marcspaz

Agreed that the best way (only true accurate way) is on a resistive dummy load. I shot the video on my antenna out of laziness and not wanting to go back upstairs. I had a maximum of 2 watts discrepancy between the dummy load and the antenna. That is fine at these very low power levels and for the sake of displaying the point I was making.

Two things. One is that Midland has confirmed that some early release radio's have less than the advertised wattage. I measured as little as 32 watts on some frequencies, with a max of 38 watts on a 50 ohm load. My assumption is, accept the power level its at or ask Midland if you can send it back to get an alignment and tune-up done. I had to provide a significant amount of proof to Midland before they agreed. They may expect the same from others. The other is, it sounds like the the Ghost antenna isn't very good quality. I would ditch it for a better antenna. If the SWR is increasing because the load is going down (i.e. 25 ohms instead of 50), the RF voltage stays the same, but the current increases. The formula for calculating wattage is Voltage x Current = Watts. The problem is, you are not radiating more power in the form of RF signal into the atmosphere, you are just creating more heat and risking the radio being damaged.

No doubt. There is (or at least used to be) only about 5 foot of elevation change between the water line at high tide and the high spot on the sandbar. With zero shelter, 6 foot swells would have put the sandbar underwater and us in a dead-stick boat out in the Gulf of Mexico. There is very little chance we would have survived that.

I used to have a small boat that was big enough to go out into the Gulf on calm days. I took some friends out to a desert sandbar to party... most of them had there own boats. After partying all night, everyone split and left a huge mess on the sandbar. I stayed behind until morning and cleaned the place up. Two friends stayed with me and were going to ride back with me. Well, when we were done, my boat would start, but it would only idle. When I tried to put it under power, it would chatter really bad and sputter out. My friends and I where now stuck on a sandbar about 3 acres long and 1 wide, 20 miles out in the gulf. We had no clothes but the bathing suites we were wearing. No food, no water, no shelter, no clothes... just leftover booze and firewood. We were trying to call someone on marine radio for 2 days. Finally, some random dude who was out fishing heard my call and came to our coordinates. He was so hammered he could barely talk. He refused to tow us back and refused to give us a ride back. Being that he was the only person to respond to us in 2 days, I asked if he knew how to fix engines. He said yes and asked for $100 to look at it. I told the guy (again, was very drunk) that I didn't have any cash, just a few bottles of Rum and Vodka. So, he took the booze on trade and got my engine working long enough for us to get into the bay and idle back to my house. We were all very sick from dehydration and really bad sun poisoning. If it wasn't for the radio, the 3 of us would have died out on that sandbar. This is the very reason I switched to HF for emergency communications. We could have had help in minutes instead of days.

Fantastic Thread! I am looking forward to seeing the responses. I have real-world experience with an emergency situation that radio saved lives... but not in GMRS. It should be interesting to see who has had some experience.

@gortex2 Unfortunately, what you are saying about the Hams is all too common. I have seen some crap installs, gear not fired up and tested for 5 years or more, no one showing up for training. When they do show up, they will gab all day on the radio, but get mic shy when it comes to moving voice traffic. Almost none of them know how to align the parabolic antennas for the WLAN and even if they did, they wouldn't know how to troubleshoot if they don't link. Almost no packet/data experience at all. It's a struggle to get them to complete the headers on IC213 and IC214 forms correctly and use them. I am not going to name names, but I am part of 2 ARES/RACES groups. One of them exemplifies everything a well run ARES/RACES team should look like. The other team has 6 active members of which 3 are the EC and 2 AEC's. By active, I mean, show up twice a year for training. If I don't put a training session together, training for that group just doesn't happen, and I'm not the one who is supposed to be training people for that group. I pray the served agencies never call this second group, because they can't do anything. Myself and one other operator have amazing portable stations that can provide any service. I don't trust the gear in place at the served locations, nor does the other Ham... we both agree that if they ever call us, we are bringing our own gear and hoping the neighboring team can provide additional support before one or both of us pass out from exhaustion.

