AdmiralCochrane

I grew up riding in the back of a CJ-6. It was the first vehicle my brother crashed (I beat him by a few years with a '49 Studebaker and a phone pole, he only backed the trailer hitch thru the wooden door my father was standing behind). Neither incident resulted in any damage other than our pride. My father told us the 6 was based on the same frame as the M170 ambulance.

I use Mark site read and Unread Content on a regular basis. Sometimes setting the site cookie with Mark site read doesn't seem to clear and on my next visit Unread Content some things that have not had new comments for days or weeks (sometimes months) show up as unread. As if the server only had partial access to the history when I hit Mark site read. It is obvious when I thought I hit Mark site read but didn't, and content from those days or week that I didn't read shows up again. Not a problem, but a curiosity. Maybe a limit to how big the cookie can be?

Not entirely. Politeness should prevail. If no one is using the channel, use simplex if you want. If there is other traffic, pick another. That is why there is more than one channel in the service.

Are you saying there is shooting than just putting bullets in and pulling the trigger? jk

All true in general. This original poster told us about the trees around him. For him, it is most important to get over those trees. He didn't say anything about a 200 ft tower or hilltop. For him, my original advice stands.

Which antenna is much less important that trying to get it as high as you can. A "better" antenna will not make up for being too low.

He's not connecting repeaters, he's bridging GMRS to LTE

I saw the pictures on Facebook

If you say so ...

Maybe it's a regional thing. In central MD dozens of repeaters have dozens of daily users. I am certain the NYC metro area is likewise. DC/Baltimore and NYC are certainly larger Metro Areas. As above, FM VHF and UHF are a tiny fraction of amateur radio.

Exactly what makes you think Amateur Radio Service is dying?

My home made 70/65cm Slim Jim is below 1.6 swr about half way across both bands according to my nanoNVA. I really didn't expect it to be that good across that much. I have my GMRS radio attached to it.

It is hard to find a used Yeasu radio that is functionally junk. Same for the other Japanese makers. If you only buy new, you are missing a lot of very good radios on the market.

If you don't like the copycat, then maybe the real cat is the one for you. Yeasu 8900. I have both.

The radios are usually much more equal. The differences are more often in the antennas, the antenna mounting, coax and the users themselves.