AdmiralCochrane

Good job! There is an amount of redundancy between the Tech and General tests. Take your General as soon as you can and it will be easier.

GMRS is not particularly good in valleys, it does not penetrate hills. If you are not in visual line of who you intend to speak with, it may not work. On mountain tops, it is great. Also it is very likely that unless you have coordinated a contact, no one will hear your call; it is not something monitored like marine distress channels. There is even great debate over which channel would be best when traveling on highways.

Just like the threads of a flare nut not being the sealing surface I understand that the threads of a coax connector are not watertight seal areas, but I am of the persuasion that some greasy material in the middle of the connector short of hydraulic locking the mating surfaces from making contact is beneficial as water, can't occupy the same space that something else already occupies. Water can easily displace gases like air, but has a much more difficult time displacing oil or grease.

I have never seen this type of marine antenna using a ground plane. Most smaller boats are wood or fiberglass; the antenna would be an absolute freak if it needed a ground plane.

I believe my old Kenwood HT programming behaves the same way.

I still say the properly located simplex repeater is superior. Wattage does not guarantee comms across blind ridges.

Providing one of the 2 radios is at the central "sees all" location.

My search turns up only a small handful of prosecutions, mostly hunters that didn't know about RDF and the fact that the Coast Guard has authority on all navigable waters, even far inland, so there isn't much inhabited land where they aren't within VHF range. It appears that in general, outside of prosecution for false distress calls their verbal threats on air are sufficient enforcement. Probably fear of uniformed guys with guns. FCC doesn't have that advantage.

https://www.youtube.com/@TheNotaRubicon

Coast Guard considers 16 and 22a part of their infrastructure.

Or Marine Band channel 16 inland. All Coast Guard stations are set up with direction finding for emergencies which are also used to locate illegal inland use.

In the fringes, antenna polarization is critical. The HT antenna must be in the same plane as the receiving antenna. Do not hold the HT sideways. Hold it straight up so the antenna is oriented the same way as the repeater's antenna.

No, the owner is very nice. You may use it. I have no trouble reaching it from the Annapolis area.

Radiation pattern is counterintuitive until you realize that the electrical and magnetic features of this type of antenna are reversed.

I was pretty certain you left that part out.

King of marketing!

Same here. I put in about 100 repeater and simplex channels. A little tedious, but 100% success, but it wasn't my first go around programming a radio. I've been using mine in my Jeep for about a year and a half, but I've owned the radio longer and even have a junker that only one side works on.

I am aware of all the problems Marc points out, but so far I have had no failures of fold overs. I was aware of all those potential problems when I selected them and have been prepared to replace them and the coax if/when needed. Very lucky so far.

Slick!

Switching to lower power and not getting in to a station that receives you on high power is most likely because their squelch was turned up too high. The signal is most likely still there, just below the squelch level setting. As Steve said, in the fringes, more power brings you up out of the noise. 1 thru 10 notches in software is harder to change than the old analog knobs we had on our CB's. Some radios have a preprogrammed button to turn off squelch (I think many of them are labeled "monitor"). Other radios will require you to assign the function to a button. You should always use this function when doing tests as described in my first sentence.

Like I said, I'm tired of Siri's shirt

Yes, I was aware of those 2 models. I bet there are 50+ 50 watt units on the market. Lossy coax, cheap antennas and low to the ground physically blocked mounting. Spend first money on a pole or chimney mount, then good antenna & coax. When I am in range of the good GMRS local repeater, signal reports when toggling between 5w and 50w are "you are readable both ways, just louder on 50". "Might" isn't going to get you much of anything on UHF.

99 & 99/100% agree. Pretty sure there are more 50 watt models available than 25 or 30. Most people are buying 50's because that's what is mostly available above HT power, not because they didn't want a 30.

"Coverage area" is only an guesstimation. Anything that remotely resembles a wall (even trees, but especially hills) will block radio waves in the GMRS/UHF frequency range.