SvenMarbles

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..

I frankly completely ignore the standard "baked in" weather functions on any of the radios that I have. If something was goofy about the way it's implemented, it would hardly move the needle on how I felt about the radio as a whole. It's likely I might not ever even discover it. Here's my weather mode. VFO, punch 162.whatever and it's always right there loud and proud.. I do that regardless of it there's a weather button on the radio or not lol. How's the radio? Does it radio well?

There are all varieties of use cases for antennas. Yes that Comet 712 is a prime antenna. It's also a massive beast! It's an 11 foot tall vertical. Some people might not be able, or want to have such a prominent antenna. There's also the matter of needing very robust mounting for it, wind load, etc.. A UHF yagi on the other hand, is a small and light thing that can squirt the RF just as far and as strong with equivalent decibels, just only in the desired direction at the time. And it's the size footprint as a shoe box. If you don't mind going and pointing it at the repeaters or direction of receiving party, I think it IS an option for some to consider, again, if they might not be able to mount up a big ole 11 foot tall monster antenna. In my case, I've already got other antennas for other bands and I was able to side-mount this one onto an existing mast in a way that it can swivel. I just take the parallel run of PVC pictured and give it a twist. It's super simple to construct something like this, I don't sweat a wind load on it, and it'll get into a repeater 30+ miles out as good if not better than a 712 if I've got it pointed at it. They're also excellent on the RX side of things.

It's what I do. 10 watts and 9db gain. for UHF it's all you need to be loud.

No, you don't need your own repeater. You may just want to make your station very good. I'd be curious to know where you are located geographically. You might think that 17 miles it too far to reach, but you'd be surprised. I routinely talk on repeaters over 20 miles away and sound good on them. With a handheld. There's just a handful of things to know and you can do it too. You don't need to spend thousands, or even hundreds to be able to shoot a signal pretty far off.

Well this topic sprung back to life... Here's another thing to consider. IDK about anyone else here, but sort of married to my interest in having domestic radio is a concept of preparedness. A 50 watt station needs quite an amperage draw. If you're not about "what happens when things go dark" and you're just a comfy radio desk plugged into mains power type guy. sure. Blow out 50 watts. Even if 70% of it is a waste. But is your station operable when that's not the case? When that supply needs to be plugged into something to give you 12 amps stable? I like a station that can run on batteries. With gain and directional antennas, I can be every bit as loud as anyone with 10 watts. And that can be fueled by the sun.

I've commented on your tube vids exactly twice. If those remarks impressed upon you, I can now check the box of "master communicator".

Hams are 100% the issue. And I completely recognize that I just tipped the gas can and lit a match by saying so. Your profile is only 50% complete on MYGMRS until you add you ham radio call sign, so I recognize that i'm about to be in a fist fight with an upset beehive. IDGAF I know what's right and what's not. Hams don't like to be told that they're out of line in the world of radio because they've been used to being the "radio dudes". In this case they're actually the away team. This is actually not a ham band. It's not for hams. I know it's crazy to imagine. But there do exist radio people, who know and do radio, who don't hold a ham ticket. I know,.. it's nuts. Can't even be bothered to take a day off of work to sit for an exam by some self serious medically retired guy in a library and get 26 right out of 35 multiple choice.. IDK,.. We just don't do it.. Our idea of applying radio as a hobby doesn't require it. But we do have wives, sons, daughters, brothers, sister, etc who we'd like to be on the radio with. ,....and we don't want to always be like "WHISKEY TANGO BRAVO ZULU 554!!" on the radio all the time just to get on.. We don't call out CQ to eachother.. And we don't say 73's! (yuck).. Some of the parties on the license might not even know what kind of radio they have when colostomy bag Larry asks, and I don't think they need to feel weird about that. They're just trying to relay a practical message to another party on the license when someone else in town hears traffic and thinks it's the 440 net.

I agree. I think there’s been this MASSIVE misunderstanding about what GMRS is for. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that GMRS is “family radio service adjacent” and that the licensing is “for a family”. I believe if we took the both of our disagreement here to the Supreme Court, we’d get a 9-0 in my favor . Saying “wow” is saying nothing at all.

