LeoG

Reasoning that the weight of the cable can pull on the antenna or fitting and damaging either could have some merit.  But as a drip loop that seems silly.  Of course it will work as a drip loop.  But the whole assembly is in the rain and will get wet.  There is no reason to have the drip loop any place other than where the coax enters a building to keep water from penetrating.
As for the loop acting as an inductor and attracting lightning I find that a bit hard to fathom.  One loop of shielded wire isn't much of an inductor and the whole of the height of the antenna in the air is going to be the main attracter of lightning, in my opinion.
Grounding the antenna will attract lighting to as it puts the ground potential up in the air.  Again inconsequential because we are talking miles of distance and maybe 30-50' of rounded pole rising into the air.
 

That's kinda what I figured.  It is designed for 400-470 which easily encompasses the 462-467 that we need.  Like you said, shorter is a little more convenient.  The Smiley's are something like 4" tall and 5/8 wave instead of the 1/4 wave the OEM antennas are.  Looking forward to seeing if there is any real life differences between the two.
Thanks for the info.

The FCC must be wrong 😉

The FCC must be wrong 😉

Gain does not increase power would be correct.  Gain does increase where the power goes.  Zero gain is an antenna that radiates equally in a 360º sphere.  Most antennas don't do that.  An "Omni directional" antenna is really a lie, but in a good way.  It still radiates in a horizontal circle (approx) but the beam of energy radiating from the antenna is cut off on the top and bottom so that power is all included in a beam that is 20 or 30 or whatever degrees in the vertical thereby increasing the effective power in that area.  You aren't wasting it going straight up or down.  It is being put to better use in the horizontal plane that it will be received in "effectively" giving you the result of more radiated watts.
Gain doesn't multiply your radiated power, it directs it to a more useful area.
 
Better?

Gain does not increase power would be correct.  Gain does increase where the power goes.  Zero gain is an antenna that radiates equally in a 360º sphere.  Most antennas don't do that.  An "Omni directional" antenna is really a lie, but in a good way.  It still radiates in a horizontal circle (approx) but the beam of energy radiating from the antenna is cut off on the top and bottom so that power is all included in a beam that is 20 or 30 or whatever degrees in the vertical thereby increasing the effective power in that area.  You aren't wasting it going straight up or down.  It is being put to better use in the horizontal plane that it will be received in "effectively" giving you the result of more radiated watts.
Gain doesn't multiply your radiated power, it directs it to a more useful area.
 
Better?

Well color me impressed.  I did a very jerry rig on the Retevis MA-09 antenna just for receiving even thought I did transmit a bit.

 
My 1st try was with my mobile antenna on the roof 26' off the ground.  It made it 1.3 miles before it quit.  The 2nd try with the new antenna only 3' off the ground I was able to make it about 100' before my house 2 miles.  Only because the house is on a hill.  And it's only about 15' down from the top of the hill.  I was able to hit the repeater with the TD-H3 (4 watts) with the OEM antenna which isn't that great.
So I'm still using the RG58/U (50') so effective radiating power is about  11.8 watts which is a far cry from the LMR400 that will be on the system when I set it up for real, 24.5 EFP and the antenna will be 30+ feet off the ground.

Well there are some people who can only think in big, commercial ways.  If you are putting up a repeater it has to be on a 60' pole up on top of some mountain.  And while I'd love to do that I'm not in mountainous territory and I don't really want to spend lots of money putting up that type of equipment for something that may end up just being a dead end hobby.  I got the 2 talkies for my birthday.  I asked for them.  Normally I ask for tools for my woodshop and my family kinda frowns on that because they think I work too much (I do).  So this time around I decided to just get something that I can play with and tinker around.  I'm not trying to be this big community member and solve everyones repeater problems.  I'm doing it so I can communicate with my family and friends and just have something different to do that doesn't involve wood working.

That thing is up there.  Not sure if I could get away with that.  It's not my building, just a lifetime renter.  And I don't think I'd want it up that high at the house.  I can dream though, can't I?

