SvenMarbles

I want to know more about your SQ4 findings.. Can you just sort of lay that all out in detail?

I see.. did you account for the negative gravity co-efficient?

And I know the metrics of both

SINAD

So when you said "-120dbm vs -124dbm" that sounds like you're on someone's receive and measuring that anecdotally. Am I right? Because that's not typical receive sensitivity metrics.

Do you really want this?

I did read that. But I was being polite, because that's not real.

I see. So what's the argument for buying an MXT500 over a KG-1000? you can dummy-buy both, and just turn them on and use the channels.

I don't think they're for anyone who doesn't want to overpay for a radio for what it is. $400 for an MXT500 SOC radio or $389 for a Superhet which is measurably superior. Don't be a goof and buy the wrong radio

Does it program on Chirp with alpha tags?

The best possible is a Yagi if you can run one.

Well superhet vs SOC matter a fair bit on the receive side. At any price point. A double or triple conversion superhet receiver is unquestionably superior. I have silicon labs chip radios that hear Noaa weather 8 harmonics away and break a 1 squelch.

I'd rather have the fruitiest 7 tone roger beep imagineable and then also insist that it was an Icom.

I absolutely hate the idea of living in an HOA as a radio hobbyist. But nothing thrills me more than the challenge of evading it with stealthy antennas and such . It reminds me of my younger days of living in apartments, and in one case lying to the manager that I was getting cable, gaining access to the roof, and creating a clandestine longwire for HF. No questions ensued about the newly stapled coax leading into apartment 3 west.. There's an actual whole market niche for "HOA stealth" ham radio antennas. Have a look at those and see if there's anything applicable for your use case.

That's what I suspected. I haven't owned a Midland GMRS radio, but I have owned their products in the past pre-GMRS. I didn't think much of it..

I'm not sure when Midland became Yaesu. I only remember that for the past 30 years they made what were considered the "cheapo" CB radios. Are the Midland GMRS radios superhet? I only ask because of a conversation between 4 guys on the repeater today. Slamming "the Chinese junk". As far as I know Wouxun is the only thing trying to do non homodyne radios for the GMRS space.

Oh good, because that's what I just ordered. Thanks

That's exactly the type of info I needed. Thanks. If I copy/paste that into amazon, does it show that exact product?

My principal home radio is a simple Tidradio TD-H8 handheld that's turned up on wattage a bit (11 watts). LMR-400 to a 9db gain rotatable yagi about 15 feet high. It does better than most people's 50 watters lol.

I notice that I have an issue during rain. I key up on my home radio and have an SWR of 2 when it's typically a 1.4 on a dry day. I don't have anything done to my so-239/pl-259 point on the antenna. It's just out there living in the weather. I suspect dampness might be making mild shorts on the center conductor/shielding side. I recognize that this was not good practice, but I wanted to get my antenna up in haste and figured i'd get back to it later. But before I get knee deep into the project of getting the mast back down, I'd like to have a plan for the weather proofing. What do you guys do that works well?

I think there may have been some variations of it, but as you can see on the VNA, this model lands nicely into GMRS. I’ve been talking on it very reliably and getting good reports.

Yes it is. Various brands/menus will say things a different way. Output (transmit). Use that for your outgoing tone/DCS.

As an exercise. Try turning down to medium and low and see if there's a difference to what you can do with your static station. I've found that the only variable that can be managed is antenna height. You can change what you can do by moving your antenna higher. But the result of each height increment between 20 and 50 watts will be exactly the same. If you can find time to test that, I'd be very appreciative.

Interesting. Well if that’s the case, and I’m in no position to tell you that your empirical experience is incorrect, I’ll concede on that. I’ve done my share of tooling around and doing all sorts of field testing and have never experienced the thing of 25 watts falling short (through a relatively open terrain path as you describe) and then 50 watts having another result. It just kind of seems to me like the elevations of the parties involved and the terrain in-between is what it is and is either going to allow readable contact, or not. It’s not been my experience that you can just plow through anything with a few more watts. 50 or 5,000. The hillside always wins. Again. For 4xx UHF. I recognize that other bands have other nuances..

I completely understand the logic of “it can do 50 watts, and it can do lower power as well” so why not? My question though, even with that being said, when would 50 watts on 462-467 be appropriate? When does 50 watts do a thing that 25 watts (or even less) didn’t? I’m not saying that there aren’t such circumstances, but speaking strictly anecdotally, I’ve never found an instance of it. The the limiting variables of the 4xx UHF band properties are going to be your barriers well before needing more power will. So when you’re setup with one of those 50 watt installs, I’m assuming you’re also going to have the supporting accoutrement to be able to supply that radio at maximum power level, even if you may opt to mainly run it lower.. But you’re geared up to be able to. So that was a cost.. Also, I’m just going to be straightforward. As far as what you said about using only the power needed to accomplish what you’re doing. I really don’t believe that’s standard practice. I’d bet everything that most people are just going full bore on high all day. All that the point of this post was attempting to get across is that I believe that there’s a great deal of GMRSers that are all about that 50 watt model. And I believe they run them that way, all day. And I don’t think very many people realize how much power draw they’re using all the time, for no practical benefit..