AdmiralCochrane

I drilled a hole in the case of a UPS and soldered wires to the leads going to the battery to feed my first VHF/UHF base unit. I've also used a jump starter. I endorse both ideas as feasible.

TYT TH9800 mobile does crossband repeat as well. Probably a dozen more if you look hard

I wouldn't spend extra money on a yagi until I had proven it was needed

I second what Michael said ?

As BoxCar says, you can manually check the FCC website and see if your call sign has been granted quicker than waiting for the email. I tested on a Saturday and the Laurel VEC's submitted electronically and I confirmed via the FCC site on Monday morning. I started checking at 9 am and saw new grants, but mine wasn't posted until about 10:30 am. Around 11:00 am I called a sign I was familiar with and the ham responded, my first contact the same morning! The other sources get the data from the FCC ULS site, even the FCC mail looks there.

Congrats!

There is more tech knowledge on this forum than many of the "good" ham boards. I was going to post that somewhere else and I still may

My house has 2 old wells still connected to the grounding. The foundling rod is probably early cable TV ground, my electric service has its original in the basement rod and a newer outdoor rod. I still lost a power supply buffer board in an HF rig last summer in a strike 60 ft from the house. The neighbors lost 2 TV's and 2 window shakers. . Now I have a Rig Runner power supply block that I disconnect everything from when not in use.

The only thing better is clearing the mulch and finding a rod already attached to your house; no its not the electric service ground, that's on the other side of the house. I just pulled my grounds to it and clamped it on. I might drive the second rod in and attach it anyway.

Yeah, I am super happy with it. Bought it second hand and got the trigger when it was on sale. Took a while to find the right pellet and a lot of practice to get that good with it. I don't need anything else for home practice. I hang the 1 ½" juice and tea bottle caps on chain and wack the heck out of them, very satisfying.

Just a Crosman Phantom break barrel for me, all I do with it is trigger practice. With the aftermarket trigger and the right pellets I can consistently hit a 1 ½" target from 44 yards (my back step to my target back stop in front of the neighbor's fence). It did take some time to learn the open hand front grip for springers.

Wrong gear is more of a power mismatch - running higher power than the antenna is rated for or turning the tires more rpm/mph than they are rated for. SWR is more like clear glass letting all light pass vs semi-mirror reflecting some of the light back. Full mirror would send zero signal out, all reflected.

A ferrite core on the coax right under the antenna won't hurt

Motorcycles and what makes good pizza and where to get the best pizza always bring out the local lurkers on the ham repeaters in central MD; round table practice and memory test as to where you belong in the rotation everytime pizza comes up. Hunting and guns once in a blue moon.

This is my experience as well. Running it in my daily driver until my base antenna arrives. Curious to put my meter on it and see what the output is relative to the RF gain knob position (had to retype that a couple of times, LOL)

You really only need a swr/power meter in addition to a nanonva to show you the power output and reflected power going back into your final without doing the math or if you suspect your radio isn't up to spec. Advantage of the nva over a swr meter alone - nva not only tells you the relative tuning of the antenna and feed line, if you need tuning, it tells you which way to go. SWR meter only tells you whether you are in range of your goal, not whether to lengthen or shorten your antenna element to achieve your goal. ETA: I wish 2 radios was enough, LOL

There is a reason. GMRS has a fee payment arraignment system in place and requires no testing, only payment; all that they have to do is reduce the fee, everything else is in place. Ham requires testing and confirmation and at this time requires no fee. Its a whole new ball of wax.

Back to normal

I have not experienced GMRS and VHF simultaneous openings here in the east. The bands are just too different.

I have more trouble remembering the band restriction questions on the General test than the electronics

My nanonva says my Comet triband base antenna is better for 1.25m and 70 and 65cm than 2m. Still around 1.8:1 on 2m, so its good everywhere.

I was stunned when I looked up how many local business licenses there were in my area.

Extended warranty

I'm considering the same radio for the same use. I think we had a QSO a month or so back

Not to be a downer, but most SHTF ham use is fantasy. It just doesn't work like TV and movies.