marcspaz

This is why so many auto race tracks go away.

For what it's worth, there are some federal statutes (I'm out and don't remember at the moment) that state HOAs 'must' make reasonable accommodations for 2-way radio equipment. My friend actually went to court over and the HOA lost. He replaced his small antennas that could only be seen off property through about 2 degrees of opening in the trees, with a giant mast that is 20 feet higher than the house and has several monster antennas for HF, VHF and UHF.

It's been a bit since our last get-together. I was thinking about another meet-up mid-afternoon at Longhorn Steakhouse in Falls Church / Bailey's Crossroads on July 1st. But, I was thinking there may be a bunch of people traveling for the holiday. If I set it up, who can make it? If enough people can make it, I'll get it going.

It would fun to try, for sure. My FT-891 sounds like trash on CB once i get about 1/4 mile away, but when it's close to transmit stations, it blows out my front-end to the point that I can't make out what they are saying. Even if I turn the RF gain to the lowest setting and turn on stuff like the IPO, NB, DNR, etc. I've been thinking about buying a Galaxy or a President, but they are steep given it would be occasional use.

I want to, desperately. The price of an FM CB was a complete turn-off. Especially since I don't know a single person who has one.

This is why I love this group. LOL

I appreciate the kudos! The CB Bar was a great addition. It's hollow square stock with some pre-drilled hole, but it's also easy to use self-tapping sheet metal screws for custom installations. The tubing helped me hide most of the wiring up there.

The problem with this is, when everyone else is using the same bandwidth and deviation, then my speakers rattle and my ears hurt from the volume blasting. Spending several minutes playing 'chase the volume level' is usually not a good time, prompting me to tell the operator what's happening or me just turning my radio off.

I don't know if you mentioned that before, but I didn't know. That's actually pretty cool. Folks who do that work save the community a ton of aggravation and arguing.

I'm sure this will spark an argument... but I want to make a few corrections. I'm not trying to pick on you... just want to put a tad more accurate info out there. Like you... my post is not very technical... more of a general concept. You are mistaken about wider signal having more range. The opposite is true... narrow band has better range. Wide has better audio fidelity. Wide receivers have less usable sensitivity than narrow bandwidth receivers because the wider the receiver, the more it fills with the broad spectrum noise. It then takes more desired received signal to pull the data out of the noise, reducing range per watt. This is why major manufactures collectively agreed, many decades ago, that 2.5 kHz bandwidth for SSB voice transmissions would be considered "normal" bandwidth. Also, the "bandwidth" and "channel spacing" are not the same. It looks like you may have mixed them up. In real-world application, GMRS WFM (aka wide band) "channel spacing" is 25 kHz and the typical occupied bandwidth is 20 kHz. The NFM (aka narrow band) channels are spaced 12.5 kHz and are typically 11 kHz occupied bandwidth. I measured one of my radios moments before posting this. My radio on wide band is 19.3 KHz with 4.4KHz deviation and narrow band is 10.3 KHz with 3.5 KHz deviation (a little hot). In laymen terms, the more bandwidth you use, the more data you can send. The more data you send, the better the fidelity can be. In GMRS voice, that data is your voice. Therefore, on wide band, you can have better audio fidelity due to more information transmitted and received. The reason audio from a narrow band transmission has low audio on a wide band receiver is because the receiver is tuned in such a way that it is listening to a wider spectrum of radio than the transmitted signal, and it is expecting more deviation than provided for the voice. The empty RF space is filled with random noise (same noise that reduces sensitivity / range) and the lack of deviation leads to lower audio levels. You combine the two and it can sound like less than half the expected/normal audio levels. The inverse is true when a narrow receiver hears a wide signal. The receiver is only hearing about half the signal (making it sound lower in tone) and the over-deviation causes a loud audio level... sometimes sounding a little distorted.

You got some good advice by kidphc. Get that antenna up higher. You have an 8' tall antenna with only 2' in clear view. Shadowing from the home is likely making a noticeable impact. I would recommend the base of the antenna be at least 3' above the highest point on the roof. If you could make it higher than that, more height equals more range.

Its been a long time since I checked... like 3 years. I remember it's not horrible. Like, 4.2 dB net transmission loss... so about 37% match efficiency. EDIT: I guess the right answer is, 800w out, 290w-300w reflected.

My HF 228 foot OCF dipole is resonant on 1.9 MHz (and a few others / MIMO), but the antenna network has a 9.1: SWR at that frequency. I literally work the world on that OCF dipole on 5 bands. The principles in that book are the main reason I tell people not to cut pre-tuned antennas to adjust the SWR. My radio performance at home is proof positive that its true.

Looking for a low price point stopped me from recommending that style of antenna. My personal vehicle has a Diamond NR770HB, with that design spec.

Man... that is a really tough thing to accomplish... maybe impossible. The Comet SBB-1NMO or SBB-2NMO.... maybe. Still almost $50 each, though. I have a SBB-1 (UHF, not NMO) and they are a compromise on 2m for sure.

