tweiss3

With the EFHW, you can pick to either cover the digital/cw portion of 80, or the phone portion. I chose digital. The 7510 is phone portion of 80, and the 8010 is digital portion of 80. I've used it on phone, SWR is something like 5:1, was only used for quick checkins to an 80 meter net.

I have a MyAntennas EFHW for 10 through 80. I have mine between two trees, but the feed side is only 25' up, and the far side is up about 40. It's no where near as tall as recommended, but it's logged nearly 5000 contacts. You don't have to have the far tree right at 160', it could be 200+, just use paracord to finish the bridging.

Voice scramblers (inversion scrambling) won't prevent the tones from being scanned. Audio will just noise, but the tone still gets transmitted in the same place.

No, the RSM cord is not used as a counterpoise. On some it was used as an extension for the antenna to get RF above the user (see @Lscott above), but it's designed to be isolated from the RF. Kenwood actually had to redesign the KMC-45 to the KMC-45D to add additional isolation because the DMR TDMA RF was causing issues with the audio circuit. The reason you are probably getting worse reception is due to its proximity to your computer/monitor/etc. You have to remember, almost everything today that has electricity running through it does and can cause RFI and make "radio" frustrating to use and track down this interference. For example, I live 1.5 miles south of 1350AM (5kW) and 98.1FM (50kW) and 1 mile north of 1150AM (5kW), and boy does their mix cause an issue on some bands.

Here is the thing, how often do you actually think you will need to use your repeater? Your actual need will be much less than you think. Most things times its used, simplex works just fine.

This x100

Thanks for the input. The 67i looks like a better unit for my use, the 7+ days of battery life is huge, where as the Montana way underperforms in that category. This device is intended to way outlast a cell phone, 18 hours is not acceptable.

My club offers an online course every few months, both for the Tech and General. It's done via Zoom, and allows for questions and discussion.

Which InReach device do you have. I've been meaning to get a handheld GPS for various trips, and was looking GPSMAP 67 with the InReach included.

Yea, plenty of traffic today on a set of ham repeaters that are not normally linked.

Look at hamfests or ebay. I paid $400 for my TKR-850, and I've seen a pile of them at the past 2 hamfests for only $600 (I bet they would haggle). https://www.ebay.com/itm/226048057405?itmmeta=01HSHB2F643BSH9B3Y7YX7EVA1&hash=item34a183a03d:g:UtcAAOSwJCVl9OK5&itmprp=enc%3AAQAJAAAAwEF%2FByVwUUmCl%2FrSSYnqjIKsJDuuv%2BUF61HYqlhp%2Bl0UQInVAy1%2FCs0ZUmjcqVxV85Jr0xLhK%2FY92GLCMomKzm1FEXDp%2BQpqtdPw3xYprvgtU9643vKqX3HjuqAuWVvSSuFzMnpJNrHZGdVJCrBL1QPYPi%2FqiSuokF66kwG%2F2wwBC9bPWlHY9j6quv8J5soB1N1VzJJC40eIFSrhbzIyDisTk3RfFrG8UaHKSOGsoMrGjCDhJxRaGm8ph0GHewvT9A%3D%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR6zziavMYw https://www.ebay.com/itm/386631482370?itmmeta=01HSHB3RKHS3ZKZJ4SYYPMY15T&hash=item5a05083c02:g:mi4AAOSwOg5lozE6&itmprp=enc%3AAQAJAAAAwD6YdARKhicet%2FJCqsdaQ%2FNO1DooBikEygrcPjnosm5ovx92qKiNDmmQJ6dQVo23GdFlYV7tlSLK6%2B2L0grP84qtgJ3tIDWYGFPEiG2KT6%2F6l3EJNOVdf%2FuRC6v9VeQD808EGQnNlwmzv8eRP8RSKUeqxoxrykFr4Y63N%2BYt0ABrk%2B04%2BbKU0VFkhN3rGpmHs17xTQC0z96ui0QIF3r%2Bb7Zo98aglrB3A8HiF0kvYnuqaNavZeOZKCsOiXZHWBZ8mQ%3D%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR_6Jj6vMYw https://www.ebay.com/itm/186330130294?itmmeta=01HSHB5FGYB0DNN6TCJPT9G53M&hash=item2b62242776:g:lkcAAOSwmjFl55rG&itmprp=enc%3AAQAJAAAA0GhDq3Q60ViK0xGgPO0ErM%2B5CQjGV2gizzQB%2BTDIOQIOrHPspeu9XSyISNUpb%2FJV9FAQZfX27azoe1KS2YxF8l8M7vFjBQl3oIx%2FANIs9oHlN8tDtucAgFnXy5wwfWYRNrYIb%2BTQpAFAi846ftGP72nDAV491up63tmCBwGDxRENOLY15J7tCoCnHH53Atz5zfAKwfZDD3JImmOS3r6mtVsFlcj70oIGyBBYNBoKZlc9OA9nUkZbYAU6uKH31zWTjc1rjrH1y4soVKvw93H2elM%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR8j4lavMYw Three examples................

I would consider his comments constructive. Iirc, he himself tried at one point, and there are about a dozen other people here that tried. It's not worth the effort as it never works out. Besides, as he pointed out, you could have just bought an actual repeater for the costs of the 2 radios you just bought.

Could be input tone changed, could be leaves are growing and your line of site is gone now. You could be hearing simplex users on the same frequency as the output.

If everyone gets their tech license, you can use it anywhere, and may be able to use nearby equipment (repeaters). There are tons of BSA troops that have commercial licenses on business itinerant frequencies. Troop owns a fleet of 20 radios, and they go to any group stepping away from the camp. That is also an option. No matter what, it boils do to your troop needs to have a communication policy in place, make it well known and USE it.

Often called a double. Usually ends up with a mess that is incomprehensible. Sometimes it's unknown and unavoidable, but it's one reason you should pay attention to other traffic around.