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SteveShannon

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  1. Like
    SteveShannon got a reaction from AdmiralCochrane in baofeng external antenna setup   
    And here it is.
    Antennas are tuned to specific frequencies.  When they’re used at frequencies other than those they’re tuned for, the results are usually bad. Also, the cable used for a CB antenna is usually very lossy at GMRS frequencies.
    So, as Randy said, no.
  2. Haha
    SteveShannon reacted to OffRoaderX in baofeng external antenna setup   
    That's only 3 paragraphs! Dont worry, the 10 paragraph answer will come.
  3. Like
    SteveShannon got a reaction from marcspaz in Coax size between repeater and duplexer   
    Use one of the many coax loss calculators to see if the loss for that length is acceptable to you. 
  4. Like
    SteveShannon got a reaction from WRYZ926 in Coax size between repeater and duplexer   
    Use one of the many coax loss calculators to see if the loss for that length is acceptable to you. 
  5. Like
    SteveShannon reacted to WRUU653 in Winslow repeater   
    Seems like the site has been a bit buggy lately, I got it to show up with stale turned on. Looks  like it’s been over a year since the owner updated. 
    @Ark1 try sending the owner a message and ask him about the repeater. They might appreciate knowing that their page fell into stale and that they just need to log into their repeater account to make it update. 
  6. Like
    SteveShannon got a reaction from WRUU653 in Winslow repeater   
    It still appears in the database, but browsing the map it doesn’t appear.  I don’t know why.  I tried it with offline and stale both turned on.
  7. Like
    SteveShannon got a reaction from WRUU653 in Just passed my General class test on Saturday!!!!   
    You are the opposite of a “Sad Ham”.  Great job!
  8. Thanks
    SteveShannon got a reaction from WRUU653 in Question re: grounding for lightning protection   
    Let’s disregard lightning protection for a few minutes and just talk about bonding to your house service ground. 
    Your tower is sort of grounded. We all agree with that I think. It’s embedded in an imperfect conductor, concrete, at the bottom. To improve the grounding a ground wire runs from each leg of the tower to a ground rod. But any two separate ground rods are almost always at different potentials. Whenever you have different potentials between two points in a circuit you will have electric currents flowing from one point to the other. So, the three or four legs of the tower are bonded together using a material that is more conductive than the tower itself. Otherwise you have current flowing between the legs of your  tower. If current flows between the legs of your tower over time the metal of the tower will corrode. Bonding between the three or four legs provides an easier path for the current to flow which keeps the legs all at the same potential. 
    In addition your antenna mount is certainly connected electrically to your tower and your coax shield is connected to your antenna mount. Your coax shield then runs to your radio. If you have a watt meter, amplifier, or any other device between your radio and your antenna, they are all connected serially via the coax shield. Their metal cases are all connected to the coax shield. So all of the devices in your shack are connected together via the coax shield. If a power surge comes through the shield (static, lightning, unicorn farts, whatever) it is going to cause current to flow through your equipment because that’s the most direct path. By bonding the chassis of all those devices to a single point, we provide a much better path that doesn’t flow through those devices. So that’s why we use a single point ground. But remember, that single point ground is connected to ground at the tower.  
    You power your radio with a power supply that’s plugged into your house power. Its case is connected to the ground wire in the outlet which runs back to the service panel where it’s bonded to the service ground for the utility power coming into your house. It has to be because NEC says so. 
    So let’s say you don’t have your single point ground bonded to your service ground. You reach out to touch your radio and at the same time your brush your other hand on the power supply. The potential of your tower ground, which is what your one hand is touching, is probably different than the potential of the service ground, which is what your other hand is feeling. And it’s DC. Your heart can be stopped by as little as 1/10 of an ampere. So you die. 
    So we bond the tower ground to the utility ground to ensure they are at the same potential and save your life. 
    Also with fewer ground currents in the shack we hear less noise. 
    😁
  9. Like
    SteveShannon got a reaction from WRUU653 in Question re: grounding for lightning protection   
    Obviously you don’t ground a fiberglass mast, but your coax shield is attached to part of the antenna somewhere and it will develop a charge as air currents pass over it.
    Now the difference in potentials is between the metal parts of the antenna connected to the shield of the coax and the service ground, again going through your equipment and possibly you. One of the purposes of a surge suppressor (commonly called a lightning protector but nobody guarantees that) is to allow you to bond the coax shield to the grounding system. 
  10. Like
    SteveShannon reacted to OffRoaderX in Just passed my General class test on Saturday!!!!   
    A Glad Ham!
  11. Like
    SteveShannon got a reaction from WRYZ926 in Just passed my General class test on Saturday!!!!   
    You are the opposite of a “Sad Ham”.  Great job!
  12. Like
    SteveShannon got a reaction from WRXB215 in Just passed my General class test on Saturday!!!!   
    You are the opposite of a “Sad Ham”.  Great job!
  13. Thanks
    SteveShannon reacted to WSEZ864 in Just passed my General class test on Saturday!!!!   
    I just came back from our club's Field Day exercise. I spent about an hour as a control operator with an unlicensed operator, showing him how to make contacts and a little bit on how to operate the radio (tuning, notch filtering, RF gain vs AF volume). He had 22 contacts on 40 meter phone (7.2-7.3 mHz) when I turned him over to another licensed operator, most across the country and a couple in Canada. He was very excited and was having a great time.
  14. Like
    SteveShannon got a reaction from WRXB215 in Question re: grounding for lightning protection   
    Let’s disregard lightning protection for a few minutes and just talk about bonding to your house service ground. 
    Your tower is sort of grounded. We all agree with that I think. It’s embedded in an imperfect conductor, concrete, at the bottom. To improve the grounding a ground wire runs from each leg of the tower to a ground rod. But any two separate ground rods are almost always at different potentials. Whenever you have different potentials between two points in a circuit you will have electric currents flowing from one point to the other. So, the three or four legs of the tower are bonded together using a material that is more conductive than the tower itself. Otherwise you have current flowing between the legs of your  tower. If current flows between the legs of your tower over time the metal of the tower will corrode. Bonding between the three or four legs provides an easier path for the current to flow which keeps the legs all at the same potential. 
    In addition your antenna mount is certainly connected electrically to your tower and your coax shield is connected to your antenna mount. Your coax shield then runs to your radio. If you have a watt meter, amplifier, or any other device between your radio and your antenna, they are all connected serially via the coax shield. Their metal cases are all connected to the coax shield. So all of the devices in your shack are connected together via the coax shield. If a power surge comes through the shield (static, lightning, unicorn farts, whatever) it is going to cause current to flow through your equipment because that’s the most direct path. By bonding the chassis of all those devices to a single point, we provide a much better path that doesn’t flow through those devices. So that’s why we use a single point ground. But remember, that single point ground is connected to ground at the tower.  
    You power your radio with a power supply that’s plugged into your house power. Its case is connected to the ground wire in the outlet which runs back to the service panel where it’s bonded to the service ground for the utility power coming into your house. It has to be because NEC says so. 
    So let’s say you don’t have your single point ground bonded to your service ground. You reach out to touch your radio and at the same time your brush your other hand on the power supply. The potential of your tower ground, which is what your one hand is touching, is probably different than the potential of the service ground, which is what your other hand is feeling. And it’s DC. Your heart can be stopped by as little as 1/10 of an ampere. So you die. 
    So we bond the tower ground to the utility ground to ensure they are at the same potential and save your life. 
    Also with fewer ground currents in the shack we hear less noise. 
    😁
  15. Like
    SteveShannon got a reaction from WRTC928 in Question re: grounding for lightning protection   
    Obviously you don’t ground a fiberglass mast, but your coax shield is attached to part of the antenna somewhere and it will develop a charge as air currents pass over it.
    Now the difference in potentials is between the metal parts of the antenna connected to the shield of the coax and the service ground, again going through your equipment and possibly you. One of the purposes of a surge suppressor (commonly called a lightning protector but nobody guarantees that) is to allow you to bond the coax shield to the grounding system. 
  16. Thanks
    SteveShannon reacted to WRYZ926 in Question re: grounding for lightning protection   
    It's no different than using a chimney mount or a satellite dish mount on your roof. You run the proper sized ground wire from the antenna/mount to ground.
    Look at a properly installed satellite dish antenna. There will be a ground wire running with the coax. And that ground wire should be bonded to your service ground before the coax enters the structure. The same goes for cable TV, there will be a ground wire coming off the feed  to your home and it to will be grounded to the service ground when installed correctly.
  17. Like
    SteveShannon reacted to WRYZ926 in Question re: grounding for lightning protection   
    Unless I misread the NEC and other sources, the tower should have its own ground and be bonded to the service ground.
     
