SteveShannon

Practically speaking, wall thickness matters only for resistance to physical damage.

Go ahead and use the j-pole. You already have it. If you’re disappointed then start looking for something else.

Welcome! I hope you enjoy it.

Wow! You deserve an award of some kind. I could feel your pain. That also convinced me to use magnetic mounts on my 4Runner.

Good job! I didn’t realize you reported it as well. I’m sorry for assuming.

Well, then learn from this post. Posting here didn’t fix the problem. Messaging Rich did.

Also, the OP is receiving the repeater on one frequency and should be transmitting on another. The repeater antenna is almost certainly tuned to the repeater transmit frequency, but we don’t really know about the OP’s antenna or transmission frequency. Is the OP transmitting on the correct repeater receive frequency (467.xxx?) I think we all assume he is, but maybe not. Is the OP’s antenna tuned for the simplex transmitting frequencies (462.xxx) or the repeater receive frequency (467.xxx?) Although the difference is only 5 MHz, it is a difference which can reduce transmission power if SWR varies much over that 5 MHz. The OP already admitted that the tones haven’t been confirmed. That absolutely could be a problem.

SWR shouldn’t change with power output, but at low power and a low SWR it’s possible the reflected power is simply below the threshold of detection.

Encryption is allowed for remote control of satellites in the amateur bands. That’s the only exception that I know of.

It’s still available, but it hasn’t been upgraded since version 4.8 (Win 2k maybe).

No, they’re advertised as “50 watts maximum transmit power”, meaning they are limited to 50 watts. They’re not guaranteed to transmit 50 watts. Here the page: https://www.buytwowayradios.com/wouxun-kg-1000g.html Further to the point made by everyone who has responded to you, the “Power Requirements” section states “13.8VDC +/-15%”. A car’s voltage regulator is set to put out 13.8 volts while the engine is running (+/- some tolerance) in order to constantly charge the battery. A battery in a car that is not running will only have 12.7 volts or so. More to the point, the FCC limits mobile GMRS transmitters to 50 watts output. That limitation must be obeyed under any circumstances, including when your car is running. Thus, mobile radios are adjusted to transmit up to their maximum transmit power when the car is running and allowed to sag somewhat when running on straight battery power. That’s the real life scenario.

I probably answered this myself. “The efficiency of a j antenna falls off rapidly as the operating frequency is raised.” https://books.google.com/books?id=_lUrAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA141&lpg=PA141&dq=quarter+wave+whip+vs+zepp&source=bl&ots=NaZVS10MdL&sig=ACfU3U3ZksxDFNcMl90bI_yGzoXgOg_KHQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjg9-WLm4j6AhXMJDQIHW-5B4AQ6AF6BAg2EAI#v=onepage&q=quarter wave whip vs zepp&f=false

So a j-pole isn’t a “real antenna?” What’re the deficiencies? (Genuine interest- I have a lot of copper pipe and thought I’d experiment)

Here’s the deal. Unless you’re in an airplane, your antenna is grounded no matter what. It’s just a case of you providing a path to ground that minimizes damage. It’s much better to have that path outside your house. Disconnecting is good but you still need a grounding system outside your house.

I have lots of experience at that!

Hopefully Rich will pin this so people see it when they first come to the forums. It seems to be a pretty frequent question.

30 second audio relay?

Yes, you did.

The OP asked one question, whether to use channel 17 or 17RP to talk to his repeater. It was answered in a straightforward post (use 17 RP) almost immediately afterwards. Why are you guys fighting over this? Go to your rooms.

We use the Garmin radios when we’re out searching for rockets. We can see each other’s locations (simplex) in real time on a topo map. In the event of a medical emergency (this is hilly terrain) we can find each other quickly. Having a uhf channel sending APRS (or any kind of location data) is definitely not useless.

Unfortunately the test of the N9TAX antenna on UHF had no data. He’ll be rerunning that part of the test. On VHF test results were obtained for both and the Ed Fong antenna was about 2.5 dB better on SN. The SN numbers that were obtained for UHF were quite low compared to VHF. Josh even commented that they weren’t much better than a simple stick antenna.

Thank you. That helped me understand. So when the CW ID is transmitted, no CTCSS or DCS tone is transmitted. Anyone who has the tone operated squelch set won’t hear the ID. For all other transmissions the tone is included so those who have the tone operated squelch set will hear them. Thanks again.

I enjoyed this reminder. We don’t all need to be quite so ready to find fault with each other even when we’ve gotten on each other’s nerves in the past. And I really appreciate Marc’s humor!

It sometimes does.

17RP (467.600) - RP is for repeater. As Axorlov explained you need to transmit on the repeater input frequency and receive on the repeater transmit frequency