SteveShannon

Send a test message asking for someone to reply: ”This is WROM583 Checking repeater settings. Please reply.” If someone replies or if you hear an automated identification from the repeater you got it right.

Bob, do you have a friend there with a gmrs radio or even a scanner that could be set to scan gmrs frequencies? I will tell you that gmrs is great for people who form a group who need to communicate with each other and have a prearranged plan to use their radios. Ham radio lends itself much more to random communications with people and a rich exploration of technologies. Neither is better per se, but they are different. I can leave my GMRS radio on 24/7 in scan mode and I might hear some kids talking on FRS or some workers at a nearby hotel, but I hear nothing from GMRS hobbyists. There are no GMRS repeaters in my city yet. That may change someday. On the other hand, I’m within easy range of two 2 meter analogue repeaters, one 70cm DMR/FM analog ham repeater, and just a little further from one 6 meter ham repeater. Also, there’s an active amateur radio club here and in every large town. I don’t know of something around here for GMRS. 230 miles east of me in Billings, Montana there have been a couple new GMRS repeaters. I’m eager to get over there and listen in to hear how they’re used and gauge the amount and kind of traffic for myself. Obviously GMRS is becoming more ham-like in certain places, but it’s not that way everywhere just yet. What would you think about attending a local ham radio club meeting just to see what it’s like. Our local club has breakfast every Saturday morning at a local cafe. There are some who are also interested in GMRS. Best wishes to you, whatever happens, Steve

They will affect each other, but much depends on the distance and direction. The ffect might not be negative and I suspect nobody can accurately predict what it may be. Each antenna could act as a reflector for the other, increasing gain slightly in the other direction, but the same is true of any metal, such as rain gutters. With all that said, I would try it. Since it’s inside you could pretty easily try it with one antenna and again with the other antenna and finally with both. You might be pleasantly surprised. There are lots of hams with wire antennas in their attics who make out just fine.

Is it possible that your calculations for losses for the 6 ft LMR400 are a tad high?

Here’s a link to a long list of 10 meter repeaters: https://www.qsl.net/kc4qlp/10meterrepeater.html ? But I didn’t find any mention of 20 meter repeaters and Repeaterbook doesn’t have anything in its database for longer wavelengths than 10 meter. Also, various ham forums have had lively discussions with people decrying 10 meter repeaters, especially when linked to vhf and uhf networks.

I apologize; you’re correct. Try this one instead: https://www.buytwowayradios.com/nagoya-na-771g.html Be sure to order the one with the correct connector.

Hi Bob, i bought a Faux Nagoya (Tidradio) 771 which is a 17 or so inch handheld antenna that fits right on four of my handhelds with the Baofeng style antenna connection (SMA male center pin on the radio). Although the bandwidth marked on it brackets the necessary frequencies, I believe Nagoya makes a model specifically for GMRS. Using this antenna with a 70 cm DMR repeater that’s 16 miles away and viewing the last heard information received signal strength indicator information, my signal went from 5.6 up to 5.8, when I switched from the stock rubber duck antenna to the 771, with me sitting at my dining room table. That’s a significant difference for a handheld. WRPE755 is right that a mobile antenna would almost certainly do even better, but I sense you’re really asking about a handheld antenna, rather than having to deal with coax and a separate mount. If you just want to incrementally improve your handheld antenna, I can recommend the 771 style. There are numerous brands, including some pretty reputable manufacturers, such as Comet, that make this style of antenna. The shopping area on this site actually appears to have a genuine Nagoya in inventory: https://shop.mygmrs.com/collections/antennas/products/nagoya-na-701g-gmrs-antenna Best wishes,

Welcome from another engineer!

That’s exactly right. Wartime conditions probably don’t allow room for snobbery.

Ham Radio 2.0 had a YouTube video where he mentioned a Polish ham radio organization that was collecting Baofeng radios to provide to Ukrainian fighters.

Telemetry stations are fixed stations.

You ask “can it be repaired?” Do you have reason to believe damage has been done?

From part 95.531 - permissible uses: (c) GMRS stations. FRS units normally communicate with other FRS units, but may also be used to communicate with General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) stations.

It shouldn’t be. He took material off the 771 base, not out of the rim of the case.

Very nice. In photo 7 it looks like the cord is tight against the edge of the hole. Can you put a grommet to relieve the edge of the hole, and possibly let some slack into the cord?

At the same time GMRS fees come down to $35 from $70, ham license fees go from $0 to $35. His gladness has nothing to do with the price of GMRS, just the fact that he got his ham license before they start charging a fee.

Much more helpful than my post. Thanks!

Log into your account on the fcc ULS site. You may have to look it up using an email address to find your FRN, then in the account any of your licenses will be available to download.

Is there any reason you can’t combine your antenna with your flagpole? What is the flagpole material?

That may simply be a loose power connection somewhere in your truck that’s causing interference.

That’s outstanding! Everything affects everything, right?

While you’re doing that I plan on hanging an end fed half wave antenna from my eaves and then connecting a NanoVNA to see how it looks.

The General rule of thumb is one half wavelength above the ground, but a large conductive surface like a roof can act like a reflector causing other problems. I wish you the best and I’m curious to see what you learn today.

P.S. I found a short book that describes the effect of the ground plane and antenna height above the ground plane. https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/Legacy/IR/nbsir79-1605.pdf Here’s an excerpt: “When the antenna height is replaced by 2H, we again obtain the same result as that given in eq (5). This implies that the field strength measured by a receiving antenna at a height of 2H meters above an imperfect earth (a is finite) is approximately 6 decibels more than that measured by the same antenna at one-half of the previous height, when the distance to the transmitter is very much greater than H. This difference in measurement results is solely due to changes in the transmitted field strength by the imperfect earth.” Also this earlier thread here on the forum discusses a similar question:

At this point, right after you mounted it at the same height at the Sirio, and before you removed the counterpoise, what was the SWR on 2 m and 70 cm? This is a perfect example of everything affecting everything when it comes to antennas, isn’t it? I would probably put it back the way it was designed, with counterpoise and additional height, and see if it receives better on GMRS even though you would not want to transmit into that 3.5 swr. I’m also curious what a sweep looks like at the different heights and three different bands and with and without radials. i think your loss of receive sensitivity might be due to the effect of lowering the antenna and the resulting change in field. You may be better off using the two separate antennas for the bands they were designed for, x50 for 2 m and 70 cm and the Sirio for GMRS. I really am interested and will be following this.