SteveShannon

What do you mean “those are different watts”? His statement is correct. It’s impossible for a radio to emit more power (or even as much) as it consumes. There are always losses. Thus his comment about perpetual motion. A radio that is drawing 50 watts of power will emit a portion of that as heat and some portion of that as RF power.

Yes, repeaters can be connected as part of a network to provide wider coverage. This site has a listing of repeaters on the MyGMRS network. You might even find that there are repeaters that are already part of the network that allow you to speak with your family.

Report the post so Rich knows.

You must transmit on the tone the repeater expects or it will ignore your transmission. So, you must set the tC tone. You can leave the rC tone empty. You’ll receive anything sent on the frequency. Later, when you know that your transmissions are being received and relayed by the repeater you could set the rC, but you don’t have to (and I would urge you not to until you’re sure your transmissions are being received.

You probably meant amperes or amps in the part of your quote I underlined and bolded. For my 100 watt amateur radio transmitter I have a 30 amp 13.8vdc power supply. At full power the current is around 23 amps I think. For a 50 watt transmitter you probably need at least a 15-25 amp power supply just so you’re not running the power supply at full power output. Watts out can never exceed watts in. A car’s electrical system puts out 13.8 volts when the car is running in order to charge the battery. When the car is turned off the voltage of the battery drops down to somewhere around 12.7 or 12.8 volts DC. I routinely charge several sealed lead acid batteries and they are all very close to 12.7 or 12.8 volts when I need to use them (charged and sitting around for a few weeks on a shelf). You may not get 100% of the power from your mobile radio when it’s strictly on battery, but you probably will never know the difference. As far as wattage, it depends on the capacity of the battery, but nearly any of them will put out many amps of current. 8 amps at 12 volts is nearly 100 watts, . You only need that while transmitting. Receiving takes much less power.

@KAF6045 Tahoe’s are very good points. I look at the “family use” as enabling me to have a family get together with all the types of family relationships listed and hand my relatives gmrs radios for use when we’re together (so I am in control - at least as much as possible). I don’t see it as a license that allows me to send a pair of GMRS radios to my grandkids in another state for them to use on my license. I think it should be obvious that I could not live up to my obligations as the responsible license holder in that case.

You won’t get 50 watts out of the duplexer if the transceiver (UV82) only puts in 5 watts. You’ll get 5 watts minus any insertion loss, which could be as much as half the power. Added: RG58 has a loss of 10.6 - 11.8 dB per 100 feet, or about 5 or 6 dB for the length you’re talking about. One person commented that the Fumei duplexer had an insertion loss of 1.1 dB. The duplexer doesn’t add power; it just removes some as a natural consequence of filtering the transmission and the reception. The 50 watt figure is its limitation, not an expression of how much power it generates. On the transmit side you can expect at least 6 dB loss. The cuts your outgoing power by 75%, so what started out at the antenna of the UV82 as 5 watts, is the equivalent of 1.25 watts when it leaves the duplexer.

To be technically accurate, anyone who is licensed and their family members are licensed to transmit. Anyone can listen. So yes, you can transmit to anyone and if they’re covered by someone’s license they can transmit back to you.

It sounds like you probably have your tones messed up. For simplex mode between your two units clear all tones and back off from each other and try again.

Welcome!

No. MyGMRS uses IP networks (that’s the IP in VOIP), not POTS. This claim has been discussed and discarded numerous times.

I’m curious how you tested the SWR. Did you sweep the entire range you are interested in? It’s hard to believe that it was one static value for the entire 106 MHz range the antenna is labeled for. As Axorlov replied, DC continuity isn’t necessarily a sign that the antenna is no good. Even an SWR value measured with a meter can fail to fully reflect the characteristics of the antenna. You say there’s continuity, but understand that an ohmmeter measures DC resistance (or inversely continuity) which is completely different than RF impedance. Just out of curiosity (because I’m still learning by asking questions that may or may not be dumb) what was the DC impedance you measured? Did it change over time?

Very nicely done, Marc! Good information.

Not straight out of the box. It does receive a lot of frequencies though, including GMRS.

Keep in mind that you need more than an antenna if you want to benefit the public. You’ll need a repeater and a duplexer and some way to power it all.

How much do you know about the repeater. Is it possible that the repeater you’re having trouble hearing uses two different antennas, one for transmit and another for receive, at different heights on a tower. Sometimes this is done rather than using a duplexer. Also, you mentioned that you can hear another repeater that’s at a similar distance from your car. Are you saying that with your mobile configuration you can hit both repeaters but only hear from the second one? Have you tried putting your Nagoya magmount up on your roof on a cookie sheet and using that? Or put that j-pole up on the roof. Seems like there are a lot of things you haven’t really tried yet that might solve this problem.

In one of my other hobbies, high power rocketry, we find that the electronic flight computers sometimes get triggered into setting off their black powder charges. It helps to have any pairs of wires in the electronics bay twisted to prevent them from working like antennas. The inputs to the alarm systems might benefit from having their wires twisted to help with rejection.

Your tires are already partially conductive, so there’s really no need for a strap hanging down. They used to be even more conductive but over the years the amount of added carbon has been reduced, but they are still conductors.

Have you tried getting closer to the repeater to see where both transmit and receive work reliably? How close do you have to be?

WRCI350 had it right. Remove the receive tones, at least as a diagnostic step. The fact that you get into the repeater indicates you have the transmit tone correct. The fact that your receiver doesn’t break squelch on receive may point to a mismatch in receive tone. Pressing the Moni button bypasses the receive tone and temporarily turns off squelch. Turning off tone squelch or setting the receive tone to none and testing will confirm whether it’s the tone. Then you may be able to scan for the right receive tone or live with it by leaving the receive tone clear.

This website has a list of recent radios that offer cross-band repeat functionality: http://www.ssiarc.ca/cross-band-repeat.php

The SW-102 might not be reading correctly. There are a few examples of that on this forum.

For small tractors, Kubota or John Deere are very handy to have around. I have a little John Deere 2305 with hydrostatic transmission which is very easy to operate and my son-in-law has a Kubota just a little bigger. Both have 4 wheel drive. I’ve heard that Mahindra and Kioti tractors work pretty well and are cheaper, but I have no personal knowledge of them. Here in the lower 48 it’s always possible to find a used tractor. A friend of mine has a full sized White with a loader that I think would be pretty good for what you’re trying to do but getting it there would be prohibitive. If you follow the boom/bust cycle of the oil industry you can find skid-steer tractors and backhoes for pretty good bargains every ten or fifteen years. ?

Well, I could swear that's how it used to work, but I just tried that and it doesn't work that way anymore. The FCC CORES system is quite possibly the worst system to navigate I have every seen. I apologize, BoxCar. But, what you can do is save your FRN and password as your login and password for the License Manager site: https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsEntry/licManager/login.jsp From there, you see a list of your licenses.

That works, but you really don’t need to search for it. Just log into CORES and you see all the licenses for your FRN.