Soladaddy
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Posts posted by Soladaddy
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If you have access to the attic, look for a PVC roof vent pipe, cut said pipe and add an inline "T" coupling, You could deploy a classic whip antenna in a push up out of the end of the pipe format. Like "Hogans Hero's" LOL Just make sure the water path is maintained or mitigated. there are many options.
that's a good idea.
Agree with Logan, work on your antennas first. More power will allow you to transmit further, but better antennas with low loss coax will allow you to transmit further AND hear better.
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Nice. I wouldn't move either. VHF can bend over a ridge and 6m can do it more than 2m. In the 6m band SSB mode is a bit more popular than FM and that can be used to local comms as well as skipping a few states over. For UHF, its a bit different and repeaters will be a bit more appealing to use. Might need a small beam to access repeaters with a good signal.
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This is the Kenwood section on Chirp's site:
Kenwood
- TH-D7, TH-D7G
- TH-D72
- TH-F6
- TH-F7
- TH-G71
- TH-K2
- TK-260/270/272/278
- TK-260G/270G/272G/278G
- TK-360/370/372/378
- TK-360G/370G/372G/378G/388G
- TK-760/762/768
- TK-760G/762G/768G
- TK-860/862/868
- TK-860G/862G/868G
- TK-7102/8102/7108/8108
- TK-2180/3180/7180/8180
- TM-271
- TM-281
- TM-471
- TM-D700
- TM-D710, TM-D710G
- TM-G707
- TM-V7
- TM-V71
- TS-480HX/SAT
- TS-590S/SG
- TS-850
- TS-2000
https://chirp.danplanet.com/projects/chirp/wiki/Home
Maybe they a newer additions?
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Just got one so I need some useage to make an informed opinion. The programming software was easy to use and I was able to add about 10 repeater pairs into memory. It has 128 memory slots so it should be enough for most users.
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Thanks. Still kicking this one around. Saw the 8180 can be programmed with Chirp and that got my attention.
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GMRS - mainly talking to people you know within a limited distance - 2 - 50 miles. (unless you are in N GA). Mostly utilitarian communications.
ham - mainly talking to people you don't know (unless local repeaters and simplex VHF/UHF). Mostly experimental communications. Last weekend I talked 250 miles on VHF with an omni-directional antenna. That same evening some people with beams were getting 800 miles. All done via FM mode.
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Means he has some very, very nice antennas for sale.
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Well Ft. Lauderdale is flat as a pancake so 55ft HAAT is above the tree line and over most anything in a residential 'hood. If I could get 50ft up I'd be over the same obstacles as I'm in Florida as well. That said my lil mast is at 25 ft and VHF has much better range than UHF. Just need an extra 25ft that the HOA won't see.
Sorry Logan5, but your case is not typical. You either live in a very flat place, at the top of a hill, or atop a mount, or even atop a mountain, b/c using 5W UHF where I live (near Madison WI), with my antenna placed atop a 40 feet mast, using Heliax 1/2" feedline doesn't reach reliably more than 5 miles out to HT, and that is spotty at best... even when pushing 50W GMRS out using Vertex Standard EVX-5400 mobile, through the same 40 feet antenna, it barely reaches 10 miles to another EVX-5400 mobile using a vehicle mounted NMO antenna (no magmount crap)... but to HT?... Sorry, but not typical to get 10 miles out of 5W.
Using BTECH crap, TYT crap, or in general anything CCR crap, or anything that isn't commercial grade gear will result in disappointment. I've alredy been through the CCR road, and while they do have their uses, reliable comms at long range isn't one of them, and I am talking about all these cheapies with flashy screens and 10 million channels with fancy colored buttons and slick shapes... etc. In the end, my Vertex Standard EVX-5300 G7, with a single digit 8 segment LCD display and a total of 8 channels draws rings around all of these cheapies in terms of what matters: radio reception performance.
G.
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What's the range needed and budget? MURS will give greater range than GMRS HT-to-HT. MURS allows mobile and base antennas which can yield several miles of coverage. The downsides are a 2 watt limit, no repeaters and no real mobile rigs on the market.
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I'm swimming around in the sea of mobiles, tossing to and fro between the CCRs, the new part 95ers and the old commercial stuff. I like the CCRs for the ease of PC programming but the performance I've witnessed isn't all that great. I have 20+ year old Kenwood TK-2100s that runs circles around the new btech MURS and that has me thinking about using older commercial gear but am not sure what are good models for GMRS, what to avoid, what's good for programming, what do the model numbers/letters mean?
