krvw

Needs more cowbell.

That's a fabulous idea. Teaches them the basics in a non-threatening environment, and likely with a bit of parental supervision. I love it. Cheers, Ken

FWIW, I often hear small children on GMRS and FRS around where I live. It's a family license, so that's all legal, of course. That said, etiquette is important, and more so on a shared resource like a repeater. If the kids are taught well and follow the basic etiquette, I suspect the repeater community will welcome them. If not, well... Good luck.

Both good points, for sure. My Ed Fong was built by him and sold via Better Safe Radio. I have both the ham and the GMRS tuned versions and both are performing quite well. I may well still try out a 5/8 wave like the Diamond X200a. My understanding of its propagation pattern is that it "flattens out and extends horizontally" the toroid pattern of a 1/2-wave. There are 2 popular repeaters in my area that are just at the edge of my coverage. I can get them at times and all static at other times. If a 5/8-wave gets me there, I'll be happy. I'll use the other Ed Fong for holiday trips when I want to set up a station in our residence. (We've ridden out about 5 hurricanes in the NC OBX area, for example. Having comms during those will be helpful.) That's not to disparage the Fong j-pole, though. Different designs, each with their pros and cons. I'm very happy with both my Ed Fongs. Cheers, Ken

Thanks for that. I considered a ventenna, but when my HOA approved the j-poles... Search around this forum and you'll find plenty of discussion about Dr. Fong's antennae. One person referred to them as "no better than a dummy load". My main point was that my experiences with them have been positive. Being 1/2 wave, the propagation is largely toroidal, but that suits me. Perhaps I'll try a 5/8 wave at some point as well. Now that my antenna mounts are up, I can pretty quickly swap for different ones. Cheers, Ken

FWIW, one of my neighbors has successfully completed his Tech license 100% remotely during the C19 lock down. I asked him for details on how he did this and he said, "The exam I took was from GLAARG. Because the remote sessions worked well in April, they’ve said flt he’ll schedule more sessions in May. I check this link daily: https://hamstudy.org/sessions/91364." IMHO, this is a wonderful step forward, and the lock down has catalyzed innovation and acceptance. As an IT security professional who's been using remote video for decades, I welcome the change. I also know that exam integrity must be ensured, but I'm confident that can be done. Cheers, Ken

Have you tried the Warrenton repeater also? They require permission, but they seem to grant it to any licensed GMRS operator. From my rooftop, I get a really clear signal on it. When I've gone west of here, I could get it on my handheld pretty well too. That repeater has a big footprint around NoVA.

I don't have experience with this model, but I do have a Wouxun KG-UV9P and a KG-UV950P. They're both excellent products, IMHO. Audio quality on TX and RX are fabulous. I expect the KG-805G to be of similar quality. Cheers, Ken

I'm surprised you can't get the Alexandria repeater from Fairfax. (I'm assuming you mean Fairfax City?) I'm in Fairfax County in the Kingstowne vicinity. The repeater is now located near 7 corners, on top of a building near the intersection of Rt 7 and Rt 50. Guessing yours is a line of sight issue. I used this tool (https://www.scadacore.com/tools/rf-path/rf-line-of-sight/ to model the line-of-sight requirements for getting from my house to my wife's office. It showed me I needed to be 4-5 meters above ground, which my rooftop comfortably affords me. You might want to approximate the path from your house to the Alexandria repeater. Might be helpful, IMHO. Also, drywall matters. I was logged into a local RACES net one evening when I walked from my dining room out onto my deck. I was receiving audio the entire time, but the static disappeared when I went from indoors to outdoors. I was frankly shocked by how big a difference it made. That was one of my primary motivators to put the antenna on the roof. Glad I did! Cheers, Ken

Thanks. The chimney is a furnace vent, and I had no choice on that. I only use one antenna at a time, so that proximity isn't something I'm worried about. Hadn't heard anything about an RF choke requirement on the Ed Fongs. Got more info? I'm able to consistently hit a GMRS repeater that is some 40 miles away. I can also _usually_ hit a 2m ham repeater that is 45-50 miles away. And, on the repeaters nearer to me, my signal is really solid. So yeah, I'm really happy with the results. Cheers, Ken

Exact same reason I have both GMRS and ham (technician) licenses. Emergency and vacation comms with the family, and ham for me to branch out further. All good, IMHO. Cheers, Ken WRFC318 / K0RVW

That is PVC (schedule 20). Also, the vent is 30 feet above the furnace area. Also, I had really no choice on that. If I want an outdoor antenna, this is the spot. Cheers, Ken

