tcp2525

Are you crazy? I added two more so that I can be prepared when the main one burns up. Remember, GMRS is all about being prepared.

I still have my two 380s in the drawer all charged and ready to go. Great little radios. They are my tower radios. If I drop one, I'll read a few scriptures from the good book, but other than that it's no big deal.

Brass is, at least yellow brass is 34% zinc mixed with copper. The nickel comes in as plating. Scrap the nickel and you will see yellow brass.

Maybe you are confusing Chinese "pot metal" with quality brass that is alloyed with zinc? I can assure those mounts are quality, definitely from a metallurgical perspective.

Definitely take it apart. I suspect that there is a mechanical issue such as cold solder joint, most likely around the center pin of the N connector. Doubtful you burned out the hybrid resistor. If you did, they are around $20. Get it apart and inspect and take measurements with your meter. Post pics of the insides and someone on here will give you better advice.

It's voluntary. You can put as much in your profile or not. I kept mine blank.

Are the 878s really $300? I paid $200 each for mine a while back. Sounds like these guys are hanging around with the big three Japanese manufacturers. I must say that the build quality, audio, battery life, and features are a great deal for what I paid. I think if I need to replace one in the future, I might be hard pressed to shell out $300 for one. I've always considered all these Chinese radios as disposable. That 168 looks like a nice economical starter radio.

Which is dissipated in as heat.

Generally a poor connection or impurities in the "copper". A poor connection increases resistant, which generates heat.

All that sounds like what I heard as well. The 75 supposedly is slightly better on batteries, but... Sadly I gave up on Kenwood just for that reason. I went with two Anytone AT-D878UVII HTs and haven't looked back. My last HT from the big three was the Yaesu FT2, which was a disappointment due to substandard recieve audio. That's why I always said Yaesu should reverse engineer a UV82, they would learn a lot. I can't say enough good about the 878.

How do you feel the battery life on the 74 is, especially if you transmit? The 75's battery life is said to be slightly better.

Nor will they. Instead of moaning about it on a forum, it's easier to send the radio back to Amazon for replacement or cut it off and hook it up like it supposed to be in the first place.

Love the old spark gap transmitter.

Well, do you think Marconi, Edison or Tesla would have used one? Hell know, they would have used the traditional Western Union splice and call it a day.

If it works that is great. I've seen some of the "heavy duty" ones heat up and melt, yes melt. I even melted one myself. No arguing they are very convenient, which makes them a great choice for that reason alone, just don't be surprised when you melt one.

Looks like you have an HT fetish, which is good. I lean more towards mobiles myself.

Looks like you are off to a good start. Gotta say, it does look like a nice collection, but there still is some open space on them shelves.

Definitely a really nice adapter, but why adapt something I didn't want in the first place to something useful? Easier to just cut it off and put whatever I want on the end of the cables. I would have preferred that the wires came pre-tinned and ready to go. That's the way they did it the last 150 years, no sense in changing now.

I always was a "Kenwood guy" for decades, but sadly they dropped the ball in the amateur sector by discontinuing the famous V71a after 20 years of production. I'm glad I have four of them. I was always tempted to explore their commercial radios but never got around to it. Did you really say you have too many radios? Really? Is that even possible? As for digital, I have D-Star, DMR and C4FM covered. In all honesty, I really dislike the sound of digital and much prefer the natural sound of good old analog. I found that C4FM is the better sounding of all digital formats and D-Star the worst. I hope the FCC never allows digital on GMRS.

Believe it or not, there are actually people that have spent hundreds of dollars on a Midland GMRS radio. And I was actually stupid enough to buy that much loved Midland mobile antenna. In our moment of weakness we simple let ourselves get sucked in by the hype. As for the DB20, I have to bash it for having that stupid cigarette lighter plug on it. Just cut the damn thing off. Other than that, the DB20 will satisfy the needs of 98% of all GMRS'ers that hook it up to a good antenna.

Absolutely not. This is actually a dual band radio that can be opened up. Why would you want to pay more for a radio other than bragging rights? If you feel the need to impress others, just get the label maker out and type in "Midland".

Yep, this is probably the best less than $100 mobile rig on the market. It's very well built and virtually indestructible. The PA protection circuitry will throttle output power down as radio heats up or SWR is not ideal. You'll never find a DB20 with fried finals.

What you are experiencing is the way different antennas are resonating. If you look at this using a VNA you will see even though the SWR is showing 1.1:1 for a given frequency, or relatively close to it, you will see the resistance can vary anywhere between 40-60 ohms. The other main consideration is American watts versus Chinese watts. This is why I always use the famous Bird watt meter that accurately displays American watts and has the capability to covert Chinese watts to American watts with a high degree of accuracy. Most Chinese SWR/Watt meters simply can't handle the conversion properly.

I think that was his seal of approval. He did note that I had a good grounding system, but need some soil conditioning to improve the grounding characteristics.

I just had one of my towers inspected today and I'm happy to say it passed.