I have zero experience with Tidradio, but 0.5 to 0.8 miles in the suburbs sounds pretty normal and my exact experience in most places I visit. In a flat area with zero obstructions, your range is going to max out around 3.5 miles. I think the fact that we can use repeaters makes the service desirable for many people, since range gets extended anywhere from 8 miles for a causal home setup to 100+ miles for a mountain top repeater. As far as handheld radios go, I am a huge fan of Wouxun. I would recommend either the KG-905G or the KG-S88G. Larson, Comet, Diamond, Laird and several others make great 3.5" to 5" mag mounts. Any major brand should be fine. My favorite 2 antennas for GMRS are the Midland MXTA26 gain antenna for flat areas and the Tram 1126-B for hilly / mountainous areas. If you don't find your SWR meter, the Surecom SW-102 is surprisingly accurate.

This is a very valid question.

I have spent decades in the mountains and I have seen 'almost' every type of communications methods fail. The only thing I have seen work 100% of the time (less equipment failure) is HF radio. Sat phones are by far the easiest to use and the second most successful to use. However, in order to work, the devices need to have clear view of a satellite phone network. Being deep in a valley or in heavy tree coverage, the phone wont work. Also, Sat phone uses a frequency that is very easily negatively impacted by solar/space weather. It actually happens fairly frequently. I mention these items because, while they are easy and very dependable, there is high cost to purchase and use and some risk of failure. InReach and other services like it are more affordable SatComms solutions, but have the same technology restrictions as Sat phones. UHF and VHF radio's are RF line of sight... period. If you have heavily wooded areas, are in a low area block by a hills or mountains... even a lot of buildings. Range is massively restricted. Circling back to HF radio... again, it never fails. While space weather impacts performance, all it really impacts is what frequency you use during particular times of the day. HF doesn't care about trees, rain, or anything physically in the way, and it's not a line of sight service. Due to not being line of sight, and the way HF radio propagation works, you can talk to people anywhere on the planet (if you follow the rules) with just a couple of watts. So, as someone whom has spent time in the woods and truly understands the points about weight restrictions (since you carry food, water, clothing, first-aid, bedding/shelter) the last thing I would want to do is add a bunch more weight. And lets be honest, even the smallest of HF radio setups will add 5 or 6 lbs, its hard to tell you what to do when I have no idea what your wife is capable of carrying. BUT... if it were me, I would carry a Sat phone or InReach and a portable 5w HF radio that covers 80m/40m/20m/ (and built in tuner), a random length wire antenna to support those bands and a roll-up solar panel charging system to charge the batteries on the phone/InReach and radio. I personally can't justify Sat phone pricing, so I would use the InReach (for zero 'in the field' setup and instant use) and something like a Radioddity Xiegu x6100 or an iCom IC-705 in cases where the InReach doesn't work. The IC-705 is way more capable and has coverage from all of HF, as well as 6m and 2m VHF and 70cm UHF. But, the x6100 is only $600 compared to the IC-705 at $1,400.

How dare you accuse me of thinking!? Have you read my posts?

We can't do much about the ads, but the dots show a concentration of repeaters. The dot color corresponds to how many repeaters are in that area. As you zoom in, the dots get closer to blue and the number shinks, until you zoom in enough to see individual repeaters on the map. Once you zoom in close enough and click on a single repeater, the green area highlights the forecasted coverage area. I'm not sure about the other questions.

Sorry to hear you aren't finding anyone to talk to, but not surprised. GMRS is known as a "Bring Your Own Contacts" (BYOC) service. The most common use is for families to be able to chat with each other in absence of or instead of a cell phone. The next most common use is car to car for people in a caravan, such as going offroad or multiple vehicles traveling together on the highway for long road trips. Don't expect to find anyone on the air except the people you bring to the air. Also, depending on what the terrain is like around you, with a handheld you can have another operator 1 or 2 miles away from you and you just aren't going to hear them. Mobiles can stretch that out a little tiny bit... maybe to 3 miles (again, depending on terrain). Unless you get on a tall hill/mountain or on a repeater with great coverage because it's up high, you may not have any luck. I have some bad news on the CB side of things too. It's not much better unless skip is in or your running a buttload of power, like 400w or more (not that I advocate for violating the FCC rules with use of an amp). Without extra power, using a 1/4 wave antenna (104"), I can double the range of simplex GMRS, but that is still only 6 to 8 miles assuming the other people I am talking to have a good setup, too. Even with a ton of power, CB is mostly a line of sight service, like GMRS.

I assumed we're talking about UHF in and around 400-500 mhz. Hence my answer/examples. That said, you're correct and I'm sure the information will be helpful.

You are correct. My mistake. It's always a 5 MHz split... only 'always' +5 in GMRS. Thanks for the catch!

In Amateur Radio and GMRS the offset is always up (+) 5 megahertz. So, if the receive frequency is 444.xxx, the offset is 449.xxx. or, if the receive frequency is 462.xxx, the offset is 467.xxx. Amateur Radio and GMRS are 2 distinctly different services. Do you want to learn about Amateur Radio, GMRS, both or radio communications technology in general?

I tried it with AGC off, but it seems to work better with AGC on and set to zero. May be placebo, but is sure sounds good on the recording. LoL