marcspaz

This may actually cause damage... but, how about transmitting on high power too close to another radio will break the other radio's receiver. My radio has the pre-amp enabled. A buddy of mine started talking to me while stopped at a light. Our antennas were less than 2 feet apart. My receiver had an epic melt-down after just a few seconds. Everything i received after that sounded like it was under water and on fire at the same time. After power cycling the radio a few times and leaving it off for a few hours, if seems to have fully recovered. Depending on the radios used... I may be willing to fund this experiment.

With that radio and inverter, you can run full power for 7 hours... though, the battery would be worthless when you're done. At a 50% duty cycle, you would get closer to 14 hours. For intermittent use, sky is the limit when you have solar. I have a 50 Amp hr LiFePo4 battery and 100w of solar. I can (and have) run a 50w radio and a 100w radio, with accessories and lights for overnight, continuously. So, im pretty sure that while the Jackery 300 is about half the rated power as my setup, with that radio, you should be fine.

NOVA GMRS and OCD Offroad are inviting everyone to join us for an "Intro to GMRS" presentation at OCD Offroad's service location in Stafford Virginia on Saturday, November 4, 2023. This presentation is prepared for people who have little or no radio experience, are looking to learn some very basic information to understand radio principles, radio performance and purchasing options. We will cover the following: What is GMRS? Why Select GMRS over CB, FRS or MURS. GMRS Compared To FRS. Range. What is a Repeater? Radio Technology and Programing Overview. Radio Types and Licensing. This session will be video recorded and published for public viewing at a later time. Please be aware that if you attend, your image may be published publicly, electronically (online) and via other means. Seating is limited. You must RSVP below to attend. If RSVP within 24 hours of the event, message MarcSpaz to confirm seating availability. If you can't attend, don't worry. We will be sharing a video of the presentation after the event.

Regardless of what the manufacture stated, it's very difficult to get an accurate SWR reading for an HT antenna. The list of potential issues that can skew the results a long. On or off the radio, unless you have some training and/or understanding on what to do, I wouldn't rely on what the meter says.

Every time someone keys up without a license, a puppy dies.

I have an FTM-300DR, which has the ability to run 2m and 70cm at the exact same time using the same antenna and there is no desense issues. It's mostly going to depend on the frequencies in use and the filters on the radios.

Correct. If the tone type is none, then regardless of a tone code being present, it will not enable tone squelch. Same for DCS.

Short answer is no. Longer answer that is significantly more vague... Given most 50w models are closer to 45w, and you have to quadruple your power to increase your signal 1 s-unit, I would say no, not really. You really need to jump to 80w-100w before it makes a real difference, but those numbers aren't available in GMRS. Other side of the debate, I am a power junkie and you never know when that extra few watts is going to be the difference between reaching who you need to talk to or not.

I might be missing something... but if the Net is going on, no one else on the net can hear them, they obviously can't hear the Net (evident by them talking simplex during the net), then why not just talk over them? You transmitting into the repeater isn't going to interfere with them, and it sounds like you can hear the repeater just fine, since your words were you " thought" you heard other signal. Obviously, I don't condone someone else being a jerk. If they are intentionally getting on the air at times that they know the Net is occurring, then they are the ones who have the obligation to resolve the issue. That said, Tone Squelching (PL Tones) were created so multiple conversations can be had on a single frequency without uninterested parties hearing each other (conversations between conversations). I would squelch them out and forget about it.

I work and live inside a ground-zero strike zone. If something happens here, I'll be gone, and so with the people I love. Ive just come to except that living afterwards is a non-starter. So I don't bother with any of this crap beyond internet discussion and the occasional experiment.

I can 100% tell you through experience, if you don't use some serious filtering, like found in a duplexer, vertical separation isn't enough unless you plan on using very low power... like 5 watts. I have a portable repeater system the doesn't use a duplexer. At 5 watts, it can have both antennas about 100 feet from each other and it works locally with limited issues. However, if I want to run 50w, or even 200w, I have to separate the two antennas by about 400 to 500 yards to avoid desense issues. I also have a fixed repeater with a duplexer sharing 1 antenna. The duplexer cooks off about half the power, both transmitted and receive. However, antenna placement is going to impact performance more than transmitted and receive losses in the duplexer. You would have to cut your power 4 times to see a single s-unit of loss. Most people who don't run a duplexer, don't do it for performance benefits, mostly because it's not a noticeable benefit. It's done to save money or to provide rapid diversity in deployment and changing frequency or even bands without having to re-tune or replace the duplexer every time. Such as my portable field unit.

This is where my money is.

This isn't a problem in the 400-500 MHz range. Both Randy and I have shared test results for this. Unless you plan on winding the coax to less than an inch in diameter while using some super cheap (unshielded) coax, it won't matter. Now, when you start getting down to 50 MHz to about 21 MHz, 8 inch to 25 inch coiled coax just spooled up and tossed aside becomes an issue with SWR. That's why when we do CB installations, we use either a 9 foot or 18 foot cable and just snake the extra cable around the interior, trying to avoid half or full loops in the cable. The lengths are balanced 1/4 or 1/2 wave.

