SteveShannon

Edmo01 Congratulations! Although I’ve been somewhat interested my whole life, I just finally did my ham exams this month (Jan 6). I also used HamStudy, including buying the app for my phone and tablet. It made studying really fun and enabled me to pass all three tests. The older hams there were not much older than me and were very friendly. I think I’ll enjoy the hobby and I wish you many years of enjoyment as well.

Tyke, Perhaps I misunderstood. Will you be running any physical connections between the house and the tower? Coax, power, Ethernet cable, cables for monitoring other conditions (you might have mentioned some kind of telemetry)? If not, then you don’t need to worry about it. I thought you were proposing disconnecting the coax from the house whenever you anticipate lightning. I apologize if I misunderstood. If there’s never going to be a physical connection, then disregard what I said.

Nobody suggested that you shouldn’t disconnect your coax, but if you don’t tie your grounds together with #6 or #4 copper your coax will tie them together. Your radio will have one ground potential and it’s possible your antenna will have a different one. Just be sure and install an arrester as mandated by NEC.

How is the power and ground wired to your radio?

Here’s an article, written in English rather than “regulish”, on correct grounding for antenna systems. You really ought to reconsider your grounding. https://reeve.com/Documents/Articles Papers/Reeve_AntennaSystemGroundingRequirements.pdf

All of the city of Seattle and north of it are above Line A. That may be about 4 million people or more. Metro Detroit is also above it. That's another 4 million. Lansing Michigan is also. It's metro population is about half a million. So, probably 10 million people live above Line A. That's probably 100 GMRS licenses. ? Edited to add more cities that lie above Line A: Ann Arbor, MI, Flint, MI, Duluth, MN, Cleveland, OH, Toledo, OH, Erie, PA, Syracuse, NY, Buffalo, NY, and Rochester, NY.

That’s great information. I am not terribly interested in contesting (I think - I’m still a very new ham) but I am interested in things that lend themselves to medium distance communications and possibly someday long distance. I would like your post, but I’ve exceeded my like limit and the like clock doesn’t reset until later today, apparently.

No, but I sure will. Thanks!

I have been very interested in something like the Icom IC705 or the Elecraft KX2 or 3 for just such use.

And I guess I should also add, what if we are sitting at home when an emergency call comes in on GMRS. What should we have prepared in order to be effective.

It looks like they have a net on Tuesday nights at 2000. You might listen in on that to see what they say. I'm not much help, I'm afraid. Sorry about that.

I understand your perspective. As an SAR person, GMRS would not be part of your plan. I'm glad. But I don't see that as being the perspective of the question. I see the question as being from the perspective of the average GMRS user, not someone who's already involved in emergency response. We don't go towards emergencies like emergency response people. Emergencies happen to us when we least expect them. Nearly always we would be calling 911 on our cell phones for an emergency, but what if we don't have cell service? Because we are GMRS owners/users, that might be the only communications tool we have available. So, from the perspective of someone who has an emergency or stumbles into an emergency and only happens to have a GMRS radio, how do we use it effectively? This is an area where you professionals could help us neophytes.

Yes, uplink tones control access to the repeater. Downlink tones limit interference on your receiver. The wiki on Repeaterbook is quite useful. Here's how it defines "uplink tones" - https://www.repeaterbook.com/wiki/doku.php?id=uplink_tone This leaves me wondering how both you and your friend are able to receive from the repeater if you have receive tones selected.

That repeater is shown as having an uplink tone, but not a downlink tone. https://www.repeaterbook.com/repeaters/details.php?state_id=05&ID=179

Hi Marc, When calculating the transmitter efficiency rating, is that done based on the power that actually goes into the transmitter stage or does it include all power that is dissipated by the voltage regulator, power used by the receiver, etc? The reason I ask is because in a case like this, where 14.5 Vdc is delivered to the power input of the radio, if the radio has a voltage regulator to reduce that to 13.8 Vdc which is then delivered to the radio, then the actual power delivered to the radio would be 13.8 Vdc x 7.5 A or 103.5 W. 55% of that is still ~57 W, so maybe it's a moot point.

Use the official unofficial Road Channel, Channel 19 (unless you live in or north of Seattle where it’s prohibited) or 20 which Wikipedia says is the official Road Channel. Maybe channel 9, to honor the old REACT channel (as I recall). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Emergency_Associated_Communication_Teams

Great topic. I didn’t buy my radio for emergency use, and I use it monthly to talk to others in my rocket club while searching for rockets, but if some emergency were to happen, I have no idea which frequencies to monitor in my area, or the right way to respond in case I hear an emergency message. I would not want my blundering to make a situation worse.

It depends on whether the repeater uses tones for both transmit and receive. You must transmit the necessary tone the repeater expects to hear or the repeater will not listen to you. You probably want to set a receive tone on your radio so you only hear transmissions that include that tone, such as those the repeater sends. If you set no receive tone you will hear everything transmitted on that frequency, including the repeater. If you set the wrong receive tone you won’t hear the repeater at all.

Don’t use solid copper. Most ground rods are copper bonded over carbon steel. That’s important. Copper remains a good conductor even though oxidized. I rented a Hilti and a ground rod driver. The rod went in very easily even though I live on a granite mountain. Call 811 first for a locate if you have any doubts about buried utilities.

Here’s an actual link to the irs publication that describes how social security is taxed: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p915.pdf

The part 90 rules don't just apply to equipment certified under part 90, but also regulate the use of any equipment in "the Public Safety, Industrial/Business Radio Pool, and Radiolocation Radio Services."

Social security is taxable income.

Section 90.427(b) specifically prohibits programming unauthorized frequencies into a transmitter: (b) Except for frequencies used in accordance with § 90.417, no person shall program into a transmitter frequencies for which the licensee using the transmitter is not authorized. So, how does that fit into this conversation? I’ll try to answer with some scenarios that I hope will explain my understanding. 1. Ms. Sierra Citizen, while out for a walk, finds a sheriff’s deputy slumped over in the front seat of his cruiser. She has no cellphone service or any other communication device with her. She picks up the microphone in the cruiser and asks for help. I believe the various exceptions which allow emergency communications would protect her from prosecution. 2. Mr. Joe Prepper has every frequency programmed into his portable radio. He finds a person slumped over in the front seat of their car. He picks up his portable radio and calls on an EMS dispatch frequency for which he is not authorized. I believe that even though he potentially saves the life of the person, he has clearly violated 90.427(b) by having his transmitter preprogrammed with unauthorized frequencies. I’d be surprised if he wasn’t prosecuted. The bottom line is this, the emergency provisions allow great latitude in radio usage in true emergencies, but they don’t serve to waive the rules that establish and protect communications systems simply to be prepared.

Here are the agreements. Knock yourself out. https://www.fcc.gov/general/international-agreements And, here is the original agreement: https://transition.fcc.gov/ib/sand/agree/files/can-nb/above30r.pdf

I think that’s probably correct, telemetry stations with grandfathered licenses for the fixed stations rather than the individual licenses that are issued for GMRS users.