tweiss3

Yea, I know of one analog smart net system still being used today. Anyways, if you have eligibility 90.35 (a), then it's only time & money at that point.

The coordination thing is pretty big. The same Line A & Line C that cause issues with GMRS cause more issues with business band licensing. This should be discussed with the coordinator. If you have to coordinate with Canada, that can take months to clear, and if there is a conflict, you pay for coordination again. If you want to go down this path, I would recommend reading all of eCFR Part 90 top to bottom, then read it again in 2 days after you had time to process it the first time. The number one thing you will hear from your consultants is to not buy the equipment BEFORE you get licensed, and I agree with that. Lastly, there are fees you pay to the coordinator, then there are fees paid to the FCC. If I remember correctly, initial filing was $205, and a major modification is $105. Also don't be surprised if your license pops up with conditions of approval noted. It's not necessarily hard, but time consuming, and the actual application on the FCC website is not well designed.

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.

I've gotten labels put on the front of my GMRS radios with the call sign, so its visible when they are speaking into the radio. That might be an option. I used this guy: https://sites.google.com/view/kc8gl/anytone-call-sign-sticker He can make custom labels. If you place your radio on a scanner, and send it to him, he can measure and make one for whatever you wanted.

Also, on an HT, you never really get an accurate measurement. Sure, it comes with the ground plane plate to attach, and it helps with the measurement, but you end up using adapters, etc. and it never shows accurately. Rotate or tilt the radio 10 degrees and the readings change. BTW, on an HT, you shouldn't worry about SWR, if the antenna is the correct band split for your frequencies, just go with it.

Also keep in mind, a JPole antenna is not omnidirectional, it has a lopsided pattern. You may be able to rotate the antenna in place to get the pattern to point towards the repeater and reach it better. A mobile radio will be a better option overall though.

The propagation of the radio waves. UHF can bounce off the atmosphere giving you a longer "line of site" distance. This happens more often where there is a large temperature inversion (commonly noticed as heavy fog).

Not really, its extremely controlled, but typically anywhere between 500W and 2000W, even some go up to 8000W, but very controlled. You have to remember, the shielding in an MRI room is to keep RF out to get a clean picture, not to keep RF in. The typical 100db isolation is enough to keep wifi, bluetooth, cell phones and other RF out of the imaging, but the RF does leave the room.

I would hope that a decent 1/2 wave antenna in your attic to a 45-50W radio on both sides would get you there.

So you are saying, in your house you can reach your dad and brother in their house with HTs? If so, a simple attic antenna and decent mobile radio permantently installed in both houses will be plenty.

I wonder if it could be radar, though that should stop at 450, but you know, the feds do whatever they want. Also could be a 2nd image of 925.225MHz, but neither would exactly explain the issue around both locations. Edit: 925 is part of the LTE band. ATT did just have that huge problem last week. It is possible that their outage included firmware updates for the cell tower equipment and now something is out of band/creating an image.