I'm leaning 880 for price, 256 channels and I think the ability to go into the 70cm band (I'm a ham)
How does the 880 differ from a 880-1 V2.0?
How does the 880 differ from a 863G? 8302U? I see a front speaker
What does the G mean? I think a H suffix mean high power.
Thanks
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That is a nice app. Congrats, you have the radio bug. With most systems, the antenna and feedline are to most important and even more so with UHF. This makes me want to buy some LRM400.
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I use Googe Earth for bearing, distance and it will give an elevation profile which is great for line of site issues. While I like the jack of all trades antenna concept, your single band yagi will perform much better and its much smaller. I plan on using a better GMRS only omni antenna at home (currently using a copper j-pole). For radios, looking for a couple mobiles.
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What model is the radio? I see a 90 and 95 but no 99. I'm late to the game but there are a few dual band antennas for GMRS, but they are paired with MURS because GMRS is a 3 harmonic of MURS. With dual band antenna the focus is on the VHF side and the UHF just resonates so its usually not a good performer. If you focus on 440 ham and gmrs you can find some 1/4 waves that are very broadband a could cover both. I have a Comet mobile CA-2x4SR that is broadband enough to cover 2M, MURS, 440, and GMRS. It has a very flat SWR across all bands and does well on the VHF bands. I need more testing to make a UHF performance claim. Glad you are making it work.
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I have the V1 the 701c and the 771. The 701c is supposed to be tuned for 150-165 and 450-470Mhz so it should help with the transmit by sending out more RF. I have not seen a noticeable difference on the receive side and that is what my V1 mainly does. Guess its time to set up a transmit test to see if there is a noticeable difference. A better tuned antenna should yield a longer transmitter life so that alone would make it worth the $15.
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Does that 400 have a tone scan feature? Is the repeater listed in the repeater directory? with UHF, if they are up high, the signal will reach you. And it's going across water so no obstacles...
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My understanding is yes you can.
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The Btech (Baofeng) GMRS V1 is the only radio that I can think of in the price range with repeater capability. Mine measures 3.5 watts on high power. Accessories are cheap and they are Chirp supported. Not high end stuff, but everything times 4 added up fast.
Tera makes a TR-505 that has GMRS and MURS, but is $99 each and no display screen (this can be a plus for non tech users).
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Don't have a 105 to test, buy I did purchase a digital meter specifically for low power readings. In the box there was a note stating accuracy was +-10% and that readings under 5 watts was for reference only... Umm okay.
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OK, so this is what I'm looking at for my setup. 75' TM rg8/213 mil spec. Browning 410-490Mhz uhf fiberglass land mobile omni base antenna, and for now mxt105. Plan on upgrading the radio later. Is it safe to say I should be fine? I'll be about 35' up
A 75 ft run of 213 will lose about 3.3 db or just over half of your power; that's 2.4 watts max getting to the antenna. The connectors will lose a hair too. The loss will also effect the radio's hearing ability as well. This can be recovered with a gain antenna, but will eat into the gain it provides; i.e. a 6db gain antenna will be down to 3db.
Many type of antennas with Omni-directional and yagi beams being the most popular. Omni sends and receives in all directions while a yagi will concentrate in one direction. The yagi can get more coverage (gain) in one direction and loses coverage from other directions to make that happen (very basic terms here).
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I use a 50 ft run of RG-213 (with a 2.2db loss at GMRS freqs.) but I'm cheap. I know I will pay twice when I upgrade to maybe LMR400 and a better antenna, but I will appreciate the performance difference and can always use the 213 for MURS, 2 meters or some other project later on. Bear in mind that 213 is more flexible than LMR 400 and true mil spec 213 is very weather hardy. This may or may not matter depending on the cable routing requirements.
As others have mentioned, height is king and queen. Remember a discussion on another forum where someone said they spent $2k on a repeater system and if they had to do it all over, he'd spend 2k on a tower and go cheap on the radio.
How many people really use the VHF radio MURS service?
in Multi-Use Radio Service (MURS)
Posted
I've used it for camping it past 12 years. Before that we used it at theme parks where GMRS/FRS was insanely overloaded. Can hear Walmart, Lowes and a couple of construction crews using MURS, but its mostly quiet and the wife likes her radios that way.