Raybestos

That's easy for him to say!

Ever since CB days I would give the kids with new walkies a thrill around Christmas by talking to them. That they could reach another person a few blocks or a mile or two away was a form of DXing to young radio enthusiasts. I recall as a child, how many of the curmudgeons would cease talking to us once we told them we were on an unlicensed walkie-talkie. One guy who told me he couldn't talk to walkie talkies (then FCC rule about not talking with unlicensed stations), I later learned had never even had a CB license. GMRS has so much better range than the old CB Channel 14 radios with the long antennas that always got broken off. Plus, GMRS and FRS can legally talk with each-other!

LOL! For decades, hams have (rightfully) been on the receiving end of jokes about their boring conversations; which frequently center on medical ailments, trips to the doctor, their "roids", bp meds, etc. I am aware of one GMRS repeater group whose "administrator" cannot bring himself to make a series of transmissions without regaling the audience with the latest on his c-pap machine, his latest heart attack, his latest planned surgery, etc. If that were not bad enough; there is his "beans, peas, corn, taters, maters" ad-nauseum, monologue about what all he did in the garden that day. Often, he sounds like he is three sheets in the wind, which can add an element of entertainment value to his radio broadcasts and internet postings. He would make a great ham except that he thinks he lacks the intelligence to pass the test. Thankfully, he never tried to find out.

Funny you should say that. I think some or most of that group might be former or retired cops.

Even the two methods above may not work at all times. In my state, there is a clique that has maintained a GMRS repeater presence of sorts, for over a decade. They are listed on MyGMRS.com. For as far back as anyone I know remembers, they have been "members only". They have always had a disclaimer to the general effect that they were not accepting new members due to concerns about potential overloading of their repeater in the event of an actual emergency. The comical thing, is that I know people who regularly monitor their channel and have never heard any transmissions from them. Others that have, heard very brief traffic maybe once or twice in years of monitoring. Obviously, overloading is not a concern so why not just say, "It is our repeater and we don't want no dang outsiders on it", which is their prerogative? Getting back on track, a while back, a guy put up another repeater with wide coverage on their operating channel. He likely did the "listen for activity" thing and hearing none, decided to park his large, "network linked" repeater on their operating channel. Had the guy done the right thing and left it as a stand-alone to benefit the area GMRS community, he probably would have been fine. Instead, he piped in garbage from all around the country via some linking network and the existing, mostly silent, repeater guys had a cow. The silent guys plus the owner of another repeater about 40 miles out were not happy and raised a stink. This led to a frequency change of the newer networked repeater which despite claims to the contrary, is still tied to some network with regular traffic from 700+ miles away on it. Had the new guy just left off the linked network garbage, the little bit of local traffic on the channel likely would have been tolerable to the legacy repeater guys. The frequent obscenity, profanity, and other noise coming in through the network is likely what created the uproar.

"IF" the offending party should be located, possession of and proficiency with the use of a rettysnitch and/or wouff hong have been reported as effective remedies for such behavior. Unknown to myself, is whether or not these devices are effective on non-ham problems, or problems occurring on frequencies allocated to other than ham use. But hey, it might be worth a try. http://www.natradioco.com/rdey/whrsl.htm

Old Man Willis?

Me too! Thanks!

Ohhh...that's why it has been so dead on here the last few days! I wondered why nobody was commenting much. Thank You for the info!

Delete Duplicate Post.

Usually, I get an update via e-mail from My GMRS on Sunday nights with any new or changed information for repeaters across the country. I did not receive one last night. Did anyone else not get one? FWIW, I checked my SPAM and "trash" folders to see if it accidentally went there. It did not.

The 1.8 SWR, while not ideal, shouldn't hurt you too badly, unless the KG1000 has an "RF fold back for higher SWR". Some VHF and UHF ham radios are so sensitive on RF foldback, they reduce power significantly with SWR as low as 1.5:1.

Well, it looks as though you eliminated that problem as a possibility. Good job! The Messi & Paolini (I call it Nancy Pelosi) cable, if I read their chart right, has a loss of 3.6 db at 400 MHz. Obviously, it will be a bit higher at 462 MHz so you are probably right at or knocking on the door of 3 db loss, xmit AND receive. That means if your radio is putting out 50W at the radio, your antenna is getting 25W. If you can hear the repeater well, it should be able to hear you. I hear and see so many places promoting LMR400, the Nancy Pelosi, and the like for UHF, even though it is lossy at UHF. Still, it is better than RG-8. A 50ft run will probably be okay. To be honest, at 3db loss, if you hear it you should be able to hit it, which brings us back to my theory that you may be in a good spot to hear it on 462, but an absolute null at 467. I know it is probably the last thing you want to do, but I would go on the roof and move the antenna a foot or so sideways and or forward and backward. To prevent additional such trips, have your wife or other trusted person in your radio room, ready to try and key up the repeater at your direction. If possible, back away from the antenna when they do so to minimize body capacitance and other possible weirdness which might change once you are back on the ground. This brings another thought. Can you hit the repeater with the 935G from inside your home or outside? If so, it is very likely a null you are dealing with. https://messi.it/en/comparison-chart--attenuationpower-ratio.htm

Good catches, Steve! Without a specimen in front of me at the moment, I don't know if the KG1000G has an audio adjustment on its menu or not. Possibilities are numerous, including those you have found and fixed.

Tcp2525 may be on-target. Do you have another radio to monitor your own with? Ideally, a ht with a "reverse" feature, or the means to program 467.700 in as a receive frequency. If not, then try monitoring your transmit audio (voice) on a simplex channel and see if it comes through. It is entirely within the realm of possibility that for some reason, your transmit audio is weak or non-existent.