Lscott

Have you considered some less expensive radios than the above? There are other analog only commercial radios that will take a beating and keep working. Myself I carry a Kenwood TK-3170. You can can find them for very reasonable prices used and it has Part 95 certification too. http://www.swscomm.com/kenwood/TK-2170_3170.pdf There is also a version with trunking, TK-3173, which you won't use on GMRS, but programs the same as the 3170 and uses the same cables and software. http://www.swscomm.com/kenwood/TK-3173.pdf

These comments point out an interesting issue if I understand things right. Most, if not all, electronic products are sold with FCC Part 15 compliance. A section in that part basically says the device accepts all interference even if it causes the device to malfunction. If it does then contact the manufacture. Now try to explain that to your neighbor when they says it's YOUR problem to fix. Nope, so long as your radio meets all FCC certifications. Another reason to be sure your radio is Part 95 certified. A case in point. Years back people were experiencing car alarm failures around the I-75 and 14 Mile intersection close to where I work. The FCC was notified. The issue was traced to a Ham ATV transmitter on top of a tall senior apartment building a couple of miles west of the location above. The FCC shut the site down while they did their investigation. They found everything complied with all technical requirements and allowed the site to resume normal operations. The ding-dongs had put the alarm system on the 70cm band. I believe there is a provision in the rules for this were the equipment manufactures can use 433MHz. https://www.edn.com/using-433-mhz-for-wireless-connectivity-in-the-internet-of-things/ The head guy at the alarm company asked one of the site's equipment owners in for a talk. He asked how much power they were running. The answer was about 100 watts. Then he asked the second one. How much CAN they run. The answer was 1500 watts. The owner I was talking to telling me this story said the alarm company guy almost crapped his shorts. Then he proceeded to tell me another story about how Chrysler, as it was known at the time, had their tire pressure sensors malfunction. They were running tests on them and had the problem again in about the same area. In their case they figured out the cause and understood it was their problem to fix.

I'm guessing the dummy load looks something like this? https://www.amazon.com/XRDS-RF-PL259-Male-RF-Dummy/dp/B08QR9RQJ3/ref=sr_1_13?keywords=XRDS-RF&qid=1678988619&sr=8-13 I wouldn't worry about the resistance reading of 49 verses 50 ohms. There is a tolerance on the accuracy of the dummy load and the meter itself that likely accounts for the difference. Dummy loads also have a frequency range they are designed to work over. High quality ones may even have a datasheet showing the expected match verses frequency. The one you have may just be at the edge of the range, but without further info I can't really say much at that aspect. The Surecom meters people have reported funny behavior. One of them is a change in SWR with a change in power level. Theoretically the SWR should not change when the power level changes. The other thing with SWR has to do with the coax cable. A longer cable will absorb more of the reflected power from the antenna end back to the transmitter. With the meter at the transmitter end this makes the SWR look better compared to making the measurement right at the antenna. I've taken advantage of this to get a match under 2:1 on a radio when using an antenna outside of it's specifications and the loss in power, on the coax to the antenna, is the price paid for the benefit. There is no free lunch.

I think most of us on this forum do as well. I try to remind people of the rules without being an A-Hole on the issue. People are adults and will make their own decisions, I just want to help them make an "informed" one. So long as I did what I think is the proper thing to do I let others make their decision whether I agree with it or not.

I remember flying out of the Toronto airport years ago back to the US. Weird part was I went through US customs at the airport before boarding the flight! Arrived at DTW as a domestic flight. I guess that was the point.

My Dad had a CB radio. When he keyed up the neighbor's back yard security light would turn on. ?

That might be true with the UV-5R. On the "Spurs" thread I posted a file with the spectrum of what the output looks like. Various Hams know how dirty those buggers can get and won't use them, at least on a regular basis. I had a buddy that tried the mod for the BF-888, another CCR, 16 channel UHF radio. The mod allowed the use of VHF on the radio for the lower 8 channels. He transmitted on a 2M frequency from our south building while I monitored him from our north building. Sounded OK. Then I tuned to the exact 3'rd harmonic of the VHF frequency, which put it on the Ham 70cm band. I heard him there just fine too, and the audio was VERY loud. The reason for that was the deviation on VHF is now 3 times that on UHF. Well that ended the experiment and he disabled the mod. Output of the radio was VERY dirty, spectrum wise, on VHF. There is a reason why the FCC requires certification of radios. It's not just about what frequencies the radio can transmit on. The radio has to be a "good neighbor" and play nice on the air and not interfere with other users because the transmitter is a POS.

If the SWR looks good you most likely won't damage your radio. The ground plane will influence the direction of maximum signal. That's usually in the direction of the largest area, metal, around the antenna. With a lip mount the signal strength will be higher towards the side of the car with the hood. How much difference that makes is hard to say. If you really want to know just do some tests. Have a buddy a few miles away monitor your signal level on his radio, not the audio, with the signal strength indicator on his radio. Most radios have one, usually a simple bar graph type. Then turn your car so its in a different orientation relative to you buddy's radio, transmit and have them check the signal strength. This would be easy to do in a parking lot. Doing this while driving around introduces too many other variables that affect the signal strength. If there isn't much or any discernible change then don't worry about it.

