kidphc
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Posts posted by kidphc
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I think Marc had the same experience. With a good solid ground plane, the SWRs are good. Even if it is a bit off of good, it starts nose diving.I've also found that the CA2X4SR really needs a good ground plane. I tried it out with a GP01 kit from Nagoya, with the radials fully extended, and it stunk on 2m and wasn't great on GMRS. Installing it on a magnetic mount on a vehicle in the middle of the roof brought the SWR right down to where it should be. It might be because it's such a broad-band antenna, but it is not happy with a less ideal ground plane. With a good ground plane it's fantastic, covering 2m, MURS, 1.25m (even though it doesn't claim that band), 70cm, and GMRS.
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Alternatively, you could punch a hole in the camper top and install a 20" (will be usable for 2m later on) or so steel plate in the camper interior to act as a ground plane. As long as the radiating portion is clear of the roof rack should have minimum impact on the radiation pattern.Mount it to the metal roof of the truck instead of the composite roof of the topper. The radiating element will stick up above the roof rack.
I also had the same problem with the 2x4sr on a ditch light/hood mount. It really wants a good solid ground plane. Atleast the fold over will help with clearance on the cab of the roof. It still sticks up about 6" high though.
My EMS buddies all chose aluminum camper tops for their personal f150/f250s, to accommodate the porcupine look and offer enough groundplane and separation for all the antennas.
Guess you are in the same boat as us. We purposely choose places for meets/dinners that would have us avoiding garages and such.
Picture for shits and giggles, of one of my customer's roof whom was assigned an old DC brigade truck while her normal patrol was in for maintenance. She is normally responsible for the interoperability/logistics at the Marine Corp 10k. If you get a chance and can make it past security to see the Lt. at the ops tent, say Cha says hi to her.
Picture is really to help those intimating in popping the first hole.. lol
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I had a similar issue with my trucks.
1.) I dismount my antennas and place a cap (sometimes don't even bother with the cap). When i was placing my truck on the lift. Hell this was in a commercial bay with 22' ceilings even there if I didn't pull the antennas they would be bent or strike the roll up garage doors.
2.) Best antennas, this is very subjective. With trying to be widebanded to cover both services there are a crap ton of compromises. It gets even worse when you look at hood mounts etc.
I currently am running a 2/70sh on a hood mount for the FTM400 cap modded. With a Laird B4505cns on the roof connected to a XTL 5000.
I had the 2x4sr, it performed well but even on the shoulder it took terrible whacks entering the parking garages.
So instead of dealing with the fold-over I went back the Larsen. It has taken a beating the top half of the antenna is bent and the coating is missing all over the place.
Even the Laird has a bend in it. Normally now a days I switch to a 1/4 or 5/8th Laird that I modified with a Signal stalk whip for potential garage excursions.
Are you trying to maximize simplex or repeater work on both radios?
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The infamous low flying animal catcher. Lol
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That kinda looks like an older version of the old one. Later version looked similar but had different arrays.
New one that I saw, well looks like the newer suburban. With kinda a fiberlass topper glued on to the roof and a crap ton of antennas.
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- Lscott and AdmiralCochrane
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Might be something like roadrunner. A former secret service customer I had mentioned that roadrunner, usually was staffed by former military electronic warfare specialists.I have noticed the same while working at the Norwegian Embassy compound. Particularly when the VP was on the move. When the big black vehicle motorcade was in motion, nothing with an antenna seemed to function.
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No I haven't. I will ask some of the public safety guys, probably not anytime soon if they know anything about it.Hey, since you are in the DC area, you might be the guy I have been wanting to run in to to ask something. Back in January of 2021, there were reports in alternative media about the military "jamming" CB, MURS, and GMRS in the DC area. The sources have a long history of fear porn and frequently there being nothing to many of their "pending doom" stories. Commenters on these sites were noting that possibly ham and even EMS were on the receiving end of such jamming. Again, I never saw any verification from radio-oriented sites or sources.
I do not recall if this was around the time of Jan 6, or later, around the time of the Biden "inauguration".
Do you know anything about this?
For a while I couldn't get GPS, cellular or 2 way radio coms around the David Taylor Naval Research Center. But that was moons ago and there were patriot batteries right by the road. I got laughed at when I mentioned, because it seems a EMF dampeners were active in the area at the time. I just didn't know, but my friend were aware, 100+ feet down the road and everything was normal.
