LeoG

There's almost always someone on the air around here. They usually stay quiet until needed. I was trying to get a hold of my wife on a repeater I don't use much. Tried a few times and then went to another repeater channel and got her that way. But on the original channel someone broke in and told me he heard me fine. The base has a great connection to that repeater so it was weird my wife couldn't hear me. Got home to find out the PL had been changed somehow. So obviously she wouldn't be able to hear me.

I stole this.

Get a LiFePO4 battery for the base station to keep that up and running for a while. Or put solar on it and let it self charge to keep it up and running longer.

We just keep the radios on 24/7. In the shop it's hard to hear sometimes though. I gotta get an external speaker to blast out the sounds of my beckoning wife

That would be me I think.

I've used mine to replace text and phone to the wife. Now when I need to text her I have to search because she's been pushed down on the list. I'd like to get more of my family involved but they just don't want to because "they have a phone"

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.