SteveShannon

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.

Do you hear full volume through an earphone or external speaker/microphone? Have you tried doing a factory reset?

Welcome!

Not for me. $25 is a small price to pay for software that I enjoy using. I’ll spend more than that on a good dinner at a nice restaurant that lasts a couple hours.

I did not. But rather than switching back and forth I would just add GMRS channels into the radio alongside the amateur channels. But I will test it the way you suggest. Restart it in GMRS mode, see if the software can read from it. I might not write to it because I never saw in the software where it allows me to change modes to match.

Sometimes it takes a little while before the premium membership affects the other sections of the site. I’ll report your post so Rich, the owner, can check it.

Well, I tried it. It worked exactly as expected, finally making it possible to create channels based on frequencies imported from RepeaterBook or other online sources. I inserted channels and that worked. I think I tried every menu. There were no surprises. The radio I tried it with one of my two Rdioddity DB20G radios. I read from the radio first and saved that as a working file. Then I did an import from RepeaterBook of all the 2 meter and 70 cm repeaters within 100 miles of my zip code. I created a new file with those channels, then inserted a blank line at the top for our club's simplex channel. I programmed that channel and discovered that when creating a new channel it defaults to Low Power, which is about 6 watts for this particular radio. I changed that to High and wrote to the radio again. Everything worked exactly as it should. For me the lack of decent CPS was my only complaint (well, also how they labeled the FUNC button). After reading their cautions about using the AT779UV software with similar radios and their comment about having to correctly plug in the programming cable I had a tiny bit of trepidation. Neither of those things presented a problem. It worked with the driver that i originally got from Radioddity, using the cable that shipped with the DB20G. I did nothing special a far as plugging in the cable. Load the driver first, before plugging in the USB end of the cable. Have the radio turned off when plugging the radio end of the cable into the microphone socket. Of course the radio requires a power source. It does not get its power from the USB port. I used a battery. I also connected a dummy load so I had no fears about transmitting. For me it was definitely worth the $25.

Well, I bought the software and downloaded it. After ham breakfast I’ll get a chance to try it and see whether it works for my DB20G.

Ha! It’s already so stretched out and worn that things just fall out. I went looking for RTSystems coupons and found so many RTSystems receipts that they’ll be holding an intervention. I probably will later today after mulling it over.

This could solve the only issue I have with the DB20G. Who’s gonna be the first to try this? https://www.rtsystemsinc.com/AT-779UV_c_2218.html

Well here you go then: https://www.rtsystemsinc.com/AT-778_c_917.html

I don’t listen for GMRS activity.

And if you get their cable you have no worries about it working.

https://www.qsl.net/kd2bd/splat.html

That’s right, but not only that it’s not AM, which the air bands are. If I knew how to unlock it to transmit on the Airbands I wouldn’t tell you.

Although (as you pointed out about the BMS) there’s an even greater reason to do that now, it has been that way even before BMS. You want the final connection to the battery (which almost always sparks) to be somewhere else other than near the vents of the battery so the hydrogen gas released by the battery doesn’t explode. I knew of a guy who was blinded when a truck’s battery exploded with his face above it. I was 18 or 19 and working for the same oilfield roustabout company as he was. I’ve taken it very seriously ever since. The final connection is to a point on the chassis.

That Anytone (assuming it’s a 578 or 878) uses software that also allows importing external csv files, and in fact it supports “Roaming Zones” which allow the radio to automatically find the closest repeater based on its internal gps. And it can be very easily opened up to GMRS (I have the Alinco MD5XT which is basically an Alinco 878. I also think the Wouxun radios can be programmed using RT Systems software, which can also import csv or tab files.

If you know you’re going to travel through another state you could download a file of all of the repeaters for that state and load them into Chirp to program your radio.

Premium level also allows you to form clubs in the forum software and download extracts of the repeater, which is pretty sweet for traveling people with radios that hold lots of channels.

To answer my own previous question, Premium level members have no limit on the number of reactions. They also are allowed to post in the classified ads and delete their own posts.