SteveShannon

This picture, which I believe originated from Laird, shows how much or how little placing an antenna base off center, or even at the corner of the roof actually makes: 0.02 dB less when moved to a corner of the roof. I don’t believe any of us would even notice that. Moving it from the roof makes more difference of course.

Call customer support at the FCC

On this we agree.

Chinese refers to people, not all things from China. Citizens of Taiwan consider themselves Chinese. Millions of Americans are also Chinese. “Made in China” is different from “Chinese”. Using the term “Chinese” contributes to racial stereotypes. I agree with the fact that much of what is exported to the United States from China is poor quality. But it’s also possible to import quality goods from China if an importer is will to exert quality control on the goods, either in China or upon receiving them here. Making the mistake of assuming that all things made in China have little or no quality has already cost US manufacturing greatly. The truth is that they have as much or as little quality as we are willing to pay to own. Communist China is one of our two greatest adversaries, economically and militarily. To underestimate their abilities by subscribing to stereotypes is very risky. I may be more sensitive to this than others having worked in Taiwan in my past, but I believe it’s an important subject.

I absolutely agree.

I was answering his question, not baiting you.

In my opinion, his repeated statements about ”Chinese radios” as poorly constructed was an attempt to associate the quality of the radios to the race of the people who manufactured them.

I got a chuckle out of the rating of the Diamond SRH805S. You might have noticed that they rate the antenna gain as -2dB. That means a loss of RF radiation. Diamond says: So, basically, Diamond says the SRH805S will perform 2dB worse than the OEM antenna

I would be very surprised if the final output transistor in your radio would let its smoke out even if full power were reflected.

First, don’t mistake SWR for antenna quality. If it were that simple we’d all use dummy loads. They typically provide a very low SWR but have no ability to radiate RF. Second, the SWR meter is not a sufficient ground plane for a VHF antenna. Typically you’d need either a planar surface of metal or an array of radials of at least a quarter wave radius or length to provide a decent ground plane. For VHF that’s much larger than the body of the SWR meter you’re using. The fact is that measuring SWR for handheld antennas is frequently futile and unnecessary. Instead hook up the antennas and see what kind of performance you get.

I don’t understand. You called the Anytone 578 a $15 radio but you pay $200 for the 878? The 578 plus is a 50 watt (vhf, 40 UHF, and 5 watts 1.25 meters) mobile version of the 878 but with cross-band repeater capability. I don’t know that it’s worth $485, but it’s certainly better than the majority of the inexpensive radios.

It’s true that a person can spoof another person’s DMR ID, but that’s probably not done frequently in amateur radio. The exact address isn’t important to me, but being able to see their country, call sign, and name is nice, just like having your logging software look up call signs automatically.

Again with the racist and stereotypical dismissiveness. A knockoff is an unauthorized copy of a “legitimate” product. This radio and the handheld 878 have unique features all of their own that were groundbreaking when first released, such as having the memory needed to store every contact in the RadioID database.

It is the same as the Anytone, with slightly different features which are probably simply enabled in firmware. This Alinco, just like the Anytone, is a high powered mobile radio with terrific features such as cross band repeat, even digital to analog (cross-mode) repeat. It’s wrong to compare this to a $15 radio. It’s ignorant to call it “just a cheap Chinese throwaway radio.”

Happy to help!

Would you prefer the Alinco DR520? https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/alo-dr-md520t?srsltid=AfmBOorP-QoBaYjvD5uaakcsmjMfHFbCLqEydOqNFMc7SJm6iB1ZVy_h

It’s hard to beat the db20g for functionality and price and although it can’t be programmed with Chirp it can be programmed using RT Systems which is superior to Chirp except for price.

RT Systems has a cable for this radio for $30: https://www.rtsystemsinc.com/USB-76-Programming-Cable_p_2323.html Or Radioddity has one for $20. https://www.radioddity.com/products/radioddity-pc005?_pos=5&_fid=b7d4551e2&_ss=c

Welcome!

You bet. You certainly can set the RX tone also but if it doesn’t match the repeater output tone you never will hear the repeater. Often the repeater has two different tones. If you leave the RX tone empty then you hear everything on the channel.

So it’s transmitting? The next thing to look at is the tone. If you’re picking tones by number instead of frequency you’ll soon discover that the numbers don’t match with all manufacturers. Double check the tone (or DCS) you need to transmit to the repeater and then look in the 575 manual to see how to program it. But only program it into transmit on the 575. Leave the receive tone blank. See if you can hit the repeater that way.

And have you programmed one of the handhelds to receive on the repeater input frequency (467.xxx MHz) with no RX tone? Then listen to see if there’s any signal when you PTT the Midland MXT 575.

I haven’t used one, but I would consider something like this. I use an mxta26 and like it. https://midlandusa.com/products/mxat05vp-3-db-heavy-duty-bullbar-antenna?variant=42539707302065&campaign_id=17727845030&ad_id=&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADAFdQglRxyShGFPXLNzwa6UtbZFt&gclid=Cj0KCQjwnui_BhDlARIsAEo9GusL9Y1FOKx1quX2PSNYMUM_aiJJ6i8Iq0p8mSonjpv2M4D7XH3-gwsaAnZ2EALw_wcB

What makes you think it isn’t transmitting?

In that case your calculations would be 4.30 db too low. An isotropic antenna is theoretical, a single infinitely small source with a gain of 0, meaning multiply the input times 1 to get the output when working with linear values. Having a dBd gain value for an antenna is convenient but for a calculator like this you always want to take the antenna gain back to dBi so you’re not inadvertently throwing the output value off. Maybe a better way to explain it is that the dBd value is only useful for comparing an antenna to a dipole. For purposes of calculating total gain you always need to start at 0 which is the dBi number.