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Everything posted by AdmiralCochrane
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East Central Florida GMRS users?
AdmiralCochrane replied to WhiskeyHusky's topic in General Discussion
There may be a local or regional group on Facebook that can help you.- 11 replies
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Antenna Choice / SWR: Do They Matter?
AdmiralCochrane replied to marcspaz's topic in General Discussion
Voltage vs amperage doesn't matter, it's the wattage/heat. That is the primary reason you can (almost always) get away with it for short transmit cycles. I don't recall a damaged final that appeared to have pure breakdown due to overvoltage. Also pretty sure if it was voltage that mattered, there would be more instantaneous damage vs damage over time (heat buildup). -
And Marine and Air band and MURS and VHF Business band and railroad band and ... and ... and ...
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Not sure it is the sun. Doesn't look like it is doing much today. I look at several solar activity sites every day.
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Both are good radios for their price. UV-5 is the best place to start and decide whether you want to spend any more money
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On the other hand, I feel that the previous Kenwood TH6A's speaker is tinny. Listening to it is like learning to understand a fairly thick accent, where the UV5-R's speaker is much more natural. The Kenwood definitely has better receive filtering and probably puts (almost) all its RF on frequency rather than splattering it around on harmonics. 6 to 10 times the price to put a Kenwood in your hand. I own 2 of both.
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Frequency jump? My radio or just overpowered transmitter?
AdmiralCochrane replied to TrikeRadio's question in Technical Discussion
I had the same experience with a fairly expensive radio with pretty good filtering. I was only 200 - 300 feet from a local dispatch repeater. Apparently first harmonic of their UHF frequency was right in GMRS. -
I didn't know there were waterproof mobiles. Handy for open vehicles like Jeeps I guess
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UHF and propogation conditions - weird experience last night.
AdmiralCochrane replied to SvenMarbles's question in Technical Discussion
I have not had 2 way UHF transmissions via ducting, but have had 2 way ducting VHF transmissions between Long Island and central Maryland -
I have successfully used this type of antenna mounting. I am using it on a small van every day on 70cm and 2m. In the past I used it on a new tall full sized van with tall ladder racks and always received complements on my signal strength in fringe areas. Greatest simplex contact was 11 miles. If I understand your picture that the antenna is on the passenger's side rail, your best propagation will be to the driver's side, but you may never actually notice the difference. Don't change a thing.
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I missed the part about repeater coordination and who gets dibs on 2 channels in each locale
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I can hit more than a dozen repeaters from my house. Might be able to do 8 or 9 with an HT.
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Inconsistencies between VNA and in-line SWR meter.
AdmiralCochrane replied to SvenMarbles's question in Technical Discussion
The old saying "A man with a watch knows what time it is, a man with 2 isn't certain." -
Once you propose how to prevent hogging all repeater channels I will sign. Without the hogging limitation, this just solves one thing and presents a new problem in its place. Ursula K. Le Guin's Lathe of Heaven
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Dang, how can I get on your Christmas list? Wait, nothing I own has chrome on it
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Inconsistencies between VNA and in-line SWR meter.
AdmiralCochrane replied to SvenMarbles's question in Technical Discussion
If both devices are 100% accurate, the difference can be explained by the different load presented on both the coax and the antenna, more likely the coax. You haven't told us the type of coax or the length or the transmitting power. What you are seeing is likely cable loss - some power not getting to the antenna (being absorbed on the way up) and some power not reaching the SWR meter on reflection (some power being absorbed on the way back down). The skew of the readings agrees with this. (WOW, I got to use "skew" in a sentence!) Moving the SWR meter to the other end of the coax may or may not confirm this. Also possibly changing the transmit power. A way to help most people understand this is a dummy load on the end of the coax. The SWR of a dummy load (in ideal conditions) is exactly 1:1 because all of the energy is consumed at the dummy load end; NONE is reflected back. Some time back someone posted that they measured 1:1 SWR with a dummy load. As a joke, I posted "I hope so." Only a few people got it. -
I think the critique was mostly regarding off-road rough trail driving. Mall crawling is a lot easier on antenna mounting.
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Inconsistencies between VNA and in-line SWR meter.
AdmiralCochrane replied to SvenMarbles's question in Technical Discussion
In practice those readings are so close I would not have given it a second thought. -
I'm less worried about my pole falling over than I am about the wind breaking my antenna. I may devise some scheme to lower it so I could put it back up after a storm.
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BAOFENG AR-5RM Frequency Hopping?
AdmiralCochrane replied to tlcsr66's question in Technical Discussion
That's not just frequencies, that's different assigned bands. Fine for SHTF operation, but completely contrary to regs before then. 156.5750 is in the marine band. FCC and USCG definitely monitor marine band and hunt down land based violators. Another exception is, a fairly narrow slice of spectrum like this is easily monitored by a very fast scanner that would hear it all. -
SSTV is still a thing. There is a club near me that is big into it.
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Great long rang bad short range reception
AdmiralCochrane replied to Devin's topic in General Discussion
dosw nailed it. That's how radio works. /end thread -
Yeah I was looking at that radio when it came out
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Unless you drive a Jeep
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Marc, I am going to get an FM CB sometime in the next year or two, but haven't decided how or where to mount it in my Jeep. Pretty sure we are only an hour or so apart (depending on traffic). We can probably both hit some of the same repeaters that are between us. I actually haven't tried them in a while