marcspaz

I literally cried.

Good choice, for sure. I had a specific need I was trying to fill and battery life is not a concern for my case. That said, I think unless you have a specific need to fill such as mine or you're a pro outfitter/offroad racer, the 67 is the best one to buy.

I started off with the Mini 2, but with all the offroading we do, I upgraded to the Montana 700 after about a year. With the Expedition plan, it turned out to be a great unit for day-to-day use, as well as offroading. I was thinking about the 67 due to the price difference vs. all the extra sensors and features of the 67, but ultimately I opted for the 700 for added screen size, better resolution, more storage, durability improvements and the touch screen.

I am a huge fan of InReach and think everyone should have one, but if I could only pick one, it would be HF. And it would be for the very reason you cite as a shortfall of HF. People put way too much faith in satellite communications. Per a survey by the Satellite Interference Reduction Group (SIRG), 93% of satellite communications suffer from satellite interference at least once a year. More than half experience interference at least once per month, and 17% see interference continuously during the day. Often, equipment failure or malfunction, operator errors, even the antenna being block by terrain can cause failures. There is even interference that can be generated by aircraft between the base station and the satellites. I typically recommend both SatComms and HF, especially if you are using some kind of transportation (truck/SUV, horse, bike, etc.). When SatComms is working, it is much faster and can provide details much easier with things like text and beacons. However, an all-band HF radio and a wire long enough to adjust for each band from 80m to 10m is a fantastic solution because if there is interference one one band, unlike an InReach, you can change bands to one that is working. Also, unlike InReach, I don't have to worry about my device being properly ID'ed by the network or if my plan is actually configured and working (going back to operator errors).

I read it the way you intended. I just provided the info I did in the event someone just wanted to read the questions and answers. West does a good job, but they cost money. LOL

The ARRL manages the testing process, as the FCC decided we should be self-regulated. The ARRL shares all of the official test questions and answers, exactly as you would see them on the test, including the correct and incorrect questions. So not only do you get to memorize the correct answer, you get to use pattern recognition to learn to avoid the wrong answer. http://www.arrl.org/question-pools The only problem I see is with the Extra Class... with 621 possible questions and 10 schematic diagrams, you may be more likely to pass the test if you actually know the material, rather than trying to memorize it all.

As a child of the '70s, I approve! LOL

On occasion, I have dropped remote repeater at much higher elevation then where our group was spending time for this very reason. As long as the HTs are repeater ready, it makes all the difference in the world.

Eh... that is kinda of hard to say. It's situation contingent. It's mostly going to be when your need to penetrate trees or buildings are part of your range challenges. In an emergency, having the ability to turn up power to get through woods or building, or increasing scatter and refraction density beyond the RFH can make the difference between communicating or not. My 1,500w setup (solar, batteries, cabling, etc.) not including any actual comms gear, just power, was about $2,400. It's all portable and can bet setup from a "storage" state in under an hour. Though developing the initial design took a few days. I 100% agree. Though, I do try to coach operators into better practices. Also, completely agree. You made some excellent points. I didn't mean to seem I was debating that point. If it did seem that way, my apologies. I was more sharing some thoughts for the practical thinker. I feel like you have a good grasp on things and just tried to reflect my opinion that people (presumably like the both of us) both understand and are on the opposite side of "all the power all the time" mentality, but rather see the benefits and practical application on both sides of the conversation.

@WSAK691 I want to touch on the EmComm stuff a bit. I have a 50w UHF station, a 110w UHF station, 50w VHF station, three 50w VHF/UHF repeaters, a 300w VHF station, and a 100w HF station. I have solar and batteries delivering enough power to run at 100w with a 50% duty cycle, 24 hours a day for the life of the batteries (translate to many years). And the reality is, in a real emergency, which I have worked many, I promise you are not going to be anywhere near 50% duty cycle. All of my stations drop to 5w, except my HF radio which will go to 0.4w. Even with no batteries, I can run any one of my radios on low power and pure solar for peak direct light hours. That can be 5 to 7 hours a day, depending on the time of year, weather, etc. I mention all this to highlight the fact that just because a radio can produce 50w, 100w or more, that doesn't mean you have to run them that high all the time. In fact, the FCC rules and generally good practice for not causing interference, is to use the least amount of power required for reliable communications. I would rather have the power in case I need it, rather than not having the option. If you're going to spend the effort and money, there is very little cost or time difference when building a 40w power source and a 1,500w power source.

I'm with Randy on this one. Falls into the old category of "nothing is impossible but definitely improbable."

Someone actually turned my transmitter off on one of my repeaters last year. They were using DTMF 1111 as a quick burst preamble and that was the default combination for the disable command on the repeater. I also had someone have a DTMF code setup as a roger beep and coincidentally happened to be the same combination I made up to stun the repeater. I had to drive to the repeater site to reset it on the panel.