As far as I know these don't, they're on different frequency pairs. It's strange because when somebody is on each repeater you can hear two talking at the same time. You don't get the weird noise that's typical when two FM stations key up over each other.

I found some nice functional desktops while walking at night through an apartment complex. They were just sitting on the ground next to the dumpster. Can't beat free. Some still had the hard drive installed with the OS on it.

The Detroit and Mount Clemens repeaters are linked. My understanding is the group that owns them is planing on another one in Pontiac. The Troy repeater is a stand alone. One other thing there is a repeater at the Lakeside Mall, maybe good for 4 to 5 miles. It's used by the mall's house keeping staff. Funny thing is their license to use it expired on 10/2015 and was NEVER renewed. I double checked that on the FCC's database. They lost any legal ability to use it, but they continue to do so. It's on the same frequency pair as the Troy repeater but uses a different tone, 186.2Hz. If it got high-jacked I guess they can't complain without the FCC asking why they're on GMRS without a license. Oops. The mall security sometimes call them on it, or the other way around too.

I think they introduced a bill in congress to make daylight saving time permanent. https://thehill.com/homenews/nexstar_media_wire/3880009-bill-to-make-daylight-saving-time-permanent-reintroduced-in-congress/

I know people who can calculate anything, but I wouldn't trust them with a screwdriver. They might hurt themselves.

I think it's become common, if not required, for engineers to sit for the initial PE exam to graduate at many schools.

I remember to this day what one interviewer told me during one of my job interviews out of school. It's as true to day as it was then. He said "All the degree proves is you have the ability to learn."

I've had several good chuckles with my buddy. We both have our EE degree's. Where he's at they employ a lot of EE's with MS and PhD's. He says the guys come to him and ask how to do simulations, he has a lot of experience using Saber, which by the way is a heck of a mix mode complex simulator. I have to laugh because people with more degrees than a thermometer are asking him how to do stuff. We had a Chinese PhD work in our department for several years. One day a board experienced a failed LED on a board he was working on. The guy spent some time downloading data sheets for LED's looking for a replacement. The Lab manager simply asked him why he didn't just get one out of the parts drawer and replace it. Sad but true. The education, or lack thereof, people are getting in schools is shockingly poor in some cases. We were looking for somebody to do embedded programming. Had a lot of candidates with graduate degrees apply. One of the tests required the candidate to write some code to turn on an LED. We even asked them what processor and or development environment they have experience using, then had it setup when they arrived. Shockingly most couldn't do it! Some of the more interesting questions I asked was how do you turn two LED's on "simultaneously", nobody got that right. The idea was to see how well the candidate understands the connection between what the software does and how it affects the hardware. This was key to doing debugging on real hardware. You have to walk on both sides of the street so to speak, software and hardware. We hired a young female EE out of school. She has been learning how to do schematic entry and PCB layouts. I told her the real learning comes when the prototype board she did arrives and she needs to get it working on the bench. That's when you learn where you made all your F'ups.

It'll end up like 11M CB. FCC gave up chasing down everyone failing to ID and just made it a license by rule, i.e. license free, service. Less headache for them.

To continue with the discussion you have to decide if you want to go with purposely built GMRS radios or commercial radios that can be programmed to operate on GMRS. The purposed built radios are generally of Chinese manufacture and are affordable. The programming software is available and mostly easy to use. Looking at commercial radios typically means buying used equipment. Programming commercial radios is not like Ham gear or the purpose built GMRS radios. There are more options, many you won't need, and a steeper learning curve. The advantage is you have a radio you can tailor to you preferences better. If cost is a factor there are some budget friendly radios to be found in both areas.

How big is you wallet? Some of the guys here run radios in the $2000 to $5000 plus range, top of the line commercial grade multi-mode analog/digital new and used equipment.

The alternator “whine” is a few hundred hertz’s and might be screwing up the tone decoding on the repeater end since it’s in that range. The sub-audio-able tone filter in the radio might prevent you from hearing it. This is just my guess.

I thought this thread was about getting a commercial radio license, not for motor vehicles. My mistake.

Not surprised. The radiation pattern is crap. Most of the power is at very high angle relative to the horizontal. I modeled a 1/4 on a ground plane operating on the third harmonic, which is what you would be doing.

People learn the most from their mistakes. It's like the little kid in the kitchen. Tell them don't touch that, it's hot. Turn your back and a few seconds later you hear the scream. Time to get the band aids out. Next time you tell them something is hot they'll believe you and leave it alone.

I have no idea how many were tested. I was doing my usual thing looking for documentation on the various radios I have. I found the test data during one of my search sessions. I keep a folder with all of my radio info in it. One of the hardest things to find is the service manual/schematic for the cheap radios. Usually the commercial types I had far better luck finding stuff. I had zero luck finding the service manual anywhere on line for my Ham TH-D74A. I finally got a support tech from Kenwood sent me one complete with schematic. I passed that around to several people who wanted a copy. Also posted it on a user group too.