SteveShannon

What are your criteria? What does “better deal” mean to you? Cheapest? Works on most different services (ham, MURS, and GMRS?), easiest to use on GMRS?

Go right back to that dealer. He might be able to clear this up quickly.

I truly believe it’s going to be the height and type of the antenna. Your antenna is at 25 feet. You’re surrounded by trees. Their canopies are probably about 25 feet. Any high gain antenna concentrates its power in a flatter pattern than an omnidirectional antenna. A Yagi also concentrates it in a narrow cone. Trees will absorb the signal. High gain directed into trees leaves little signal in other directions. Lowering the antenna to ground level might allow it to send the RF below the tree canopies. Also, ,are sure the 1050 is transmitting wideband.

Did you read from the radio first? That’s advised with almost all CPS.

Radio is funny and rules of thumb sometimes are never right for all situations. A Yagi should make you reach further, but because it limits the various other paths the RF may take I think it’s actually self-defeating in this situation. Try an omnidirectional antenna at ground level. After all, your 905 works at ground level with 1/10th as much power. Putting your antenna at 25 feet might simply be placing it at just the right level that the trees can block RF.

There are already forums here for FRS and amateur radio that you might not be able to see because you don’t have a full account. But to directly answer your question you could start a “club” for people to join. I think that requires a premium membership.

So the kg-905g is transmitting into a low gain antenna that transmits in all directions. I don’t know what your range is (same two miles or closer in?) but a Yagi is a poor antenna to use for anything other than a clear shot directly to another antenna. And I am not familiar with the ano-50g, but in trees like that I would be much more inclined to try a low gain antenna on the kg-1000g. That will let the signal radiate in all directions like the antenna on the 905 does.

Doesn’t that defeat the moisture seal?

Since you only have three posts, just create a new account using the right call sign.

My biggest gripe is the fact that there’s no alternative to the Radioddity software for,programming. My second biggest gripe is that you can’t export channels from one configuration and then import them to another configuration even if the channels are compatible.

Can’t you use Chirp? Chirp will import from RepeaterBook.

For the jumper at either end you typically want something very flexible. The shorter the jumper the more flex you want. LMR 400 isn’t very flexible because it has a solid inner conductor, but M&P makes two different 10 mm (same diameter as LMR400) cable types with stranded center conductor. One is called Ultraflex 10 and the other is called Hyperflex 10. Most of the cable manufacturers do something similar. For more flexibility you can even go to smaller sized cable, such as M&P Ultraflex 7. It really depends on you setup, but for example I have an 18” piece of RG8x going between my radio and my SWR/Wattmeter, then a six foot piece of some flexible coax that is similar to LMR 400 except with a stranded center conductor. I think it’s M&P Ultraflex 10 or maybe the ABR equivalent. That leads to the pass through/lightning protector. Yes, there are conductor differences. The thinner, more flexible jumpers have more attenuation, but because they are short the loss doesn’t matter much. That’s the only way it will adversely affect performance, but that’s the trade off and it’s doubtful you’ll ever notice the slight loss.

Depending on the connector on the hardline you should be able to just order a jumper from DX Engineering (they will also do custom) or Gigaparts or Ham Radio Outlet. All sell short jumpers with nearly any end. I have several LMR400 and UG8X jumpers for the last few feet.

I think that this paragraph is pretty succinct: The Moxon rectangle is a 2-element array using dual coupling between elements to produce its nearly cardioidal pattern. Because it depends upon both the mutual coupling between parallel portions of the elements and the coupling between element ends, it is not amenable to the addition of further elements for increased gain. In other words, a Moxon rectangle is not expandable by the addition of director in the manner of a standard Yagi. But the author, SK W4RNL, goes on to describe how to stack the rectangles: http://on5au.be/content/a10/moxon/moxstack.html

I thought that by definition a Moxon is only two elements. There are other antennas that claim to be three and four element Moxons, but a Moxon is just a specialized Yagi. Single band Yagis work by having a single reflector, a single radiator, and multiple directors. In most cases the directors are all 5% shorter than the radiator. Sometimes the directors taper so each is shorter than the previous director. Have you tried making your directors shorter?

He lives in Ramsay. In fact he just called me. I told him you were interested, Zach!

There’s a guy here looking at putting one up north of I-90 west of Ramsay. I will give him my support. Welcome to the forum!

It’s all removable.

In Chirp you have the ability to load all of the default GMRS channels. Would that help? You should also have the ability to import nearby GMRS repeater channels from Repeaterbook into Chirp.

Read it from the radio.

This is such a clear explanation that I actually mailed it to myself for future reference. Nicely explained, Marc!

We have done it both ways. Maurice has had both Intel and ARM based Macs. The first time I helped him I wondered how it could possibly work, but it actually works pretty seamlessly. He recently applied the beta of Sequoia and that broke the remote access software (RIM or Remote Incident Management). So he had to get another computer (Windows) so we could continue programming his several radios.

I’m not certain that’s the issue, although it certainly doesn’t make it easier. I regularly program several different radios using Windows programming software on a Mac. And I do it remotely to throw another wrench in the works. Marc’s post above describes the process I would use. Troubleshooting this kind of thing requires a logical approach, methodically eliminating non-issues while zeroing in on whatever is left. Make sure the serial port is being created. You can see it happen in Device Manager. Or you can see a yellow warning symbol if it fails. On a Mac the OS will sometimes intercept the request and ask if it’s okay. Device Manager will allow you to identify which comm port number has been created. In the programming software you must sometimes tell it which port number has been created. It must be the same as Device Manager reported. This is especially true when the device embedded in the cable is what has been identified. If the cable uses a USB connector on each end the radio has the usb to serial device built into it usually and can self-identify usually (except for an Alinco I have, which is stupid). Once you know the port has been created and you have told the CPS which port it is, the software should be ready to read from your radio. Always read before writing.

My understanding was not that they didn’t want people to check on their neighbors with a radio in hand, but that they didn’t want people mounting overly ambitious uncoordinated efforts that might interfere with the official efforts and taking additional risks to check on people, if by doing so they might have contributed to a situation that stretched out the already too thin resources. But instead of seeking to coordinate with the very willing additional volunteers they drove them away with their heavy handed tactics.

I’ve only used the Midland NMO mag mount. It is what I started with and I’ve found no reason to switch. But I do get a broken signal on transmit (meaning people report that my signal is broken) sometimes when moving on the interstate. Maybe it was just picket fencing. A friend recently bought a Comet magnetic base NMO mount (CM-5NMO) and it is slightly larger diameter, looks and feels well built, and appears to sit flatter. He and I have conducted tests where he is driving to the I-15 interstate, up over the continental divide, and north on his way to Helena which was the same path I had traveled earlier. Although eventually a weak signals prevented reception I never heard any breaking up while he was in motion. It’s a sample of one, so really only anecdotal, but it was noticeable to me. It’s not enough of a reason to dump the Midland mount, but if I were buying a new magnetic mount NMO, I would try the Comet this time. It’s about $33 at the usual ham radio shops.