8nannyfoe

How's about a fold over or a cap. You put the antenna when you have the car. Take it off when she has it?
 
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Thank you for this!   Very informative!   You just made this forum great!!

You had a 6db antenna with 16' of cable then went to a 40' of LMR400. You will have loss in the cable. Granted wont be a ton but will be different than 16' of cable. 
 
As reference I run the Laird antenna on my Motorhome for my repeater and have used it alot. Its a solid antenna. Get it in the air and it will do fine.

Good Morning.
 
Honestly, I do not believe you would able to tell the difference in range between the two models, assuming both are properly installed and working correctly and both are mounted at the same elevation.
 
Something you should know is that VHF and UHF frequencies are what are called ‘line of sight’ frequencies. This means that if two antennas operating on these frequencies can see one another, odds are great the radios connected to them can communicate with one another, even with minimum power. But in reality every tree, plant, tower, building, pole, hill or hump you put between the two antennas reduces effective range.
 
To determine your theoretical best case scenario you start by calculating the radio horizon distance for the two radios that you wish to communicate with one another. Below are some links for you to play with. These calculators assume the earth is a perfectly smooth sphere. As you will see, the higher the Tx and Rx antennas are, the greater the theoretical distance. For two antennas located at 6’ each, the maximum theoretical distance is a mere 6 miles. For the case where one antenna is 35’ and the other is 6’, the maximum theoretical is 11 miles. Both antennas at 35’ and the maximum increases to 16 miles. But since the earth is not smooth (has hills and valleys) and has natural and man-made obstacles (trees and buildings) range is nearly always dramatically reduced. In far fewer cases it goes way up (consider radios on two different mountain tops).
 
You may ask what is the radio horizon. The radio horizon is the point at which (in any horizontal direction) the radio wave is blocked by the surface of the earth. It is nearly the same as your eyes. Go out on a boat on smooth ocean waters. If your eyes are at 6’ above the water, the horizon you see is only a mere 3 miles away. The higher you are above the earth surface, the further away the horizon is that you see. It is the presence of this blocking horizon that prevents the signal from traveling further around the earth.
 
https://www.qsl.net/w4sat/horizon.htm
 
https://www.everythingrf.com/rf-calculators/line-of-sight-calculator
 
https://www.southwestantennas.com/calculator/line-of-sight
 
Hope this helps.
 
 
Michael
WRHS965
KE8PLM

If you are saying that the stock antenna that came with the MX105 is a 6dBi antenna, I believe that to be in error. At best, it may be 2dBi. The short little midland antenna does need a ground plan, where as some others can benefit from one, but do not need them to achieve acceptable performance.
 
Midland does make a 6dBi version. I own one and find that it does quite well. Even mounted on top of a metal trashcan lid. I believe the Laird antenna you reference is similar.
 
Height is King in GMRS. Get the antenna well above the tree line and you could find yourself achieving simplex distances of 20-50 miles and more. As the antenna elevation drops so too will your usable range. With an elevation of 4-6 off the ground your usable simplex distance could be down to 1/2 - 2 miles or so depending upon the obstacles between the transmitting and receiving antennas.
 
I recently did some testing with a local ham and GMRS’r. I had a high-gain antenna at 56’ (still below tree tops) and could not communicate 8 miles to another location were we testing. Only thing significant between the two antennas was loads and loads of trees (no hills or tall buildings). Using same antenna, radio and power (5 watts) we reached a good 50 miles going a different direction where fewer trees and other obstacles existed between the antennas.
 
Never under estimate the importance of height when it comes to GMRS distance.
 
 
Michael
WRHS965
KE8PLM

This Laird antenna does not need ground plane. Do I read correctly that it is now mounted at the height of 30 inches from the ground? Mount it high on a mast, the higher the better. 10-20-30', and do experiment again.

Don't need a repeater to do what he wants to do. "repeater, and repeater capable radios" is the right answer, just to the wrong question. he clarified a couple of posts down from the top what his actual goal is - which is position reporting.

The short answer no FRS repeating... No on GMRS repeater if your handheld as not set to do offsets for repeater channels.  If you want to do your own repeater will be based on the location that will cover your area of need as well on placement of antenna and wattage going out the antenna.  Now I like all the features of Motorola T800 BUT what I see they are not Repeater Able...  I do not think they do GMRS channels as well, nor can they do the offset +5 that is needs for repeaters.  But do reach out to Motorola and ask them if it is repeater capable (I have no clue and others will comment who have this same issue).  
 
I have a KG-805G as well and it is a killer on local privately owned repeater... plus the 2 plus miles just on a GMRS channel.  I get 30 plus miles in the mountains of WNC as the repeater I have access to is on one of the highest plus well located mountain.  So no need for me to put up a repeater as this is great owner and group of folks.
 
So I like and looked at your Motorola T800, they are great for hiking, campground, looking for your wife in the Mall, all within a few miles (I wanted more coverage as we are short on cell coverage).  Do you have a repeater in your area... otherwise check out all the chat about setting up your own repeaters in this forum.... (do not spend more then $5-600).  O and get another KG-805G and program it with cable and software to your needs like your own repeaters or others channels.
 
Hope this help, the above is IMHO and non techie... Just what this newbie has learned from some of the great mentors on the forum.  I'm like a translator for those that have all the technical jargon and I'm just more practical and how do I make it work for my family needs.
 
Jack
 
Edit.... We winter in Fort Myers... I looked up repeaters in your area... https://mygmrs.com/repeater/291 and in Fort Myers https://mygmrs.com/repeater/2391  Turn on your 805G on and listen to channel 15-21 and if you hear morse code CW sound, get an app for your iPhone and pickup call signs for who repeater owner is.   

Technically they CAN, but legally absolutely without a doubt "NO".

OK. You need to explain this one. There are 8 GMRS frequencies only. Repeaters always transmit LOW and is how many of the GMRS radios sold on the market support. I dont understand why you would not use defined frequency plan. I mean do you mean different TX and RX pairs ? IF so not sure why again.
 
Please explain your question.

The benefit of using a narrow channel is the lower noise along better sensitivity and range. The advantage of wideband is the capability to transfer higher data rates.  I would stay away from narrow band unless you want to forget about digital and hi-fidelity.
 
As far as repeater pairs go, CTCSS and DCS were created for a reason.  If you are using tone or digital code squelching, unless the repeaters are within miles of each other, you can have potentially hundreds of repeaters in place within a 500 mile radius and not interfere with another repeater.  The only exception I could potentially see there is if traffic went up 100 fold and all repeater owners started using 200' towers; which I don't see happening.
 
Additionally, there is a massive shortage of people willing to spend insane amounts of money for proper repeater equipment, site rentals and maintenance costs, just to allow other people to user their system for free. (Hard to imagine, I know.)  Opening up more pairs isn't really a need.