SvenMarbles
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Posts posted by SvenMarbles
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6 minutes ago, SteveShannon said:
If the VNA is accurately calibrated it will probably be more accurate than an SWR meter. Unless you are using something like a Bird meter with the right size slug, the directional RF coupler in most consumer SWR meters are non-linear in detecting the very wide range of RF power that’s transmitted forward and being reflected at low SWR.
The good news is that it really doesn’t matter much at such low SWR values.
Well they're both sort of equally budget type meters. The nanoVNA was like $65. I do run through the calibration slugs before each use. I don't really have it in the budget for a RigExpert.
Yeah it's all fine, but I do use the vna a lot for experimenting with other antennas and making wires etc..
- WRUU653, RayDiddio and SteveShannon
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I've been noticing that what my nanoVNA says the SWR will be across certain points and what my in-line Surecom SW-102 says while the radio is actually in use on those spots, are different. What says on the nanoVNA should be a 1.5, actually reads back 1.2 in my meter. And it sort of runs consistent in that deviation amount as I go.. What's the real number, and why are they different?
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Well it's been quite an eye opener with this new GP-9 antenna. Last night I was moving across the dial and just listening. On .600 with an open tone I was receiving a distant repeater. I'm aware of all of the repeaters in my area, and what I'm supposed to be able to reach. Besides the 2 .600 repeaters in my area (Crete and Kane) the next closest thing is over 100 miles away. This one was low, in and out, and scratchy. Had to have been some sort of ducting condition to be getting in here..
I've also been scrolling through the simplex channels. The amount of traffic that I'm hearing from what I assume is FRS users is unbelievable. There's some barely readable traffic on nearly every channel. It's like I am sitting here DXing GMRS lol.
The ears on this antenna was something I didn't really even think too much about when I got it, but evidently it's equally a part of it's upside. It's on another level.
For simplex uses, it seems to have a pretty reliable bubble in a radius of 6-8 miles around my home to a ground level or mobile station. To another home radio with an outside high mounted antenna, probably significantly more. I wish I knew some people with such a setup in the area to simplex test with.
I'm VERY happy with this antenna.
- SteveShannon and tcp2525
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8 hours ago, Rulander said:
I just picked up some traffic on one of the repeaters and did a tone scan. It appears that the original tone for that repeater hasn't changed. I just can't figure out why it's listed as no tone. Also, what is a network of repeaters? Not trying to sound dumb, I just don't understand a lot of this as of yet.
It seems like you're understanding it fine. You're aware of how tones work, and even know how to run a tone scan. So the issue is that when you key up the repeater using that same done, you don't get in? It could be a split tone. The tone scan is only going to tell you what the outgoing tone from the repeater is. Often times the input tone is something different.
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1 hour ago, WRXP381 said:
Great report thanks a bunch. You’re radiating a whole heep more watts down range with the high gain and getting it up high.
ERP is roughly 254 watts.
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I got it up on my pole this afternoon. The base of it is about 20ft up and the tip of the antenna is about 37 feet.
early results seem awesome. Did some simplex testing from the car home to it and didn’t lose it in the amount of time that I had to drive around.
It’s mainly what I wanted it for, to be able to simplex better. I need to test in all directions and with varying terrain, but I have at least 8 miles nice and loud due south to a ground level station. And judging by how clear the last transmission that my wife made before being pulled away by our 2 year old, it could have gone much further..
I’ve got more challenging terrain to the north and east of me so we’ll see what I can achieve when I have time to test it out…
But already I can tell that it’s significantly stronger and clearer than what I was running before.
- WRYZ926, SteveShannon and tcp2525
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I received the antenna yesterday and put it together. Despite being very long, it’s surprisingly lightweight. It’s sort of more “noodly” than I expected as well. Seems like it’ll just sort of finesse in the wind.
I’ll get it on the pole today and see how it is..
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2 hours ago, WRYZ926 said:
Use self fusing tape at each joint and the coax connection. It is also highly suggested to wrap the self fusing tape with a good electrical tape. The self fusing tape is not UV resistant.
Self fusing tape: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00K5GW67O/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1
This stuff works good!
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I went through this exact question recently. The simple answer is to figure that that radiation pattern looks like a bow-tie coming from the center of the broadside of the antenna.
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Decided to dismantle my “tower” one last time before it becomes weather prohibitive, originally for a 712efc, but I decided if I’m going to go through the trouble, why not just get the daddy GMRS antenna for a few more bucks and just be done with this forever
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16.5 foot antenna. We’ll see how this goes..
