marcspaz

That is a very bad idea. Your antenna is at risk on its own, but now you are building a giant lightning rod. Also, its heavy. All of my masts or fiberglass.

True, but getting on the internet talking about how you plan on and/or are breaking the law is the invitation for the "bigger problems" to walk through the door. Maybe that is the real convo to have... hihi

It reads like you are not familiar with how the certification stuff works, but the second you flash the radio to anything but 100% stock... it's certification is null and now a non-compliant radio. In fact, per §95.335, you modifying your radio yourself is also illegal. So, you are actually violating 2 federal rules by modifying and transmitting on a modified, formally certified GMRS radio. There is no such thing as programing it, but keeping it's certification.

I know this has been said before, but why pay twice as much for a Type Approved/Certified radio, just to reprogram it, nullifying the certification, making the radio non-compliant/illegal? I don't endorse it, but if you're going to run an illegal radio, there are way better and more affordable radios out there.

Fantastic... Three new members! Welcome WRJI929, Dusty1 and EMKuhn!

For personal Ham radio and low-budget pro, DX Engineering and Ham Radio Outlet are the two resellers I use the most for miscellaneous supplies. I stay away from the pro/commercial distributors unless I am working a contract for a customer. Commercial distributors typically have really high single item prices or won't sell at all unless you are a reseller buying in bulk. Like, half a tractor trailer, minimum, kind of bulk.

For N type, I like CXP and ABR. There are not a lot of high-end brands, but these mid-range brands are great performers at a fraction of the price. You will get 20 years out of them if you set it up correctly.

The connectors I use are screw on. The bead of solder on the ground is to help prevent the connector from backing or pulling off... not an electrical ground. The screw on type has a full 360 shield with perfect pressure application all the way around. I haven't used a true solder on connector since 1988 or 1989. N type is really the best way to go. Worth the few extra bucks, all day.

I wish I could like a post more than once.

I won't use crimp connectors on soft line. I would buy any major brand silver teflon screw on PL-259 Male UHF connector. HRO, DXE, DAS are all good. They thread over the outer housing. You fold the ground braid down, around the outer housing, screw the connector all the way down, drop a bead of solder on the ground braid through the access hole and solder the tip. Its super strong and you won't have to worry about a poor ground connection. Edit... Most of the time, the layers are thin enough to cook off while soldering, but sometimes you need to use a file to clear some of the silver teflon off a small area for the solder to take.

Are you running hard line or LMR400?

The 205 is a discontinued antenna that has a very narrow bandwidth and has to be tuned to the center frequency you want to use it on. The x300 has almost double the bandwidth without having to tune it. He is probably stuck with old inventory, which is the only reason I can think of that a shop would suggest a discontinued antenna that doesn't perform as well as a no-tune required, current production model.

If I want/need security, I sure as heck won't be on GMRS. LOL. I'm just looking for ways of keeping lazy people from busting chops.

Nothing at all. It's an old, unofficial concept. There was a nationwide group of owners that started something called the Open Repeater Initiative. They decided among themselves that 141.3 would be the universal tone for repeaters that were open to travelers, for safety and general communications needs. The idea was, you could put your radio on repeater pair 462/467.675 (rCh 20), set the tone of 141.3 and just drive wherever you needed to. If there was an OPI repeater near by, you could use it. Over time, OPI died off as a group, but many owners still honor the travel tone concept. Though, on all channels. Not just the original pair.

Sounds like a reasonable question. I just don't know that everyone that is licensed and has a repeater, knows that is the universal travel tone. Especially since the group who started OPI is long gone, there are no published stands and no knowledge base, beyond some operators keeping the tradition and knowledge alive.

I understand where you are coming from. Let me share one of my favorite sayings, believed to be coined by Albert Einstein... Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe. While I don't know that he said it, the statement is still applicable to humans and our capacity to think. LoL It sounds like you're fortunate and have a knack for this stuff. Maybe the others that don't, Google gave them us.

You hit on a lot if good points... most of which are born from new people who have no idea what they are doing and decided they want a repeater. How can you expect a new operator to know not to use the travel tone when they never heard of ORI? Not to bash any new people... I'm glad they come here for help and I love helping, but I lost count of new operators that dont know how to program their own radio to use a repeater. Yet, some of these same people stand up a poor-man repeater 3 weeks later.

Exactly... all of the channels are limited resources with all of us sharing. That is why we use analog tone squelching and digital tone squelching. There are as many as 3 publicly shared repeaters per pair within communications distance of my house, all using different tone squelching. And who knows how many private systems. There are so many other answers beyond intruding on a private owner.

That's crap post. How would you like it if I just showed up at your house, decided to take your car to the grocery store and I didn't ask? Its my property. If you're not allowed to use my radio (repeater), too damn bad. While the frequency is not in use by someone else, talk simplex and don't be a jerk about it.

Split tone may be the way to go. Helps stop radios with tone scanning features from picking up the input tone, too. I have used reverse DCS on portable machines during emergencies, too.

I know this is going to sound strange, but I have had to deal with this several times in the past. Fixing it on their end, psychologically, usually works best. First, never do or say anything on the air that would give the troublemakers an indication that they are impacting you. That is what they want... to know they are trolling you. The next thing to do is to make them think they are having zero affect on you. On repeater systems, We have gotten 3 or 4 people together in a parking lot and all started talking to each other on the mobiles, via the repeater. Even though jammers were jamming the repeater, we can all hear each other directly and just keep talking on the radio, having a full convo. Whenever the jammer lets his/her mic up and hears everyone talking as if nothing is happening, they start to realize that they are not impacting you. Then, they give up and go away. We do that on HF all the time too. We get some knucklehead try to cause interference on frequency, but most of the guys in the club are friends, we we get on the phone and talk over the phone in a conf call and on the radio at the same time. Me and my buddy Danny only live 35 miles apart and both have 1,500 watt stations. When someone tries to interfere with us, we just talk right over them. Using the methods I mention... usually 2 or 3 minutes of not getting the attention they want, and get get bored and go away. Lot easier than calling the FCC, who rarely does anything.

Diamond and Comet are the two top brands I use for both base and mobile communications. You won't go wrong with the Comet 712EFC or the Diamond x300. They are both designed to perform well on the top end of the band. I have the x50 and the x200 and have posted real-world SWR and performance data from my system in the past. The GP-1 doesn't have the gain that the 712 and the x300 do. Its 6db compared to 9db. If you life in an area that doesn't have a lot of tall hills or mountains, I would go with the higher gain antennas.

On the Federal/DOD side, we see things a little differently. They are not always stationary points.

No. On land, they are typically geographical locations that don't change, but not exclusively. EmComm RF network links would be a good example of a land-based fix station that moves. At sea or land/sea/air combinations, the aeronautical or nautical vessels can also be a fixed station inside of a fixed service.

47 C.F.R. § 2.1 states that a fixed station is station in a fixed service. A Fixed Service is a radiocommunication service between specified fixed points, only. An example of a fixed station in a fixed service would be the 2 stations that RF Link 2 repeaters. They only talk to each other from point to point and their designed/intended purpose is to only talk to each other. A base station of which the operator chooses to only talk to another base station is not a fixed station, because by design, it can talk to all other stations and is not in a fixed service.