marcspaz

I wasn't talking about the spring on the antenna. You said you were considering a fold-over mount to lay the antenna down when no in use. I was discussing that, because most of them are spring loaded to control the hinge function. I should have been more clear about what part I was talking about. This whole comment tells me that you don't understand antenna design, what a the wavelength of the frequency is, proper antenna size base on the wavelength and antenna design..... and you shouldn't have to, to buy a radio and antenna to use the radio.... my fault for mentioning it. I should probably just wait for people to ask for an explanation instead of mudding the response.

Im curious... what made you draw that opinion? Nothing I wrote is factually incorrect and is related to you inquiry. Which is part of my confusion about your statement of me. I want to know why you wrote that, so i can correct my replies in the future, that way they can be more well understood. Not only have I seen them, I have also installed several of both models for friends. I also described some drawbacks of spring-loaded fold down mounts (both separate or if built into the antenna). Additionally, due to both antennas having a vertical radome significantly larger than 1 full wavelength on GMRS frequencies, I tried to explain how stacked element antennas are designed (leading to their extreme size for the frequency) and how they work, but in a way to understand the concept without a lot of fundamental knowledge of electronics and antenna propagation and design.

I feel the community at large is welcoming. There are a lot of people i have met that love to share knowledge and experiences. Especially to help new people. I will say that there are several things that happen that can make some individuals seem abrasive. One is a combination of two things, being some folks just don't do well expressing opinions in writing, and others read things that have been written and attribute malice when there was no intent. Both of these cases can lead to misunderstandings and hurt feelings. Another issue is that some people (including myself on occasion) have decades of experience, correct someone who is simply mistaken, and then the thread turns into a shit-show because ego starts to kick in. That said, i feel like those instances are far and few between. I also know for a fact that several members here argue like they hate each other, but are literally friends and spend social time together in person. (This applies to me and a small group here, too) So, not everything here is as it seems. So, generally speaking, I think GMRS operators and the community at large are welcoming and friendly. I would hope money isn't the only reason. I have seen Rich be very forgiving to people on all sides, paid members and free members. That said, if there truly is a problem with someone, paid member or not, I think there should be some grace... but if it's not resolved, definitely let them go after a few attempts.

Again, just my personal opinion, what you used to do for a living has nothing to do with membership value. With the exception of the privilege of saying they are a member, what does the organization bring to the table, that we cannot otherwise get for free somewhere else?

Eh... I do all of this for free for 3 different groups... we have people who volunteer time and I pay for all of our digital footprint. Unlimited storage, unlimited throughput, unlimited email accounts and email storage for $150 per year. Few bucks per registered URL / Domain. I spend more for dinner for my family one night out at a restaurant than for our internet footprint for a year. Having donation options would be one thing, but there is zero chance you're convincing me that you need to collect a membership fee to cover costs, imho

I've mentioned it repeatedly, and in great detail, that the treaty has been amended / replaced with a new treaty that removes the restrictions for our frequencies. Regardless of what is on your previous copies of your license, it is no longer in affect.

I see it's pay-to-play... No thanks. I don't need a Home Owners Association for my radio use. LoL

Are you talking about the VHF stuff?

We should schedule a 0700 breakfast meet up at the County Hospital cafeteria! We need to wear hats with our call signs and or favorite PT t-shirt. LoL

I have two radios that have remote Bluetooth headphone with built-in microphone. As long as I'm inside of a 35 ft bubble, both radios work really well and there's no wiring to do. I can literally just be walking around the house

Same concept as a screwdriver antenna.

That cool! I'll have to take a look later and see what they have.

Im kind of hurt. In one of your videos you said that a forum member mentioned it to you, and I was all excited because I thought you remembered our conversation, but nope! You love Josh more than me. I don't think I can go on. You're not getting your hoodie back...

We can definitely talk farther on low-band due to being able to take advantage of ground wave, sky wave and ducting, but repeaters could be very helpful because those propagation methods are all inconsistent. I tried to use SSB voice on 6m for more than 20 years with terrible luck. When the conditions are right (which isn't often), we are able to talk 20-30 miles... but most of the time, it's RF LOS. The really long distance stuff seems to be happening on FT8 and other weak-signal protocols most of the time, but still dependent on the solar cycle and ducting. To get over the whole handheld issue, I personally would have a crossband repeater in my vehicle, use UHF handheld to my VHF vehicle for full power and range. I do that with Ham radio all the time. I think the biggest challenge to bringing repeaters online will be duplexers. I don't know of any that currently exist. So, until commercial units become available, we are going to have to make them ourselves. Thankfully, the longer the wavelength, the less sensitive the size/length of components would be. Novice builders will have better luck as they start making their own.

