gortex2

What’s the backup plan for people in Seattle, Detroit, etc?

I run the FTM400. Really wanted a second one but didn't get it in time. Its a solid radio. Most likely grab a FTM300 for my second jeep. I only use it on HAM stuff so no need for mods. 

You wont find any Part 90 radios that work with a mac. Only hobby stuff.
 

I knew better than to scroll up.  But I did it anyway.  So here we go.
This is NOT up to the American government.  The ITU sets the standard.  If the Tech class had zero HF privilege, then it MIGHT be possible.  But since they do, they are able to communicate outside the US on HF.  And since that's the case, there has to be a test that can attempt to show some level of competence while operating in the HF portion of the RF spectrum.
 
This is not gonna be possible until those guys leave the hobby completely or die off. 
I have been hearing that stupidity for 30 years now.   I got a no code tech license and listened to the curmudgeon old farts complain that it was gonna be the undoing of Ham radio... it continued to exist.  When they completely removed the code requirement, it went on again.  And here we are. 
 
No one cares that you aren't a ham.  Hell I am thankful that you aren't a ham.  Your personality on here and in your videos put you right in the same mentality as the clowns that complain about how this or that change is gonna ruin ham radio.  NO one cares what you have to say.  And I KNOW you care about that.  If not you wouldn't continue to play halfwit youtube star with your GMRS videos. 

So a 500 foot spool of 7/8 isn't gonna be just loaded up in a truck and taken away.  Not even by two guys.  The spool, no cable is probably 50 pounds.  I have a number of 200 ish foot hand rolls of 7/8 and they are all well over 100 pounds.  To the point it takes me everything I have to stand them up from the ground.  And even laying them across my shoulders, I can't lift them and carry them.  They get rolled.  So a 500 foot roll would reasonably be over 200 pounds plus the 50 pound spool.  If you are man enough to pick that up knee high and set in it the back of a pickup truck.  Well, if it was mine and I saw you do it.  I would just let it go cuz I ain't gonna screw with you.
That being said.  7/8 cable retail price meaning the price they will use to determine if it's grand theft or not, is about 9 bucks a foot.  So your 'free' 500 foot of cable will get you 10 years for grand theft.  ANd if it happens to be for an EMA install.  Well then it starts to get a bit more serious.  EMA's all fall under the Homeland Security blanket.  Screwing with their communications sites just happens to be a federal offense.  So now when the county gets down with you, the feds pick up where they left off and toss some more charges your way.
It's not worth it
 
 

Start a morse code challenge on TikTok...🙄
 
Sarcasm mode: OFF
Carry on
 

So just as reference the GR1225 does not have a self contained duplexer. Yes it can be mounted inside the case but its not always there. Many makes of repeaters have a location to install the duplexer inside but many used ones don't have it. As reference the motorola quantar will program fine with Windows 10 and is a rock solid repeater. I still have a windows XP computer I use for my GR1225 repeaters I still have on the air. You can pick them up for $25 on the used market all day long. 
As said in the other post look at the midland or Retivas if you want a basic home repeater. The GR1225 on high power wont last. I run all my 45 watt units at 25 watts to make them last. 

You cannot use digital on GMRS. Analog only per the rules. There are alot of good repeaters out there. The GR1225 while a decent unit will burn up if you run it on high power. No there isn't support but for a $500 unit and a little online you can be on the air pretty quick.
With that said also know your environment and what you expect from the repeater. If your installing this at home in a town and not on a mountain you may not get what you want. The midland repeater package is a good unit for a home repeater as long as you can get the antenna up in the air. If all you have is portables its ideal. Vertex, Motorola, Bridgecom, Uniden, Daniels, Maxon, ICOM all make good repeaters. Antenna system is where a repeater shines. 

So just as reference the GR1225 does not have a self contained duplexer. Yes it can be mounted inside the case but its not always there. Many makes of repeaters have a location to install the duplexer inside but many used ones don't have it. As reference the motorola quantar will program fine with Windows 10 and is a rock solid repeater. I still have a windows XP computer I use for my GR1225 repeaters I still have on the air. You can pick them up for $25 on the used market all day long. 
As said in the other post look at the midland or Retivas if you want a basic home repeater. The GR1225 on high power wont last. I run all my 45 watt units at 25 watts to make them last. 

