SvenMarbles

Let’s just say that Midland’s pockets run deep and some of us here in the “influence sphere” are affected. Some people here are a part of the “Midland Ambassador Program”. And I made the mistake of pissing that off..

The CTCSS and DCS only serve the purpose of "breaking things open". Both the repeaters and your radio. Once they have, traffic flows. Nothing is wrong with anything, aside from the poor coordination of the parties running those repeaters. We have a couple of repeaters doing that to eachother in my area as well. I think that the root of the problem is that when the FCC laid out the band plan for GMRS with the 8 repeater pairs, they didn't expect people to go "full ham radio club" and put things on towers that get out forever. So in some regions it's getting to be problematic.

I had every intention of offering the mia culpa. More information came to light and I've decided to sit tight.

As an aside from this topic directly. I've read that the ARRL lobby is working in the courts to make it illegal for HOAs to tell people that they're not allowed to have antennas. It could become a non-factor in the near future...

What sort of traffic is it?

I re-read your post and i think you're actually calling the tone searcher and bother-er the DH. Yes. You're correct and on my team..

It's not a d***head thing to be on a tone simplex.. People forget that the purpose of GMRS isn't the big social club thing. It's for parties to use, sometimes for practical things.. It's what most of GMRS SHOULD be.. it's. not. ham. radio. That reminder is needed more than it should be..

Radios are engineered to exist in uncomfortable heat. Regardless of the season and ambient temperature, they make their own heat.. It's why their bodies are heat sinks, and they have fans inside. Heat was a part of the plan. So ambient heat in your car isn't likely to hurt your radio. Before operating it, maybe be sure you've allowed the AC to cool the cabin for a few minutes though.. 140 degree interior car bake air being circulated amongst it's own heat generation isn't likely to help..

Baofengs are very commonly in use, even among some nation-state millitaries. You might think i'm being silly, but that's 100% real. Russian Federation units were pictured with them in the early days of the invasion as well. It's why they lost so many generals on the battlefield. Ukraine (U.S.) sigint was just listening along the whole way..

I think there is a sort of broad misunderstanding of what you can do on UHF, with watts and DB antennas. People want the 50 watters and the 9db gain antennas thinking that's the best way to operate. For your home setup, and with an antenna up high, sure... But it's more to do with the height/LOS. You could probably be achieving the same result with 10 watts if you're doing nice in that configuration. For the mobile side, you're a low plane level antenna. No matter what,... You can't punch through that dirt grade with watts. 50 or 5,000. The only thing that you can have control of is your take-off angles. The higher DB antennas are shallow. Give up on the watts or ERP. Just radiate more omni.. I've found that that it's been the solution. 5 watts can sound like 50 if it's clear to radiate. On UHF, you're due to lose the contact by terrain long before petering out on power. People CW on 5 watts across the planet. Power isn't the thing folks.. HF does it by ricocheting off of the ionosphere. Power only matters if you care to step over a guy. Do we do that in polite society?

I really hope it works out well for you. My only concern with these antennas are if the QC is such that no 2 of them are the same tune.

The NMO base is probably about 3/8ths, so the antenna itself is right at about 3 1/2”. Here’s how it sits on my wife’s car. Very subtle. It’s her antenna now because it’s the first time she would allow an antenna be put on her car, due to its small form factor. As for gain, I am sure it’s not more than a couple db. I’m actually in the process of re-thinking my strategy with mobile antenna gain though. I’m likely to replace my own with an intentionally lower gain antenna. I suspect that the shallow radiation lobes of the higher gain mobile antennas create dead spots around terrain height variations, whereas a 3db or lower, more Omni-directional in the X axis, performs better. With this antenna and a 4 watt UV5R, I get told on the comeback from radio checks into repeaters that are 10-15 miles away that I’m full quieting and loud. . Not sure if it’s just some kind of lucky anomaly, but this ultra cheapo setup ($50ish dollars all-in) just talks all over town quite nicely…

He’ll get a PM from me tonight.

Yikes… too many pops yesterday and got a little silly. Sorry folks.

I own that. I had an agenda going in. The title of this thread should have been “I don’t think that Midland GMRS radios are that great”. In fairness, it’s within the context of rebuttal of criticism of “Chinese radios”, from people that weren’t even here . So yeah I brought some heat that seemed like it came from nowhere.

Generally speaking, how do you find integrated radio-on-chip receivers vs radios with multiple IF stages to be, relative to eachother?

Well not really . Do you think because I got poked by Randy and his hangers-on that anything pertaining to the topic prior was satisfied?

I predicted the play on “showing my ass”.. ::golf clap:: Short of that you haven’t said anything else..

I set it up perfectly. Post a picture of those 2 radios and a frequency generator, and the aforementioned characters written on something in frame, and my bare ass gets posted. I know that if I got challenged to that I’d go out of my way to make that happen. 1 stipulation at this point though. It’s gotta happen by tomorrow. Kinda seems like interested parties here might be willing to make sure he gets possession of everything required lol..

Personal insults? Weird…

I did miss the point.

I see. Defects. There’s something defective going on with, me.. Because I know radio stuff. As an interest.. In my spare time away from being a father, husband, and business owner. Maybe I should film my ugly face and go off half cocked on a topic that I know just a little bit about like “some people”. Hopefully though, I won’t run out of steam part way in and start making weird “art videos”..

Damn… so,.. you’re saying I passed the sad ham exam, before even taking the ham exam. That’s a distinction, for sure..

I’m literally the opposite of a sad ham.

By the way,... not a ham.. Could pass a tech exam, and continue to general tomorrow morning,.. hungover.. Not interested.