SteveShannon

The simple answer is no, don’t invite the lightning into your house. Which is the most direct way for a lightning induced surge to get to the service ground? The box where your surge suppressors are is also connected to your service ground, but if running from the mast ground to the service ground is straighter, then that’s what you should do. Motorola R56 is the bible of station grounding, but most questions related to home amateur radio equipment bonding and grounding can be answered with this document: https://reeve.com/Documents/Articles Papers/Reeve_AntennaSystemGroundingRequirements.pdf On page 3 is a diagram that shows a bonding conductor running from the mast to the antenna discharge unit and then to the service ground. On page 10 it shows a bonding electrode running from a tower to a grounding electrode and then to the service ground electrode with a separate ground conductor running from the antenna discharge unit and the service ground, so it can be done either way.

I still get plenty of gun parts. Maybe you have a setting set somewhere that filters them out.

I think only they will be alerted but anyone on the same Timeslot and frequency (and possibly color code) will hear you.

I don’t think that’s why. I have multiple radios but all use the same ID. There’s a secondary number that must be used for multiple hotspots to keep them unique.

OpenGD77 definitely makes DMR easier to program and you can’t beat the price (free). Other benefits of OpenGD77 include the built in support for for voice prompts which was important for me as I programmed the radio for a blind and partially deaf friend. I bought the Tytera MD UV380. It was about $80, which was pretty low for a decent DMR radio. There’s a version of OpenGD 77 just for it called Open UV380. I’m not suggesting that the TYT MD UV380 (or 390 if you want waterproof) is better than the DM-1701 because I don’t know if it is but it’s definitely a decent choice.

You certainly can. Inexpensive whip CB antennas can sometimes be found at thrift shops also.

If you’re talking about the Alpha-Delta dipole kit, it’s really not necessary (https://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=H0-005111). It’s nice, and I have one, but all you really need is to connect the center conductor to one wire and the shield to the other (that’s really all this does!) Dipoles are dirt simple and they work well. Here’s an article that will help you figure out the length: https://www.arrl.org/single-band-dipoles Here is a good video showing how to build a dipole “balun”:

Honestly, even though I’m an Amazon stockholder, I would not shop for antennas there. Shop at hamradio.com, dxengineering.com, Gigaparts.com, randlelectronics.com, or possibly antennafarm. You will be dealing with companies that know what they’re selling and usually have better prices than Amazon. If nothing else do your window shopping at the places I listed and then buy from Amazon because of the easy returns.

It’s similar in that it allows bandwidth to be shared, but it does so by time-multiplexing the two signals so they occupy exactly the same bandwidth but they take turns doing so. So for this fraction of a second my signal on time slot 1 is received and transmitted and in the next fraction of a second the signal on time slot 2 is received and transmitted. This switching between time slots happens thousands of times each second.

In the amateur radio world, a talk group is a virtual construct connected to a DMR network, such as Brandmeister, TGIF, etc, via the internet. Every repeater can be connected to any talk group (depending on what the repeater operators allow). Each repeater typically has two time slots so two talk groups may simultaneously be active on each repeater. A talk group that’s active on one time slot of the repeater by default is said to be a static talk group but a person using that repeater and time slot may often connect the time slot to another talk group dynamically. Dynamic talk groups typically time out and the repeater/time slot reconnects to its static talk group. Using a hotspot is nearly identical to using a repeater except it’s in your house. You set it up to link to one or more DMR networks (and/or YSF, DSTAR, etc, and you then configure which talk groups you want to be static. Also, unless you buy (or build) a duplex hotspot you only have one time slot.

That’s wise and honestly you’ll need to get into the 80, 40, and 20 meter bands in order to talk worldwide. For instance, the Montana Traffic Network is on 80 meters at 0030 Zulu every day. It’s part of the National Traffic System, which is presented here: https://www.arrl.org/files/file/NTS Presentation 6-2012.ppt

Sorry, the TN confused me. I should have realized that because of your other post where you talked about using AllStar in AZ. Anyway, every state has talk groups and every developed country has talk groups and there are continental and worldwide talk groups and you can get onto a repeater and activate almost any of these talk groups in order to talk to someone there. If you want to talk to someone in Poland, activate a Poland-English talk group. It still relies on the internet of course.

There are thousands of talk groups for many different purposes. Here is a list of the Tennessee talk groups on the Brandmeister network: https://www.radioreference.com/db/sid/9928

While not as vulnerable as the cell systems, the loss of the internet, is not impossible, regardless of the redundancy built into it. Local access is especially vulnerable. A single dig-in can disrupt access for an entire state in some cases. If you really want distance without reliance on any infrastructure, you’ll want to get into HF. People will tell you that it’s not reliable, and it’s true that you can’t just dial up another country at will, but there are shorter distance traffic networks, HF radio to HF radio, where people are trained to pass messages accurately worldwide by relaying the message in a predetermined manner. GMRS (and FRS), is excellent for distributing messages to your family that you gather via ham radio.

Way to go, Frank! It’s fun, isn’t it?

I’m sorry, I don’t know where Clay Co. is in Alabama, but there are 82 repeaters listed in Alabama including some that might no longer be operating. If you click on Repeaters on the menu above, you can find the ones closest to you or you can click on Map and see what’s on the map closest to you. I’ll put the links below: Repeaters: https://mygmrs.com/repeaters Map: https://mygmrs.com/map/

Make sure you do as @OffRoaderX suggests to prevent desense. Also, with DCS there’s both a normal and inverted codes. Make sure you use the right one. If it doesn’t have an I after the code it’s assumed N. Finally, I recommend leaving the receive squelch tone or code unprogrammed at first. That way you hear everything.

Are you using a repeater channel?

I know it’s your first post here, but there’s no point in getting upset about four year old threads.

No, he was sarcastically implying that a ghost antenna was equivalent to a dummy load.

Then either you’re out of range, the repeater isn’t programmed to provide a squelch tail or courtesy beep, nobody else is listening at the moment (or nobody wants to respond), or you really don’t have everything programmed correctly. You must be using a repeater channel which has the necessary offset for the transmission frequency. You transmit to the repeater using 467 MHz frequencies and receive from the repeater using 462 MHz frequencies. You must transmit the right access tone, whether CTCSS or DCS. You can receive without any tone and you will hear everything but if you set a tone it must be the right one. You must be within range. You can probably hear the repeater farther than you can transmit to it. You cannot count on transmitting on one radio while listening on another that’s set to the receiver frequency. Don’t give up; a lot of people have felt stymied.

I don’t know, but if you click on Repeaters on the menu bar you should be able to look them up either in the database or on the map. Many repeaters give a squelch tail, a short burst of static right after you activate them, but the most reliable way is to monitor the repeater and see if anyone is using it then ask for a radio check. Also, if you leave your R-CTCSS empty you’ll hear everything.

Exactly!

Input and Output are relative to the repeater. So your transmission is the input to the repeater and you receive the repeater’s output. The settings on your radio are relative to your radio. So T-CTCSS (or T-DCS) is what you transmit, which is the input to the repeater.

This one? https://www.frontrunneroutfitters.com/en/us/antenna-rack-mount.html