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9 hours ago, WRXP381 said:
I have a 712efc and recently got a gp6. It is a nice antenna as well but I do agree if you can swing the 9nc it’s going to do a MUCH better job with the 12db gain. When we tested it on y way home on murs it was in murs 1. 151.820 and that’s where the 1.4swr was for us It seamednlike it’s going to to a great job for him and get him about 30% more milage.
Ok awesome! 1.4 on the low MURS channels is perfectly fine!
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2 hours ago, WRXP381 said:
A family member had a tree fall on his 712efc and they are back ordered so he got a 9nc. We put it up Saturday. It works great. 1.2 on gmrs and 1.4 on murs. Sounds great. He used to get 100 or so miles from the 712 now he gets over 150 miles to a friends house on gmrs simplex with a 50w radio. We tested the murs side to 25miles on my way home before I went behind a hill. Worked great
Ok thanks for the report. The thing with MURS is that there’s a bit of a frequency split between some of the low channels and the higher channels. My neighborhood channel happens to be 151.94. So while those 154 channels fit well into spec for the GP9, the 152ish ones are likely to be on the upward swing of that dip. I’ll be satisfied with something 1.5 to 1.8 even, because I’ll be up a lot higher and fed with my LMR-400 line..
I looked at the GP6 as well, but I figure if I’m going to go to the trouble of taking down my mast and re working everything I might as well just spend the little bit more money and get the daddy antenna and be finished with it.
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On 8/28/2024 at 5:08 PM, WSDD439 said:
Yeah, I’m not arguing either. I’m just saying that there’s plenty of room for everyone, no matter what your flavor is.
You can only speak to your empirical experience to where you are. In metro areas the repeater slots are essentially full, and when some of them are linked there's redundant traffic on more than 1 of them. It's not good for anyone who might wish to erect smaller or temporary repeaters for their party (the actual designed intent for GMRS repeater alocations from the framers)..
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I'm eyeing a GP9NC. I currently have an antenna for GMRS and a separate one for MURS. I'd like to replace this arrangement with GP9, but the VHF side is advertised at 153-157. I need to see if it would be serviceable at 152-ish mhz. Tech literature online for the LMR version of this antenna is sparse. Can anyone help?
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19 hours ago, WSDD439 said:
I can’t speak for all, but here in Michigan, we have a little bit of both. We have the husband and wife who talk together, we also have the husband talking to the wife a few hundred miles away at the cabin. For myself, I only use the phonetic pronunciation, when I think the guy on the other end doesn’t get the call sign. I wish more people would, because they slur the words and numbers all together.
And… if someone is asking you about your rig set up ( it’s probably because it sounds great ), and you’d rather not, then ignore them. Easy peasy.Just maybe don’t worry about what anyone’s call sign is. I know that sounds nuts but, again, GMRS isn’t actually for “making contacts”. What anyone’s call sign is is frankly between themselves and the FCC. I’m aware of what the identifying requirements are, but let’s relax.. Did you know that I can rattle my callsign off in CW at 70wpm and be compliant? I’m not obligated to be sure anyone can copy it.
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1 minute ago, AdmiralCochrane said:
Locally, I find more of that from GMRS only licensees that are wannabe hams vs the actual dual licensees
There's definitely a good bit of that as well.
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12 minutes ago, MaxHeadroom said:
Agreed. It has never been in the spirit of GMRS or any of its rules for any sort of repeater linking, via RF or otherwise. The community took what they thought was a loophole, exploited it, and are now big-mad when the FCC (very politely) tells them they're wrong.
What makes it more absurd is seeing the comments on a Change.org petition (which is not the mechanism for pushing change with the FCC) acting like GMRS is amateur radio and all the comments about "making new connections" and such... sheesh.
I am all for wide area coverage, but with a much more intentional way of doing it, and as others have said on here there's a way to accomplish it but GMRS community will have to suck up some things as well (like narrowbanding the service).
I kind of like the idea of my wife and son being able to raise me on the radio from home to car or vise versa and not have colostomy bag larry "jumping on" to ask my wife about what radio or antenna she's using
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GMRS isn't a hobby band. Some of us actually just want to use GMRS for a utilitarian purpose (the correct usage). The repeater slots were getting jammed up with all of these linked systems. I had identical traffic on 2 of the 8 channels where I am. I'm more in favor of more localized standalone repeaters, and frankly maybe not so many of them. Leave some room for some of us who might want to put up a private Retevis thing for our own purposes some day.
