warthog74

I went with a copper j-pole for 3 reasons. Weighs 1 pound, it has next to no wind resistance, and cost. With my cobbled together setup consisting of thin 1 1/4” aluminum electrical conduit with some wood slats to help anchor it from swaying, it made the most sense. There will always be something better. There will always be something worse. For me it works well and does what i ask of it. No complaints. I also have another j-pole that i have 50 feet up for my small solar powered GMRS repeater. I set it up for our (semi rural) neighborhood to use, but it actually covers about 10 miles. Again, no complaints. People can crap on them all they want, but a copper j-pole wont snap in half or splinter like fiberglass does. Oh, and i clear coated mine, so don’t yell at me about oxidation. J-pole base station antenna at about 30 feet. (Don’t mind my cat. He loves it up there). J-pole repeater antenna at 50 feet on 30’ flagpole + 20’ aluminum electrical conduit.

I started playing with solar about a year ago. Nothing overboard. Just a little 320ah power bank w/150 watt panel to keep things running and/or charging (phones/handhelds/flashlights/fans/led rope lights/portable tv) while camping, fishing, etc. Also built a small ammo can gmrs simplex repeater thats powered by a 10 watt panel and 6ah battery. Great for extended comms when out in the wilderness.

Same thing happened to mine recently. However i’ve owned it for about 12-ish years now, so i’m not too disappointed. Now i just shut VFO B off and have it display voltage instead.

That's fine. Marketing “lingo” aside, proper wrapping/sealing is all that’s required regardless of connector type is all i’m saying. There is nothing wrong with pl259/so239 if installed properly. Spending money on N connectors is not really going to change anything or be a magical “permanent fix”.

There are thousands of websites that say this. Google it. Believe what you want, but weatherproof does NOT = waterproof. An N connector will not solve your problem as it is not waterproof. But suit yourself and waste more money, and have this same problem again in 6-12 months. If you properly wrap your connections regardless of connectors, you shouldn't have any problems for a few years.

Source of info: https://waterproved.com/definitions/ There. It’s settled. You’re welcome.

I use one of these for my 5 watt GMRS repeater. https://www.jpole-antenna.com/shop/462-mhz-land-mobile-gmrs-j-pole-antenna/ Cheap, light, and works well. You’ll want to get it higher than 18 feet though. Trust me. I ended up using a 30 foot flag pole, then i attached 2 10 foot aluminum poles on top of that. Antenna now sits at 50 feet and covers 10 miles of city and rural mixed. At 30 feet i barely got 5 miles. However at 30 feet, it should have no problem covering your 250 acres.

Good for you. Do you want a cookie too?

I just used a light layer of clear coat as i like the copper color. You can however spray paint it to match your house, the sky, etc. Won't harm anything.

I am using that same GMRS tuned j-pole for my repeater. It's up on a 50 foot mast. Works great.

Odd. I got my CB500 in 6 days.

Well, i know people still using the original 6666 that came out a decade ago. In todays throw away world, i say 10 years out of a CCR is pretty damn good. Also 90% of the President radios now come from China. Only a few “flagship” models still come from Vietnam. At any rate the QT80 is a great rig. Just talk some SSB DX and you’d be amazed how many are using AnyTone/Radioddity products because they are spot on frequency with great audio for a respectable price.

The QT80 is just Radioddity’s rebrand of the AnyTone 6666 Pro. Not a cheap radio at all. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. I have the AnyTone AT5555+N and the Radioddity QT40 (rebranded AnyTone Ares II), along with both the smaller AM/FM versions (AT500M II and CB500). Great radios for the money. I would have bought direct from Radioddity.com though instead of Amazon as they offer a warranty and support. Amazon retailers don't.

Similar around here as well. Lots of terrain issues. To the west/northwest of me is the city which is down in a valley some 300 feet below me and to my southwest is a 892 foot ridge that kills me. To my northeast, east and southeast is nothing but farmland mainly and that’s where i get my best results. Now if i could only rent a space on that 892 foot hill….. Pardon my crude photo editing skills. Lol.

There is a big difference between just transmitting to another station vs running your own repeater. Transmitting to a station 40 miles away doesn't necessarily mean your repeater will cover the same 40 miles using the same antenna and coax. There are a lot more variables involved. Great to see you ordered some better coax though. Let us know how it works out once in operation.

