LeoG

Being inside a bowl is no place for a repeater. My house is near the river so I'm pretty low down. My shop is in one of the higher parts of the town which believe me isn't high at all. About 100' higher than my house. And the coverage is nothing to talk about. Keeps me in touch with the wife within town mostly. It will be going higher, but still it's not 500+ feet up which is what you need to start getting decent coverage in my area. To many hills and valleys along with loads of trees full of leaves to suck up the signal.

The Smiley is shorter than the 701G and works almost as well as the 771G. Definitely works better than the OEM for the H3, just not as well as the 771G At least for my setup

Nagoya 771G is a fixture on my two Tidradio H3s. I have the Smiley Rubber Duck and if I want a shorter antenna that's what I use.

Plenty of Repeaters up there. https://mygmrs.com/repeaters

Then don't upgrade. Most of them aren't necessary.

See.... exactly.

The scanner is generally my Tidradio H3 or my KG1000+. I just went online and searched the scanner frequencies for my town and it said some frequencies which I programmed in and have been listening to for a few months. No real idea what kind of a system it is.

Oh we all understand a frugal wife. When it comes to spending on our own toys we use our own money. When it comes to bills and such we use the my money is our money and her money is her money approach.

Does the wife have a $100 limit too?

But at least you could say you bought it.

I used this stuff on top of the self sealing tape https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CZMZV4K1?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_1&th=1

In my mind I was thinking of those rolls of LEDs that you lay out. In reality he probably meant a shop light style fixture with LED lights in it which would mean the driver is surrounded by metal already. The cheap power supplies that drive LEDs are usually noisy and get pretty hot when driven to max. Whenever I build with them I like to make sure there's a few amps in reserve basically to keep the driver from putting out max current keeping it cool and it's life longer. Putting it in a metal container might make the heating worse.

In my home system I run the M&P Hyperflex13 out to the lightning arrester and then 1/2" Heliax up to the antenna. At the shop I run my repeater and that has TMW LMR400. I'm getting a nearly perfect SWR with the M&P/Heliax with a CA712ECF antenna while at the shop with the LMR400 and a Retevis MA09 antenna I'm getting a 1.76 SWR. I think that has been going up since I put it in. I pretty much have zero water protection on that system, just the aluminum tube that surrounds the fitting of the antenna for protection. Water infiltration is a possibility.

Connecticut.

Cover the driver/power supply with tinfoil to see if it reduces. If it does put it in a metal box. Unless it's already surrounded by metal cause in that case you're done.

Not sure what the system is. Everything I've been listening to has been in the 150-155Mhz range so far. It's been very clear and has amazing range 15-30 miles I've heard it. They just built a new police station and have been moving in. I hear them doing lots of radio checks and sending out the EMS and Fire tones. I've noticed that some of the communications have gotten weaker and have hiss and scratchiness to them when it use to be nearly perfect other than HT inside buildings. Recently the traffic is down from what I'm used to and the wife isn't to happy about that as she enjoys listening to the chatter. Like to keep the little lady happy and keep receiving the communications. I believe the old system was 3 transmitters on a single tower but that's just a guess. The new system on top of the new building has multiple antennas that I haven't gotten a good look at yet. All in a row, maybe 8 of them with a short (24"?) blue dipole on top. Haven't noticed if they have a folded dipole on them or not.

So frequency hopping to boot?

Just curious at what they are. I've been using my radio to listen to the local police, fire and EMS frequencies that I've gotten off the interwebby and just recently they put in a new police station and the calls on the radio have decreased. I see most the other towns are using a trunked system. Not sure if I understand what it is. Is it where they have a pool of frequencies and when there is a communication need the trunked system picks out a frequency for the system to use that isn't currently busy? If they had 10 different frequencies usually lets say the first 3 are normally used but when they are in use the system will send it out on an unused frequency? I'm sure the receiving radios are setup to receive the communication from whatever frequency likely designated by some tone or digital system. So if I wanted to listen and get all of the communications do I have to find out what all the trunked frequencies are and then scan all of them? Or is this just way off base?

Times MW LMR400, or better yet 1/2" Heliax. If you are just doing 50' then the LMR should suffice. Eventually I'll have a 100' run and use the Heliax.

Get some coax by known vendors. Time-Microwave, Belden, and some even sell their own from various radio stores. Get a minimum of 1/2.

Arguing about nothing. Only when you get into the big stuff does it really matter other than on paper. The eff sea seas doesn't give one crap about your little 50 watt station if it's classified as a base or a fixed. Because it depends on who you are communicating with and next thing you know you are classified from a fixed station to a base station. Semantics.

We do check ins to see how your equipment is working and to see who's participating. If you have multiple radios to check that is usually done after all the ID blocks are taken care of. Last winter I found out I was coming in pretty crappy and them more so as the check ins came down further in the calendar. Water in the line or antenna. Never figured out which. Replaced both and all is well. It's not just attendance.

On the H3 it'll show what mode you are currently in. If you are Rx then it'll show 462 and when you press the PTT and Tx it'll show 467

In both of my setups I had a noticeable degradation of reception when the SWR got over 1.7 The base station issue was water so that might be the degradation effect. But now my repeater is at 1.76 and I'm noticing a bit of loss. Or I'm nutz

If I'm unwilling to put WiFi into my show why would I put Starlink in? I use my phone as a hotspot while I'm there. As soon as I leave no more internet. And since I'm there I could just flip the power switch.