SteveShannon

The Comet 2x4 is rated as usable good up to 465 MHz. It’s an antenna that many Search and Rescue units use because of the wide bandwidth it covers, but it’s really not designed for GMRS. If you intend to transmit to a repeater you’ll be transmitting at 467 MHz. Unless you absolutely need an antenna that’s capable of 2 meters, 70 centimeters, and the bottom frequencies of GMRS, I would recommend getting a GMRS antenna. I use a Midland MXTA-26 which would screw onto an NMO mount. It’s specifically built for GMRS. There are literally hundreds of posts on the forum that recommend various antenna.

I don’t know how long of a coax you need, but RG-8 mini will cost you a lot of signal strength in the UHF frequencies if you’re going very far. It would work great for AM broadcast frequencies because they’re medium frequency (MF). I would use LMR-400 at least. You can get by with smaller cable for mobile use because the lengths are much shorter. I don’t have an opinion about the Laird mount. I have no experience with them (my lack of experience, not to imply anything negative towards Laird). I know that some of the radio professionals here like Laird.

Don’t worry about grounding the antenna at the mast end. A j-pole like that is already in contact with the mast (although clamps would be better than tape). Just run a ground wire at the bottom of the mast to your ground system. Then, where the coax enters the house, install a lightning arrester and run its ground to the same ground system. The Reeve document I posted above does a pretty good job of explaining the requirements. Here is a link to it: https://reeve.com/Documents/Articles Papers/Reeve_AntennaSystemGroundingRequirements.pdf

For a similar price,but without the UHF capability, look at the Yaesu FT-2980: https://www.eham.net/reviews/view-product?id=13633 A few people get on our repeater using these. From 50 miles away they come through with full quieting. If you must have UHF, consider the Yaesu FTM-6000. I don’t know anyone who owns it but the reviews I’ve read have been positive, a nice, simple, and reliable two band ham radio. https://www.eham.net/reviews/view-product?id=15198 Both of these are currently in production.

Fortunately I’ve had the same good experiences.

I haven’t watched it yet but I’m really looking forward to it. We’re at my daughter’s house and spending time with her and her husband and our grandkids.

I bought two of them. They’re decent little radios for the price.

I went back and edited it to say why.

2, because in #1 your antenna is blocked and adding 10 feet of LMR400 will only cost you about 0.3 dB.

I don’t know which radio you have or what software you’re using so I’ll give you a generic answer: Some software has a field called Squelch Mode. The usual three choices are: 1. TSQL, for Tone Squelch. In this mode the radio sends a tone and requires one to open squelch. 2. TONE, which sends the tone or DCS code, but doesn’t check for one on receive. or 3. NONE which neither sends nor expects a tone. Sometimes repeaters use split tones which can be either two different CTCSS tones or two different DCS codes. Once in a very long while a repeater owner will even use DCS for either transmit or receive and CTCSS for the other.

According to the manual: https://www.ameradio.com/doc/Maxon-TM-2000-TM-8000-user-manual.pdf There are alert tones that sound when the programmed emergency button is pressed or when the TOT expires. It sounds as though that’s what the symbol represents. There’s also a horn alert that can be wired to a vehicle horn for notifications of particular calls.

Does it beep as an acknowledgement tone? My guess would be that’s the “alert”

CTCSS is a sub audible tone (it’s really not sub-audible; it’s removed by filtering in the receiver) that causes squelch to open. It’s also referred to by some as PL, Which stands for Private Line. Don’t be fooled; there’s nothing private about it. Anyone with no tones set can hear everything transmitted on that frequency. DPL is a digital code that serves the same purpose. It’s also called DCS or DTCSS. Same warning, expect no privacy.

One of the menus on the top of the page is called “Repeaters”. If you go there and find the repeater you’re interested in and select it, there’s a place to click to request permission to use it.

Terry, I don’t have a clue about the RA87, but eventually you’ll get an answer. Don’t mind @OffroaderX. Welcome to the forum!!

As an example, a friend of mine has two Baofeng radios. One was supposed to transmit at 5 watts and the other at 8 watts. When we put my wattmeter on them both the five watt model put out 6.5 watts and the eight watt model put out 6 watts.

Try reaching out to the owner in a private message. You cannot fix a 500 error. Only they can or the folks who administer the website.

Have you tested UHF radios buried under 3 feet of snow? What kind of range do you get?

It’s easy to get started with a cheap Baofeng (many of us did) or you can get something better like the KG-UV9gx that already has SHTF receive frequencies programmed to monitor public agencies in case the worst happens. https://bettersaferadio.com/wouxun-kg-uv9gx-gmrs-two-way-radio-shtf-scanner/ The single most important thing is to have a communications plan prepared in advance.

As someone who had an FFL for over 40 years, I have to say that sounds very painful. I would also encourage you to do the ham test. I found HamStudy.org to be a great way to study that made it fun for me to learn the principles rather than simply memorizing the answers. It truly was easy. I chose to pay $5 to buy the app for my phone, but the website use costs nothing.

First, everything Boxcar said is correct, but to directly answer your question, if you used a mag-mount antenna on a cookie sheet on your roof it would not drain the power. The coax cables used for those antennas do attenuate the signal somewhat, but they are short, so the effect is limited AND not as negative as the positive effect of using an elevated higher gain antenna. In other words the net benefit should be positive.

I have neither of those radios. I don’t recall hearing good reviews about the A36 Talkpod, but maybe I’ve missed some. The Wouxun KG-805G is a superhet radio that has received good reviews, supports split tones, has been reported programmable with Chirp, and sells for right at $100.

There’s a bug (in my opinion) with the site software that allows anyone to claim ownership of a repeater by registering it as “My Repeater.” This has happened numerous times, presumably by accident when people try to designate a repeater as one they favor.

It’s not at all unusual for the RF output to deviate from the advertised value. Some may be more and some may be less and it really makes almost no difference in communications whether a radio puts out 4 watts or 5. It’s a classic case of diminishing returns. Plus there’s absolutely nothing that says your wattmeter is correct. As an exercise, jot down the power output for every channel. You’ll see that they differ, possibly greatly.

Back to seriousness, @gortex2 is right. You don’t specify what kind of cable you have, but unless it’s pretty good cable 50 feet will cost you half of your power on transmit and half of your received signal in attenuation. The RT97 is built in such a way that it could be mounted on the tower right below your antenna. To your original question, better antenna placement is almost always more effective than simply adding power. That’s not to say that power is meaningless, but doubling the height of an antenna will almost always do more than doubling your power and usually for less money.