WSAW371

I got on the roof with a Nogoya UT-72G mag mount stuck to a roof jack. My brother had a Nagoya NA-F30G antenna from his back patio. Using cheap GM-5RH HTs, we were about to have a conversation. It was a little quiet; but not terrible. I can certainly hide a mag mounted antenna from the HOA. I'll probably try the Midland MXTA 26. I could go a little higher on the roof; but it would require significantly more coax to get down to my desk in the garage. From where I had it, it would require about 25 feet of cable.

There is a repeater on top of one of the nearby mountains. We can hit that repeater and it works fine. I'm trying to solve this problem so I don't have to rely on the repeater. I like having redundancy in technology.

I'm open to a mobile base. I'm assuming whatever we decide would need to be done at all three locations. So that's why I'm trying to be a little more budget conscious.

I have an RV garage with a gabled end that faces the direction I'm trying to go with this. Adding an antenna in the attic to that part of my garage is not a big deal. Adding something on the roof will probably be an issue with my HOA. For my dad, it's not an issue at all. For my brother, it's the back of his house, so an antenna may be okay.

Outside the house, but yes. GM-5RH radios can almost reach. I'm just trying to make it better.

I have about 1.5 weeks of experience in GMRS and while I've read a lot and watched a lot YouTube, this is a very new space for me. These are great resources; but I find myself going down a lot of rabbit holes that are not very clear. I am trying to figure out the best approach to use GMRS radios to establish a good simplex "connection" between my house, my dad, and my brother. We're 3 miles apart and nearly a straight line (see attached picture). They are about 140 in elevation lower than my house. There is a hill between us that's 160 feet above my elevation (300 above their location). I have a two story house; but I have an HOA that may be difficult to work with on a roof mounted antenna. Using cheap handheld Baofeng radios, we can Tx/Rx a transmission; but it's fuzzy and difficult to understand. There is a repeater that works perfect; but I'm try to figure out if we can do this without the repeater. As far as I can tell there are a couple options: add a better antenna and/or increase the radio wattage with a better radio. I'm trying to figure out where I'll get the best cost efficiency. If a fixed antenna is needed, I'll probably have to do an attic antenna to avoid HOA drama. Thoughts?