SteveShannon

You're not a dummy! Users of GMRS should never feel that they are somehow inferior to hams. I've seen some really stupid hams and I know some really smart GMRS people. There's shouldn't be a comparison. The two services were created for different reasons. GMRS is for facilitating activities. Amateur Radio is for learning about and extending the use of radio. Both are valuable for emergencies. The stated purpose for GMRS is as follows: § 95.1703 Definitions, GMRS. General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS). A mobile two-way voice communication service, with limited data applications, for facilitating activities of individual licensees and their family members, including, but not limited to, voluntary provision of assistance to the public during emergencies and natural disasters. The stated purpose for the Amateur Radio Service is as follows: 97.1 Basis and purpose. (Of Amateur Radio) The rules and regulations in this part are designed to provide an amateur radio service having a fundamental purpose as expressed in the following principles: (a) Recognition and enhancement of the value of the amateur service to the public as a voluntary noncommercial communication service, particularly with respect to providing emergency communications. (b) Continuation and extension of the amateur's proven ability to contribute to the advancement of the radio art. (c) Encouragement and improvement of the amateur service through rules which provide for advancing skills in both the communication and technical phases of the art. (d) Expansion of the existing reservoir within the amateur radio service of trained operators, technicians, and electronics experts. (e) Continuation and extension of the amateur's unique ability to enhance international goodwill.

Welcome!

Most GMRS users use them in pursuit of other activities rather than listening and hoping to talk to other, unknown, GMRS users. They usually just use their call sign occasionally to comply with the regulations and their first name or position in a family “This is grandpa. There’s a huge grizzly in the area. I want you to come back to the cabin. I’m sorry I let you play with the salmon guts before going into the woods. Make a lot of noise while you’re walking. Scream if you need me. WROM258.” But some GMRS users do listen for others on local repeaters, hoping to strike up a conversation. That’s much more of a ham thing, but it definitely does happen in GMRS as well. I have never heard someone use a handle on GMRS. Even calling them “walkie talkies” rather than “handhelds” could be fodder for some good natured ribbing. Get your license and jump right in.

For more about 3/8 x 24, maybe this will help. I haven’t watched it.

So the difference between one S-unit and the next is 6 db. So an S9 signal is 6 db or four times the power of an S8 signal, yet makes little audible difference. S7 would be 1/16 the power of an S9 and you’d be able to easily tell the difference. I think (hope) putting it on your roof will help, but be sure you get it at least a half wavelength above your roof. For GMRS that’s not very much distance.

Would this help? https://theantennafarm.com/shop-by-categories/antennas-mounts/mobile-antenna-mounts/nmo-mobile-antenna-mounts/270-thick-surface-mounts/292-thick-surface-mount-up-to-1-2-/1153-laird-connectivity-mabvt8-detail

In my opinion, the best way to do it is to replace that puck with something like this, but you’ll need some kind of sealed bushing to fill the hole the puck required: https://theantennafarm.com/shop-by-categories/antennas-mounts/mobile-antenna-mounts/nmo-mobile-antenna-mounts/266-permanent-hole-mounts/289-nmo-3-4-hole-mount-no-connector/1140-laird-connectivity-mb8-detail

Both of those mounts that I linked have a SO 239, which allows you to use antennas with a PL-259.

Can you replace your puck mount with this (same manufacturer) and then use any antenna that uses a UHF mount? https://www.icamanufacturing.com/shop/p/fatboy-puck-3-antenna-mount Or perhaps this would make better sense and allow you to adapt your existing system to something more widely used: https://www.icamanufacturing.com/shop/p/so-239-hardware-mount

There’s a real truth bomb!

Yeah, one of the values of a properly designed busy channel lockout is to prevent interfering with transmissions you might not hear because of tone squelch. This design completely fails.

Not really. I enjoy knowing who else is a ham. I use an alerting software when I do FT8 that watches for specific call signs. I might run into them on the air sometime. Like most aspects of life folks should simply ignore it if it doesn’t apply to them.

That’s a terrible design if traffic which triggers the busy channel lockout only occurs after tone squelch.

Two features I wish RT Systems would implement are automatic saves and automatic versioning.

