Raybestos

An elderly lady phoned her telephone company to report that her telephone failed to ring when her friends called -- and that on the few occasions when it did ring, her pet dog always moaned right before the phone rang. The telephone repairman proceeded to the scene, curious to see this psychic dog or senile elderly lady. He climbed a nearby telephone pole, hooked in his test set, and dialed the subscriber's house. The phone didn't ring right away, but then the dog moaned loudly and the telephone began to ring. Climbing down from the pole, the telephone repairman found..... 1. The dog was tied to the telephone system's ground wire via a steel chain and collar. 2. The wire connection to the ground rod was loose. 3. The dog was receiving 90 volts of signaling current when the phone number was called. 4. After a couple of such jolts, the dog would start moaning and then urinate on himself and the ground. 5. The wet ground would complete the circuit, thus causing the phone to ring. .....Which goes to show that some problems CAN be fixed by pissing and moaning.

In the past, I have had good service from Larsen and Laird brand NMO hole mounts.

Sorry, but I had to do it. I went and looked up ham call "N0NE" or N (Zero) NE. A gentleman in Tennessee has that as his call sign.

Indeed Midland is. Design and engineering, not so much.

Things to consider if going from an ht like a KG935G to a 50W base. A dual conversion receiver such as a KG1000G will often give less noise and interference from a variety of sources. A KG1000G offers simultaneous monitoring of two channels. That way, you can monitor a repeater and a simplex channel, two repeaters, or two simplex channels, at once. Weird as it is, propagation and parts of the antenna received and transmitted from on a given antenna or antennas, can change drastically with a frequency change as small as 30 or 45 KHz. I know I am comparing apples and oranges, but a couple of friends and myself used to rag chew on 2m (VHF) simplex. We were using different gain type antennas and brands. We might hear each other "okay" on 146.550 MHz. We could switch 146.580 MHz and hear each other way better, with stronger signals all the way around. There was no interference from adjacent channels, intermod, etc; just noticeably stronger signals. You could monitor say 462.550 on one side of your base. If, for some reason, your ht or mobile went into a null, it is possible that they could switch to a secondary monitored channel, say 462.725, and get in good enough for you to hear them. Also, with a good power supply like an Astron or similar, leaving your base turned on and monitoring at all times has advantages. Another thing, if worn "on-body", there will be significant attenuation of transmitted and received signals with an ht. A 50W base has a better chance of being heard on the belt-worn radio. Of course, once the wearer takes the ht off of their belt, its signal improves both xmit and receive, when in-hand as opposed to against your body. For this reason, I do not recommend using a speaker/mic for an ht on the belt unless operation will be at very close range.

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My favorite low-profile antenna has always been the Comet B-10 NMO. It is about 12" tall and performs very well on 2m and 70cm.

Unless you are married to Lorena Bobbitt, hopefully you do.

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?