So, I started my personal GMRS and ham journey in January of this year for reasons that are not relevant here. Among my goals was to be able to have simplex RF comms with my wife at her office. (2.1 miles as the crow flies, through suburban northern Virginia. Small rolling hills, but plenty of RF interference along the way.) Frankly, I was disappointed by the limitations of HT<-->HT around here. I was lucky to make it 3/4 - 1 mile. Clearly, line of sight matters enormously. I got a simple j-pole antenna and tried that at home from my attic. (HOA issues.) Still HT to HT, but no luck. I got permission from the HOA to put up two 5 foot j-pole antennas and got them up yesterday. (See attached photo. Both are Ed Fong designs. One ham and one GMRS tuned.) Simultaneously, I got a 50 Watt (UHF) / 40 Watt (VHF) mobile radio. This morning, I ran a quick and informal series of quick tests with the mobile radio set up in the ham bands (70 cm and 2 m) as a cross-band repeater. (I use a 70 cm simplex channel to my home mobile, which then repeats it on 2 m out to my local repeater (W4AVA).) In short, VICTORY! The repeater connections had several flat spots for me. They're 99% gone now. I can trivially tx/rx to my wife's office location with 5 by 5 audio signal on a simplex connection. I know many folks here dismiss the Ed Fongs, but I have to say those reviews are not consistent with my experiences. In particular, the Warrenton GMRS repeater that is some 40 miles from here was completely out of range for me in the past. With the Fongs on the roof, I'm getting 5x5 signal reports consistently on that repeater -- which serves a vast footprint of NoVA and MD. YMMV. So, yeah, I'm pretty happy with where I am on my personal journey. Cheers, Ken van Wyk WRFC318 / K0RVW

This probably helped. https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title15.2/chapter22/section15.2-2293.1/ Ken

Wow, my HOA approved my plan to put up not just one but TWO j-pole antennas! I’ll be mounting a tuned GMRS and a ham antenna shortly. This, in northern Virginia, no less. Cheers, Ken

Wow, my own experiences have been the polar opposite of that. I have the GMRS version and then bought the ham one when I passed my ham tech (KO4CGK) a couple weeks ago. In both cases, the local repeaters I frequent are barely reachable on my handheld, forcing me to go outside to speak on them. But with the respective Fong in place, I'm reaching them 5x5. Distances are in the 9-10 mile range, and the radio checks I've performed told me my voice is coming through crystal clear. I have no idea what went wrong for you, but "dummy load" couldn't be further from what I experienced. Perhaps you used thicker Schedule 40 (480 PSI) PVC tubing instead of the thinner Class 200 stuff that Fong recommends? Working great for me. Cheers, Ken WRFC318 KO4CGK

Follow-up here for anyone interested... Since I live in an HOA, I don't want to apply for an outdoor antenna until I'm certain. That is, I want to continue some indoor tests first. I now have both my GMRS (WRFC318) and ham (KO4CGK) licenses, and have the Ed Fong j-pole in both freqs. Hoping to have a deployment that makes it quick and easy to switch between the two. For now, I have them in my attic space, as high up inside the house as I can go. (I estimate 25 feet above ground level.) I want a mount that isn't permanent and enables me to swap antennae quickly. Here's what I came up with. 3" PVC end hot glued at high end Swiveling "broom stick" mount holding the low end in place. $3 at Home Depot. I can swap antennae in about 10 seconds. My hope is to get one of them mounted on the roof during the Spring or Summer. Cheers, Ken

Still very preliminary to draw my final conclusions, but I received my Ed Fong DBJ-1C antenna kit and an antenna analyzer this weekend (on the same day I passed my ham tech exam, so that was fun). I ran a couple of antenna placement tests quickly. My aim was to communicate with my wife in her office, first via the local Alexandria GMRS repeater and then see if I can achieve simplex to her (2.1 miles). The good: - Deployed at attic height, my wife reports my voice is the clearest she has heard it over GMRS. All good. The bad: - Still no simplex comms. Not even breaking squelch. I'll keep trying, and will work on a mobile at home as well. I can still go higher on the antenna and mount it roof top, but that requires HOA permission and a whole lot of hassle. Still, I may well do that soon. The surprising: - Antenna analyzer (SureCom SW-33) in hand, I measured everything. I have the ducky that came with my handheld as well as a Nagoya NA-771 and a Nagoya NA-701C. I also have a Nagoya UT-72 mobile mag mount, but have not measured that one yet. All the duckies suck, at least in terms of SWR on the GMRS freqs I use the most. Lowest SWR I measured was 2.0; highest was 4.5. - The Ed Fong DBJ-1C, on the other hand, measured in 3 separate measurements, a paltry 1.02. That seems nigh on perfect, and may well explain the clear and strong signal my wife received from me. I've heard some good and bad things about the Fong kits. (Calling them kits is even a stretch. All you do is insert it in a 5 foot PVC 200 PSI pipe and you're done. Toughest part is finding 200 PSI and not the ubiquitous "Schedule 40" (480 PSI) piping.) My initial impressions are that the nay sayers are largely wrong, at least compared to my needs and deployment. Oh, I should add that I used a high quality LMR-400 feed line with PL-259 connectors. (Aside: As I operate mostly in UHF, is it worth changing from PL-259 to BNC, N, or some other connector better suited for these freqs?) Cheers, Ken WRFC318 (ham sign pending FCC)

