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Jody

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Everything posted by Jody

  1. William, In case you haven't gotten it sorted out yet, and are attempting to program a channel using just the radio's keypad, you have to program the receive settings, then program the transmit settings to the same channel location. Programming the uv-5r series of radios directly from the radio itself it does not make use of the offset settings. Kinda silly, but that's how they work. MUCH easier if you spend the ~$6 on Amazon, and get a programming cable. I'd also recommend downloading CHIRP rather than using the included programming software.
  2. I actually ran across that antenna on Amazon, but with a PL connector, and another by a different maker but with a similar style/spec. I've been trying to work out how best to actually mount an antenna on my car, but the way the trunk lid is designed most antennas will hit the top of the car every time the trunk is opened. The fold over hinge will certainly help with that. Still have to work out the best way to get the a feed line on the outside of the car without it getting crushed, though. Thanks, The low price tag compared with the features was what drew me to it as a first radio; also knowing two people that have owned one for a while, and still use them regularly helped too. I imagine at some point I'll be looking for something a little more robust, but given that I'm still just getting my feet wet it seemed like a good place to start. I've been looking at the NA-701, and it's big brother the NA-771 as well as the NA-666, one of the people I know with the same radio as me has a 771 and loves it for 2m usage. I'd love to see an analyzer output on these, but from the reviews I've been seeing the 701 seems to be really popular, and the 666 seems to be a decent 70cm and a good GMRS whip as well. From the calculations I've done it looks like the 666 should play nice in MURS land, too.
  3. Thanks for the welcome, William. I appreciate the starting point. I've found very little info on how most 2m/70cm antennas perform just outside of their designed range. In this case, from 462 to 468MHz given the forum we're on... I'm not finding a lot of activity around me in the GMRS band, and will likely end up using my radio mostly for 2m/70cm once I get my amateur license, but it would be nice to have the option to transmit in the 460s if the need arises through the same antenna when mobile. Of course I've had trouble locating any antennas, even small ones for direct mount on my handheld, that are actually tuned for around 460. Are they just that rare, or am I not looking in the right place? I'm getting dangerously close to needing to spin this off into a separate thread. So I'll just wrap this up, and again thank both of you for the welcome.
  4. Thanks for the welcome, and early too. If I'm ever awake that early, it had better be from not having gone to bed yet. For the foreseeable future the Baofeng will likely be my sole transceiver. At some point I'll probably look into some dedicated hardware, but disposable income isn't so disposable as of late. While I'm not against different antennas/transceivers for different jobs, and certainly understand the benefits of band specific antennas, the more general purpose the better. Also, for any base station style antenna recommendations, keep in mind that I live on the 6th floor of an eight floor building, so while I have altitude on my side, I can't mount anything outdoors as I do not have a balcony. I did locate a repeater listed in a neighboring city which is 3.5mi from work, just under 3.4mi from home, 8.5mi from where my parents, and son live, and 5.5mi from my grandparents. I haven't heard any traffic on it, though that might be at least partly due to antenna limitations. I did send a request to access it, so until I know what PL it's using I don't know if I can light it up, or not. My grandfather was really big in CB back in the licensed days, and even for a while after it. Not sure if he ever crossed over into any other bands, will have to check with him,
  5. Just signed up earlier today, and wanted to offer my hellos. Many many moons ago I dabbled in CB (those moons were in the late 80's), and for a little while held a class three radiotelephone operators license (which I think is now a general radiotelephone operator license) as part of broadcast classes I took in high school. Through most of that time I had an interest in obtaining an amateur radio license, but never could get proficient enough to morse to pass the novice test. I recently caught the bug again, and decided to actually jump in with both feet. Just got my GMRS call sign, and was kind of taken back at the current cost compared to what it was the last time I looked at it; and am going to start prepping for the amateur technicians license soon. (hooray for no code test!) My only radio at the moment is a Baofeng UV-5R, and still just has the stock antenna. There isn't much GMRS activity around me (at least that I can pick up with the stock antenna), but I have been enjoying monitoring some of the 2m, and 70cm traffic around me, and hope to stumble across a few more GMRS users to make contact with soon. If anyone has any recommendations for a good antenna for the UV-5R to use with GMRS, or a good 2m/70cm antenna for when I to get that license, I would appreciate the info. I've been out of radio for so long it's all a bit overwhelming.
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