But I know where roadrunner gets fixed fairly often. Would be suprised if it wasn't active during an inauguration.
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Been working with HIPPA since the requirements came in. I was working at a fortune 5 software company. Our division dealt with document management. The amount of NDA with various organizations I signed is staggering.
I wish I could say the same here as far as HIPPA compliance and transmissions. Listen long enough to the conversations, and name, address, age, vital stats, previous medical conditions come across. Especially, on FD/EMS dispatched calls. That type of traffic irregardless of purpose should be encrypted, IMO.
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I have heard of them discussing here. Having dispatch outbound un-encrypted and the rest encrypted.Most likely not encrypted. Depending on location somebody might be have been in range to pickup the local radio traffic.
That's not so sure now-days about HT's and encryption. Several of my radios have anything from RC4 enhanced 40 bit encryption, compatible with various other manufacture's radios.
https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/290-nx-1300duk5/?context=new
And I have two with AES256 bit included.
Personally, I am in favor of encryption. There is just traffic that the average people do not need access to. It could save the life of a first responder, HIPPA compliance etc.
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To the original question you posted.I believe that. I did benchmark my TH-D74A once. It scanned through about 20+ channels in a second. For an HT that's quick.
During the rush in the Capital. I could see the increased activity through the Simulcast repeaters on the SDR. But the data meant crap, obviously I don't have the keys, so it like trying to listen Charlie Browns teacher and decipher it. MoCo had switched to some encrypted TAC inoperability channels, to assist.
Since the rioters were using HTs, no buneo on traffic from where I am.
I am better off turning on the t.v. and watching for smoke over the horizon.
I wish sometimes...lol most i get on gmrs is from friends whom use to know my commute. They would inform me of avoid areas due to accidents and such.
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I would say for those purposes you would be better off buying a dedicated scanner.
Still won't help you with encrypted traffic. Which you already know.
They were purpose-built for scanning. They can fly through the memory bank so much FASTER. Really disappointed at how slow some of my Yaesu gear is. Which is still 1000% than a Baofeng.
Here outside of D.C. almost makes no sense to waste radio gear on scanning. In D.C. the Office of Unified Communications has everything encrypted, you can't hear them talking about the explosion in a porta potty.. Only PG County police and Moco aren't encrypted yet. Although both have been talking about flipping the switch. -
Yes, that is what my setup in the house with the blade antenna.Thinking about buying a Radioddity DB20-G GMRS Mobile and was wondering if it could do double duty - used in my vehicle (cigarette lighter) and in my house as a base station. Would something like an AC to DC Converter 110V to 12V 5A 60W Car Cigarette Lighter Adapter work for inside the house? Has anyone done this before and could share some tips or tricks?
I chose a pryamid power supply with a cigarette lighter outlet built in. So I could unplug it and drop the radio in the wife's van. She didn't want a radio so ease of removal was a high priority.
Everything else I own uses power pole connectors.
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- SteveShannon and WSFJ540
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Socal is correct everything in everything he is saying.
Antennas will be much better when outside, when properly tuned for your service, have a proper ground plane (counterpoise), with the lowest loss coax for that frequency and high as you can get it. Then they will perform up 1000% better than the same setup on the ground.
VHF/UHF are line of sight for the most part. Get them up high, limit their obstructions and they start performing well. I had a buddy on a roof top (15 stories up) some 20 miles away he was able to hit me on simplex with 5w. We could do 15 miles of simplex with his base. But his antenna was over 100 feet up using air core hardline. RiP WRPJ758, 73. The old fart understood the basics.
When it comes down to it pretty much all antennas are a compromise to begin with. Make them smaller, shove them inside of house, put it on a ht, use a hi-gain antenna, etc and you are adding compromises on top of compromises.
Any reason you are trying to use indoor antennas? Just about everyone will recommend against it right away. Almost all my gmrs/ham gear is in the basement.
This blade antenna I built was for my wife to use on rare occasions. Really was onl built to cover the neighborhood to get in touch with the kid. We used it all night for Halloween.
For grounding, if everything is indoors than no you will not need grounding. If anything exits the house I recommend grounding. Even if is just the co-ax. You can get static buildup just from dust blowing over it in the wind.
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I use external antennas mainly when I can for hf. For the ham uhf/vhf stuff it's in the attic. Fortunately, I have almost 10 feet in height to work with. So up went a 8ft long fiberglass vertical. All this because of the HOA.Hey folks!