Obviously we’re all spread apart across the country and every area isn’t going to be exactly like another. Anecdotally, I’ve had instances where my wife got on the mic from her car and tried to raise me on the radio at home and had her get chastised about “interrupting the current conversation” even though she said “691 traffic”. I heard the whole thing. She got a little bit bullied by the local circle of hams that like to be on GMRS for some reason. The point is. What we were doing is actually what THIS IS FOR. If you want to just be hobby radio guy, no problem, but YIELD. Ham radio is 22 megahertz south. Same properties as the 462 if you just like that band for some reason. Even though, frankly it sucks and VHF is better and I’m jealous of it. I’d do a goofy dance if the day came that the FCC announced that MURS spectrum became more channels on GMRS. Coax losses up here are brutal. Hams have nice little slices across all of the favorable bands. Just go there..

Are you confused about the broader point I was making? Or just the antenna part?

It is as much as a radio, but in my experience antenna>radio. I’ll actually spend more money on antennas and have less expensive radios.

I've been doing some looking into this antenna. The creator of it claims that it's predicated on a fundamentally different method of antenna science. I'm not in as deep with antenna science as some are, but it has to do magnetic field resonance, making use of variable polarities, and not just the electric/vertical polarity like typical mobile verticals do. The claim being made by the creator is that not only is this antenna a smaller form factor, but it's actually superior. It'll provide a more stable and readable signal in areas where conventional antennas will flutter, drop, etc. Because the gaps get filled by angular/horizontal polarities and the magnetic portion of the signal carrier. Or something to that effect. It's claimed that this antenna (the 2m/70cm version) can work the ISS and satellites while driving and not having to change the orientation of the antenna. Again, because of the use of variable polarities.. Is it snake oil? It's a $200 antenna for the version needed on GMRS. If it does what it says, I've got no problem paying that. But does it? Just curious if anyone here has had any time with one...

I suppose it gets to what the difference between what Amateur radio and GMRS is. Ham radio is a place to be about radio. It's radio for the purpose of the hobby of radio. Each individual holds a license, and typically gets on to speak to random-other hams. The substance of the conversation had is secondary to the simple matter of "we had a contact". "My equipment talked to your equipment and that's neat". GMRS was actually intended to be a more practical radio service. It's why a license is for an entire household. Families, saying "hey add this to the grocery list", or "hey are you almost home?". Not necessarily for 70cm rag chews about antennas. If you wanna do that, get 26 right out of 35 and 440 is there for you.. Some of us are both of those things but just kind of wish there was a thing we could have our wives, kids, and siblings on for the family talk and not feel like we're stepping on toes, even though we're actually the ones in the correct spectrum. Hams moved in on GMRS, because it was there and novel. Now we have these guys all over it seeping the ham flavor all over it and making it uncomfortable for our families to be on.

No more than a Motorolla MDC tail does. But for some reason that's not as taboo at a roger tone.. Despite it being also completely vain and ancillary, and very popular among people who'll yell about a roger.

So the story behind this antenna is that I actually didn’t even want it. I was simply looking to pick up an NMO mag mount base because the antenna that I was interested in was a Melowave Shadow antenna, but don’t currently have an NMO platform for it to be on. After shopping various options everywhere I spotted this Chinese bundle of what appears to be a copy of these Shadow/Ghost style antennas. But it included the mag NMO base that I was after, for less than the price of just only the base everywhere else I looked ($25 to my door from Amazon). I pulled the trigger and figured I could just pitch the antenna part in the trash and still be ahead of the game.. Obviously though, being a radio nerd that I am I had to at least have a look at it. I connected it to my VNA and surprisingly it has a very nice dip across the GMRS portion. 1.3-1. I then took it for a ride checking into some repeaters in my area and got really good reports. Receive copy was great as well. Repeaters ranged from 10-26 miles away. If you read some of the user reviews online for this antenna, it’s not great. But here’s the thing about it. It’s being sold as a “ham radio, 2M/70cm dual bander”. It’s even labeled as such with a sticker right on the antenna itself. There’s no spot on VHF that is even usable for this antenna. SWR is like 6+. Even on 70cm the numbers are on the high side of the usable slope. So if you bought this antenna for those purposes, it is bad. But fortunately and luckily for GMRS users, this antenna lands resonant (by dumb luck?) at the GMRS region. This antenna is sneakily, and possibly entirely by accident, a quite good GMRS mobile antenna! Has anyone else tried one out?

We have a really nice selection of wide coverage repeaters where I am, and only 1 of them is a s*** show. Naperville 575. Mostly thanks to 1 guy really. He just enjoys the radio hobby as a problem maker, but he’s done a good job of getting people to show up to his house asking him to “come outside!!”. Aside from that, everyone else is really chill. The other repeaters are actually even a bit too ham flavored for my liking.. We’re doing 70cm ham nets on our stuff over here, with calls, and “ham speak”… etc.. Both suck equally imo…