LeoG

We can't talk about good looking women on the radio? Guess I'll have to forfeit my license.

As soon as you are a few hundred feet away you can no longer consider being in control of that equipment. Get separated by a hill, no longer in control. They change channels and you can't find them, no longer in control. You are dealing with humans. You have no control.

At 467 my handheld will trigger my headlamp, my stove and the Fein vacuum in my shop. My 20 watt mobile will turn my neighbors motion lamp on.

If you got the same kit as me it is an MA-09. It is pretuned for GMRS and there isn't really a way to tune it as it's a sealed unit for the most part. I was getting a 1:1.2

Nothing special here Pyramid Universal Compact Bench Power Supply - 4.5 Amp Regulated Home Lab Benchtop Not sure how accurate the output voltage is because my radio says 14.0 volts. But it seems to be pretty stable. I've seen 14.1 on occasion. Just enough for my 20 watt Wouxun XS-KG20+

I think a lot of my problem is this is a graph of gain and not power. And your explanation of the concentric circles makes more sense to me because the outer circle is of max gain and as you go inward you are subtracting dB gain as compared to the outer circle of max gain. With my current antenna, I have no diagram of gain and I don't have an issue with trying to hit the repeater whilst under the antenna. I have my HT on low power and I'm using a stubby antenna. Although I have heard crackling in my signal which I though of as strange because of my proximity closeness to the antenna but it is likely I'm in the dead spot and my signal is superficially getting to the antenna only because of the brute strength of the signal by being so nearby. So if someone was making this graph they would need to have a constant power radiating signal and they would move it around the antenna in a 360º spherical pattern while taking measurements at each azimuth point and recording the strength of the signal and then find the strongest and weakest signals and determine the logarithmic strength between the high and low and then plot it on the graph. Not sure if they need to do a spherical measurement or just a simplistic 2D simple circle going around the antenna in a vertical pattern.

Steve, I wonder if we could discuss the diagram further. I assume this is a view of the horizontal. the 90º being the ground or parallel to the ground. The circle around it in degrees are 0º being up towards the sky and 180º being down to the ground. I see 90 and -90º being front and rear, but in an "omnidirectional" antenna it shouldn't really matter. Obviously there was a .01dB difference at 90º but that's moot in real life and only exists in a lab. What I want to understand are the shapes of the lobes. I also see the concentric circles going inward there are also numbers which I assume are decibel ratings going from 0 from the outside circle to -40 on the inside circle. The look like they are spaced with an algorithmic strength. So how are the lobes equated to distance from the central point which is the antenna? And why are the 0 through -40 numbers in that arrangement and not reversed? As the distance from the center goes out further I would assume the signal gets weaker. I assume I'm getting confused because this is a gain diagram and not a power diagram. I would really like to understand how to read this as well as you do.

Pretty sure I won't be able to help myself about reporting what ends up happening with my system. I'm hoping that getting above the trees is one of my main issues. If I had patience I would wait for winter to come in and all the leaves on the tree to be on the ground. If my signal at the house and elsewhere improved then I would know for a fact that one of the more prominent issues I'm dealing with. I know in the direction without trees I have a good signal 6 miles away. Which of course isn't that far, but the hilly areas I live around are somewhat insurmountable issues that can't be worked around other than height.

Already got my antenna on the way. Should be here Wednesday. 5.25dBd gain would likely be a good higher altitude antenna though.

Pretty sure it's a deep fake. Towards the end you can see Jake's lips not in sync well. But it was very well done.

My family isn't THAT important

Well... ordered the COMET CA-712EFC antenna. The NC9 is a bit much I think. Time will tell.

They ticket you and then you have to pay or go to court. Either way they screwed with your life. Go ahead and tell the cop that he can't legally give you this ticket and all he'll say is tell it to the judge. And your life is still screwed with and now you have a cop that doesn't like you.

If you put an antenna up and they put an antenna up on their roof you might be able to contact each other. Everything depends on what's in the way. If there's a hill/mountain it's not happening. If it's a bunch of trees it's possible, if it's flat country and open then it shouldn't be an issue at all. Is there a member of your family that is in the middle of all of you? That would be the ideal person to house the repeater.

Depends on who you are trying to contact. If you are trying to contact your house you don't need a repeater, just the antenna setup. If the repeater setup is 1/2 way between where you will be and who you want to contact that's a good reason for a repeater. In my case I've setup at my shop which is a couple miles from my house. Not exactly a good place normally but my house is in a valley and my repeater has a 100' higher ground level. So when I am a town or 2 away I can still talk with the little woman whereas if I just set up an antenna at the house it wouldn't have made any difference. There is a mountain range about 5 miles east of my shop I'd love to setup on. I would have access over the mountains and be up 500' higher than my shop. But that's a pipe dream.

So the area I'm trying to get to is 6.35 miles away, there is a 120 ft difference in height and it has line of site. So the angle of incidence is 0.21º. So it seems I'm basically near the center of the lobes. Guess I don't have to worry about this since my 80ft above ground ain't no mountain.

So how do I read this? Is this an approx to what this says? My numbers other than beam width/angle. Is this a 3dB width meaning the 9dB angle would be less?

So what happens if you put a high gain antenna like the 9NC on a mountain top 1000 feet above the floor? Does it skip over a lot of nearby area? Does it not reach down at all? If your antenna is up that high do you use a lower gain antenna so the beam of radiance aims more downward?

That's the thing I worry about is the pattern missing the low areas.

Figured they were mostly used to cheat on tests.

I bet the teachers don't have to give up their phones during the day.

So what about my hilly terrain? I know you live in the land of the flat and that would absolutely work for you. Not so sure around here. But that's why I'm asking, because I really don't know. The mast, in theory, will be on a hinge so I can take the antenna up and down, but that is only going to be for a rare reason I hope. It's probably going to be more like a total of 70' of Hyperflex 13 with 2 runs in between the lightning protection.

Rule of thumb is to have 3 days reserve when it comes to solar. I myself would start out with 100Ah LiFePO4 battery and see how that works in the next emergency. Hopefully it'll sit there unused for years.

Running a 50w repeater right now putting out about 40w after the duplexer. The antenna is only about 40' above the ground which is 100' above sea level. It's below the tree line which I think is what's killing me. But the plan is to get the antenna above the tree line, and it won't be by much. Right now I'm using a generic dipole with a 7.2dBi gain. I've seen the same type of antenna sold by many companies so I'm sure it's probably just a generic make and relabeled. This particular one was sold by Retevis and is their MA-09. Not sure how much I want to spend. But I live in a treed and hilly area so what I've seen is I don't want a really high gain antenna because the pattern won't work well with the hilly terrain. So should I just stick with this antenna or is there something else I can use. Not looking to put a really long antenna up like I seen with one of the Comets. I've also seen some folded dipoles but don't know enough abou them to know if they'll work better than a straight dipole. The mast will likely be 70-75' tall and the antenna on top of that. We shall see. Enlighten me please.