Agree with the others. RG8/X is fine for 10/11 meter, but your repeater will suffer massive line loss on GMRS. Also only 30 feet high with RG8/X coax will result in horrible repeater performance. You'll be lucky to cover 2 miles. I use LMR400 on a 50 foot run. I had my neighborhood repeater antenna at 30 feet for a while, but coverage wasn't that great. I recently popped it up another 20 feet to 50 feet and i more than doubled my range that's now averaging 10 miles on a 2 watt repeater. Notice that i now am higher than most the trees around vs at 30 feet i was being blocked by trees. The higher you can get that antenna the better your results will be. You also asked about antenna recommendations. I personally use a copper j-pole tuned to gmrs frequencies. Durable, light, cheap, effective. There are better and more expensive antennas, but for home / non commercial use, these work very well.

I run one of these that i got as payment for helping somebody out. I then sent it in to Ritron to get reprogrammed, had the duplexer retuned (it was on a business band originally), and had them enable the auto id function with my callsign. They are high quality USA made repeaters. They are low wattage 2- 5 watts, but i get 10-15 miles with an antenna only 50 feet high running at 2 watts. The other nice thing about them being low power is that they draw next to nothing for amps. I run mine with a 10 watt solar panel and a small 7ah lifepo4 battery. It's always on even during power outages. Anyway, i see them on ebay every so often for $250-$500 (compared to over $1200 new). Just make sure its one of the 450-470 MHz models. The cost for Ritron to retune/program is less than $100 with shipping and is much cheaper than buying the software and programming cable for it.

The Comet GP-9NCA is probably the best you'll find specifically tuned for murs/gmrs. It's not cheap though.

I use a loop on all my base/repeater antennas. The main reason besides routing water away is that the loop also acts as a strain relief that prevents the weight of the coax from constantly pulling on the connection at the base of the antenna. Good coax is quite heavy and will eventually slip out of zip ties, tape, etc from wind, water, age, etc. If your coax is thick and not easily bendable (like LMR-400) make a "C" shape. I look at it as "better safe than sorry". It certainly doesn't harm anything. Below are images of my base antenna and my neighborhood repeater antenna.

Being that i travel quite often, i still find it useful. A lot of truck drivers still use them to inform other drivers of accidents, lane closures, dead deer carcasses in the road etc. I like knowing this stuff and reroute as needed. As for "skip" or the "over powered stations", most aren't overpowered or illegal. Those guys mainly stay on 6 or 28. It's just the atmosphere playing games with us that makes every normal "legal" user boom in from 10 states away. Soon enough the solar cycle will be over, and the cb will be back to dead silent and boring again for another decade. Annnnnd "i'm back to the bench".

You could always use the flag pole idea. Just put one up in your yard, attach a 5 foot mast to the top, add your 5 foot antenna to it and it'll be up about 40 feet. Now attach the flag. Nobody will really notice its "hidden purpose". Edit: They even make telescopic flag poles. Easy up, easy down.

That's way more expensive and involved than mine. Lol. The long and short of it.... I put mine together on the ground and lifted it all as 1 solid piece. I cut the top off the 30' flag pole (3" at the bottom that tapers to 2" at the top). I then slid the first 10' section of 1" electrical conduit about 8" in and drilled through both and used 1 1/2" metal screws to secure them together. Then i used a clamp like they show in your video to attach the last 10' pole. I also drilled through that clamp and added a few screws to help secure it even more. I then wrapped all those connections good with Gorilla tape. Then i mounted the j-pole, ran my LMR-400 and zip tied it all in place. The hard part. Being a holiday weekend nobody was around to help. So i grabbed my extension ladder, propped it up against the garage, and pulled the whole 50' mast up little by little until i had about 20 feet resting on the roof edge. Grabbed another ladder and climbed up on the garage and lifted and pulled until it was 90% erect. Got off the garage and lifted the rest of it up and in to the base of the mounts. From there it was just tighten up the mounts, fill my hole for the base and done. Probably not the best way to do it, but it worked for me, and is budget friendly.

No it is not. We had some good storms over the weekend and it held up fine. Minimal sway at the top. It probably helps that it's all aluminum and the antenna is a copper J-Pole that weighs 1.5 lbs. So the whole thing might weigh 35lbs and is not top heavy. I lifted it up there by myself. I buried the flag pole 6 inches down, and drilled the mounts in to the studs of the garage. It's solid.

Great write up. The only thing i would suggest (living in a heavily wooded area just outside of town myself) is to get that base antenna as high as possible. 30' might not get you very far. I had my repeater at 30' with subpar to OK results. Over the weekend i got it up to 50' and man what a difference. I used a 30' aluminum flag pole as the base, then attached 20' of 1" aluminum electrical conduit to that, and mounted the whole thing to the back side of my garage. I now easily get 10 miles out of it. Not too shabby for a 2 watt solar powered neighborhood repeater. Have fun with your new hobby!