WRXD746

Welcome!

Quick question: I’m waiting on the last few parts needed to stand up my repeater for the Spring Hill/Columbia area. Has anyone ever used the Auto-ID function for their repeater or have you just left it alone for everyone to follow the call sign ID procedure?

Have we established a regular meeting day/time? Or options? I’m able to ping the Thompson Station/Franklin repeaters from my HT’s. Now that I’m back in the area again, I’d like to start participating in a regular net check.

Id like to check in and do a comms check anytime between this evening (Thursday 27 Nov) and Saturday evening before I leave town again. anyone else up for a net check?

Welcome aboard

I went with 6” because of where and how I mounted the antenna. A full 12” would be ideal but it would have extended out and overhung the side of my 4Runner - which was not desirable. I’m working on a new set of cross rails and I’ve designed them to accommodate a full 12” mounted along the centerline of the vehicle.

From what I’ve read, higher gain has a flatter “donut” of radiation. It’ll get farther but not nearly as high. Whereas, let’s say 3dB gain, is a happy compromise between horizontal and vertical “reach”. When I’m out west, everyone has 6dB gain antennas because the prairies are flat. They can reach distances I can’t with 3, all else being equal. To bring back an earlier statement in this thread, I did some asking around and it seems that 5/8 wave is the general consensus although a few POC’s said they have 1/4 wave antennas for specific regions/situations. They didn’t elaborate on what those were.

Turns out the Midland (been saying Motorola incorrectly) is in fact a 5/8 wave antenna.

I’d also like to plug a fellow vet making antennas. Check out ZBM2 Industries out of San Diego.

This is what I did for mounting the antenna on my roof rails and added the 6” diameter 5052 aluminum disc for a ground plane. No significant wind noise either. The base is printed from PETG-CF.

This may be the best answer yet. Density vs range makes a lot of sense. I’ve just about decided against the 50W options. But that detachable face on the KG-1000G is very tempting due to limited space. There are obviously smaller units with no display but I’m blind up close and can’t see the display they put on the mics.

I have no idea what wave the Motorola ghost antenna is as they don’t list it and haven’t responded to questions about it.

Ok. This is starting to make a little more sense. And I’m assuming that “ht” is a handheld radio. If so, then yes, hooking up to my external antenna made a big difference even across fields where the normal antenna would suck inside a vehicle. Just to clarify what you’re telling me, a 20W radio with a good antenna could expect to get decent to good reception in areas like ours as well as expect to ping the repeaters that are BVLOS? Correct? Is there an average distance radius that you could put on that?

The only problem/question I have with your reply is that I'm not in flat ground unless I go out west (which is 1/100th of my use cases), I'm also a fan of low profile everything but it competes with my need for absolute best case usage. That's why I have the "ghost" NMO antenna now - which has good reviews but as I'm still new to this game, I'm not 100% sure that its the best case for my needs. I currently use handheld radios for everything but I'm in the market for a mobile version to go in my vehicle. Which is the real reason for asking this question. I can't help but think that 50W is going to push a signal farther than 20W. Yet I know that the antenna is what propogates/gathers that signal. So before I drop $350 on a KG-1000G, I want to make sure I have the whole picture of the system and make sure it maximizes my use in hills/mountains/heavily treed areas with shit ton of buildings in the urban areas.

Background: I've been told that antenna quality means more than transceiver wattage. Situation: I live in the hills of middle Tennessee where LOS is minimal and repeaters are scarce. I also work in the Birmingham, AL, area where the situation is the same. Actually, there are more repeaters there but LOS is still an issue coupled with the density of trees and buildings so reaching those repeaters is a pain. Current Antenna: Motorola NMO mounted on 6" aluminum disk for ground plane attached to roof rail on top of my SUV. Question: What antenna gives the best performance for my situation and how does transceiver wattage play a part in making sure that antenna actually reaches the repeaters for BVLOS communications? (opinions don't mean much to me as I deal in actual verifiable data everyday and value that more than anything else) Thanks in advance.