marcspaz

That's great to hear! That is exactly the type of first step I would take. For what its worth, if a 10 or 20 foot pole mast will do the trick for everywhere you want to cover from a ridge line, a 100ah battery and a complete 120 watt solar system will cost about $550. If you can save the money on a tower and get permission for land use, you may be able to get coverage for around $3500-$4000 and run the system automatic/remote indefinitely. Good luck. I wasn't too optimistic at first, but I am getting excite and rooting for you!

As I mentioned, elevation is your friend. Be it a repeater or a simplex radio, the higher the antenna is, the more distance you are going to cover. As I look at the topo maps, there is a bit of a problem in your area. You have a lot of terrain deviation in a very sort distance. From the center of town, due to all the terrain obstructions, you would need a 200 foot tall tower for 5 miles of unobstructed radio path (10 mile radius) sort of. You are 100% SOL heading west. You would need the antenna to be a half mile in the air to get over the hills, down into the valley on the west side. Your only real solution would be to actually put a repeater up around 36.930917 -80.626221, running off 100% solar power, with an antenna on a 100 foot mast. Just a quick look, that would likely cover a 20+ mile radius. Though I would hike or drive up there with some mobiles or portables and do a ground level test, before I spend any money. A 100 foot tower that can take 90+ mph winds will cost you $13,000+, not including installation.

Shots fired! Haha

Welcome! Glad you made it over. Yes, in rough/steep terrain, most radio services have some issues. GMRS is a line of sight service, meaning the more stuff is blocking the path the the other station, the worse the performance will be. Elevation is your friend.

Howdy... You want to discuss the pro's and con's of what, exactly? What are you trying to accomplish? Also, a common thread among folks that are new to GMRS is wanting to install a repeater. There is significant cost and skill required to do it properly and with proper equipment. I wouldn't go down that path unless you have those skills or pockets deep enough to hire someone who does.

I don't mind being called out. I grew up on tuna. Couldn't afford that and the burrito. LOL That said, people don't have to have $5k in electronics in their vehicle. Affordable tech, installed correctly, can perform just as well. If someone can only afford or fit one, they should get what they like the most and will use the most, and just accept the short-comings and the fact that nothing is perfect. EDIT: I forgot to mention earlier. If you are going to run a CB... use Single Side Band. AM and FM are restricted to 4 watts. SSB is limited to 12.5 watts, is way more efficient and the signal travels way further. Much better mode.

I am bidding on a job right now. The customer is asking for a radio network to cover a huge campus with a 10 mile radius from the main site. They specifically asked for CB radio for several base stations and more than a dozen mobile units. We did a radio path evaluation and a live site survey to show them why CB was a bad choice for their area. We covered the entire campus with 2 watts on commercial UHF mobile radios, with no less than 5/5 signal reports. We also covered the main facility of 1,000+ acres with 1 watt on UHF handheld radios, with no less than a 59 signal report. All the same tests with CB radio, we had signals as low as 3/2 across the main facility and 100% signal loss after 1.5 miles from that location. CB can be fantastic in some cases, where UHF failed. This is mostly noticed in areas with low parasitic noise levels, such as out in the country and rural areas. On more than a few occasions, I lost my UHF connection to someone after 2.5 miles, but could reach them for 25+ miles on the CB. Because there is no such thing as a perfect, Jack of all radios, I end up with 3 radios in my truck... Ham, GMRS and CB.

HAHAHA! Pick a channel, I point the beam that way!

Whoever told you that has no idea what they are talking about. I have had 3 different radios running in my Jeep at the same time, with varying power from 4 to 500 watts, and with zero issues. If you have moderate quality equipment or better, unless the antennas are a foot apart (for example) you should have no problems. And if you do, just leave one off while you use the other. No need for anything else. I know the FCC really isn't enforcing power limits on CB radio anymore, but I wouldn't get on the internet and admitting in writing that you are violating rules. I literally LOL'ed.

I'm tracking you now. I have to ask though, what is more common than the NATO phonetic alphabet (which is the 'official' phonetic alphabet used by amateur radio operators)? That is used in over 180 countries, including non-English speaking countries, when interacting with European, American, and other NATO forces. I have to say, I talk to people around the world on HF daily and very rarely hear amateurs use the NATO phonetic alphabet unless formal traffic is moving. The rest of the time, I hear some pretty wild and funny stuff that breaks the mold. I wonder if its just the area you are in and/or the people you have had experience with? I have to say, some people do take themselves too seriously. It's really just a hobby for a vast majority of people. There is no need for folks to make you or anyone else feel that way.

I have to disagree with you entirely on this. The phonetic alphabet is used in many service, such as law enforcement, emergency medical, DOD, etc. Additionally, its not useless. Even under the best of audio clarity and strongest signal strength, many letters sound the same, such as c and d, y and I, m and n, and so on. When you have a critical message and/accuracy of spoken letters matter, the phonetic alphabet is an extremely useful tool. Taking those letters that sound the same and trying to distinguish them when the signal to noise ratio is 0.2:1, and it becomes even more useful.

