marcspaz

Kenwood and Moto are good... but Vertex Standard? On their own, under Moto or Yaesu, I was never a fan. I still have one of their tuners and its better at creating RFI than a proper LC network. LOL He is using a Midland mobile mag mount antenna in the house. Regardless of the radio in use, I am fairly confident the lack of a proper antenna is an issue.

The X50a is pre-tuned. There is nothing to adjust. For me it just worked well for GMRS as well as 2m and 440. The CR8900's are mobile... which I did tune manually. I would avoid trying to use them at home, though.

I have no idea how, but I have talked to a couple of people using the Midland 6db gain antennas on the mag mount, stuck to cookie sheets and they sound great. I have never gotten that to work with any service. I am using Comet and Diamond antennas for most of my mobiles. I only have one Midland antenna left, and its going bye-bye very soon. While the midland antenna seems to work okay for me RF performance wise, after less than a year, 2 of the 3 I have broke mechanically. One, the bottom section snapped off, requiring the antenna to be re-soldered and glued back together (ended up in the trash later anyway). A second one, the center loading coil broke in half and the top section of the antenna disappeared while cruising down the highway. The last one I have left has only seen about 2,000 miles in the wind and it looks like a boomerang. The metal whip sections are not standing up to highway speed winds. So, yea... they are junk.

Grounding rods are typically 6 feet deep and copper. For proper protection, you would want to ground the mast and the cable at the mast side, and as close to the radio as possible, with the ground wire being as short as possible. Use clamps for everything; don't solder. Lightning will melt solder joints. During times of the year when lightning occurs in any given operating area, most people disconnect the cables when the radio is not in service. Proper grounding still doesn't fully arrest direct or near-direct strikes. As far as antennas go, if you are looking at 2m/70cm/GMRS specifically, I have a Diamond X50a on my house. It has a 1.8:1 SWR on 462 MHz and a 1.6:1 SWR in 467 MHz. Those are your baseline frequencies for GMRS simplex and repeaters (respectively). Those are about $100 each. There is another Diamond that could work... but I have zero experience with it and I don't know anyone who has used one. Keep in mind, multipurpose tools like an all-bander antenna will work, but there will be a compromise on performance compared to dedicated antennas. That said, there is a Diamond Super Discone (like the D130J) that are somewhat of an all-bander antenna, for about $100 each. For the D130J, specifically, on VHF and UHF its rated for 200 watts. Below 144MHz, its only rated for 20 watts on FM and 50 watts on SSB. You would want to either buy or borrow and antenna analyzer to dial it in. Also, order some quality coax cable.

Ah... I see what you are saying. Hmmm. So that distance shouldn't be too bad with a shade more height on his end. If mom is willing to have the antenna higher than the rooflines, then you should be good. On the SWR side, there are some antennas that might be close. While high SWR means loss of radiated power... if you stay below 3:1, in theory nothing should break. I had run 180 watts pep on a setup that was 2.4:1 for 2 years, before I fixed the HF antenna. If you are going to throw the dice, try to find something that will be 2:1 or better. Companies like Diamond offer antennas that are mostly fixed, with a small adjustable whip section. You can buy a base antenna and two adjustable whips. Cut one to GMRS and the other to Ham 440 band. Then you can just swap the inexpensive whip around depending on the service you want to use. I haven't tried it at home, but I use that MO on my CR8900 on the Jeep. It works pretty well.

Sorry... I misspoke. I do realize that you have stated what your objectives are. I guess I didn't understand why you are trying to get a multi-service beam or vertical. After re-reading, if you are trying to get the most value per dollar, that makes sense. Unfortunately, however, it doesn't work to our benefit very often. Most multi-function devices accommodate convenience at the detriment of performance. The map you shared is showing about 70 miles from point to point. That is the very edge for 50 watts on a vertical. Hopefully setting the antennas higher will do the trick. Good luck with the Amateur radio test. It opens up a whole new real of possibilities.

Sorry to hear that. I'm not sure what your goals are, but I have been a Ham for close to 18 years and GMRS is a fantastic service that I use regularly. The thing about radio service is to use the proper service for the comms you are trying to have.

Omni's fall into a similar issue. While there are some dual-band 2m/70cm vertical antennas that cover from 440-470 MHz, the gain is very low. As gain increases, the bandwidth narrows and so does the takeoff angle, impacting sensitivity between stations with elevation difference. So, if you have the expendable income, you can test it. However, don't be surprised if the lower gain of a broad band antenna doesn't help much. I have to agree with RCM on getting two service-dedicated Larsen welded Yagis. That's going to be your best bet, relating to both performance and price.