"They are very, very dirty transmitters." "They just overall are poor quality radios." Thanks for your candor. So, even if the unit survives its burn-in period, it sounds like it'll cause problems. Bummer. Seems a lot of bang for the buck. How about the AnyTone 5888UV? Are these any better in their electronics? Cheers, Ken

Great answers, thanks all who chimed in. I get the legality issues just fine and I'm not looking to break the law. I simply want to understand things thoroughly. A related question: When I first got a BaoFeng UV-5F, a couple of my ham buddies gasped at me and warned me how terrible the Bao radios are. They don't stay on frequency well. They bleed into nearby (and not so nearby -- harmonic?) bands, etc. At least, that's what I'm told by multiple people whose opinions I value. I've even seen some repeater operators here say they don't want any of the Baos (my shorthand, sorry) on their repeaters, as they only cause problems. So, legalities notwithstanding, are the BTECH radios like on the UV-50X2 better quality than the UV-5R BaoFengs? Or are they all just cheap Chinese radios that just cause problems. If I got one of the BTECH GMRS models and fully complied with FCC, would I even be welcome on these repeaters? Thanks for helping me get my head around these issues better. Cheers, Ken

Okay, so now that I have both my GMRS and ham licenses (just waiting to receive my ham call sign), I have a couple of questions about these two radios: BTECH GMRS-50X1 and the BTECH UV-50X2. If I get the GMRS model so I can truly be FCC 95A compliant, can I program (CHIRP) the radio so I can also use ham freqs in the 2 meter and 70 cm bands? If I do, does that negate my 95A compliance? In other words, does the GMRS-50X1 block me (in firmware) from tx on ham freqs? Conversely, if I get a UV-50X2 and program it correctly (leap of faith) for GMRS usage, is that externally (over the air) discernible from using the GMRS-50X1 on those same freqs? Buying 1 of each seems silly to me. And yes, I know I can get a used Kenwood, etc. At some point, I'll no doubt buy a big and hugely capable transceiver, but I prefer to do these things iteratively. That's me. Cheers, Ken WRFC318

Hey folks, In addition to my GMRS license (WRFC318), I passed my ham technician exam yesterday, so I'm now a ham (but waiting on my official call sign). My journey is only at is very beginning, but I'm looking forward to it. GMRS remains a higher priority for me for family comms, as I'm likely to be the only one willing to go ham, but for sure I'll use ham for hobby and emergency comms. There are many ham repeaters within range here, and where I vacation often (OBX and Kaua`i). Oh, and I got my Ed Fong GMRS j-pole over the weekend, so I'm looking forward to some experiments with that in hopes I can get simplex mode between me and my wife at her office, 2.1 miles away. Fun challenges to work on. Just thought I'd share. I've really appreciated all the advice here from those of you with far (!) more experience than I. Cheers, Ken van Wyk WRFC318

One of the things that appeals to me about GMRS (vs. ham) is that family members can lawfully make use of my license (WRFC318). Now, my question is this: When a family member is using it, how should they identify themselves? Say, for example, I'm talking with my wife over the local repeater. I sign in/off using my call sign, but what should she use? WRFC318-2? Cheers, Ken

I like those. I’m thinking they’ll be helpful on our annual OBX and Kaua’i trips. We are often in areas with zero cellular cvg... Any other cool uses?

Hey folks, Yeah, more questions from a newbie... So, I’ve been enjoying learning more about GMRS. I’ve connected with a couple repeaters while out of town recently. All good. I see several practical uses for my needs, mainly quick comms with family. But I’ve also been curious about how others use the service, either on repeaters or simplex. One use case came to mind: HOA comms around a small community. The HOA could designate a channel (even FRS) and tone for open and free community use. Simple things like, “Did the snow plow come through yet?”, “Heads up about a solicitor in the neighborhood.” That sort of thing. Anyone here try this or other interesting use cases? I am curious. Thanks. Cheers, Ken WRFC318