I am pretty sure that on Saturday I am going to be on Flagpole Knob in the George Washington National Forest. Anyone around the Harrisonburg area between 60 and 100 miles away from Flagpole Knob and interested in seeing what 4,300 feet of elevation can do for simplex range? Last time I was up there, I talked to someone who was 161 miles away on 2 meter ham radio with only 50 watts. This time, I want to see how 35-40 watts on GMRS does. Should be fun.

I would not move a radio or radio parts back and forth between the vehicle and home very often. There is a limit on how long spring strength for connections holds out for, based on total number of times the spring is flexed. You will end up wearing out cables, cords and connectors pretty quickly. Do yourself a favor and get a dedicated radio for the house. As far as antennas go, a beam would be nice... but maybe pricey. There are companies that make screw-on ground radial kits so you could use a cheap mobile omnidirectional antenna. 2.5 miles through heavy woods should not be a problem. Yesterday I was talking simplex with my son, mobile to mobile, covering 8 miles of hills and woods with only 2 watts. There was a max of 100 feet in elevation change. Unless you have a ton of RFI, you should be fine.

Short of profanity, you can do just about anything you want. Many people use their call sign with a custom suffix, as noted above. If my son is expecting to hear from me, I just get on the radio and call him by name. "Hey Nick, are you there?" On the repeater, you might get a response from the wrong Nick. So, appending call signs work great, since it ID's a specific group of licensed stations. So I would say something like "<call sign> mobile 2, this is <call sign> mobile 1, do you copy?*

I have a buddy who come to VA to play on the rocks, who drives up from Goose Creek. Make a weekend of it and go to Chaos or The Cove. Or, Rausch Creek is just 3 hours further, in PA.

Looks great!

$150 for the one I have. You take them in to get them re-sharpened. The diamond belts are very cool... couldn't get a sharper edge if you tried. And it's fun to watch them do it.

I thought you already changed the cable? Yes, quality cables will make a dramatic improvement. As far as the power reading being low on ch 1... it could be a meter accuracy issue. Most power meters are the most accurate in the upper 1/3rd of the scale.

Am I the only one who goes full-send with a diamond-edge titanium step bit, a 30 year-old Craftsman variable speed drill and some cutting oil?

I had put 6 chokes on the harness and it made zero difference. The antenna was literally less than 2 inches away from the defroster. Nothing helped but removing the element from the wiring harness. Later, I added antennas up front, which gave me options... but when I wanted to use my 102" or 114" antennas for HF, I had to use the mount in the back, because the hood mounts couldn't hold the weight. It wasn't much of a hassle to just unplug and reconnect as needed, so I just kept doing that.

You can bury all ground radials. They work better under ground a couple/few inches. It helps improve ground performance by increasing the radiation pattern (more surface area in direct contact with the earth) and it gets the leads away from lawn and turf surface care. The biggest benefit is it reduces the noise floor from electricity and electronic devices nearby.

1.) You should have about 7 to 8 inches of reflective surface in all directions.... about 14 to 16 inches in diameter. So, I would move it back more. 2.) Yes and no. If you have high quality cable, looping it should not impact performance or SWR in any way. Even if you have poor performing cable, the chances of you creating just the right size coil to create performance problems is fairly low. However, not impossible. 3.) I think you mean SWR and Reflectance. Line loss is always measured as a positive DB and the smaller the number the better. Line loss describes loss in the length of line, loss in connectors, etc. So, lets say you insert X amount of power... a line loss of 0.3 db is better than a line loss of 0.5 db. Now, Reflectance, which measures the amount of back reflection created by a reflective event (i.e., high SWR) compared to the amount of power injected. It is the inverse of return loss. Reflectance is always a negative number and the lower the number the better. So a reflectance value of -30 db is better than -15 db, for example. Collectively, line loss and reflectance determine how much energy radiates out of the antenna and how much is reflected back to the radio. Based on what the VNA shows, you are only losing about a 10th of a watt. A moderate gain antenna will more than make up for it.

I did experience a massive problem with any RF transmitter if the antenna was mounted on the swing gate. Every time I keyed up, my dash would do a hard reboot, my windshield wipers would turn on and my climate control would turn off for a quick second. The problem was that I ran dual tops. When the soft top was on, I had no issues. However, when the hard top was on, the antenna was so close to the back window that is would send a ton of RFI into the Jeep through the rear window defogger and rear windshield wiper assembly. My solution was to leave the back window electronics completely unplugged unless it was snowing or we had very heavy rain, and not use that radio when they were plugged in. Any radios that went through antennas mounted on the hood were fine. When the hard top was off, it was fine. I ran 180 watt amp most days... occasionally up to 500 watts.

I would have to check my notes about the JK. I won't run a radio if I have anything higher than a 1.5:1. On the Gladiator, it floats between 1.1 and 1.2 depending on weather. It was somewhat directional. On the blind side, off the back, the simplex range was just less than if I am driving toward the other station. The SWR was fine and I could work repeaters 20+ miles away with no issues. It's my go-to antenna when I'm going 4-wheeling.

Wrap the cable box in foil and make sure the foil is wrapped tight, touching the ground leads on the cables. See if making a local Faraday cage changes anything. If you have a meter to test with, add a wire or alligator clip from the foil to the electrical ground on an outlet (normally the screw to hold the face plate on is grounded for safety). Don't put anything in the outlet though... bad stuff will happen.