AdmiralCochrane

All I've ever used mobile is ¼ wave, but mine is high up; the vehicle is already too tall for 9ft garages. 13 ft or go home, LOL. Same geographical area.

More "Freebanders" than hams. And more than likely, Freebanders misidentified as hams.

Because you never know without trying, there are a lot of flukes in antennae. AND it will have some function regardless, its just a matter of how much. It's not a dummy load.

I accidentally bought the wrong cable to go between my IC-756 PRO and the shiny new Heil mic I just bought. Its right on the radio end, but wrong number of XLR pins on the mic end (too many on the cable). The eBay seller accepts returns at the shipping expense of the buyer, but the correct cable costs $25 more than the one I got; I would have been out $31 to fix my mistake. For $13 I got the parts to make the correct connections, savings of $12 over getting the correct cable in the first place, $18 over sending the wrong cable back and ordering the correct one. Still not sure if I feel smart or dumb, but I do feel lucky.

My Comet tribander comes in under 1.7 across both bands.

An antenna sold for 70cm band will never work on GMRS

Its a good ham board

Are you on the gun board that has a ham section in their outdoors section?

People also generally don't know that most transmitters take a second to engage and "heat up" to full power even without sending a MDC tone. Key the mic and make sure you pushed the button all the way down. Then begin speaking, not as you are keying the mic

You are saying truckers passing thru didn't use 19?

My jump box puts out 13.8 when fully charged and 12+ for quite a while. 13.8v is for the rated fullpower output, its not a rule.

Nobody likes me anymore

FAA (and I think EPA as well) restrictions come in at 200 feet. Lots of 199 foot antennas in the ham world.

Just ask what pizza place is best. That usually brings hams out of the bushes on 2m.

Skywarn is effective in my area.

WOW! That should be labeled "The BIG Motorola manual"

Clarification: I wasn't refering to operation, but SWR measurement.

Would this be enhanced/corrected by using a real ground such as a "tiger tail"?

Does the truck have a built in 120v output inverter? That's another possiblity

In central MD I think I hit 2 at once using the same tone.

After speaking to the expert, she pointed out that, semantically and technically, these are NOT typos, but layout errors

I recall seeing those things as well. My wife does print layout for a living, mistakes like that drive her crazy

Congrats

Congrats! I read both the ARRL and Gordon West general books but couldn't make headway on the tests until I studied on hamstudy.org. Both books are good references to learn from and look back to while operating. My recommedation is to buy the books, read them, then go back to the online test prep