Got a pair of Tidradio TD-H3's a short while back and I'm pretty pleased with them  Still haven't really tried them out a great deal.  Wife took a walk with them to the park which was about 1/3rd mile away and they did well.  Still, new toys to play with. 
There is a repeater about 6 miles from me that I can connect with, it's open which is nice.  But it's still kind of far for the HTs to sound good.  I decided to look into a repeater for myself just for something local.  There is nothing nearby.  I found the RT97 and started looking into it.  It's a compact package with a somewhat low wattage transmitter.  But it's pretty inexpensive and an all in one.  Looking around I found it had been updated and now sports a DB9 connector that a microphone will interface with so it can also be a base station.  The DB9 can also be used to interface with a computer or other hardware such as a Auto ID.
I've had the RT97S for a few days but the antenna I got in the kit got separated by the Memorial day holiday as DHL doesn't do weekends and I'm sure doesn't do holidays.  I ordered a Nagoya UT-72G Mobile antenna that I could get here quick so I could play.
The programming is slightly different from the RT97.  With the RT97 you use the power DIN connector to interface with the computer.  And all of the videos I saw with the newer RT97S also showed the same thing.  But when I got my unit it came with a USB to DB9 connector for programming.  The instruction booklet is absolutely worthless as it doesn't mention how to program, what software to use, where to get the software or the sequence to program.  All the videos I've see you plug the USB/DIN connectors into your computer and the repeater, fire up the program and the repeater takes power from the computers USB port to power the chip in the repeater.
So this is what I did except plugging into the DB9 connector.  No joy, the program wouldn't read the repeater so I couldn't even get started.  Tried several times with no luck.  So I decided to plug the repeater in by using the power supply and the DIN connector.  Well that did it.  Got my repeater programmed to what I wanted.  It was setup with all 8 channels on high power, narrow band and PL encoded for 136.5Hz.
So finally today I got my Surecom SW-102 SWR meter so I could make sure the antenna was OK and check the power output.  The Nagoya seems to be tuned much closer to 467.5Mhz as I got a near perfect SWR, a 1.01 when I was using my TD-H3 transmitting on RPT1.  When I hooked it up to the repeater I got a 1.28 SWR after moving it around on my truck to various spots.  Settled on the center of the roof.  I was also able to get 6.25 watts out of the duplexer.  I guess I got one made on Tuesday morning before lunch LOL
I wasn't able to do a real test of the repeater as of yet because the wife is away right now and the neighbor I am friendly with wasn't around.  So best I was able to do was to walk around my neighborhood and use my call sign and repeater test so I could hear the squelch tail.  I live in a crowded somewhat hilly area.  The antenna was only 6' off the ground and the direction I walked in put it behind my aluminum sided house.  All pretty poor conditions for testing.  But off I went anyway.  The farthest I walked was 2850 ft from the repeater but of course lots of houses, trees in the way because the antenna was essentially on the ground.  I was always able to connect with the repeater.
I have the antenna coming from Retevis and it's a fiberglass antenna, it didn't state what model number.  The cable came in the repeater box and it's a disappointing RG58/U cable so I ordered some LMR400 and that won't be here til next week.
I have one of two spots for the antenna.  On my house chimney sharing a cell phone antenna mast that I have up already.  Or at my wood shop with the same situation, a cell phone antenna on a mast.  The house ground elevation is 62' and the shop is 162'.  But the shop is also 2 miles from my house and I'm not sure how effective that'll be for covering the area near me. 
Not much of a review, for now.  As I learn more about it I'll post it here.

Since I need a place to store all this stuff I put it into a box.  Harbor Freight to the rescue and got one of their Apache boxes.  Really wanted the orange...  But figured this would be much better to keep it out of view instead of screaming here I am.  Storage/camping/bug out box, call it what you will - it keeps things organized.
 

I found this calculator searching around the internet.  The only thing is minimum baseline is LMR-400 cable.  I was hoping it would go down to RG58 so you could make comparisons.
https://www.antennas.ca/calc_ERP.htm
 
My little system with 6.4 watts out, 50' LMR400 to an antenna with 7.2dBi of gain radiates and ERP of 24.5 watts.