Around here 1 to 3 miles is normal in the city because of buildings, low elevation change and the curve of the earth. Normal distance in a flat area is 3.1 miles to the RF horizon. It's very unlikely you can send enough energy into the atmosphere to make up for those obstacles. And those same obstacles will defuse the signal you're trying to receive. Then there is the issue of RFI, which tends to overload your receive front-end, desensing it. So you can't hear the desired signals due to the radio trying to stop the RFI from over-driving the receive. Out in the burbs and countryside, I get 14-15 miles with just 5 watts. In town, it's anywhere from less than a mile to about 2.5-3 miles with 50w. Significant elevation for a less obstructed signal path is your only hope of getting ant range in a typical city.

I was going to ask the same thing. That's a nice setup. I'd like to use one in my Ram.

Looks fantastic! I did the same thing with my 8900, and later with the 300DR. Super clean look. I have to try that speaker setup. That's pretty cool.

It's a continuity test. It simultaneously confirms the shield and the center conductor do not have an open. If either were open, there would be a high resistive value.

An MXTA26 doesn't require cutting. It's a tuned antenna. If the SWR was high to start, either the cable was/is bad or you need a better mounting location. Chances are the antenna is damaged and no longer usable without risk of damaging the radio. I would trace the coax and look for signs of crimping or damage. If there isn't any, the NMO mount may have a partial short or broken wire in the base of the mount. Usually due to over-spinning the connector during install of the mount ot antenna. I had to toss a few before I learned my lesson. You may need to buy a new coax and antenna.

Anecdotal, I know, but in my own experience there are very few people I wheel with that are amateur radio operators. All of them use FRS or GMRS when they wheel anyway. Moving to amateur service for offroad is seriously going to limit who you talk to on the trails. If you are not worried about that or don't trail ride, I suppose it's a non-issue. If you are planing on using VHF and UHF, the same limits apply as in GMRS. While you can run 1,500 watts on amateur bands, the extra power doesn't do much if the LOS isn't there. Most of the time, VHF simplex around me, is limited to between 3.5 and 20 miles depending on terrain. However, I few days ago, from a mountain top I talked to someone almost 250 miles away. GMRS works the exact same way. The only thing that gets you more range without repeaters and mountain tops is HF. You can work the world with just a few watts... but you won't talk any further locally there either, as LOS still limits local comms. Usually once you hit the LOS barrier, either you need 40m, 80m or 160m NVIS to talk, say 20 to 350 miles. Otherwise, you aren't talking to many people inside the 350 mile radius there, either. What specifically are you looking to do. Myself and many others have a ton of experience over many decades in different areas. There is a good chance we can help if we know what you want to do.

I'll have to take a look at it tomorrow, when my brain isn't fried.

All of that is only good for a damped sinewave pulse.... maybe. If you know a head of time, every wavelength that will occur. Likelihood of that is zero. Truth is, every frequency from DC to daylight comes from an EMP. It will be in the form of electrical, magnetic, electromagnetic, radiation, and photon energy. Even the smallest of pinholes leaves you are risk.

I experienced something a few days ago, that I had not experienced before. Around my home, we have several repeaters that have 80%-90% reliability for 35+ miles and 70%-75% reliability out to 45-50 miles. We're talking over 7,800 square miles of coverage. With that kind of footprint, I have always suspected that repeater use could cause interference to simplex users, without the repeater users even realizing it. I can't hear a simplex conversation between mobiles when those parties are 60 miles away from me. So, what can you do as a repeater user to reduce that interference? Is it on you to be sure that doesn't occur? Is it up to the simplex users to try to use tone or digital squelch techniques. Or is it up to the simplex users to find a free channel? I got on a repeater the other day and started calling out for my son, and without realizing it, I was interfering with a simplex conversation. One of the other operators got on the repeater to let me know I was wiping out there local traffic. Thankfully the owners of the stations with the local traffic are friends of mine, so one of them came on to the repeater to chat. Everything was friendly, which they are both good guys and I would expect them to be friendly about it, even with a stranger. One of them simply came up and let me know I was stepping on them and I stopped using the repeater for awhile. Since we're all sharing radio space, it just seemed like a normal situation with a good and expected outcome. But, what would have happened if those people were not my friends? What if it was a group who doesn't know the person causing interference? What if the simplex operators don't have repeater access and the repeater owner or operator simply is unaware of the simplex conversation. Where does the onus lay to take action, and what is the proper action. I know we have discussed how unlikely it is to get GMRS expanded, but would it be worth trying to petition the government to expand GMRS to included dedicated repeater frequencies so we can avoid situations like this? I don't know the right answer, but I figure it could be fun to discuss.

Jesus Christ... this guy is retarded.

I wonder if an admin looks at 123's IP address and device info, if it's a match for Mr. G's address or equipment. On my old forums, I used to find that many butt-hurt individuals would make a second or third account, pretending to be someone else, not realizing all their device data is tracked.

Given that a significant amount of people on GMRS and in the form are also amateur radio operators and there is an amateur radio section of the form, I would say it's quite relevant. Steve's signature definitely brings more value than a single post you have made so far. How about bringing some value to the conversation, instead of insults.