marcspaz

Horrible idea. The antenna needs to be at least 35 feet off the ground. A log home will cause interference, almost as if the antenna is on the ground. I wold guess you likely will not be very interested in the expense of building a sturdy 35 foot mast on the roof of the house, unless it's your only option. I would also be very, very concerned about radiation exposure for people and other living animals in the house. You could make yourself and others fatally ill. Are you going to run it as a horizontal or inverted V? For an inverted V, the ends of the wire should be about 10 feet off the ground and the ideal angle is 45 degrees off the center vertical axis, for a total of 90 degrees between the elements.

Any UHF amplifier that covers up to 470 MHz should be fine. However, there are some really big warnings I have about using an amplifier. First, on the 462 MHz and 467 MHz main channels, 50 watts is the legal limit for mobiles, repeaters and base stations. Fixed stations are limited to 15 watts. (A Fixed station is defined as a station at a fixed location that directly communicates with other fixed stations only.) Second, on the 462 MHz interstitial channels (the channels between the main channels) stations are limited to an effective radiated power (ERP) of 5 watts, witch means the final power amplifier (PA) will likely need to have much less than 5 watts of output power. This applies to mobiles, hand-helds, portables and base stations. Then, to make things even more complicated, on the 467 MHz interstitial channels, stations are limited to an effective radiated power (ERP) of 0.5 watts, witch means the PA will likely need to have much less than 0.5 watts of output power. So, be very careful on what frequencies you opt to use an amp on. Frankly, I wouldn't spend the money, I would just get a new radio. Quality UHF amplifiers are much more expensive than a radio that runs up to 50 watts.

That seems to be an excessive amount of RFI. I run 1500 watts and high-gain antennas on UHF, VHF and HF at home and there is no RF interference with anything in my house. Along with a bad connector on the cable lines, as mentioned above, there could be an improperly installed connector on the radio's antenna transmission line on the radio or antenna side. I would ground the cable box, cable coax connectors, the radio, antenna transmission line on both ends, and be sure the antenna and mast are properly grounded. May end up being a junk cable, though.

There are a ton of encoders and decoders out there, but if another operator is free-handing it and is not transmitting in a consistent speed, they fail to copy correctly. Yes old-timers and people who took the time to learn will give you grief. But many of those same people will brag about all of their unattended, automatic FT8 contacts to Japan when they were sleeping. So I wouldn't sweat it. There really is no way of gauging how many people use automatic tools, but I'm willing to say it's a lot. Especially since many HF radios made in the last 20 years have memory slots for pre-programmed words and phrases that are used often.

I should call it high sped escort? LOL About to speedily escort? haha I'm lost.

It does a lot that I need. The light controller makes it so I don't have to cut-up and mount stuff on a new vehicle, plus I get to retune for tires, gears, etc once I get the lift kit on. There are some other nice things, like disabling the auto start/stop (which drives me crazy) enabling lockers in 2-wheel drive, etc. The price is high, but in scope for a tuner. Since I don't need to flash the ECM and never will, I figured I was good. Thanks! Lindsay is a motor-head, a Ham, and into most of the hobbies I am. So that helps a lot! LOL

All of the mobiles are gone. I have two Ham Radio handhelds that seem to work OK. So, my son and I use them when we go 4-wheeling while out of the trucks. If one of us mistakenly drops an HT in the mud or on some rocks, better dropping a $35 is better than dropping a $300+ high-quality HT.

This is a demo of some custom and built-in emergency light patterns in the Tazer JL Mini, as installed on a Jeep Gladiator. There are 15 different combinations, depending on if the engine is on, the headlights are on, or if the engine and headlights are off. I am an amateur radio operator and I am a volunteer emergency staffer with Amateur Radio Emergency services, serving Prince William County Government, and other government agencies. Current Virginia law allows amateur radio operators to have and use safety strobes on their vehicles while both stopped on public roads, as well as in motion, depending on the service being provided. Regardless of if you are in Virginia or another state, consult an attorney and your served agencies, to be sure you adhere to the laws in your state and rules of your served agency. This information is for demonstration purposes only and should not be misconstrued as legal advice. Strictly use at your own risk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzFgfHXkLIA

Roger, Roger! LOL

Nice review! I would stay away from VHF while using it. 3:1 is almost guaranteed damage to your radio and that is pretty close.

hahahaha!!! Remote SETI team!

LOL They are mad that my 1984 pickup is in the circle. Plus, within minutes of putting it up, I was asked by one of my neighbors how long the eyesore (portable) was going to be in my driveway for. I can imagine how they would respond to a nice parabolic or steep take-off beam on a single axle trailer out in the middle of the circle. hahaha

Oh yea... not surprising. I lose downlink connections if it rains or cloud cover gets really heavy. Got tired of fighting it and decided to stick to local comms (except for the ISS on rare occasions).

Unless you have an antenna that doesn't require an external ground plane, you have no choice. Generally speaking, foliage will always absorb some RF energy. However unless you are trying to communicate through dense vegetation, it should still work fine. One of my antennas are in the woods behind my house, below the tree line, and I get great performance out of it.

It's slim pickins for new, Part 95 hardware. There is a bunch of grandfathered hardware out there, though.

Wow. That's a serious enthusiast, right there.

The easiest way to ID a gen 1, without calling Midland, is the mic. If it seems like an odd gloss black with a loop instead of a button, and it was new in a sealed box, it's a gen 1. For some reason they used poor quality plastic for the gen 1 microphone. When they did the gen 2 updates, they used better materials for the case of the mic and switched to a button hanger instead of the loop.

Kaz... the Baofeng 9500 is not an MXT400. It is a cheap cosmetic knock-off UHF amateur radio. Outside of looking similar, they are unrelated.

I'll PM a link to you.

I'm glad the info helps, but what do you mean by a 20m fan dipole? I ask, because normally a fan dipole is setup for multiple bands, with several sets of radiating elements that are fanned out from each other. I would think a half wave folded dipole would work well for you, space wise. It would be about 16.4'. They tend to be a bit more directional, however.

Normally I would think so too, but they are so thin that you can't see them until you're a few feet away. The Diamonds are fiberglass and painted white, so they are a little more visible. You can see those once you're in the driveway.

Okay... here are the X50a readings. They are pretty good considering the antenna was designed as an amateur radio repeater antenna. In the 462 range. http://fiveguysracing.com/marc/HAM-GMRS/x50a_on_GMRS/x50a_GMRS_Simplex_SWR.jpg In the 467 range. http://fiveguysracing.com/marc/HAM-GMRS/x50a_on_GMRS/x50a_GMRS_Repeater_SWR.jpg

You may indeed have a bad mic. I would have to hear it... but the radio did have decent audio quality when I used it.

I have an x50a on the roof. I'll put the analyzer on it and let you know.

The gen one MXT400 stinks. The gen two works fine...but no split tons support. Most repeaters have a tail...yes.