I frankly don't understand why so many hams got drawn over to GMRS to begin with, but they sure did because you'll learn of them being a ham within the first 2 minutes of talking.. Novelty I guess? Because they have the 440.. Just go do all of this stuff over there. Leave GMRS/FRS for the family/group coms stuff. It got so pervasive with the "WHISKEY SIERRA BRAVO FOXTROT" and "what's your callsign!" stuff that it made things unwelcoming for the casual "family licensees" to just get on and use the radio service that was FOR THEM.
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It's curious to me that this prominent feature of MYGMRS is broken and only me and one other person seem to care..
- marshallokie and Raptor1
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New radio day!! lol. I relate to the excitement..
I think you made a good choice. A 20 watter is pretty much the goldylocks zone for GMRS... There isnt such a thing as a 50 watt radio being able to do something different than a 20 watt radio in 400 UHF (Come fight me if you want lol).... A hill is a hill and 30 more watts doesn't defeat it... So why not keep it to what you can cigarette lighter plug-in? So now you haven't molested your automobile's wiring and you can also choose to remove it and use it around different places....
Is this your first non-ht GMRS radio?
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1 hour ago, WSDI867 said:
Right out of the box it had a problem. Any time the PTT button is used on High power setting the radio reboots.
It’s purely speculative on my end, but this issue REALLY sounds like whatever power source you’re using cannot supply adequate amperage to the radio while keyed on high..
- SteveShannon, WRUU653 and dosw
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4 hours ago, gortex2 said:
Not sure why you think GMRS in an emergency is better than cell or ham. First off 99% of the linked repeaters are using hot spots on cellular or a ethernet service from your local spectrum, comcast verizon company. If its down for you its down for the repeater also. Secondly i would venture 75% if not more of the repeaters listed on mygmrs are not on any emergency power. I know there are a few and ones done very well but most are far from that. to be honest HAM is not far behind. Yes alot of HAM stuff is in a state, county, local agency shelter at times with generator backup but the internet linking is still like everyon else. In the past a true land line is what alwasy gets thru. With folks relying on Voip home phones those are down also. I'm glad I still live where we can get copper phone lines to a house.
Anyway back to topic. I've said over an over linking should go away. It was never there and for what GMRS was no need anyway. Ham guys are the ones who brought the tech to GMRS and tried to create another service. Go back to just using the radio for what it is.
This is pretty much my sentiment for linked GMRS repeaters.. It's antithetical to the entire point of everything. Why become accustomed to leaning on a component of the very mode of "mainline subscriber based" infrastructure that might not be intact in a disaster to tie in radio repeaters? The very first thing people need to do is completely remove the idea of very long range comms from their mind as it pertains to GMRS. It's a fallacy to think that these linked repeaters will be of any use in an instance where radio methods of communication are all that remain operational. If you think of things in terms of scale, these linked repeater systems are merely turning our GMRS radios into a big cordless phone arrangement. We possess the handsets, and the repeaters are just the phone base that are then plugged into a WIRE in the wall.... We aren't doing radio when we're doing this!! That wire which is sending the communications traffic is just flowing across the same infrastructure as everything else that we're concerned with being down or overwhelmed in a disaster. So why bother? Just to have this "chat line" for old guys? Like 90's era AOL chat rooms? Firstly, not only is it just kinda lame
, but it's also generating a lot of annoying traffic on the repeater pairs around the country. I don't have the slightest bit of interest in chatting with a bunch of randos over a VOIP line, just for the sake of it..
Standalone repeaters in a metro area are at least a much more manageable entity, and frankly are enough. I'm pretty happy to use the big repeater in my area to be able to communicate across a pretty vast area in my region. It serves the UTILITY that I need it to. If people want to make phone calls, do that. I'm sure there's some VOIP ptt application or windows program that people can download to fulfill the same exercise as is being done on the linked repeaters. They can even yell out WHISKEY SIERRA BRAVO TANGO 5 2 2! While they're doing it to continue acting like they're doing a "radio thing"..
But i'm in favor of getting this off of the GMRS.
Just pulled the trigger on a Comet GP-9NC, wish me luck 😅
in General Discussion
Posted
You've got to have extremely favorable terrain to be doing UHF 200 miles away lol.