So just as reference the GR1225 does not have a self contained duplexer. Yes it can be mounted inside the case but its not always there. Many makes of repeaters have a location to install the duplexer inside but many used ones don't have it. As reference the motorola quantar will program fine with Windows 10 and is a rock solid repeater. I still have a windows XP computer I use for my GR1225 repeaters I still have on the air. You can pick them up for $25 on the used market all day long. 
As said in the other post look at the midland or Retivas if you want a basic home repeater. The GR1225 on high power wont last. I run all my 45 watt units at 25 watts to make them last. 

In this image from a recent amateur radio licensing class, we can see one of my fellow amateur radio volunteer examiners explaining the function of the PTT button.

I have an FTM-300DR, which has the ability to run 2m and 70cm at the exact same time using the same antenna and there is no desense issues.
 
It's mostly going to depend on the frequencies in use and the filters on the radios. 

The most useful repeaters are located on hilltops, tall buildings or towers of some sort (water towers, antenna towers etc).  A 10 watt transmitter mounted where it overlooks the surounding area is more useful than a 50 watt on a single story building with trees nearby. 

No, I just know that "some people's" entire hobby revolves around finding strange men talk with, and I think Grindr is a great way for them to do that.  I'm just looking out for them.

Short answer is no.
 
Longer answer that is significantly more vague...  Given most 50w models are closer to 45w, and you have to quadruple your power to increase your signal 1 s-unit, I would say no, not really.  You really need to jump to 80w-100w before it makes a real difference, but those numbers aren't available in GMRS. 
Other side of the debate, I am a power junkie and you never know when that extra few watts is going to be the difference between reaching who you need to talk to or not.

I assume he means https://broadnetgmrs.net/ which appears offline at this point. Google shows posts last week so maybe a domain issue (forgot to pay bill) or something else. 

Radio Shack sold such a radio back in the day. The guts of the radio was in the magnetic base, to comply with the fixed antenna rule. The controls were in a remote speaker mic that was run into the passenger compartment.
 

Radio waves don't know the direction in which they are heading - ie: being transmitted or received. The signal is the signal. The trouble you originally described would not be due to antenna height.
Why go through the trouble of raising up the antenna, but avoid doing a simple 5 minute troubleshooting test and report on the results?
 

You need vertical separation for a dual antenna setup. Unless your doing a combiner and receive multi-coupler I don't see the value in the dual antenna setup. A good duplexer will have a small amount of loss and in the end work much better than the dual antenna setup. There is alot more to this discussion than just antenna. The repeater is another big item that needs to be figured out. A repeater made from cheap mobiles will be worse in a dual antenna setup than a purpose built LMR repeater. 
In the LMR world a lot of sites use dual antenna. My one SAR site uses a receive multi-coupler with a DB408 at 35' up a tower. The TX antenna is thru a TX combiner at 15' off the ground. With the filtering on both TX and RX I see no desense at all on 75 watt Quantars on GMRS and our SAR channels. Another site we have an ICOM FR4000 with a BPR duplexer. Out of the duplexer is a 30 watts into 1/2" LDF 150 up the tower. Again no desense at all and there is multiple LMR repeaters at this site. Both sites have great coverage for the area and both serve specific purposes. If I didn't have other SAR LMR frequencies at the first site we would have a duplexer. 
Normally the cost of feedline and antenna will be the same cost of the duplexer. 
 
 

^^^^^ Is 100% accurate. It baffles my mind when folks say they need a 50 watt repeater and all they have are 4 wat handhelds. We used to deal with this in the LMR world all the time. Balance of a system is not only good practice but can help reuse frequencies also. We had multiple factories in one city all using the same frequency. All of them were far enough apart the 5 watt TX repeaters did not interfere with the other sites. 
Our C-C SAR repeater on UHF is set for 10 watts at our antenna on TX. We only have UHF portables and no mobiles. Rarely does one who can talk to the site not hear the site. Even my testing with a mobile was great. When you can see the antenna from miles away no need to have a ton of power. 
In the GMRS world with limited repeater frequencies this is something all should remember. 

