oneeyeross

I have two J-poles from KB9VBR, one for 2 meter and one for GMRS. I like his work, the antennae do what they are s'posed to do, and the price is reasonable. I also have a roll-up slim Jim I use for a HT that does duty as a LEO scanner. The J-pole does a better job (at 2 meter) than the Slim Jim (close to 2 meter police bands), but that might also be the difference between a good 2 meter rig and cheap Chinese hand held....but for the money, I would say that J-pole will probably last longer. Honestly, can't go wrong with either option in my opinion.

See, that's why I stuck with chemistry and microbiology and didn't try to do geometry and all that kind of stuff! Thanks for that explanation, I am going to copy it and read it a bunch until I get it right.

Let's see. Earth curves 8 inches per mile, that's 8*230=1840 inches / 12 to get feet =153 feet 8 inches in 230 miles. They have a 200 foot tower, so that's line of sight, sort of. I could see that happen without ducting... Awesome contact, regardless of ducting or line of sight. I am happy to get a signal through the trees from the other side of the reprod planting...

While I agree that the FCC will probably not go hunting someone down just to see what kind of a radio they are using, as others have said, the rules exist for a reason. Now, with that out of the way, there are reasons I have radios that I could, should a need arise, use on both GMRS and ham frequencies. I don't currently have them set up that way, but a few minutes work on my computer and I could change my older Baofeng and Leixen radios from ham freqs only over to ham, FRS, GMRS and MURS. Having these radios is an asset. I hope to never have to use these radios out of their "legal" service, but it is nice to have the ability. Same with having the 779UV. It is an asset to be able to make it do other work. Hopefully, I will never need to do these things, but being able to do them is not a bad thing.

For many people ( I am one of them) the radio is a tool. Also, I learned RTP wearing a pickle suit, and we stayed off the air unless we had something to say. Chatting wasn't something you do while running battalion level comms in the -3 shop. Anyway, I have radios so that I CAN communicate with people when I need to do so. I transmit enough to ensure my equipment works, and will be using the GMRS around the place with the family....CB monitoring when on the road and ham gear once a week on the local emergency net. Other than that, I don't really have much to say to people, I don't need to talk to someone about my prostate or other health issues....