LeoG

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.

I think the Astron 50 said it could deliver 35 amps continuous.

For a decade these devices weren't even know to the court systems because they classified them top secret. They did this for the expressed reason of warrantless searches of large areas using cell phone technology. They almost never revealed how the information was gotten or made up stories at how they determined the crime was committed until somewhat recently the word got out about the stingrays and then that's when the judicial started to get involved. I've know about these devices for quite some time. Comes with the territory of being a conspiracy theorist.

Antenna Farm has it for about $30 more than HRO.

I'd trust the Retevis 7.2dBi for $8 more.

You are not to nice. You are just maintaining great restraint.

New duplexer from Btech. Same one that's in my repeater with the same tuning. Marc said he's going to try it out as is and get a base level to compare to. I haven't put this one in my repeater at all. Had it in my possession for about an hour before it was on it's way to Marc. The 1st trial was from the repeater that was replaced by Btech and it exhibited the same reception problem I had with it originally that the one they sent me to replace it solved. Marc said on his system it worked nearly as well as what he was running for a duplexer currently. All just experiments to see if I/We can improve on my system. The only thing that should improve is less desense in the system letting weaker signals in without interference. Just how much.... That's why we experiment.

If at first you don't succeed, try try again...

Plus with AM you can have two people talk and be heard. FM is usually stronger signal only.

You could turn the radio off.

All I have is the GMRS and cell phone. I know when the cell phone quits the GMRS will work. But what I don't know is if there will be someone on the other end that will answer or help. But it's certainly better than having a useless cell phone and nothing else. On top of it the GMRS radio I have can transmit on a whole host of bands by just putting it into open mode. If it's an emergency, anything goes. If the eff sea seas comes to arrest me for using it without a license it still means someone is coming.

Oh. "L". Sorry. That's the higher power one. Like I said in the beginning. Regular power supply and cut off the cord to attach.

This is where I tell the "cell phone" people you need an alternate means of communication. You know the one's. Walkie Talkies aren't crystal clear and I can't call someone on the other side of the world. Sometimes the $100 option beats the $250 billion dollar option.