Trying to figure out best option for indoor GMRS antenna. Initially unimpressed by some cheap 70cm whips on mag mount (not specifically tuned for 462-467) Put them in window sill on cookie sheet, and barely any improvement over standard whip antenna on HT.
Anyone out there running indoor GMRS antenna to HT or base station?
Would one of the tuned fiberglass antennas on Amazon be effective from indoors?
thanks all!
More inline to answer your question, I made an indoor blade antenna. I took a N9Tax slim jim tuned for gmrs, only because I got lazy. I ran inside some plastic wiring track up to the 2nd floor in a vaulted area of my house. Marginal success with both the wife and ht. It started to shine when I hooked up a db-20g/at-779uv to it.
The range from the ht went from 600ft to closer 1500-1700 ft on simplex at 20w. Keep in mind a moderately Heavily wooded suburban area.
It was enough for my wife to be able call me at a local Plaza while I was about 30ft inside a Walgreen, when I was on a ht.
As far as repeater work it was almost as good as being outside with the ht. But really that is how good the local gmrs repeaters around here are.
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Right here thanks to WRUU653.
Post #34
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But in the middle of the night? It occurs due to temperature inversion. Maybe it was ducting caused by an incomming storm, maybe?Tropospheric ducting.
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Seen that one. I think it works great, especially if you don't want something like a havis console.
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I have buddies that get nuts and yes they will try to route lmr400 or 600. Worth it? I don't think so they are much thicker and stiffer. Bend radius is like 1 ft, make it tighter and you damage the insulator and will have terrible performance.Thanks.
Does the cable really matter that much for this? RG58 vs. RG8? Obviously, a thinner cable is easier to route. Is there enough signal loss to justify using thicker cable?
Ever notice how losses are measured in 100 ft? 4-12 ft is hardly worth it going to thicker lower loss coax, personally. On a 100-300ft run yes it's worth the cost for aircore or lmr600.
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Whom ever has the stronger signal wins. Hence the stomping comment, sorry this is how fm/digital fm work. The other transmissions will be lost. This is irregardless of tones. You put tones in people just wonder why transmissions aren't getting through or seriously broken up at times.
If you are sharing a frequency between parties you will want a business license or amateur radio license and utilize dmr/moto turbo. This was designed to reduce collisions via color codes and time slots.
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Most use larsens or motorola nmo. A lot of times they have better solder joints and materials, and cable. Not huge differences than Chinese nmos, but why bother for what $8.00 difference.I have a Hyundai Palisade, and want to have an NMO mount installed. Wondering what brand / models to look for or avoid, or what options there might be for a semi-permanent or permanent install so I don't have to squeeze cables through windows or doors. I know I could get a through-the metal permanent install, or a mount that attaches around the lip of the hood. Anything else I can look at?
With lip mounts depending how often you open and close the opening. You still deal with the negatives of routing the cable through openings like a mag mount.
Negative to most nmos are they weren't designed to be exposed on the bottom thus possible water intrusion is a factor. They were really designed to be used in drilled through panel installations. Done properly and avoid serious whack they rarely leak.
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Wouldn't recommend. With tones you don't get more bandwidth. All the parties will stomp on each other during transmission without knowing.
Once carrier is being used, irregardless of tone the frequency is being used.
Tones just ignore the transmissions and doesn't break squelch unless the tone matches.
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We have multiple repeaters in this area that are on different tones. The repeater owners do a good job self coordinating, there are problems sometimes.
For the local area users, this sounds great. Till they learn they have to change their behaviors. You can either run no pl on receive, you get to hear all the landscapers and kids on simplex. Me I just run "monitor" for a more than a few moments before transmit. To make sure the carrier signal is not occupied by the other repeater.
Why? Doesn't matter what the pl is if the carrier is taken. You will get collisions If both repeaters transmit at the same time.
There is a benefit now though. Cross repeater talk. Both parties on both repeaters use no pl or monitor. One party transmits, second party waits till both repeater tails drop then they the second person transmits. Woot, you effectively have linked repeaters legally, and now have one huge repeater where the coverage effectively overlaps.
Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk- WRUU653 and SteveShannon
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GMRS Moxon Antenna
in Technical Discussion
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If you are chasing gain. Try quad antennas, they usually have a narrow cone when compared to a yagi.
When I say narrower I mean, less spread vertically as well as the pattern was more focused from what I in antenna software and theories.
I just ran into issues when trying to DIY due to the spreaders. I just wasn't very happy with the materials
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