tcp2525

You guys are lucky that you have 220 activity. I have four repeaters in my area that I can get into and they are totally devoid of any human life. What a great but wasted band.

Oh, come on, show the man a little sympathy. What he's suffering from is a very common disease. Many years of not using the proper coax can fester strong emotional and cognitive disorders.

The stainless steel radials aren't screwing into aluminum. Even if it were, it's a non-issue anyway. Nothing to worry about. Just buy the antenna, assemble, mount and enjoy for many years.

The one on the right is the exact one I'm using. Thanks for the photo as it helps a lot. Again, I put it real close to the original balun on the antenna.

Keep the original balun on the antenna and put the 1:1 current balun right before it with a short jumper of good quality coax. Get a good balun rated for 5kw from DX Engineering. They are decent quality.

What type of antenna you using? I had the problem with my 80m OCF dipole. I don't think it is a USB problem. A current balun cured my issue. I have USB cables going to all the radios and amp. Even have ethernet cables going to a few radios.

I generally don't do FT8, but when I do, the amp gets turned down to 600 watts to keep the spirit of making weak signal contacts. When I retire I think that will be a great time for EME.

Rubbish, that only points out the bare minimum requirements, but not what is optimal and yields a higher degree of safety and functionality. I look at the NEC the same way, a guide to get by with minimal effort. I've seen way too much substandard abominations the "met" code, but is an embarrassment to the trade. Plus, not all inspectors are created equal..

Proper grounding can only be achieved by using 500MCM wire. Using anything less is totally and utterly foolish and breaks all safety and grounding requirements.

A Rohn 25G makes an excellent light duty mast, just pick your height and get the amount of 10' sections and a top section to get off to a great start.

Yep, this is why "you share the road" on GMRS. You only have eight lanes and should you want to deploy a repeater, just pick a lane. This means that ALL users are on that lane and they learn to coexist as nobody would intentionally interfere with the other repeater. Of course you will always get that ONE person that will try to get you to move because they bought their equipment and think they own the frequency. Hey, it's all about community spirit and working together.

Yep, point proven. Had he been polite when you urinated in his territory everyone would have been cordial and respected each other before moving on. I have time for idiots like that.

And go ahead and enforce it.

Tough crowd, no. Just a lot of selfish and self centered mindsets.

Let me see if I am understanding this correctly. You deploy a repeater on a frequency that is open to anyone that paid for a valid FCC license and you act like you own the frequency? Really? How are you going to stop licensed squatters using your repeater? It's people with your mindset that put up a repeater and never use it, or very rarely, and the first to complain about interference when someone puts up a repeater on the same frequency and uses it. Totally mind boggling. Oh, and if I were local to you I would use your repeater for free until you accepted me or shut it down every time I got on it.

Yep, that's what I do. All those closed repeaters ID every once in a while.

That's just pure selfishness. You want to keep in touch with family use the cell phone. A repeater is for public use on GMRS. Plus, how are you gonna stop someone from using it? Deploying a closed repeater is totally and utterly foolish and breaks every terrestrial and celestial boundary of human stupidity.

Because GMRS is oversaturated with repeaters that go unused. Nothing worse that a repeater transmitting its ID into an empty room. A constantly active repeater with every Tom Dick and Harry increases your odds of getting help when you need it.

That's hard to believe. With all the ducting on 2m I am able to get into New England from Maryland with 50w using SSB..

I put my amp in QRP mode and it's idling at 1,300 watts.

The most import factor that is being overlooked is you get the run 1,500 watts, even on 70cm. Plus, there are a lot more high gain directional antennas for 70cm than GMRS. Obviously, there are limiting factors such as terrain and other obstacles that will cut back performance. Just get good coax and a decent antenna and enjoy either service.

And if you had a Siltronix you really had bragging rights.

Yep, who cared about coax quality for CB just as long as the SWR was good.

It was definitely a great place to hang out and get to play with all the goodies. Those were the good old days.

Thanks for the compliment! And all this time I thought I was old and decrapitated. I agree, I think Tandy ruined Radio Shack. It was a downward spiral for decades. I always liked the catalogs back then. There's a site that has PDFs of every year they printed. From what I remember during my CB days back in the 70s, Radio Shack's RG8 was only offered with foam core and the braided shield was horrible. For CB we didn't care. I don't think any of us today would buy their cable since we have so many great options.