This is almost all there is in the amateur community. If people want it, they will spend the money and find a way. Also, I doubt any companies will tool a new radio for low-band GMRS, because most HF amateur radios already transmit on all of these frequencies. I guarantee you, if the market opens, damn near every HF amateur radio manufacturer will spend the very few dollars needed to have their engineers write new code to limit existing radios to the low-band GMRS specs. The duplexers are pretty big... about 86" tall. However, the bigger they get, the easier it is for a DIYer to make one.

I would say it was a good investment if you need or want inexpensive and reliable short range comms. You can 100% use your radio as you would like, but may need to do things like use Tone squelch to stop hearing unwanted traffic and/or timing use between active conversations or the higher frequencies, which is common/best practice anyway. The congregation will make it a bit more cumbersome to accomplish, but still usable. Adding a repeater that would be usable would be way more complex to accomplish.

Mike already identified many frequencies that are in unused sections of spectrum with zero active licenses nor tech that would use the space. So, there is no one nor any company with valid grounds (standing) to contest the reallocation of the frequencies.

Someone can't force you to stop transmitting on a specific frequency and using a specific tone. You have every right to use the frequencies as the repeater owners do. The only thing they can do is either change tones, move to a different frequency, or turn the repeater off when they aren't using it. I have been down that path with the FCC and civilly with an attorney. So, I leave my repeaters off when I am not using them due to an unwelcome user.

That was probably Jack. He has that effect on people. LoL I was with him in the beginning of the project. It was his idea. Mike is the one with the experience. So Mike is driving the proposal. Jack is a nice kid and has good intentions, but he is very abrasive (can't accept being wrong) so it makes it hard to get along with him. Sadly, while I like him, he is the #1 reason I dropped out of the project. Agreed. There is no one solution. Personally, I like the idea because it has potential to do some good for Joe Q. Homeowner who doesn't need an experimental or business class radio license. However, Amateur Radio 80m through 70cm, combined with Satellite and Cellular is the closest thing we can get to having a complete tool kit. I'm pretty sure that is not correct. Everything I can find says that Amateur Radio is the primary assigned service, and the military and other federal agencies are authorized to utilize the 50-54 MHz band in the United States as a secondary or non-interference basis to amateur operations. If there is something different, I would love to see if you can share it with us... I can't find anything. https://www.ntia.gov/files/ntia/Spectrum_Use_Summary_Master-06212010.pdf#:~:text=The military agencies operate radio communication systems,in this band on a non-interference basis. https://www.ntia.gov/sites/default/files/2023-11/4_2021_edition_rev_2023.pdf

@OffRoaderX I doubt it's going to happen, too. But, I do still support it.

In my entire life, on any frequency, that has absolutely never been the case. From a scientific standpoint, it also doesn't make sense. The signal can travel the same distance, but you need more receive sensitivity (less noise) in order for the demodulator to extract the audio from the signal, compared to AM only needing peak amplitude above the noise floor.

The point is to expand beyond short-range local comms, particularly for emergencies. 300w repeater systems would definitely help a lot in areas like what we are in here in the DC Metro area, the northern Mid-Atlantic and northeastern US. There was one 10m repeater that was at 100w that covered a huge amount of the area, but it's been off the air for years and GMRS isn't getting the job done for many families and EMCOMM volunteers. I support it and comfortably put it in the category of you don't have to use it if you don't want to. It certainly doesn't hurt anyone or the service to provide extra frequencies. Shoot... the biggest complaint I see/hear is that there are so few channels and the space is crowded in metro areas. Why not support it if it will reallocate unused frequencies and give users more options? (That was rhetorical, of course)

As some of you know, my friend Mike submitted a petition for rule making to the FCC to expand GMRS into some low-band frequencies. Ham Radio 2.0 covered an article about it and does a good job explaining the basics...

I have an AM/FM CB. Had one for years. I've never heard a single random station on FM. I have two friends who also have one. They are the only reason I know the FM part of the radio works. Most of the time, we end up on SSB so we can use the 12w output, but AM is pretty much king. And that is only when we are in metro areas during the work day. The rest of the time, CB is dead.

I 100% agree. The rules are no where near in line with the times and tech of today. If I am paying for a data connection, the ISP really doesn't care what I put over the connection. Otherwise millions of people would be getting fined and sued for using apps like Skype, WebEx, Teams and free internet phone apps from companies like Google. Think about when the internet was young and we had dial-up. We had SpeakFreely in '91, and VocalTec. No one was accused of theft of service then, either.