SteveShannon

I think @kidphc was thinking you meant the oem rubber duck. He’s right about poor quality elbows causing problems, but there shouldn’t really be an issue with a higher quality one. The thing is they just weren’t originally designed for true UHF. the PL259, even though referred to as a UHF connector, was designed for much lower frequencies. It’s too bad the GMRS manufacturers don’t install N connectors on their radios instead of SO239s.

When you ask about using an HT antenna, do you mean the oem rubber duck or are you asking about using an Aubree or Smiley as mentioned in your second paragraph? As long as it’s rated to handle the power (which you already alluded to), and if you’re using a high quality 90° connector (I like Amphenol) you should be just fine. Try it. See if the antenna gets warm. Just be aware of the fact that your RF exposure will increase proportionally.

I live in a very low traffic (GMRS traffic) area. I might leave the RX tone out so I could avoid doubling with someone on simplex.

That’s very true. Doubling the power of the radio shortens the battery life by 50% without significantly increasing the range. I would run it at the lowest possible power level anyway. It has three different levels and the lowest at 3-4 watts will usually get you as far as a UHF signal will travel anyway due to topography.

I have no idea. I don’t have one. The big battery is nice. It has a big battery, larger buttons, and a nice size screen and nearly 10 watts output for some testers. The price today at Amazon is down to $48. I wouldn’t turn my nose up at it, but besides those features it’s nothing extraordinary. The most negative review of it that I’ve seen didn’t like the $120 price tag and had a sample unit that put out 7.5 watts. I suspect he would feel differently about $48 and 9.5 watts.

If you’re going through a repeater you must have an offset, but sometimes the offset doesn’t appear in the offset column. As long as you’re transmitting on 467.xxx and receiving on 462.xxx where xxx is the same for both you’re fine.

HRO, Gigaparts, and DX Engineering all sell them. Just add it to the order. N connectors are generally considered sealed as well.

Here’s Ultraflex LMR 400, 50 feet, N male on both ends: https://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=H0-013172

ABR Industries also makes it: https://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=71-001444&srsltid=AfmBOoq0oY6W69jh1hF0_ALzAvAS31Wp49FHfzSQwZuHAKbdM8HeXMcI I personally would rather have one of the more flexible coax cables with a stranded center conductor. I don’t know if this ABR or the DX400 is stranded. I recommend calling and checking.

M&P certainly makes their excellent cables with N connectors, but Gigaparts is terribly under stocked right now. But you can order it direct from M&P and they’ll ship it directly to you.

Here’s a decent quality 50 foot coax, equivalent to LMR400, with N male connectors on both ends. https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/dxe-400maxdn050 It’s also available in custom lengths or off the shelf at 25 ft, 75 ft, and 100 ft.

It’s always better to have fewer adapters, especially since N male connectors are easily available already mounted on coax.

Yes, and that’s how most coax with N connectors is.

No, that’s N female

Here’s a video from Notarubicon about the AR152. Note that at about the 20 minute mark he discusses using Chirp and which radio the AR152 “self identifies“ as. And yes, wrkw566 is exactly right. Save the initial and various versions of the data as you program with any software.

Tell chirp it’s a UV5R and see if that works. If not, try F8-HP. Read from it first!

You don’t need to see them. Line of sight means that UHF radio waves travel in a mostly straight line. Lower frequencies frequently bounce off layers of the atmosphere; UHF cannot be relied upon to do that. It pierces through the atmosphere and travels farther without attenuating. Hams use VHF and UHF to communicate to the space station or to bounce signals off the moon. Nor does UHF follow the curvature of the Earth. A half mile is seldom the outer limit, but under certain circumstances it might be. On the other hand many of us frequently enjoy ranges of several or even many miles. Most people get GMRS radios for communications while they’re doing other things, like hiking, fishing, off roading, or recovering rockets out in the wide open spaces.

If you’re testing by talking on one G21 while listening on the other G21 (or almost any two radios really) you stand an excellent chance of desensing the receiving radio while transmitting on the other radio. This results in a failure to hear yourself on the receiving radio, but allows things transmitted by the repeater afterwards to get through. Try giving one radio to someone half a block away and test again.

Modeling software is only as good as the input data, the assumptions used when writing code to do calculations, and the various databases that the software use. Reality has infinite data, your modeling software uses 200 gigabytes. For modeling propagation you should only consider it a general guide, never as specific as your own tests. It cannot have every vehicle, rock, tree, shrub, atmospheric moisture, or new construction and it cannot accurately predict how your exact combination of equipment will work.

Hi Mac, It usually helps to post a more detailed question rather than relying on what can be a cryptic title. There have been a few radios where the power outputs of programmed channels appear to be recalibrated after programming. I don’t recall if the AR-152 is one of those. Some posts have even mentioned that the result seemed like the power output was inverted after programming, so high power in the menu put out less power than low power. I’ve never experienced that with Chirp but that’s not to say that others haven’t. If that’s not what your title alludes to, please give us more detail. You’ll find that most of us here enjoy trying to help answer questions. Disregard those who react negatively.

Why don’t you simply not post if you’re just going to insult people? Sometimes you’re helpful but then you post something like this that’s mostly just vitriolic. You’re bad for this site, but more importantly your comments make me wonder for your own mental health. I hope you can figure it out.

My first suggestion would be to try repeater-builder: https://www.repeater-builder.com/rbtip/index.html

First, the repeater input “DPL” is on the menu T-DCS. It must be correct or the repeater will ignore your transmission. Similarly, the repeater output “DPL” is set on the R-DCS menu, but you could leave it completely unset and your radio will reproduce everything it hears on frequency. Once you’re on the correct channel, push the green (left) menu button to get into menu mode. Then use the center rocker (up and down) to step through the individual menus. When you get to T-DCS press the left, green, button to select that menu. Then use the up/down button until you find the correct DCS code (DPL is just another name for DPL). Confirm your choice with the left (green) button. Once you’ve confirmed it, use the Blue button on the right to back out of the lower menus. It’s just like Windows cascaded menus. Green GOs deeper and Blue BACKs out. Do the same thing for R-DCS if you want. It’s just another menu. Welcome to the forum!

Are you using the browser on your phone, Tapatalk, or a browser on your computer? In every case you must (as @OffRoaderX pointed out above) enable your device to provide your location to whatever app is expecting a location. If you’re using an iPhone I can show you where that is in Settings. It’s under Privacy Settings, then Location, and then pick the app and enable it at the level you feel comfortable with. I select “while using“ usually.

Well no, the only response to his request for help yesterday was your snarky comment which wasn’t helpful. It’s pretty hard to understand how you could scold anyone for asking something twice when you say the same thing in nearly every post with the same shitty attitude towards others.