tweiss3

There was at one time they basically gave away their DR1 repeaters. And now, if you can find one that still has the original firmware, not the update, they are super easily converted to digital/multimode with a RPi and PiStar. We have one sitting on the shelf that we need to get our repeater committee formed so we can go digital. You have tons of P25 support locally. Both P25 and DMR use the AMBE decoder, but it has become the standard for public safety. DMR you can talk worldwide. NXDN i have no idea. YSF you can talk world wide. D-Star you can talk world wide P25 you won't talk world wide, but only local linked repeater systems (not a bad thing). Your other task will be equipment. DMR has a ton of choices. NXDN & P25 is going to be commercial public safety equipment only. YSF will be Yaesu only and D-Star is Kenwood & Icom choices. I enjoy my CS-800D's in the cars, but if I had to do it again, and money wasn't an issue, I would go dual deck remote head Kenwood NX-5700/5800 with a handful of options. Will do analog, P25, DMR & NXDN in one unit, but the couple thousand price tag is steep.

This answer all depends entirely on the infrastructure in your area. In my area, our digital repeaters are largely multi-mode based off the PiStar control software, which allows NXDN, DMR, D-Star & P25 (P25 is turned off). The downfall of those is that NXDN and D-Star need to make sure to disconnect or it will stay connected to that mode/room/TG. Fortunately DMR disconnects after 15 minutes no activity. North of me there is also a DMR system that is not Brandmeister, and DMR only. DX Engineering is also D-Star only. Now, I do have a simplex DMR hotspot, a duplex D-Star hotspot, and an AllStar simplex node (analog hotspot), which does help around the house and outside of the shack. DMR seems to be hugely dominant for widespread, with multiple different networks. Your location has 2 Fusion and 2 P25 systems, 1 DMR and no D-Star. Looks like fusion might be your best choice without Hotspots.

I'll put my money on local desense from being in the same room/proximity.

Yea, DX is showing the very end of July, but they did that stuff last year and it kept being pushed.

Ok, picked up both the 1610T and 1620T. I can't believe how wide band they are. 1610T 29.7MHz 1.17SWR 28.9MHz 1.05SWR 28.0MHz 1.20SWR 1620T (required the most tuning) 14.35MHz 1.35SWR 14.19MHz 1.15SWR 14.00MHz 1.40SWR Super usable across the whole band. Now I can see how you would get 11m out of the 1610T

There are a few different options. Any Uniden scanner and Proscan, or an RTL-SDR and SDRTrunk.

That's a pretty nice haul. I got a few things, nothing huge, but I don't mind.

Actually, look again, MFJ 1610T is not called the HamTenna. It's the same thing, they just updated it slightly after they bought the product. Everyone still calls it a Hamstick though. If I can center right at 28.4 and still use the entire 10m band, I'll be happy. I have the LDG Z817 tuner, but the more resonant the better. They are only $20 right now, I also grabbed the 1620T for 20m. I'll report back. I'm going to use the MFJ tri-magnetic mount and only put it up there for stationary use with my FT-817. I should make a build thread for my parks on the air/hiking setup.

I'll add to this. Why, because VHF low band, i.e. 6M. A tech has full use of 6 meters, which can be quite open. I have 958 miles on SSB voice, and 2036 miles on FT8 (digital) at 50W. Plus, 10 meters has been insane, and even techs have 28.00-28.50MHz privileges (digital and SSB only), which I've had contacts as far as 2200 miles SSB and 5400 miles FT8. These are simply impossible for UHF, you can't possibly get high enough to make that contact on UHF, without the use of a satellite to repeat your signal.

Odd question, did you do a sweep on the HamTenna? How wide is the band? I'm picking one up this afternoon from DX (I love that they are basically next door), but the documentation on bandwidth is vague at best.

You won't find a NGP 1/4 wave. All quarter wave need a ground plane. If you want no ground plane, you need a 1/2 wave antenna. If you are concerned about trees, you might need to look at fender mounts, or mount it dead center of your hood.

RST signal report, minus the tone part: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-S-T_system 5 is fully understandable 9 is full quieting strength signal (no frying pan noise). This is normally discussed on Single Side Band (SSB) conversations over HF frequencies, as there is no squelch, so you do end up hearing some pretty quiet in the background nosie.

It's basically their own standard, and probably is a mix of post transmission information sent on the tail and an automatic response sent after getting position from another unit.

I just use a Raspberry Pi 4 and built an allstar simplex node, it can dial to any other repeater or node on allstar, and I get coverage for the whole house. https://hamprojects.info/shari-pihat/ I have a hotspot for DMR, one for D-Star and my SHARI Allstar node.

