LeoG

They'll be a judge to sign a TRO in 3....2....1.....

He's telling me how I can use my repeater on the free airways. Schmuck.

I just say let them do what they want. It hurts no one. If it annoys you maybe you should work on that. It a style, a personality. Now it they start demanding you do the same then maybe it's them with the problem. If this is their "fun" why should they need to stop. Just sitting here now and someone came on with their phonetic call sign just to say they were on the repeater. Not talking to anyone. Didn't bother me.

That's why we have 3 digit IDs that are sequential as you join the group.

Ya, 30' isn't all that high for an antenna. Mine is at 40' and I might get 5 miles in the right direction. Lots of hills and trees in my area though.

More like Goose Pate'

Roughing it has gotten a lot easier. Reminds me of people claiming to go camping when they really me glamping.

What

Troublemaker.

Front page doesn't show it. You have to click on the linked license ID to get the address. So my bad.

I'm sparse with my call sign only because I'm lazy. If I'm telling my wife "I'm on the way home" I might not even say it. But usually because I said it earlier when she called me to ask when I might be heading home. And most don't know how to look up a license ID to make it into an address. I think when you go to the FCC site it doesn't give out the address only the name. I know here the lookup tells you everything.

11.76dB 4w > 60w

I keep the Nagoya 771G antenna on my Tidradio H3 because it performs better than the stock antenna. If you want a shorter antenna that is better than stock (not by much) go for the Smiley Rubber Duck antenna. It's a bit shorter and it's a wound antenna, so it's thicker and not very flexible. This is all based on the H3 and all radios act differently with non-OEM antennas. If you are using a 771 antenna and not a 771G antenna that may be the reason you aren't getting any improvement. The 771 antenna is a HAM antenna for 440Mhz and not the GMRS bands.

Line of sight you won't see a huge difference most of the time. It always comes down to when something is in your way. And the state I'm in is full of trees and hills and small mountains. The attenuation factor of the trees winter vs summer is something fierce. Signals in the winter making it with ease and those same setups in the summer not being able to touch the repeater. Did a job that was an hour away and in the winter I could talk with my wife most of the time through the Glastonbury repeater. As the leaves got on the trees my signal got much worse and I could only contact her sometimes instead of most of the times. I'll bet if I changed out from my 20w to a 50w it might have made a difference. Only because I know I was right on the edge.

Not exactly the same thing but I have a Comet CA712EFC at the house and was using a Wouxun XS-KG20G+ which puts out 25 watts and to my repeater at my shop with a 7.2dBi Retevis antenna through 1.6KM of thick dense trees and it was hit or miss almost all the time. I switched up to a 50 watt KG1000+ and it's R7 or better all the time. 3dB difference in power level. I have a Tidradio H3 that puts out 4.7watts and a Baofeng UV26 that puts out 9.7 watts. I have a spot near my house behind a church that the H3 can't ping my repeater from whereas the UV26 will ping it with ease. But it doesn't matter neither can get any modulation through the repeater at that spot. But the wattage difference does allow the repeater to hear one and not the other.