tweiss3

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.

Do you have any photos of the Fox Delta unit? Now that you have it installed, all the photos I've seen are kind of vague.

That is a very nice looking mount that you made. Your review of the radio leaves a lot to be desired though. For the price though you're probably in the ballpark of ideal. Everyone I know that has used the ham sticks say they bend after about 3 months of wind and gravity. Does the Yaesu 400 decode aprs without having to connect to the TNC?

Looking for the mix of both the lowest Smith (impedance) and SWR, but you can always improve the match if you get good swr by adding a capacitor to bridge the antenna and ground (shield).

I just looked back, I used MMANA-GAL Free. I was wondering how my patter changed on my EFHW with sag as it was actually installed in the field: https://1drv.ms/b/s!AmNCKj05x9hYgf5PCTQOZ_HD_zUvkg?e=jcTW11 I did not put in information for the matching transformer, so the SWR did not calculate, but there are places to put that in.

I would suggest modeling the antenna in 4NEC2, but you would have to know the information about the base coil, like capacitance. It would get you an idea of the resonance and the radiation pattern. I can't remember if it will tell you the SWR or not. It has been a while since I dabbled in that. What about buying a screwdriver antenna, or something like the Yaesu ATAS-120A?

Yea, like most radios, you can only set the power according to the factory pre-sets (H/L/EL/etc...).

I thought this was a done deal a long time ago. All the testing locations here require the FRN only.

Just wait till you decide you want to get into scanners or ham radio. $600+ scanners with NMO antenna in each car along with dual band Part 90 radios, plus a QRP radio for HF on the go......... this year has not been good to my wallet.

Motorola Solutions is HQ in Chicago, built overseas JVC Kenwood is HQ in Long Beach, CA, built in Japan All are the same, Alinco is CA, Btech is KS, Midland is KC, but none are manufactured here.

Everything is made overseas, but may have USA offices. The Japanese stuff is superior to the Chinese made stuff. Stick with brands that support public safety (LEO & FD) like Motorola and Kenwood if you want things to last and put up with the abuse. There are kenwoods running right now that use a DOS programming software.... that old.

Check this install, he always does a great job: https://forums.radioreference.com/threads/2020-chevy-silverado-install.410995/

Very interesting. I wonder if your shielding fabric on the cable will help.

Isn't the 6666 FM only? Kinda missing the point of modding for 11m, right?