Most UHF beams only have 15MHz to 20MHz of bandwidth they are usable for. You are not likely to find one that is going to cover 50MHz unless all of the elements and spacing are tunable (which I have never seen). That's more than double the typical bandwidth coverage.

Everyone in your immediate family would all use the same call sign. You all have to ID with the call sign every 15 minutes of conversation and at the end of the conversation, regardless of the duration. You can add additional identifiers if you would like. An example would be, everyone in my family would use ABCD123, but I may ID my station as ABCD123-ALPHA. My wife would ID as ABCD123-OMEGA. My son could be ABCD123-BETA. Again, the add-on ID is optional... but legal. For what it's worth, no one in my family uses add-ons. We all just use ABCD123 and call each other by name.

The city water supply runs behind my house, actually on my property. I can't even pour a shovel of dirt without risking a massive fine. :-( Fortunately, I can trim the trees all I want, as long as they stay alive and continue to hold soil in place. On the up-side, the dipole works great over the water. I assume the loop will too.

It never dries out. The back half of my property is wetlands. Sure... its gets "less saturated" (if that's a thing?). Enough that the ground firms up to safely walk on it, but the ground never supports heavy load from vehicles or heavy equipment unless it freezes. Otherwise, everything gets stuck back there and trashes the lawn leading up to the tree line.

Not yet. I need to have the trees trimmed. There can't be any branches touching the antenna or I won't be able to tune it. We are getting massive amounts of rain and the ground is saturated. I can't get any heavy equipment in the woods behind the house. I am holding out for the ground to freeze in February, hoping we can get back there.

Things are good. Very busy... but good. I hope all is well for you and yours. You ever get that range issue worked on on your VHF gear?

Anyone involved in Winter Field Day this weekend? Daytime comms have been great on 80m through 20m. I made contacts from California to the Mediterranean on 100w and a 80m dipole. I thought the D layer was going to beat me up, but I'm pretty happy with the performance today. I'm not in it for the points or competition... I just love making long distance contacts. Was wondering if anyone else has been involved today.

Outstanding! I'll share the links with friends.

Change it from TSQL to Tone and retest.

Yes... a repeater to a repeater is usually not a good time. Plus, there is delays in key up times, leading to a word or 3 missing from the start of your transmission.

'Tone' transmits the tone to open the repeater receiver, but your radio doesn't require the tone to be transmitted back in order to open your squelch. 'Tone Squelch' will open the receiver of the repeater and require the tone to be embedded in signals you receive in order to open your squelch. Normally, I don't use tone squelch so I can hear everyone, instead of just repeater traffic... assuming the repeater passes or transmits a tone to begin with.

Looks like 10m is doing well tonight. I made multiple contacts around 500+ miles with 5/9+ on both ends.

I do something similar to RCM. I like 445.000 through 447.000, which is coordinated for auxiliary and control links, repeaters and simplex.

G, here is a good link you can use. It will help you understand how a horizontal quad loop works, why its omnidirectional, and why there is such good natural noise reduction in the design. I am building this to scale for 80 meters, but you can easily build a VHF version. My friend has his fed with ladder line in the corner closest to his house and its 35 feet off the ground, due to the frequency its being used on. You cut the ladder line to length for tuning the SWR, as the ladder line is part of the antenna design. http://www.caarc.ca/articles/horizontal-quad-antenna

G, what dictates polarization is size in wavelength and physical orientation. A full wave is omnidirectional.

Some makes/models VNA have digital volt meters built into them and some have directions on how to use an external digital volt meter while the VNA sweeps. You would have to look at the directions for the VNA. The ones that use an external meter should have a clearly marked port.

Hey, G... Do you have a meter that can read 0.XX μV scale? I thought you told me you have an analyzer and the voltage was low. Is that correct? If so, what is the voltage reading going into the radio from the antenna transmission line, without the preamp? The filters help eliminate noise if you have poor selectivity, but the preamp is to help poor receive sensitivity or high line loss. Most good receivers will have a receive sensitivity of 12 dB SINAD on a signal that is 0.25 μV. Some are 12 dB at 0.20 μV or better. If the voltage on the antenna line (at the radio input) already meets or exceeds the radio requirements, the preamp won't do anything good. They are typically for signal loss due to high loss lines or signals filtered/trapped excessively. You may be better off with a 5/8 wave. Do some research on the antenna takeoff angles of specific antennas you are interested in. In the same way that high gain antennas are more narrow with regard to their usable frequency, some antennas tend to radiate up and out instead of down and out. Also, have you considered a vertical dipole? Or a loop? They are very easy and cheap to make... so you can experiment. Full wave loop antennas are true omnidirectional and fantastic with regard to receive sensitivity. I am about to build one for 80 meters after seeing a friend of mine a few miles away from me have full-quiet conversations with people I almost could hear at all.