LeoG

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

You always here that UHF is line of sight. If you can't see it, you can't talk to it. My experience has been otherwise. Granted if you have a 1000' mountain between you and the person you want to talk to it ain't happening simplex. I just upgraded my repeaters power. Same antenna at about 40' off the ground and surrounded by trees 270º around me. Today I took a ride with my 20 watt Wouxun KG-XS20G+ with an MXTA26 Midland magnetically mounted, basically straight north. I had my phone at my repeater as I called out to it recording with a voice activated app. My truck was moving on all of these, probably around 40mph +/- 3.85 miles out with Line Of Site Full Quieting Area.wav Going farther out, on a hill but behind one also 6.54 mi Top of hill past Randal Dr.wav And then down that hill 75 feet below the other peak and still in the shadow of the hill 7.0 mi Hickory St.wav Getting worse but still very readable 7.2 mi Entering Agawam.wav Unreadable at Shoemaker Ln 7.9 mi Shoemaker Ln.wav Sounded much worse on my end and I figured I was done but really it wasn't that bad 9.25 mi McDonalds.wav Cute little experiment. Shows line of sight doesn't mean you can't be heard. Obviously you lose quieting and sometime you lose readability. It was nice to find out I could insert audio.

I'm just shocked at how every single time I get into their area I hear them. Doesn't matter what day or time. Sounds like they are running VOX and just talk to each other like they were in the same room. No idea if that's true but you'd figure they'd eventually run out of things to say. Always with the cheap toy Roger beep.

Over hear in the NE the GMRS traffic is very low. Across the river from me their are 2 Spanish speaking guys who seem to never shutup. But I think they are on low power stuff, always on x.600MHz

So you're one of those huh. Thinking the govt is trying to restrict the people from communicating with each other in less than safe conditions. Welcome to the club!

I don't think so only because cell phones take care of most communication and 90% of the people don't think 2 days ahead to set up a backup plan when that system goes down.

Well if you don't license then the eff sea seas has to search you out with a signal finder before they can fine you. That makes them very angry. Especially if you license and all they have to do is send you a letter that says go to jail (from post above )

No thank you. Sending it to them is sending it to me.