Lightning is capable of jumping the gap from the earth to the sky. The gap in a burned fuse would just be ionized fuse metal and highly conductive. Watch a lineman open a switch under load sometime and you’ll immediately understand why fuses can’t interrupt lightning. The contacts would have to operate fast, open far, and something would need to quench the arc. However, I’ve heard there are lightning arresters that incorporate inductors to present greater impedance to the rapid onset of voltage along the center conductor of coax. I don’t know anything more about them. When I heard about them I thought I needed to follow up but I didn’t. Sorry.

It's better to have a ground rod right there (but it must be bonded to the service ground) and that's certainly what the ARRL would recommend, but there's no requirement to do so. Remember, electricity takes the path of least resistance (but it divides itself amongst all paths). If you have a short wire going to your house and a long wire going to your service ground, a portion of the energy could easily go towards the house. So, I would, but it's really up to you.

Nice!

What you’ll probably want to do is place a ground rod at the base of the mast. The coax will lead from the antenna feedpoint to the lead-in to the house where you will place an antenna discharge unit. A ground wire will lead back from the ADU to the mast where it and the wire running from the mast will be bonded to that ground rod using a three wire connector. The three wires are: the wire from the ADU, the wire from the mast, and the wire that then runs to the service ground which would be a single buried #6 or greater bare wire. I would make all of the ground rod connections using either crimp on Burndy style connectors or one-shot thermite connections. But I’m in Montana, unfamiliar with your local electrical inspectors, and with only a line drawing to work with. The only things I’m certain of are that your mast needs a ground rod, that ground rod must be bonded to the service ground, your ADU needs to be connected to your service ground, and I believe the NEC allows the wire from your ADU to be connected to the wire from the mast to the mast ground rod. @WRUU653 - what would you recommend?

When it comes right down to it, price and size both matter. The Comet antennas will both have similar build quality, but the size of the Comet CA-712EFC results in better performance and higher price. It’s also higher gain, which should not be confused with better performance, but should be considered more focused. If the stations you wish to contact are more or less horizontally aligned with your station, contacts with them will be easier, but if they’re vastly different in elevation (angularity) horizontal gain might actually result in less signal reaching them or coming from them. The CA-GMRS is a nice size for use in an attic, but you must recognize that its smaller size will result in different performance compared to the 712EFC. It’s lower gain, so stations that are at a higher or lower angle may be heard better. I have several Comet and Diamond antennas. They are well built and perform well for my purposes. If I needed lower gain I would have no compunction about trying the CA-GMRS. If I wanted higher gain I would get the CA-712EFC. Both will do well if you mount them correctly and use appropriate feedline. Neither will overcome topography or otherwise bad circumstances. If you truly only want to do this once, bite the bullet and get the 712. The added height is often the determining factor.

You do not need two separate parallel conductors. You’re allowed to bond them together where they physically intersect. Understand that bonding is required to be permanent, using connections that cannot be easily undone. Typical bonding methods include thermite copper welding or crimped connectors, not bolted cable clamps. The Mike Holt videos are very good. The Bible for comm site lightning protection is R56 from Motorola, but it’s very complicated and overkill for anyone other than a professional communications technician. I really like the succinct approach taken by the Reeve document. It agrees with the Holt videos well: https://reeve.com/Documents/Articles Papers/Reeve_AntennaSystemGroundingRequirements.pdf

I have used other RT Systems software that were Windows only on a Mac in Parallels (remotely using TeamViewer or Remote Incident Manager). It worked very well.

If you put a roll-up twinlead antenna into a pvc pipe the velocity factor of the twinlead may change (according to Ed Fong’s videos and I don’t know nearly as much as he does), which would shift the tuning of the antenna. I would do as @UncleYoda suggests and put an antenna analyzer on it before and after. You might need to shorten the twinlead some.

As @Amaff said it is user specific whether the software is worth it. The software worked fine with the cable provided with the db20g, so the cost for me was only $25, about what a UV5R costs and much more useful to me. But I suspect that now that someone has cracked the nut Chirp will add the radio soon. RT Systems proved the concept; it’s no longer an iffy proposition.

Nice job building something that meets your needs and describing it. As long as it does what you want that’s all that matters. Fortunately there are many ways to do something. Your way is inexpensive and simple. Thanks for telling us about it.

Then I would recommend sending it in or replacing it unless you’re good at replacing surface mount components.