power output. I used both 20 watt and 50 watt output for the calculations. 12 feet of RG58 with a 2 dBd gain antenna with SWR of 1.8 output power is ERP (effective radiating power) 50 watt radio = 53.7 watts ERP 20 watt radio = 21.5 watts ERP As you can see, as long as your antenna has an SWR of 1.8 or less and at least 2 dBd of gain then you will be fine using 12 feet of RG58. I used 12 feet since most magnet mounts come with 12 feet of coax. Most manufacturers list the gain in dBi and most loss calculators use dBd. Subtract 2.14 from the dBi value to get the dBd value. https://kv5r.com/ham-radio/coax-loss-calculator/

How old is your vehicle? Newer vehicles will shut the accessory port off after a few minutes. That is only one possibility. Also newer vehicles with the battery monitoring system will actually shut off circuits if it detects a low voltage from the battery. I don't remember off hand what the voltage cutoff is. So yet another possibility. For newer vehicles it is best practice to wire the radio positive wire directly to the battery and the ground wire directly to a chassis ground due to the battery monitor system and all of the computer modules onboard.

It will also depend on the brand of radio and the stock antenna it comes with. I have found in my testing that the Nagoya and Abbree 771G did make an improvement with my Baofeng UV-5R GMRS radios. My Wouxun KG-935G Plus does better with the stock antenna that comes with the radio. The Signal Sticks are popular and work well for 2m and 70cm. I would want to see what the SWR actually is on 467 MHz and 462 MHz. Not all dual band antennas will work well on GMRS frequencies.

As BoxCar has mentioned, different licensing pool. You still run across some KA call signs for GMRS. The KA call signs haven't been issued in about 30 years though. The standard for Radio and TV stations is still the same. All stations east of the Mississippi start with W and all stations west of the Mississippi start with K. There are a few exceptions to this. If I remember correctly there is one station in PA that starts with a K and one in TX that starts with a W. They had their call signs before things were standardized.

That will definitely make a difference, especially if it is a low ceiling and the metal garage door frame and tracks can and will have an effect.

Yes it should work using a straight through CAT cable.

4.61 amps while transmitting on high power is not bad at all. And a 10 AH LIPO4 battery should last quite a while considering you are going to be receiving the majority of the time. Now I wouldn't get into long rag chew sessions while running on battery power. And I would have no issues using the accessory port/cigarette lighter in vehicles since those are rated at 10 amps.

Another good alternative is the DX Engineering 400MAX coax cable. Another alternative is the JET brand coax from R&L Electronics. I've used plenty of the JET brand for jumpers and short runs 20 feet or less. I mostly order from ABR when I need a custom length and I don't feel like making my own cables. Otherwise I go with DX Engineering 400MAX for standard lengths and JET for my jumpers. Now let's see what Negative Nancy has to say about DX Engineering or JET coax cables.

ABR Industries coax cables are good to go. All of my coax cables that I use for Parks On The Air are from ABR.

You just can't help yourself can you. No one cares what you think and we definitely do NOT care for your Negative Nancy attitudes towards everything. You seem to have a mental issue and you really should go seek professional help for it.

To each their own. I do not trust anything attached to the headrest to stay put in an accident. And I too have seen my fair share of accidents and weird things do happen in an accident. I personally won't take the chance if I don't have to. Plus I don't want any type of speakers right next to my head while driving. I want to be able to hear everything that's going on.