GreggInFL

Do you have more details on that tilting bracket assembly? I'm looking at a similar application. TIA.

Welcome. You're in the right place. I'm new at this as well and have found the forum to have some scary-smart folks who are very helpful.

Nice. How tall is the pole?

LOL. I like it. Let's do it.

^ A similar approach to a base station is a mobile setup. The same power radio into a good antenna will get you much more range than a handheld. Not as much as a base station with a better antenna, but still an impressive improvement. Here is the Florida suburbs (flat with trees) my HT is maybe two miles, but my cheap 25W mobile into a small mag mount antenna is at least ten miles. The added benefit is that it's mobile. Assuming there are not massive trees on the roads post hurricane, I can drive the 4x4 to high ground for good comms. Can't do that with a base station. You can always move it inside to use as a base unit.

I'm in the same boat as you, Kenny. In thinking about an emergency setup for hurricanes I find myself coming to the conclusion that anything I put up is going to get knocked down -- and there's nothing I can do about it. So I'll probably rig something I can set up after the event. A decent antenna with good cable and a temporary mast plugged into my mobile unit should work fine. The combo WRXP381 cited is the gold-plated, platinum model, and when I put together a serious base system that's the way I'll go.

Speaking of which, any data on the growth in the user base?

^ Ouch.

Inquiring minds want to know. So, did it work?

As mentioned above, some repeaters don't have a tail you can hear. Try transmitting to another radio via the repeater. Make sure you're not hitting the second repeater via simplex but are going through the repeater.

That's old stuff. Yawn.

Why? Why would you want anyone not doing welfare checks?

Same here with the same antenna. That mag mount on the truck helps compensate for poor LOS.

^Thanks Brent! Much appreciated. I've handed out some HTs in case everything goes down, though we are more central so we're not expecting much.

You'll like those radios. The wife and I use them. As others have said, put some space between them and try to talk via the repeater.

I hear a couple, sometime three, hams yacking casually on GMRS weekdays between 3:00 and 5:00 pm. One guy hits the gym at 4:00 and signs off from the parking lot. I can tell they are hams from the conversation. If I do a radio check off a big local repeater there will sometimes be a conversation, but it's almost always a newly-licensed GMRSer.

Big time. Our neighborhood was getting quotes for high speed internet and one vendor specialized in RF. They took one look at the pines and no quoted. We went with fiber.

This is hilarious. You win, dude. You have purchased more stuff in one month than I have in a year -- and that's my fault.

This has been happening in colleges where the profs have learned to submit the work to AI and ask if it was generated by AI.

Okay, let's go there. If a family member moves across the country, what's the problem? How does that single link threaten anything? Where's the downside?

It would be local if the mountain weren't there. Agreed, but what if you don't own the mountain? What if this were an urban setting and rather than a mountain the object blocking transmissions is a building, which you don't own? I understand how a bunch of repeaters connected by a bunch of links could cause problems, but in this example the objective is to maintain a normal transmission range, not to spread RF over the continent. What's the downside? Simple wording: "A GMRS repeater shall not be linked to more than one other GMRS repeater."

I agree with all of the above with one exception -- which was first brought up by a poster on this forum, so no credit to me. If you have two local repeaters that are separated by a mountain, seriously limiting the range of both, linking the two should be allowed. More than two, no.

Don't feel bad, I have the same thing happening. 25W mobile with a mag mount is easy 15-20 miles, but I move the rig inside on a pie pan and it performs worse than an HT. Telling Santa I want a real antenna.

They go "stale" after a while; yeah, I think it's a year. The little gear/settings button near the upper left can enable both stale and offline repeaters to show.

I'm in Florida as well and feel your pain, i.e. two miles between handhelds. You could cover that distance by simply plugging into a better antenna. I suggest you try a mag mount antenna on your vehicle and plug it into the handhelds. Cheap way to start and since we're talking emergency only, rather than daily use, the worse thing you'd have to do is agree to drive to a local hill. I've used this with my hand held and it works rather well. Is there a repeater near you?