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NCRick

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NCRick last won the day on February 14 2021

NCRick had the most liked content!

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    http://Motocd.com

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  • Location
    Fletcher, NC
  • Interests
    Motorcycles, 4wd, camping, technology and cool people.

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  1. I felt I knew about the functionality of the amplification of lower input sounds to a microphone and the compression or the louder sounds all to maximize the modulation density. I never heard of that needing to be "unwound" on the receiving radio for the benefit to be realized. I'd love to hear more on this subject as it is a learning opportunity for me.
  2. I think the KG1000 is receive only outside of the GMRS band. That being the case, you will be fine with the antenna you have as it should pick up just fine if not being absolutely optimum. I would personally put the effort into putting your existing antenna up as high as I could get it.
  3. Alex, I very much appreciate your reply! It is quite thought provoking. As an uneducated new guy, I was picturing a resonant whip with standing waves. The fact is, I really don't know what I even have, the Midland antenna being described as a "5/8 wave, coliniar antenna" and I don't know it is impedance matched by some coil or capacitance in the base or if the "colinear" bit is from the coils near the mid point. I have much to learn. It's something I'm not good at but am interested in. I guess you are saying I am on the right track by adjusting to a minimum reflected power assuming I have no control of other factors besides "good practices". I was thinking I would only "tune" by sliding the antenna wire in the spring mount. A motivator for the purchase is to check a friends 275 installation which isn't apparently working as well as mine. I see now this may not be so meaningful of a data point. If I learned something, that likely worth it right there. Thank you! It is very hard teaching this "old dog" any new tricks. Won't stop me from trying tho...
  4. I ordered a cross needle Daiwa meter. Not sure if that was the correct choice but power and reflected power should be a decent relative indicator I'm hoping. If I'm off base, I'd like to understand why. I'm a newbie here. I have a Laird NMO mount, I am running the shortest coax run I could make (about 8 ft of RG58u) with smooth radius bends and no pinching. I'm running an MXTA26 antenna and an getting seemingly good range and performance. other than antenna grounding and placement, how could I change my installation impedance? How much difference in impedance is likely by moving the antenna location? I'm running a kind of lip mount off the hood which places the antenna near the windshield ("A" pillar) similar to many stock automotive am/fm broadcast radio antennas are mounted. I understand it would be better mid-roof but I was unwilling to mess with airbag and headliner manipulation to allow that installation as well as not wanting the antenna broken while pushing under brush and branches with the 4wd pickup. Am I wrong in thinking a simple indication of forward and reflected power should be a good way to check the antenna resonance and later compare different antennas?
  5. Nice work on the Video Chris! I started with part 3. I'll go back and check out the rest. Thanks for sharing.
  6. Please report if you do try one. Because of a changed mounting location we can't attribute the performance completely to the Laird Phantom but there was a decrease in communication distance once installed on my friend's vehicle compared to the tiny mag mount his mxt275 came with. The MNO mount make it an easy swap when the wife isn't looking...
  7. Unsolicited comment: midland sells a heck of a lot of radios so it is likely they have quite a lot of influence over whoever is manufacturing the radios for them. There is at least a chance, that they own or have some kind of stake in such a business and some other radios are offshoots of their efforts or directions. I'm thinking that we, the people on this forum may not totally be in the mainstream when wanting to connect a computer to the GMRS radio in our Jeep or whatever. If I was Midland, having to certify, market and support these types of radios I doubt customer low-level programming is something I would find advantageous. I'd want a fool-proof, reliable radio with compatible accessories. having said that, I want programming access to my MXT400 but to be sure, I have not run into real limitations with it yet. I'm going to guess it is transmitting in the wide band mode on repeaters just because it sounds strong. With my suboptimally mounted Midland 6db whip antenna, yesterday I reached a repeater 40+ miles away. im not bashing commercial radios but I'm not dissatisfied in having purchased a nice clean new radio from Midland directly with super fast service vs me having to dig the Cooties out of some icky old taxi cab radio. sorry for the rant but sometimes a different point of view can be worth considering.
  8. I didn't mean to say my Ghost is bad. It is short and strong, the attributes I wanted it for. My mounting is at the hood-fender lip and near the "a" pillar. Antenna propagation is changed based on a lot of factors. In my location much of the antenna is shaded by parts of the vehicle. Antenna height counts for a lot. I also "think" which is different from know... that at unity gain a coiled 1/4 wave antenna can't perform as well as a 1/4 wave straight whip (1/4 wave and gain for purpose of example). I like the Ghost, it has low observability, is relatively immune to branches and other things and hopefully will be up to the task of vehicle to vehicle communication in a "convoy" type situation. The ghost antenna may be perfect for many applications.
  9. Any input on the Daiwa double needle units?
  10. JAS, thanks for sharing! In a far less organized way, I have been making some comparisons of the same. I have been using the Ghost "pepper shaker" as an NMO place keeper when off-road in brush and when not planning to use the radio. The 6db whip gets screwed on when I plan to use the radio and need more distance.
  11. I never could find any repeater frequencies on my 805. I did the YouTube thing and stopped short of calling the place I purchased it from. I bought the recommended cable and down loaded Wouxsun's software. I'm happy now, super easy to program and name separate channels with all the specific parameters needed. I don't think the repeater channels were preprogrammed into my radio. There were none labeled RPT nor any spaces beyond ch22.
  12. @gman1971 thanks for your post. I have always been a fan of Motorola. With the radio mentioned, am I able to program this via the keypad or through inexpensive easy to get software? I found your information helpful and concise.
  13. That's cool! Thanks folks. I guess it's time for me to think about a tech license or something. I'm finding it all interesting.
  14. Interesting read for a new person such as I. I'll comment that as a Bow-fang, MXT400 and Wouxun 805g owner, the feature-set of the 805g is perfect for what I want. With the software and cable I have, the radio was super easy to configure for me and is set for all the normal channels (including repeater channels) and several other "extra" channels I customized as copies of the repeater channels but with the tones I want and a corespondent NAME label which is intuitively recognized by me. Separate tones are easy as can be. There is nothing confusing nor anything exotic. Once programmed for our use, my wife or anyone else can pick it up and use it. If my midland MXT400 had that functionality it would be fantastic. The other CCR has way to many bells, whistles and associated buttons, displays and who-haas for me to remember when I'm doing anything. I just don't like it but it's fine I suppose (it's a "part 0" radio anyhow). I'll be checking into the midland software. If it is certified for one company it should be certifiable for another.
  15. Hope I am not thread jacking but I'm wondering if the 20 foot above "structure or tree to which it is mounted " rule i though I understood comes into play with repeaters? Is there separate rules or is a tower considered a structure? Thanks! Repeaters are really cool and I'm totally curious.
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