AdmiralCochrane

Ducting most commonly occurs associated with strong temperature inversions, either the strong night to day change around dawn or along storm fronts. I recall a few years ago consistently hearing a contact in Philadelphia PA for several spring mornings thorough central MD. Other times as storm fronts approached MD, hearing repeaters on Long Island discussing traffic on the LIE. If the long range signals persist mid day in stretches of calm weather, linking would be the main suspect.

How many people carry a copy of their ham or GMRS license with them in their car? You may be the ONLY one.

Haters gonna hate. The same guys hate other hams that use or don't use digital modes etc etc. As I've said before, the majority of active members in our local club are just into 2 way radios and don't care which license, band or transmission mode you are into.

I have another story about my original 87. I was doing an install on a 65 ft yacht belonging to a thoracic surgeon. Doc was on the boat while I was doing the work and saw my meter and picked it up and looked at it. He asked me where on the quality hierarchy the Fluke digital meters were. I told him they were top of the line, state of the art. Politely putting it down he cussed. I asked him why and he told me about his college roommate calling him up and asking him if he wanted to invest in his family business that was about to expand and go digital. He said "No thanks John. Those Simpson 260 analogs we used in physics class years ago will continue to be the industry standard for decades and decades to come." ... his roomy was John Fluke Jr.

At one point there was a free upgrade to the bigger white display for the original 87. All you had to do was send them a postcard with the serial number of your 87. I carried and used mine everyday for over 25 years until just about everything was worn out. Bought a new series V about 6 years ago. I bought the original when I was trying to resolve a harmonic problem that was overheating and blowing fuses on a rooftop HVAC unit. After the fuse there was a coil of excess length feed wire that had suspicious melted insulation in a reoccurring pattern. I removed that and it didn't help, so I made a slight change to the wire before the fuse and all was resolved. I bought the Fluke because someone told me the Beckman 110+ I was using wasn't enough to measure what was going on.

Maryland's cell phone law says "cell phone". Someone got a ticket using his ham radio, took it to court and won. Precedent set, in MD, using a 2 way radio while driving is OK.

The Jeep CANbus is also known to have this problem. Heat gun can solve it, but I keep a spare in the glove box in case it happens on the road. Usually just makes flaky display notifications on the dash because the different sub-modules stop talking to each other.

There are counterfeits of almost everything that is good. It is possible that you bought fakes. There are websites that show how to tell the difference between the legit Nagoyas and Diamonds. Directly speaking of the fake Diamond antennas, they are obvious if you have had a real one in your hand and know what the real ones look like. Going back to your testing. You did not mention testing across the frequencies/bands for each antenna. Most usually favor one side of the band more than the other. Ideally they would be tuned for center, but that is less than optimal if you end up using it primarily on one end of the band or the other

What did you buy? I am considering the same

That's due to the American attitude that one can buy accuracy when it actually comes from practice over time. Much the same as buying health and strength with supplements and exotic fruits. Strength comes from work, not pills or powders. You and I both know that most even when they do buy a product that is actually better, if they lack the skill to use it properly, it doesn't work any better than a tool of lower quality and price. I have a couple of expensive Snap On screwdrivers that really are special in my hands, but in my son-in-law's hands they are no better than those from Harbor Freight.

I am pretty certain I hear legacy business fixed stations transmitting business data

Hams in my area are completely friendly to GMRS. Maybe a reciprocity problem some places.

I wouldn't bring diffraction into the conversation. Most likely just an obstruction than different antenna pattern.

My present feline stockpile is worthless. I used to have one that would run toward the door and growl when someone approached, better than any dog I ever owned. His size helped too.

Impress me and tell me you've done Delaware

WOW the price on them sure has skyrocketed. I didn't pay anything close to that for mine.

$450 ccr?? Name one

That is exactly what "maximizes contact time" means

Doppler shift maximizes contact time and clarity, but you can listen to most high passes without worrying about it

Much the same in central Maryland. Out in the sticks ... there is a phrase with F's that applies

More like $200,000 than $20,000. Not sure you can use deadly force to protect property outside of Texas. There is only one post suggesting using deadly force.

Historically so, but side to side testing shows the current batch perform well and the Japanese brands remain the gold standard of perfection. In the field even experts rarely are able to discern the differences, only expensive sophisticated instrumentation consistently shows differences.

I have tried it on a 2m/70cm ham radio with noticeable success. There was perceptible increase in reception and transmit with the tiger tail pointed in the direction of the other station and 180° away and null or reduction at 90°. No real noticeable improvement just letting it hang. This was with a Baofeng UV3 with a Nagoya tri band antenna and the larger battery. It didn't make the Baofeng as good as my Kenwood TH6A without

My criticism is there are similar radios with the same features that cost less.

That is about overused resources. WRTC928 spoke of an underused resource.