I'm unaware of any HTs that do crossband repeat, not sure what good 5W of cross band repeat would be, especially since most cross band repeat transceivers cut the power in half while in use. DX Engineering lists 0 HTs with crossband repeat, there are 5 mobile transceivers: IC-2730A, IC-5100A-D, FTm-400XDR, TM-710G & DR-735T. I know the Anytone D578 can as well.

Quick example of line of site/elevation is king: I've been working a local contest that is metroparks on the air. Saturday I was at one parking lot that I thought was pretty high, elevation 971. I got one contact, report was that I was extremely scratchy at 50W, so I went to another parking lot, elevation 990, and picked up 4 contacts immediately. Inversely, I went to the next park, which happened to be in the valley right next to the Cuyahoga River, and managed a single contact that I know lives in the valley 5 miles away, but couldn't get a friend only 3 miles away at the top of the hill.

The comscope antennas are wonderful commercial antennas. Note, however, they are designed as repeater site antennas. They are designed to be mounted 100+ feet high and have a downward radiation pattern. The DB-420 has 11db of gain, but down. It is documented at 7 degrees of vertical bandwidth. I just wanted to warn people this is not an ideal antenna for a base station without considerable modification, and it should not be taken lightly.

The multiband verticals supposedly work well (Hustler & Cushcraft), but you need to have a minimum of 32 ground radials. If you mount it on the roof of your metal building, it might make a good substitute for the ground radials, but they are 25-32 feet tall, and would need guy wires, and tuned for each band as you assemble/install the antenna. Also, verticals tend to have a higher noise floor. Dipoles (fan or single band) or EndFedHalfWave would be a more efficient choice. A 80m thru 10m is 134 feet in length, and a 40m thru 10 is about 64 feet in length. They can be installed parallel to the ground at 30', or as slopers and inverted "V".

So this isn't so much able to pull in weak signals as it is textbook front end overload of the radio on chip in the UV5. The motos, kenwoods, etc., all have decent filtering and do not get overloaded by adjacent frequencies, and therefore you get get much better reception. There may also be a slight improvement on sensitivity, but thats only a small part.

Yea, there is a great writeup by hamVOIP: https://hamvoip.org/howto/AutoSky_howto.pdf I'm not sure if there are enough differences for there to be issues with your image. I also use supermon to manage the node, instead of DTMF commands.

The basic items you need are: A good antenna Feed line & grounding Repeater, look up surplus Motorola Quantar, though you will have to likely turn them down to 50w Power I suggest reading this thread:

I agree with above assessment, retransmission of the NOAA announcement is not permitted, however, brief weather alerts are. I am only familiar with the hamVOIP asterisk controller image since that's what I built my Allstar node with, but it allows "weather alerts" to be used. All it does is announce "Winter Storm Warning" (or whatever the warning is) after the repeater identification. There are protections so that alert, along with your repeater identification, are not transmitted over the link.

For what it's worth, last night I turned my IC-7300 to 27.185 AM and it does receive CB well. I think any real HF radio will tune to CB for listening without an issue.

I can see how the head would be tough to mount, didn't think of that. The 891 might be your best bet, plus the ATAS-120A is only $400 to get 40m-6m vs the Icom's price of $2100. Plus the 891 is on sale for only $600. I only mentioned MARS mod because you are in 11m. My 817ND is MARS, but I never tried to even listen out of band, I bought it used with the mod, it was not the reason for the purchse. As for $$, my wife hasn't noticed my upgrade from a FT-45D to the IC-7300, not that she cares. She rarely comments on my radio purchases. I did probe the waters about putting up a flag pole antenna to gain 160m, and she asked the other day when I was going to install her flag pole. Ultimate plan is to put the 450 on the vertical and keep the 7300 on the EFHW. Yea, you are going to have to find some billet mount, as the moment of that hamstick is huge. You may want to look at the breedlove mounts, and perhaps do a hood mount NMO and just drill the hole. Can always put a rain cap on it.

I do love my IC-7300. If I was looking to go HF in the car, the IC-7100 would likely be in the picture, with the AH740 antenna ($2100, ouch), but it only covers 80m-10m and is 75" without a mount. There is a Mars Mod (http://www.472khz.org/media/IC_7100mod.pdf) that could get you 11m, not that I'm in to that. I like the 705 idea, but why not get a full powered "mobile" rig for much less. As for C4M, I haven't messed with it, but I don't care for the "nearby repeater" feature of my Kenwood D74, but it's phenomenal for APRS.