Do roger beeps confuse repeaters? My opinion... it's possible. Depends on the controller. Most repeaters have a controller for remote control (required by our overlords at the FCC to be 'in control' of the repeater at all times). Many of the modern controllers use digital signals for remote function, but near all of them still have analog function, typically done with DTMF codes. Depending on what your roger beep sounds like, you could risk partially triggering a remote command, putting the repeater in an unknown state, making it so the owner or admins can't manage it. Then they need to drive to the repeater site and either reboot the controller or the repeater. That said, I think the number one reason is because a good portion of the people listening, including the owners, don't want to hear a stead stream of beeping all day on the repeater. It gets pretty annoying and people clearly have no idea what a roger beep is for... which is to send a quick blip to acknowledge the previously receive transmission without actually saying anything. Especially for conditions when the two stations are on the fringes of their range and voice comms are difficult. It was never intended to be used on every transmission. Though, Sad Hams will tell you a different story.

There are many exemptions waving station identification for Part 90. Especially digitally encrypted communications where the ID is embedded in the signal, when the Commission is provided keys sufficient to decipher the data transmission.

There is so much that can make one radio appear to be better than the other. First, UHF waves travel through things (trees, building, etc.) much better than lower frequency radio waves. Then there are other differences, such as in antennas, variations in power, etc. The reality is, even if you had both radios with the same antenna and GMRS frequency, the Yaasu is tuned for a lower frequency. As you start to move more and more out of the range the radio is designed and tuned for, the worse the performance will get. I am a huge fan of both brands, but in this case, I think you discovered more of a point that you found one tool is more appropriate for the conditions than the other. Not necessarily that one is better than the other as far as design, function, sensitivity or other RF performance specs.

I got a new repeater a few days ago and started pricing hardline for the new setup... it's going to cost me about $1,300 for 250 feet and a couple of connectors. I only paid $350 for the repeater. It's wild... but if you want it to work...

I like you as a person and don't want to have you think less of me, and I definitely don't want to spark a political debate, but as a Constitutional Conservative with a few Libertarian leanings, I could not disagree more. I'll skip the politics part for now, but we haven't even identified if the "kids" are adults in college or not. I'm a grandpa and my offspring are in their 30's, but I still call them "my kids". LOL This drastically modifies what is considered acceptable behavior for all parties, if they are grown-ups.

On the Nagoya UT-72G, the coil in in the base of the antenna, referred to as a bottom load. The Tram 1181 has a coil in the middle, referred to as a center load.

Man... hard to answer without more info. Are you talking about as close to guaranteed as you can get for emergency communications or non-critical recreational? Are they in college or secondary school? If you are looking for non-critical recreational communications, I would lean away from UHF or even VHF communications. It's possible, but not likely in a vast majority of the country. Your most affordable and reliable would be to all get your general class amateur radio license and us HF. With proper antennas at all locations and adjusting the frequency used based on the time of day, you would be able to talk directly for 12 to 15 hours per day, with blackout periods during and surrounding mid-day. If it needs to be discreet and it just has to work, get a Garmin InReach Mini 2 or InReach Messenger and a Recreation or Expedition plan for each person.

Okay, I will try to make this as painless as possible. No promises though. Hopefully, if I make a mistake, some of the smarter guys will let us know. High-level Science OffRoaderX is correct, but there is one other reason that is pretty common that comes to mind, specifically for phasing multi-band antennas. Though, this obviously doesn't apply to GMRS specific antennas. Quick example... the Diamond NR770 dual-band mobile antenna is listed as a 1/2 wave VHF antenna and a 2 phase 5/8 wave UHF antenna. There is a coil in the center of the antenna to electrically make a VHF half wave antenna, which has almost no gain. The coil also acts like a separator and a phase coupler(?) for each 5/8 wave segment, being the straight parts below and above the coil, leading to having about 3 dB of gain. Is there a compromise? eh... for GMRS, there is normally a benefit associated with it, such as having a gain antenna in a smaller package. I am not really sure of any drawbacks if it built right. Is performance advantage material dependent? Sort of. Some materials conduct electricity better than others, but the common materials used for antennas have negligible performance differences.

Part of me thinks Reverse Tone Squelch and Tone Lockout would be great features to include in a GMRS radio. Another part of me thinks that the whole KISS principle for the general consumer market is not a bad idea, either.

Some of these response are funny, and true. LOL I wish that people would us plain English on GMRS, but if someone is going to use a scale, they would be more helpful if they said something like I would give you a 3 out of 5 or a 4 out of 5. That is something most people understand. Unless you're a radio dork or was in the military at a very specific time in history, you would have no idea what "Q3" or "Q5" is or what someone means when they say "you're in the pipe 3x5."

@WRYZ926 The MXT500 having low power out of the box was the biggest let down. I had hoped that Midland fixed the issue since then... but I guess not. The only upside is, there is almost zero difference between 35w and 50w, from a real-world use standpoint. You can measure a difference, but likely wouldn't see an extra 10 feet in range.

@nokones great test results. The current draw, voltage and power readings all agree, which is good, as it shows common efficiency, too. BTW, what model repeater is that vertex? I get a kick out of seeing rack mount equipment on a home work bench. My kinda people. LoL

That ship sailed loooong time ago.