LilRedDog

This not trivial: The SWR should be checked in the middle of the band or sweep 462.0-480.0; it's just wide enough to see the peripheral readings. When trimming the antenna, and it no longer goes down, start trying different length rods. If you have aluminum tape, you can make a round ground plane, ~10" from the center, cut a hole and slide it in position then, using a compass or similar device, shave down until the SWR stops dropping and starts going up. That is the diameter you need; cut rods accordingly. The physics is different for a solid plane opposed to a waveform-rod plane but it is a cheap way to test. Cut a circle out of cardboard, cut a center hole that will collar tightly and then tape it with the aluminum. Gaps look sloppy but the wavelength is too large for them to matter (e.g. rods). When you tape over the center hole, cut a cross and fold over. This makes the electrical contact. Just snug is enough but tilting won't work. You have asked about metals. Don't worry about that. Mixing metals can cause corrosion (chemistry, not 'antenna' specific) over time but will not affect your tuning. Antennas form photons in at the quantum level, they don't 'glow' like most things that make 'light'. It forms a near field and that pops off photons. At our level, different metals are just accounted for with trimming/tuning. If you can die the rods with threads, you may feel 'safer' but drooping rods is actually a contested discussion; I'm surprised someone has not posted a troll about drooping being desired. About the 'plane' not caring about the metal If you make rods that work, thread and are weather resistant, you can keep using them and have no need to butcher the rods that shipped. The tips are unnecessary; they are to mitigate eye pokes. Finally: . This Frankenstein's monster gets a 1.004 SWR across the entire GMRS band (according to my Nanova-H). Paper plate, 7mm 25lb magnet under the can, to pull the antenna firmly to the aluminum tape. It's dual-band for aircraft but I don't Tx on that band. I cut one down 4 times and that was the size that worked best. Just to demonstrate 'perfect' is relative. The antennas are perfectly tuned out of the bag so I knew my high SWR was my ground plane.

I'm sorry: the thread went off the rails and i missed this information. It's, probably, too large. You can try sticking in rods that fit, they can even droop a bit, and try shorter lengths. Seriously: If you can cut a coat hanger and if it will fit, not strip threads and not droop much, the field will not know. It wont last but you can experiment.

My point is the two different lengths of the poles make for 3 differently tuned ground planes. I paid no attention to the frequencies the plane offered; it was not easily available. One length is one band, the other a second and combined you end up with the cheaper 20" 'UHF' option. The cheaper one will work but you have no ability to trim/tune it on the plane. That is assuming Nagoya has the assembly for each band somewhere. You can guess around 8" is GMRS if nowhere else to start and try the other one for best SWR. I doubt 20" is optimal for any GMRS antenna. There are reasons, I'm not getting into, why this is not as much an issue on a car but I will add moving the magnet around is enough to 'tune' the plane on a mostly-flat metallic surface >8". Edit- For some reason I referred to the other one as cheaper when it is $10.00 more. Does not change my 'opinion'.

The Nagoya is 'Tri-Band'. If you want to get deep in the weeds and basic: Each transmit is trimmed as close as possible to the wavelength, and the ground plane is a 'virtual' (If I don't add that some pedant will comment, but you can gloss over it) mirror image of the same Tx from the top (I know all about null-fields, leave me alone; you had over a day) and, ideally, is also 'trimmed'. The different rods should combine for one of three bands and the trim 'matches' the trim of the wire (antenna you see) you picked to transmit on that antenna. If you, in fact, have a dual or tri-band antenna, both will equally perform but they are tri band and that seldom works well without friends, work and beer. But you don't want a tri-band bc I presume you do not have a HAM license or would know all this. In a perfect world you would calculate to a specific frequency, do some math, cut things and 'trim' to perfection but we use 'bands' of frequencies. The other one says UHF; that's a huge band. I'm going to say you will have more options with the Nagoya.

It will work. That's what you want, no? You want to talk to hand-helds (HT) about 3 miles? You will be fine. If you stand on the TX, you may warm up the antenna, a little but not hurt it nor the equipment. The HTs' OEM antenna's will do 3-5 miles on flat earth to each other. And if they were HAM spec'd (which most people buy, because of power, and know no better) they are 144/430 OEM antennas and people use them all the time. You can buy a (advertised) 10watt HAM radio with a 144/430 OEM antenna and use it on GMRS channels and never know it; most of the time. That said: I have GMRS HT antennas from everyone and prefer the tiny, inefficient, stubby ones because I seldom need 5 miles in the leafy woods. If I stand on TX, they will warm up. In the woods or a crowd antennas make a difference. Line of site is not, nearly, as affected.

There is. The usual default is 0123 and I only see it in software. It's editable; not hardcoded like the MAC on all network card/radios (Wi-Fi).

The timing of this is perfect for me: I was listening in on a repeater and someone, that owns a different repeater, was driving through KY, (on a Ky repeater) trashing Ky. They are on a repeater in Ky, their repeater is in Ky, they live in Indiana and trash talk Ky. It was not the first time. So, I, politely, set the record straight; not on their repeater. They lost that zone, came back on their repeater and started trash talking me, personally, (because he assumed if he was out of range of the other repeater I would be out of range of his?) I told him I could hear him and he was just lying about what I had said. So, he threatened to ban me from his repeater and get every repeater around me to also ban me and I laughed. I sent out 'requests' in April, he replied with 'enjoy' to the official request and sent message saying he banned me, yesterday morning and saying he would talk to the other owners in the area... Threating me, again. Well. This is not about rude behavior, this is someone thinking they can group the repeater channels in the area and make them high school cliques. There are 8 channels for repeaters. The section cited is who is allowed 'control' over the equipment. Not the use of. It's America guys; you can broadcast on any frequency with any tone you are licensed to and if their, expensive, equipment cannot discriminate, I have no responsibility to spend a calorie changing the programming on my radio. I should post screenshots and email chains but let's see if they want to have their $0.02 here.