BoxCar

Could that been because spark gap transmitters sent their signal across ALL the bands?

Yes and no. Check the bandwidth listed for the UHF portion of the antenna. If the bandwidth covers the frequencies needed then yes, it will work.

What does the repeater listing show? Typically, you need to enter the tone shown for the repeater in the TC slot. Don't worry about a receive tone, it isn't neeed.

You can fill the gap with a sealer like RTV or use a faucet washer,

I don't know of any ARES or SKYWARN openings for GMRS. Hams can't connect to GMRS or GMRS to ham radios but that doesn't mean they can't be licensed in both. Ham HH transceivers start around $90 so not much more than GMRS but with a lot more connectivity on 2M and 70cm.

You need to reduce power and check your modulation. Too high of either or both will cause the problems you describe. I would begin by reducing power to a low or mid level if available. The amount of mic gain also plays a part,

4 years to get a petition for recon argued, debated, picked apart and lobbied for is incredibly short. The only ones I've seen that moved faster were when the Commision realized it had made an error. Those are few and far between.

Use the Power Pole connectors between the fuses and the power source. Power Poles use the same housing for inserts rated at 15, 30 and 45A. !5A terminals handle 14Ga wire, 30A for up to 12G and the 45A will take 10Ga and maybe even 8Ga. I only have 10Ga as my heaviest wire so I can't say for certain about the 8Ga.

There are lots of tables on the web that list the current carrying capacity of the different gauges of wire and others that cover the loss or resistance of wire by the foot. The tables from the NEC are primarily for household wiring and not for low voltage DC wiring.

If people are looking for the social aspect of radio, there are two options I know about. Option one, use CB and put up with the garbage and trash on the channels or, two, study and get your amateur license to rag-chew on the amateur frequencies.

The center post is connected to the center conductor of the coax and the shield or outer conductor of the coax is grounded through the mount.

SWR is an indicator of where your antenna is the most efficient and the lower the number the more efficient your antenna is. With a difference of less than 1 dB in your readings there is nothing to worry about and your radio will transmit with its maximum power on all channels.

99.9% of the people wouldn't know what a paper copy license looks like either.

The only thing important is the call sign you are using is listed in ULS as belonging to you.

Air band HH are not cheap either. You can find some of the Baofengs, TYT and others will receive air band as well as normal V/UHF channels.

I use CCPS from Amazon. You can get good supplies for radios at Amazon for a third the cost of those sold by the mainstream radio suppliers. Amazon.com: MEAN WELL original LRS-350-15 15V 23.2A meanwell LRS-350 15V 348W Single Output Switching Power Supply : Electronics The Mean Well (meanwell) brand is used by several Part 90 organizations I used to assign frequencies for.

I use these. Amazon.com: DHT Electronics Handheld Antenna Cable SMA Male to UHF SO-239 Female Connectors 6'' Pack of 2 : Electronics

Whichever antenna or mount you decide to use, the key is to mount it as high as possible as height increases the range you will cover when transmitting.

You also want to look at light or speaker stands.

Whatever code or codes you decide on must be the same value(s) in the other radios for each channel you use. I recommend setting ONE channel as your family channel and leave the others a default values or as needed for repeaters.

Strickly speaking, with that radio you are not authorized for any FRS/GMRS frequencies as the radio is not type accepted for Part 95 use. FRS channels 8 - 14 are reserved for a half watt transmitter power and FRS radios have to have a fixed, non-removable antenna. GMRS users can have removeable antennas and can use FRS channels but usually can't meet the power restriction for channels 8 - 14.

Tuning to a range implies the duplexer is tuned to the center frequency 2.5 MHz above the lower frequency or 465.15. That means it will work across the entire band, just not well. A duplexer needs both sets of cavities tuned to the frequencies you will use, one side to the 467 channel, the other to the 462 channel to work at its best efficiency and lowest insertion loss.

The repeater's input is the key so the tone should be set to your radio's transmit AND the same value must be on the receive frequency as the functions are separate and the radio will use whatever value is in the respective position.

The biggest hurdle to digital is none of it is compatible with another scheme. Analog is FM and that's it. Yes, there is AM but AM lacks the spectral efficiency of FM.

Repeaters use two frequencies, one for receive and the second for transmit. The repeater's transmit frequency is your radio's receive frequency in the 462 MHz range. The repeater's receive frequency is your radio's transmit frequency which is 5 MHz higher than the receive frequency or, in the 467 MHz range. Chirp allows you to set both your radios transmit and receive code independently. Chirp also allows you to specify is the tones are independent where only the transmit tone is used (TONE), transmit and receive being the same (TSQL) or both codes being different (CROSS). As almost all repeaters don't use digital codes, I won't go into them, but their use is similar.