According to Retevis I have the MA-09 antenna https://www.retevis.com/ma09-high-gain-gmrs-omni-directional-base-antenna-us

I got the antenna today that was included in the repeater kit I bought. I have no idea what model number it is.  It is a fiberglass version.  I did pose the question to Retevis about the model number.  I did some limited testing with it. I used a squeeze clamp and attached it to one of the boxes on my truck. SWR was nearly perfect at 1.01. I was able to put 6.4 watts into the antenna from my repeater.

I took a walk about and got about 5000 ft from the house. Felt like more 😁. I needed to go one more block to get to 1.3 miles which was where my other test with my mobile antenna dropped out. I have all confidence that it would have made it. 
But the situation was much different. The antenna wasn't 30 feet in the air like the mobile antenna was. It was 6' off the ground and the 1st thing it had to contend with is a house wrapped in aluminum siding and then a small hill. Much better antenna, obviously.

So soon I'll put it on the shop and see what happens. If I'm not happy it'll go on the house so I can have the strong signal in my neighborhood.
 

Since I need a place to store all this stuff I put it into a box.  Harbor Freight to the rescue and got one of their Apache boxes.  Really wanted the orange...  But figured this would be much better to keep it out of view instead of screaming here I am.  Storage/camping/bug out box, call it what you will - it keeps things organized.
 

Since I need a place to store all this stuff I put it into a box.  Harbor Freight to the rescue and got one of their Apache boxes.  Really wanted the orange...  But figured this would be much better to keep it out of view instead of screaming here I am.  Storage/camping/bug out box, call it what you will - it keeps things organized.
 

Mostly just screwing around.  There is no repeater in my local area and it's not like it's a lot of money to put out to have some fun.  Hoping I can convince some of my friends and neighbors to join in on the fun.  It's kinda hilly over here and I live by the river so I'm already in a low spot.  I'd like to be able to communicate with the wife from the shop which is about 2 miles away and then with my buddy in his wood shop which is 2 miles away in the opposite direction and he will be about 10' above sea level. 
I know all about the restrictions of line of sight which is part of the challenge to overcome in my area.  It's more of a toy for me at this point.  And at anytime when I finally get my antenna up if I find the repeater doesn't work out I can put in a 50w base station.

Since I need a place to store all this stuff I put it into a box.  Harbor Freight to the rescue and got one of their Apache boxes.  Really wanted the orange...  But figured this would be much better to keep it out of view instead of screaming here I am.  Storage/camping/bug out box, call it what you will - it keeps things organized.
 

Since I need a place to store all this stuff I put it into a box.  Harbor Freight to the rescue and got one of their Apache boxes.  Really wanted the orange...  But figured this would be much better to keep it out of view instead of screaming here I am.  Storage/camping/bug out box, call it what you will - it keeps things organized.
 

Since I need a place to store all this stuff I put it into a box.  Harbor Freight to the rescue and got one of their Apache boxes.  Really wanted the orange...  But figured this would be much better to keep it out of view instead of screaming here I am.  Storage/camping/bug out box, call it what you will - it keeps things organized.
 

Well there are some people who can only think in big, commercial ways.  If you are putting up a repeater it has to be on a 60' pole up on top of some mountain.  And while I'd love to do that I'm not in mountainous territory and I don't really want to spend lots of money putting up that type of equipment for something that may end up just being a dead end hobby.  I got the 2 talkies for my birthday.  I asked for them.  Normally I ask for tools for my woodshop and my family kinda frowns on that because they think I work too much (I do).  So this time around I decided to just get something that I can play with and tinker around.  I'm not trying to be this big community member and solve everyones repeater problems.  I'm doing it so I can communicate with my family and friends and just have something different to do that doesn't involve wood working.

Mostly just screwing around.  There is no repeater in my local area and it's not like it's a lot of money to put out to have some fun.  Hoping I can convince some of my friends and neighbors to join in on the fun.  It's kinda hilly over here and I live by the river so I'm already in a low spot.  I'd like to be able to communicate with the wife from the shop which is about 2 miles away and then with my buddy in his wood shop which is 2 miles away in the opposite direction and he will be about 10' above sea level. 
I know all about the restrictions of line of sight which is part of the challenge to overcome in my area.  It's more of a toy for me at this point.  And at anytime when I finally get my antenna up if I find the repeater doesn't work out I can put in a 50w base station.