An external antenna will always be an improvement. For a time, I put a mag mount on the roof of my truck and with 5 watts, I was able to hit repeater 30+ miles away with good input. Some picket fencing when driving, but it worked well.

@DonErle Mine is at 6 amps... The radio has a 55% efficiency rating (which is really good, BTW). At 8 amps, as mentioned by the rep above, that would put us right at 50w at 13.5vdc. Overall, the power being down a little is not a big deal to me. I am happy Midland is willing to address it.

So far, I am very happy with this radio. Everything is consistent and working very well. Power output is stable over prolonged use and I am getting good audio reports. With regard to my concerns over the power output, I got this email from Midland today. I am extremely happy they are acknowledging this finding and taking care of it for me.

Good feedback. I appreciate you sharing. I'm on my phone right now, but when I get back to my desk, I have a very interesting update on the power situation with my radio.

Summer this year.

@WRKC935 true story about many new Ham and the ARRL. But the new Hams need guidance, which is where we come in as elmers. While it's all anecdotal, my experience is a little different than yours on the EmComm side. I am an engineer by trade and work for several government agencies as a consultant. I have been around long enough to notice cycles in the EmComm world. What I have seen is, some major "thing" happens and only Hams and DOD are talking to anyone. They incorporate Ham volunteers into the response plans. Nothing crazy happens for a decade while everyone tries to figure out how to replace the old, overweight or disabled Amateur volunteers (because young people just aren't stepping up). They build their new technology on the same single point of failure instead of learning from the Hams. Another "thing" happens and then they are activating RACES again because none of their stuff is working. The whole thing is pretty funny. We actually did a drill last year involving a Code Black, including internet outage. The higher ups wanted to see how we could move data from one location to another (several states apart). They were calling on digital radio trying to get my team to do stuff and we flat out ignored them. Our EC called and said "why aren't you answering the calls on the radio?" Of which he promptly got a reply of "What calls? The internet is down, remember?"

Not trying to derail the topic too much, but this is a huge pain point for me. Amateur radio is not a "hobby". There are hobby aspects to it, 100%, just like there are hobby aspects of GMRS and FRS. However, its really intended for non-commercial exchange of messages, experimentation, private recreation and emergency communication. It has origins dating back to the 1800's and the birth of radio as we know it. There are huge amounts of technology that exist due to amateur radio, such as microphones and even cell phones. In fact, the antenna type used in every smartphone in the world was invented by an amateur radio operator that is still very active in Ham radio. Just a little something to think about.

Honestly, I'm not surprised. An HT inside a car is a low performance radio (generally speaking) inside a big metal RF trap filled with RFI generating electronics. Even if you had an external antenna, unless there are some repeaters in your path with good elevation, I would expect your range to be less than a mile. If you were driving alone, I know how boring it can get. Unfortunately the radio choice in this case wasn't the best option if you were looking for company. When I travel alone, I usually use 20m and 40m. You can find operators day or night.

Along with the power issues Micheal mentioned (causing damage by have the two antennas close), there is a chance you are building a two element vertical UHF beam and don't even realize it. A full wave length of a GMRS signal is about 2 feet (61cm). If the antennas are 2 feet apart or any correct segment of wave pattern within a couple of wavelengths, the passive vertical will act like a reflector and the slim jim will act like a driver... essentially creating a focused beam that hears better for a pattern 40 to 60 degrees forward and creates nulls (where you can't hear as well if at all) of about 40 to 60 degrees behind it. So yeah, combine the possibility that you are fringe of the repeater making placement critical and you may have accidentally built a beam making it so it can't hear in the direction of the repeater, the terrain may be an issue and you are looking at almost 10 dB of line loss per hundred feet with both the LMR195 and the RG58, I'd say you need to make some changes. Find a sweet spot on the roof using an HT (as mentioned above), ditch the PVC for fiberglass or wood, get 1 piece of LMR400 or better hooked up... you may make it work.

