LeoG

Does my wife count? Not before I married her 38 years ago. But now since I got back into radio.

No. Wind gust. Crap. An hour later. I resupported the triangles. The top one failed. Put a dadoed gusset on both. In a couple weeks I won't need this mast other than for the cell phone booster antenna.

Oh I realize that, fully. Usually the modeling software is much more generous with the signal than real world situations present. I was just surprised that this went in the opposite direction. Showing a barely viable signal when in reality the signal is usually pretty good. I've been going in reverse using the HTs as the transmitters to my repeater and what's showing is a bit disappointing. Hopefully real world is better. But like I've stated, usually the programs give better results than what you find out in the field.

Playing around with it and I found on one of my repeaters it's just plain wrong. I have the Holyoke repeater which is 21 miles away. Using my HT which is about 4.5 watts in front of my house it's iffy but makes it in. If I go up the hill a bit it's much better. When I walk my route around the neighborhood no one has ever complained I was choppy. The program is telling me at the house to the repeater which I've setup at 200' above the 250 meter mountain it's on with a 12dBi gain antenna and a RX line loss of 1.7dB. It's telling me that I'm hitting the repeater with .31uV and when I go up the hill, which I know for a fact is a better area it says .18uV and gives me a red line which I guess means not gonna make it. The .31uV gives me a yellow line. Of course when I switch it to my base station with a 13 meter tall antenna and 7.2dBi gain it says the repeater receives me at 7.35uV Checked on the Glastonbury repeater setup with the same specs and it gives me an 8.04uV receive at the repeater which is 17 miles away and up just about the same height. I can talk with my son, both of us in our homes using HT to HT and it comes in pretty good. I can't hit the Holyoke repeater inside my house using the HT so I do know it's much weaker of a signal but I'm surprised it's at .31uV and people still here me well. I know it's not full quieting, but it's not all hissy and crackly either. Just low to medium hiss and a very slight flutter if I'm walking. Just surprised at the numbers from this repeater.

And here I went again asking what I thought was a fairly simple question LOL

When we do net check ins the net master will usually tell you with an "R" number what you sound like. Usually the net master is close to the repeater so they are getting full quieting on the repeater and any noise coming through is from the other person into the repeater. I bounce back and forth between and R7 and R9. We have a few people on the fringe and they can be R3 to R7 depending on how the signal is playing that day. One of the reasons for our nets is to assess how the radio is coming into the repeater. We have several people that test multiple HTs during the net and it's surprising at how the different HTs come in from the same place. Likely mostly due to the antenna it using. But since I'm just playing theoretical radio I was wondering at what point the signal might go from somewhat noisy to somewhat clean. Especially when in a mobile and moving. I have 2 repeaters that do very well on the road crackle-wise because of their antenna height. While mine is pretty low comparatively. But mine is mostly for communication with my wife and I work in a metal building and neither of the other repeaters penetrates the building very well unless I'm right at the 1 small window in the building at which point I can get the one north of me.

Who's programming their radios for repeaters that don't exist? And if they don't exist... how do you know their PLs?

So .25uV and up 18dB gives me 2uV which is what I had seen on the interweb. So realistically anything beyond that is just gravy. If you look in the upper right hand corner I named that area Full Quieting Exit 38. It's a sweet spot of short duration at 65MPH on the highway.

I play around with my Wouxun XS KG20G and my TD-H3 handheld. I believe both state 0.25uV at 12dB SINAD. I have the Radio Mobile set at 0.318uV which is -117dBm to give me a little leeway. I can't say if I have full quieting at -85dBm or not as everything is theoretical right now. But I should assume yes because that particular spot is full quieting in my truck with my MXTA26 antenna using my current setup of 13 meters high 7.2dBi antenna. My repeater antenna is a 13 meters with a 7.2dBi gain antenna. Soon my antenna will be at 26 meters with a 9.8dBm antenna and I'm just playing around with certain areas plugging in data using my mobile in the truck and the HT outside of the house. I had a surprising result when I was playing around from my repeater to my house. Had the antenna at 13M, then 26M, then 61M and then 91M. At 61M the signal was 300uV and at 91M it dropped down to 157uV. It gained strength up to 61M and then lost when I went higher. Just found it interesting and wondered what caused it to do something like that.

No need to change PL codes. Store all the different repeater channels and all you need to do is switch to them when you get in that area. Program them once and then just go to that channel when necessary. I run a Wouxun XS KG-20G and it is easily programmable from the microphone.

What's wrong with being a radio dork? Takes intelligence to be one.

Unfortunately I don't have anything reported in SINAD. Or at least I don't think I do.

I am far from a new comer. Just playing with Radio Mobile and would like to know when my signals get into the good and better range. Trying to determine what I'll need to do with my repeater to hit certain areas (family members) without playing a lot of guessing games.

Assuming a modern radio with a .25uV sensitivity at 12dB SINAD. Been looking around and I've seen 1uV (-107dBm) will produce almost full quieting and 2uV (-101dBm) should produce it.

OK, playing around with the links area of Radio Mobile Online Calculator. Pretty cool the diagram and information it gives. Like to know what the colored bars in the land picture are. Is it just population density or manor of blockage of the signal?

I did say "if".

Don't need to open squelch if you have a meter. If it's showing incoming then you wait.

The best I got is my stove turning on.

If you have a 2nd radio just clone it and you can restore it quick and easy too.

I sent a letter to Tidradio. Lets see if they respond to it and what they say.

I got the Melowave NMO Magnet Antenna Mount (3.5") mainly because it said it had a better coax than all the rest. All of them used RG58U and this used CFD200 instead. No problems with the antenna staying put with the MTXA26 antenna.

Nothing that I know of. I'm in Windsor Locks. I'm a member of the Holyoke Ma 575 repeater. The Glastonbury repeater is pretty quiet for the most part.

I've been listening to my local airport on 120MHz ish AM with the H3.

I have the Wouxun KG-XS20G and it's the best radio they ever made because it's the only one I've tried. LOL I like the radio. Easy to program, buttons on the mic along with the unit, can plug it into the cigarette outlet and it's rated at 20 watts but mine puts out 25. I'd say the sensitivity is more like -115dBm than the stated -120dBm (.25uV) because on occasion my TD H3 can hear things it can't. But that a bottom end signal anyway. Front end isn't perfect since it's a radio on a chip tech. If you want a super het then do the Wouxun KG1000 which is 50 watts. How'd I do Randy...

Just like me buying a dust collector for my shop and then spending 20% more than the dust collector to buy the duct work to connect it to the machines.