BoxCar

I don't know if I'd want to see you without a top or not.

I have had good success with the BTECH 25X2. It sits primarily on ham frequencies but it gives me an honest 20+ watts out into a 1/4 wave Laird. It's not certified for FRS/GMRS.

There is a difference between grounding/bonding the case of electronic equipment and what you originally proposed as lifting the ground from the power to bond it. Metal or conductive cases do shield from RFI generated within the enclosure affecting other devices and it is recommended the cases be connected, in parallel, to a proper ground.

As most of the terrain is fairly flat in AZ I would look at a 1/4 wave stub. I use the Laird QW450 available from a great many retailers. Datasheet - QW Series Quarterwave Antennas | Laird Connectivity

My training said never leave a battery on charge unattended. Systems that do have chargers connected at all times are also live in that current is being drawn from the system. The charger is a "float" charger in that the charge voltage floats above the battery's unloaded voltage and supplies the load with its needed current. That's what we use in both phone systems and repeater sites. If you are looking for a standby system, just connect the battery to the charger once a month or so to keep it topped off and not on charge.

GMRS operates on a line-of-sight basis. If your transmitter antenna can't "see" the receiver's antenna i a straight line, then they will not communicate. There are websites that will provide you with a path outline base on the gps location and elevation of both antennas showing any obstructions such as hills.

Not in a single unit that I'm aware of. There are several units available that can provide battery power and can be recharged from an external source. Perhaps the closest would be a power pack from Jackery or another similar unit. Check retailers such as Amazon for ideas.

There are water resistant (close to waterproof) tapes available designed primarily for protecting the connectors. For the mount itself, I would flush it with 91% isopropyl alcohol and then use a good weather resistant caulk to seal the bottom or back side of the mount. A lot of the better caulks can be painted.

ACE is the place ... if you need to buy one locally.

The window feedthrough you are thinking about are from MFJ. They are available through many Ham outlets such as hamradio.com and gigaparts.com.

The Vertex brand is originally Japanese and was a well respected brand that was purchased by Motorola around 2007. The Vertex brand of mobile radios was gone by 2010 after going through the double branding of Motorloa/Vertex, A lot of Part 90 agencie used the Vertex on the lower VHF band for their reliability. I don't know about the newer stuff that's coming out with the Vertex brand.

+1 from another new ham. Find a local club, get involved. It's well worth it.

+1

Actually I had my call sign in about 48 hours. I took the exam on Saturday and it was electronically filed that day with the call sign in hand on Monday. You can monitor ULS with your FRN and it will show as (most likely) autogranted within 48 hours. It depends on the VEC Coordinator and how they process the results.

Welcome from a new Tech KO4OCP

You can also look at the BTECH 25X2.

As height is king, have you thought of an attic install? A yagi would probably work, but if it's on your patio (and I'm assuming you have a house) you could also do a roof mount with an antenna inside a piece of PVC pipe secured to a vent pipe. You might also get by with a deck mounted vertical inside PVC again near te side of the house with the pipe matching your siding color.

This has come up several times under Part 90 and the FCC has stated it is not permissible to retransmit the routine weather statements. Weather warnings are a different matter in that they are permissible but only during the effective period. NOAA weather alerts automatically expire 4 hours from when they are issued unless a different period is specified. Flood warnings, as an example, are often issued for a period of several days. The other issue or issues you will run into include a bunch of upset people when you block a channel for unimportant routine information that can be retrieved from any number of commercial sources and the fact your transmission could override a legitimate call for assistance. As you state you are part of a weather spotter group, what would the reaction be from the amateur users in the area if you did the same thing on one of their channels? All in all, it's a poorly thought plan when very few people would listen when they get the same information from commercial radio and television.

Impedance is the opposition of current flow in an AC circuit and replaces resistance in Ohm's law. E=IZ or E/I=Z and E/Z=I. There is no particular reason antennas have an impedance of 50, 75 or 300 Ohms, they were just values picked at random which could be easily replicated.

I bought the FT-4XR for the weather scan that the FT-65 lacks.

The coax you choose is open to a lot of debate. It's safe to say that hard line, air core will have the best results, but then using a good foam filled coax will make the install less costly but incur slightly less power available at the antenna when comparing the two types. The radiation pattern from a vertical antenna can be visualized as a beach ball with the top and bottom of the ball indented. Increasing the gain of the antenna pushes up and down on the ball resulting in less energy being directed up and down but more toward the horizon. A 3 dB gain effectively increases the energy being radiated to double the input while 6 dB is a quadruple increase. I also recommend an antenna with radials as this ensures the antenna has a ground reference and sets where the "bottom" of the beach ball pattern is. The top of the ball is the antenna tip. In all cases, antenna height above ground is the primary factor for distance covered.

The range for your installation is dependent on three factors, antenna height, surrounding terrain and power. Your antenna's propagation pattern is from the center of the antenna rather than the tip. With a short antenna, it makes little difference from where you measure the height from the ground. With longer antennas, the best result is if you measure from the antenna feed point to the ground. But all that is for naught if the terrain around your install is higher than the antenna. UHF radio waves don't bend around hills.

45 degree down slope is recommended on all the homebrew antenna setups.

A repeater station consists of two separate units. One is a receiver connected to the second, the transmitter. Repeaters operate on two frequencies ("Channels") which are paired and referred to as a repeater pair. Each of the frequencies of the pair can use a subaudible or digital tone. A receive tone opens the receiver and connects its output to the transmitter causing the received intelligence to be sent or repeated over the other half of the frequency pair. The transmit portion of the repeater can also be configured to send a tone. The tone sent by the transmitter does not have to be the same as the receive tone. If a different tone is used, then the repeater is said to be using split tones.

Love the new look to the site. The only suggestion is to allow the forum to be selected directly rather than through the drop down.