@MichaelLAX the weather, specifically lightning, is extremely predictable in the Mid-Atlantic. We don't get random storms and NOAA/NWS does such a good job that they are typically correct within 30 minutes as to when the weather is going to start. Even during the peak of the season, we go weeks without rain/lightning. So it's pretty easy to disconnect when a storm is forecast. If I am going out of town, like to Florida or New England, I disconnect before I go. I don't have any base station equipment in Florida. 23 years in this house and never lost a radio or amplifier. I did lose 2 antennas to lightning strikes, but even with proper grounds and lightning suppression, the antenna is getting taken out on a hit.

Unfortunately, grounding an antenna system is a lot more technically involved than many think. If you don't do it correctly and ace the proper protections in the right location(s), the only thing you accomplish is increase your odds of a direct or indirect lightning strike. I do EmComm for the local government as a volunteer and my home is a radio relay station. None of my antenna systems are grounded. If we are experiencing lightning, my antenna cables are disconnected outside the house and if I need to act as a radio relay during lightning, I switch to mobile/portable operations, which has a significantly lower risk. My recommendation would be to use a professional grounding guide or one from ARRL and follow it to a T... hire a professional antenna installer and electrician to do it for you, or disconnect the coax and toss the cable on the ground until the weather passes.

The Comet antenna should be good to 470 MHz. Have you tried using the Comet? Also, as mentioned above, some more info can help us help you. What cable type and connectors are you using? How long is the cable run and is it all one piece? How many watts of output are at the radio? Did you test the antenna before you put it on the roof? Depending on how long the cable is, you can get a false SWR reading at the radio... have you tested the SWR of the antenna? Two issues I see right off the bat, those two antennas are too close to one another for a few reasons. Also, PVC acts like a dielectric insulation, so we don't use PVC to hang antennas because it can change the frequency response of the antenna. The PVC at the top and bottom of the antenna, as well as along the side may be causing issues. I would recommend fiberglass rods, wood, or use an antenna analyzer to verify and set the antenna length to account for the capacitance created in the loop, introduced by the PVC. I would be least likely to do the last option I listed because you will still be susceptible to drastic SWR changes with wet weather.

@gortex2 I have a meter that I spent about $700 for that measures line loss. It's been pretty good to me so far. LOL

This is a great video of physicist, Dr. Greg Latta, explaining what exactly SWR is and how it impacts your radio. At an hour, it is a little slow, but very much worth the watch if you want to learn exactly what is happening.

@wayoverthere I had the same problem with three BTECH radios back to back within 2 weeks, with the third one completely going Tango Uniform within the first 5 minutes. I gave up on all of their mobiles.

Yes, I tested on a Vectronics DL650. It's rated for 1 MHz to 650 MHz at 1,500 watts. Also, I tested "real-world" on my Diamond X300 repeater antenna. My analyzer shows it has a 1.1:1 SWR at 462.5 MHz and if you watch the Diamond cross needle meter in the video I shared, you will see that under a load in the 462 MHz range, the SWR needle doesn't budge. So, the systems ALC isn't pulling power. Good questions to ask, for sure. EDIT: I forgot to add, some people mentioned being interested in seeing the meter/etc. during testing, but I had already broken down everything in the office/shack and moved to my R&R desk in the basement. Since I didn't feel like going back upstairs, setting everything up again and breaking out the camcorder, I just hooked it up to my amateur repeater antenna and power supply and shot the video using my webcam on the PC. So the recorded test is on a live antenna and with the Diamond watt meter... but the better test with the good equipment was not recorded. There was a 1 watt difference on the 462 MHz frequencies and a 2 watt difference on the 467 MHz frequencies, between the dummy load and the antenna. I figure that is close enough to present the concerns.

The numbers were almost identical. It showed a little more power on the antenna (+ 2w), which doesn't surprise me. As the load varies slightly, you can expect measured forward power to move a bit.

Michael, that is fantastic and exactly what I would expect! Thank you so much for taking the time to perform this test. It is very much appreciated and helps confirm my data.

I highly doubt that is going to happen. I need a weather resistant radio for offroading with no roof and doors on my Jeep. I have been pulling my mobiles and using cheap HT's for my trips and its getting old.