tcp2525

I did it! Finally made it to Ace Hardware and picked up a couple stainless steel sets crews. This is what should have been done at the factory.

Yes it has. And Christmas just came early! It was a close one. The driver was running late and said he was past his quiting time and only had two more stops and was thinking about saving them for tomorrow. I'm glad he decided to tough it out and finish the route. Now I'm happy and will get er up and running tomorrow.

My new repeater was scheduled to be delivered between 10:30 AM and 2:30 PM today. And guess what? It's now 4:06 PM EST and the bastards still haven't showed up. Oh, I forgot to mention, it had a one delay on top of it preventing it from being delivered yesterday! This isn't looking good.

Looks like someone is going to get an honorary guest VIP invitation to the ignore user list

I've had a few Diamond antennas over the years and found them to be well built and performed really well. I have a Tram 1486 on the side of my tower fed with 1/2" Heliax and it is okay considering the size and price. I guess you gotta consider its intended use. I'd rather use a StationMaster for GMRS, but I don't have the 20' space needed to mount it to the side of the tower. Once the second tower goes up I'll retire the 1486.

Midland=Chinese Junk!

I'll second what @kidphc says, but would like to add that using any of these "all band" is a compromise. Also, stick with a good quality commercial grade antenna manufacturer such as Laird or Larsen. I've used Larsen for decades and never had a failure and they performed really well. On my truck, I use a dual band antenna for 2m/70cm that been in service for over 10 years. I recently added an NMO antenna for GMRS that is of poor manufactured quality made by Midland. Bottom line, stick with quality commercial grade antennas and use separate antennas for multiple bands and radios.

I had that problem a while back and, going by memory, you have to search out on the internet and get the 2006 edition of that driver. Once loaded, you will be fine.

Ah, if only the FCC would allow us GMRS'ers to use a kilowatt we'd all be happy. This 50w limit is surely cramping my style!

Good points. I'm finding the VX-4207 radios are well isolated and shielded. I bumped power up to 20w for testing and still getting good range without affecting recieve. This is with a Tram 1486 on the side of the tower at 30' above ground fed with 50" 1/2" Heliax. If I get my antenna situation optimized where I can some altitude then I will just buy a commercial made repeater.

Same situation as you. But I bit the bullet and used an NMO lip mount on the passenger side front hood. Didn't affect signal in any noticeable way.

Just a thought. Are you going to be transmitting on both radios at the very same time all the time? It's good practice to have each radio on it's own rated circuit, but for the temporary install in your Lincoln. But... the best way to handle this situation if you want to do it 100% right is to get a fused power distribution box and run your heavy duty cable directly to the battery. You can run as many radios as you want on each of their own fused circuit.

You might want to consider mounting the control head in the sunglass holder. I have my head mounted there and close it when the radio is not in use for concealment. This is in both my Lincoln and F150.

This is by far the best advice one can get! I've been playing with a low budget build here that is working out really nicely. Got two Vertex VX-4207 radios for $75 each. Picked up an RFS duplexer for $15 at a hamfest. And an assembled ID-O-Matic controller for about $80 shipped. And few more bucks for 15-pin connectors. I'm in the testing phase right now and at low power (10 Watts) into the duplexer and 8 watts into the antenna I'm averaging 5-7 air miles of reliable communications. I'm only 50' above sea level and antenna is about 30' above ground. Once I get all the equipment mounted in a case with proper cooling I should be able to run 25 watts safely on long transmissions. Since I have my own spectrum analyzer w/TG, I will spend more time fine tuning the duplexer for optimum performance when everything is permanently mounted. All that said, I am very pleased with the progress I made so far and everything is working great considering the topography of the area . Just need more altitude!!!!!!!!!

I don't recall if mine were painted. Seems like they might have ran out of the good black ones and sent an employee to Home Depot to pick up a couple boxes to get them through the day.

Midland and shipped from Amazon.

Nice! I take it that the set screws on yours are stainless steel?

I purchased this antenna from Amazon July 13th, 2023 since it was highly recommended. I have exclusively used Larsen antennas for the past 30 years and never had any build quality issues. First thing that caught my eye was the the two rusted set screws. Really? Not stainless steel? Oxidizing coating on the whip. Is the whip stainless steel? For comparison, my Larsen NMO2/70B has been on the truck since 2013 and doesn't look this bad. This leads me to wonder if Midland's quality is really this bad or did I get a counterfeit? And no, the antenna isn't mounted there. I just took it off the roof and placed it there for the pic. At the very least, I will buy some stainless steel set screws and ride it out till I get the Larsen replacement. I wish I would have noticed this in the first 30-days so I could have returned it.

I cut mine to 467 as I mostly use repeaters. Perfect SWR on 467 and 1.3:1 on 462. I used a NanoVNA to sweep it. Of course, I double checked with the old Bird when done. Simply perfect.

I just want to give you guys an update. I received my ID-O-Matic Saturday. I also spent some time studying the schematic as Pin 7 wasn't the right one for this task. What I found was, though the manual states Pin 13 and 14 aren't used, the circuitry is in the schematic and the parts are on the board. I got my meter out and checked the test points and nothing. So, I went into the software and turned on PTT and nothing. Amazing when I turned on "AF Mute" I got my 5v when the carrier broke PL!! Everything is together and working perfect. The ID-O-Matic is powered from the receiver's DC OUT Pin 4. No mods to the radio, just I nice neat cable and box going between the two radios.

I had some to play with this while waiting for my ID-O-Matic to arrive and hit a roadblock. Pin 7: TRX doesn't have the specified voltage as described (See Pic). I can't seem to find out how to turn it on in software either. Any ideas? I was able to find and turn on Pin 6: EXT PTT and that works, but I'm going to need to get TRX working in the receiver. Thanks again for the help.

Thanks guys! The ID-O-Matic looks like what I'm looking for. This should be simple and keep me compliant. The radio is Part 90 & 95 compliant as well. I just ordered my 15-pin DSUB connectors to make the harness, so I'm making progress. I'm hoping this will be a fun project. Again, the help is so much appreciated.

Thanks. I do have the service manual and noticed the pinout and do see the TX/RX audio circuit as well switching. It would be nice to not need a controller. I assumed I would need one for timeout timer and ID to be legal?

For a portable repeater setup. I plan on using two Vertex VBX-4207 radios. Got the radios and duplexer, just need to hook this stuff up. What would be the best way to go on controllers?