^^^^^ Is 100% accurate. It baffles my mind when folks say they need a 50 watt repeater and all they have are 4 wat handhelds. We used to deal with this in the LMR world all the time. Balance of a system is not only good practice but can help reuse frequencies also. We had multiple factories in one city all using the same frequency. All of them were far enough apart the 5 watt TX repeaters did not interfere with the other sites. 
Our C-C SAR repeater on UHF is set for 10 watts at our antenna on TX. We only have UHF portables and no mobiles. Rarely does one who can talk to the site not hear the site. Even my testing with a mobile was great. When you can see the antenna from miles away no need to have a ton of power. 
In the GMRS world with limited repeater frequencies this is something all should remember. 

^^^^^ Is 100% accurate. It baffles my mind when folks say they need a 50 watt repeater and all they have are 4 wat handhelds. We used to deal with this in the LMR world all the time. Balance of a system is not only good practice but can help reuse frequencies also. We had multiple factories in one city all using the same frequency. All of them were far enough apart the 5 watt TX repeaters did not interfere with the other sites. 
Our C-C SAR repeater on UHF is set for 10 watts at our antenna on TX. We only have UHF portables and no mobiles. Rarely does one who can talk to the site not hear the site. Even my testing with a mobile was great. When you can see the antenna from miles away no need to have a ton of power. 
In the GMRS world with limited repeater frequencies this is something all should remember. 

^^^^^ Is 100% accurate. It baffles my mind when folks say they need a 50 watt repeater and all they have are 4 wat handhelds. We used to deal with this in the LMR world all the time. Balance of a system is not only good practice but can help reuse frequencies also. We had multiple factories in one city all using the same frequency. All of them were far enough apart the 5 watt TX repeaters did not interfere with the other sites. 
Our C-C SAR repeater on UHF is set for 10 watts at our antenna on TX. We only have UHF portables and no mobiles. Rarely does one who can talk to the site not hear the site. Even my testing with a mobile was great. When you can see the antenna from miles away no need to have a ton of power. 
In the GMRS world with limited repeater frequencies this is something all should remember. 

^^^^^ Is 100% accurate. It baffles my mind when folks say they need a 50 watt repeater and all they have are 4 wat handhelds. We used to deal with this in the LMR world all the time. Balance of a system is not only good practice but can help reuse frequencies also. We had multiple factories in one city all using the same frequency. All of them were far enough apart the 5 watt TX repeaters did not interfere with the other sites. 
Our C-C SAR repeater on UHF is set for 10 watts at our antenna on TX. We only have UHF portables and no mobiles. Rarely does one who can talk to the site not hear the site. Even my testing with a mobile was great. When you can see the antenna from miles away no need to have a ton of power. 
In the GMRS world with limited repeater frequencies this is something all should remember. 

You need vertical separation for a dual antenna setup. Unless your doing a combiner and receive multi-coupler I don't see the value in the dual antenna setup. A good duplexer will have a small amount of loss and in the end work much better than the dual antenna setup. There is alot more to this discussion than just antenna. The repeater is another big item that needs to be figured out. A repeater made from cheap mobiles will be worse in a dual antenna setup than a purpose built LMR repeater. 
In the LMR world a lot of sites use dual antenna. My one SAR site uses a receive multi-coupler with a DB408 at 35' up a tower. The TX antenna is thru a TX combiner at 15' off the ground. With the filtering on both TX and RX I see no desense at all on 75 watt Quantars on GMRS and our SAR channels. Another site we have an ICOM FR4000 with a BPR duplexer. Out of the duplexer is a 30 watts into 1/2" LDF 150 up the tower. Again no desense at all and there is multiple LMR repeaters at this site. Both sites have great coverage for the area and both serve specific purposes. If I didn't have other SAR LMR frequencies at the first site we would have a duplexer. 
Normally the cost of feedline and antenna will be the same cost of the duplexer.