jsouth

I hate to admit it but I had set the privacy tones incorrectly. Still learning, that's for sure. I was able to hit it with the 115 with no problem. Yes - I have line of sight and since swapping the 115 with the 400, I can hit the repeater easily even on the low setting(about 5 watts) at 31 miles away. I do like the way that the 400 works better than the 115 or the 275. It's seems to be more sensitive on the receive side as well. Is it worth the extra $100? Maybe. I'm wondering now if I should upgrade my antenna or if this is good enough to do everything I want? Also, SWR is in the 1.15:1 range.

This is my first setup as well. The goal was to communicate with my Mom 6 miles away in case of SHTF. I installed the same setup at her house as well but used a much shorter feed line and hers has worked perfectly since day one. Mine has had some struggles but eventually got them sorted out. Now I just want to see how far I can go. Once it arrives and I put in some testing time, I'll let you know how it compares with the 115.

So the 712EFC was beneficial and you would recommend? If I go that route, I'll also upgrade my feedline to 1/2 Heliax. Just want to make sure it's going to make enough difference to help. As far as terrain is concerned, I'm in the high desert at about 5000 feet. There are very few trees and I have a direct line of sight to the repeater, according to https://www.scadacore.com/tools/rf-path/rf-line-of-sight/ .

I'm currently running a Midland MXT115 with an Ed Fong antenna. It works great and I can reach 18 miles easily thanks to being in the foothills and having the antenna mouted 10 feet above my roofline. Getting a little greedy, I'm trying to hit a repeater 31 miles away so I can reach a family member that's 45 miles away. Using the Scada line of sight tool, all looks well as the repeater is on top of a mountain. My MXT115 isn't reaching so i just ordered an MXT400 and would like to upgrade the antenna, if needed. If I may, I'm looking for recommendations for a new antenna that won't break the bank but will give me that little extra nudge to hit that repeater. I'm looking at a lot of them online and reading reviews but it's nice to get some real world expertise from people using them. I'm currently leaning toward the Comet CA-712EFC. In case it's needed, I'm using 65' of Belden 9913 as my feedline. Any help/advice will be great. Thank you.

Great advice. Thank you.

Just inherited some 1/2 Heliax and looking for some learning. I will be running about 75 feet. The bend radius will be difficult on both ends but I think will be easiest at the antenna for the drip loop. At the radio, I plan to use a 3 foot piece of LMR400 or the like to give the flexibility needed. If I did the same at the antenna with a short jumper, will having two jumpers create too much loss? Any advice will be great.

I installed 3 ferrite beads just below the connection at the antenna and one large approx 15" diam drip loop below that. It's Belden 89913 (free cable) and extremely stiff so the 3" diameter balun is out of the question. It's mounted on an 8' peice of PVC that puts the antenna base about 6' above my roof line. I'm very happy with the results but will now need to see if it is indeed affecting the receive capability. I've tested out as far as 12 miles before all this noise started. I'll try again and see what happens.

Both of us are using Midland MXT115 radios set to high power (15 watts). To my knowledge, nothing nearby causing RF noise. There's not a lot of GMRS being used where I live so I never get to hear any one other than my mom or kids playing on their walkies. Those never sound good. The noise I'm hearing on my end is similar to a white noise generator. Steady and not varying. Before I saw your responses, I spent some time trying some things. I read about installing a drip loop and ferrite magnets just below the antenna connection. After I tried that, my noise went away. I'm not sure if those changes actually fixed something or just by taking it all apart and putting it back together, mistakenly found the problem? Definitely unsure as to what exactly resolved the issue but if you have any feedback on the changes I made and if they are likely to help, I'd be happy to receive the feedback. Thank you.

New to GMRS. Setup a home base station for my self and my mom. Same setup for both of us. Ed Fong GMRS antenna, MXT115 radios. She hears me with very little noise or static. I hear a ton of noise when she transmits, same on all channels. We are 6 miles apart, fairly heavy suburban area but not many tall buildings and nothing over 4 stories. I am 500 feet in elevation higher than she is. Both of our antennas are roof mounted. I'm using 65 feet of Belden 9913 and she has 30 feet of generic RG8x. I'm assuming that it's the 8x but before I replace it, would like some thoughts/advice. Thank you.