LeoG

I put the black line in there to show the line of sight path. Who knows how it got there.

Was talking with a bunch of guys on this repeater tonight. The LI East End repeater on 575 The tropospheric ducting was phenomenal tonight. I wasn't talking to them on my base station with my antenna 40' in the air. I was talking to them on my TD-H3 HT pushing about 4 watts because the battery is about 2/3rds full. The guys were telling me I was coming in 5x5, frik'n amazing. I first noticed that I kept getting interference on my HT in the living room on the 575 in Holyoke. Then I recognized the double tone beep the repeater has as a courtesy beep. So I went outside and called for a radio check announcing I was in Connecticut up north. Was able to talk with several people for over 20 minutes. We could have continued but it was after midnight plus I wanted to check on the base. Still 5x5 down there, but it was coming in better on the HT than the base, weird. Had to tell my little story. Not many times you get to talk 70+ miles on an HT with a repeater that has a mountain in the way.

Man. If I was a mod here, this thread would be shut down by now.

So you use the $100 billion dollar system to tell people you want to use the couple thousand dollar system....

I went through all the calculations of loss and gain for my system and it is what it is. I have a Wouxun XSKG20+ that puts out 25 watts. I screwed up. I'm using the Hyperflex 13 not the 10. So 1.7dB loss plus 4 fittings, lightning arrester. Antenna is 7.2dBi gain so 5.05dBd gain. Comes out to just about 50 watts ERP out of the antenna with 15.7 watts making it to the antenna. 10xLOG10(50/15.7)=5.03dB gain on antenna. I'd call that close to 5.05dBd after you subtract 2.15 from 7.2 to convert from dBi to dBd.

They'll start talking when SHTF and other forms of communication have disappeared.

That's the first time I heard that. Contact Us After Sales: support@tidradio.com; odmaster@tid-china.com Pre Sales: +1(559)759-6226 (WhatsApp)

My run at my house is 84'. 60 to the lightning arrester and 24' up the mast. I'm using a M&P Hyperflex 13. Seems to do OK.

I know of the current characteristics of the skin effect. Nice they are taking advantage of it and reducing the need for the copper resource and weight. I didn't think it was a waveguide but I just had to ask.

I have a question about the hardline itself. The center conductor is hollow. Is it acting as a waveguide or just a conductor?

I find ours gets active randomly but mostly between 3-5pm when people get off work and are driving home.

It was nice today. I used 3 repeaters. Had to go from my shop into the city. My repeater fades out about 7 miles out. Switched over to a larger repeater and got into the city and at my destination I couldn't make contact. Switch to another that is closer to the city and used that while going back to the shop. When I got back into range of my repeater we swapped back. Sort of doing tests while chatting with the little woman. Figuring out what works where and how far you can push the signals. Plus it was really nice to have the "company" in the car (radio) while I was navigating heavier than usual traffic. I was able to remember that the highway was backed up and got onto a digital map to get myself back to the shop without having to sit in the parking lot they call a highway. Made the trip enjoyable. And it's nice the wife is actually enjoying it too. I would have never figured in a million years.

Or like complaining about how much traffic there was on the highway Friday at 1:30 in the afternoon and able to have someone to talk with while you experience said traffic.

Actually what I meant to say is 7.8 watts to 50 watts is about 8dB. 5 to 50 is 10dB, yes?

"S" units, 6dB more/gain/increase. Going from 5 watts to 50 watts is about 8dB, so it a large gain in power.

Trust the science...

No one can control another at a distance. If all of a sudden one of your users goes crazy and starts rants of a raving lunatic there is little you can do about it immediately. Eventually you can take the radio away.

That scenario Raybestos described is just about any situation a family might use GMRS for. Going to the beach, a campsite are all going to be a hour or so away from the "home base" where you have control. What if the home base is the mobile in the car? Now you are in full control because you brought it with you. I had HTs when I signed up for my license. Is that my "control" unit? My next was the mobile unit in my truck. My base station was last. So if I bring that 1st HT with my I have all the control I need over it and my license.

Maybe Mom doesn't want to go through the daunting exercise of bouncing from govt website to website in order to manage the jungle to obtain said license. It's only $35 in monies but it's 3 years off your lifespan because of what you need to go through to get it.

I would think atmospheric scatter would be a normal propagation factor as the signal dissipates power into the atmosphere.

The group of "Some People"

Pretty sure I mentioned it was my same antenna system I've been using with the RT97S, just not the same repeater. My farz O meter says 40 watts out the back, 1.4dB loss in cable 7.2dBi gain antenna 40' off the ground 92 watts ERP

On occasion I can talk with LI NY which the signal has to go through a 750 ft mountain. But it's tropospheric ducting so an entirely different phenomenon.

Not many hills on either side of me to bounce off of. Mostly just hills in the way. I do live in the valley, but I doubt they are bouncing anything beneficial to me in those cases. I just think it's propagation from above and leaking down. But at my house I think there's signal bouncing off a large building and then back to me. The signal at my house varies a lot during the day. Sometimes it at 1/2 scale and other times barely gets over a 2 squelch. Now with more power my lows are what my highs used to be for the most part and I can get 3/4 scale on the meter.

What if that activity is talking