SteveShannon

We called them VAR sucking bird whackers in the utility industry.

We see Boeing fuselages come through Montana frequently and tons of wind turbine blades and structures. They’re impressive, but this was the biggest thing that I have seen. It can only go so far each day and power lines are being moved as it goes.

Sorry, I certainly didn’t mean to imply they were having a problem with communications. My title was intended to include radio communications as one of the interesting aspects to the job these folks do, but really I just wanted to share the video my friend took about this large truck. I just thought it was interesting.

That appears to just be the way the site works. Some open repeater owners have stated they wished the “request access” button didn’t appear on their repeater. Others have said its not necessary to request access, but they like to know who’s using their repeater. Of course many GMRS repeater owners do require that a user seek permission. Unlike ham radio repeaters where the license is assigned to a trustee but belongs to the club (along with the repeater hardware and site) a GMRS repeater is licensed to an individual and that individual has full say over whether to share it or not.

Here’s a video from the other side:

Yesterday a friend of mine and I heard about a long truck carrying a big boiler during one of our ham radio nets. So we drove down to see it. The “truck” consists of a pull tractor, the load, and two pusher tractors. A notice from MDT says it’s 217 feet long and 29 feet wide. Another video said the boiler is 360,000 lbs. The truck travels at night on state highways to avoid traffic. While I drove my friend videoed the truck on my phone:

Thank you. I wonder why @JamesBrox doesn’t just ignore me if a post from me is a trigger for him. Maybe one of you can help him with that.

Welcome! That sounds like a wonderful activity for retirement!

Lately it seems like a few people are asking loosely worded questions and then snapping at people who give a knowledgeable answer. My ignore list has gained another.

If the reason you hijacked the thread was because you saw @OffRoaderX was here and you thought this was a good way to get his attention, a more appropriate way would be to create a new thread and tag him by typing the @ sign, then his username. Like this: @WRZM228 Of course if you’ve been ignored that won’t work. (How’s that for an attempt to bring the thread back to the OP’s topic?)

The repeater Input is the TX channel for your radio. It should be a 467.xxx MHz frequency.

If you have an external microphone, see if it works. I have a friend whose Baofeng failed exactly the same way. It turns out that the little spring contacts in the microphone jack fail open, as if the microphone were plugged in. I also heard another person try to transmit on our net once who had something similar happen. In his case the hole in front of the microphone had gotten plugged.

I gave an honest answer. I’m not sure what about my response bothered you but it’s an easy situation to rectify.

I would use the Comet antenna at the higher elevation for the repeater.

I’m easily confused. You already said which antenna setup is for which radio in paragraphs 2 and 3, so what exactly are you asking?

No, not by regulation on the main channels. Most handhelds are limited to that but as a practical matter rather than regulations. Kenny is absolutely correct in his post below: Except for the weird case of Fixed Stations, which are fixed in location and may only communicate to other Fixed Stations - they are limited to 15 watts.

500 milliwatts, fixed antennas, 16 channels analog/32 digital, different frequency from GMRS, and non-licensed.

Welcome to the forum. I recommend that you start here:

They help prevent the buildup of high voltage on sharp edges. https://www.antennapartsoutlet.com/products/maco®-corona-balls

It’s not. At least not simultaneously. I’m guessing that your radio is jumping back to the channel they’re on without changing the display.

The original was the Garmin Rhino which exchanges GPS data between handhelds and then displays your friends’ locations on a very nice topo map. AFAIK it was entirely proprietary also. They are still very nice radios and one of the few not manufactured in the PRC.

That also removes the limitation that stations which transmit digitally have fixed antennas. But the excerpt you posted doesn’t mention the prohibition against using a repeater, which I find odd.

Okay, 20m and 15m are both pretty dead now but 40m on ft8 is active.

Yeah, the northern lights are supposed to be visible here tonight and they rarely come this far south. But I don’t see them and I’m getting good reception on 20 meters.

It’s a good plan. It’s short enough that losses won’t hurt you too bad. There are always some losses but most of us will never suffer from them.