    This is correct. 
    Steve did a good job of expelling things
  18. Like
    SteveShannon got a reaction from DeuceoneRadio in GMRS repeaters northwest Louisiana   
    Good catch that would have been even better without the snarky comment about knowing how to use the map.
  19. Like
    SteveShannon reacted to nokones in Question re: grounding for lightning protection   
    To prevent electrical noise being transferred from one system into the other system. You are drawing power from one electrical system thus you should be using only one grounding system. If you have two earth grounding points then you have two grounding systems and that will cause problems.
  20. Like
    SteveShannon reacted to WRXL702 in Question re: grounding for lightning protection   
    Correct - Because Commercial Sites Don't Have A House - They Have A Structure Or A Cabinet For Equipment.
    The Structure Or Cabinet Requires Proper Bonding - For Single Point Grounding - To Avoid A Ground Potential Difference. 
  21. Thanks
    SteveShannon reacted to WRXL702 in Question re: grounding for lightning protection   
    It's Called Single Point Grounding.
    Reason - To Eliminate A Potential Difference Between Having (2) Separate Grounding Systems.
    Single Point Grounding Is Done On All Commercial Tower Sites.
  22. Like
    SteveShannon reacted to WRUE951 in What's a radio good for anyway?   
    i defiantly would rather have a radio that i can program for many frequencies versus a cell phone.   I remember the big earthquake we had her in 2019  and our cell service brought to its knees.  Radio comms were working great and pretty busy.
  23. Like
    SteveShannon reacted to amaff in What's a radio good for anyway?   
    True, if your definition of "SHTF" is only "massive, region or nation wide calamity or collapse."

    There's a whole lot of gray area between that and "normal", even more localized disasters (weather events, wildfires out in the sticks or on the edge of town, extended power outages) where they're totally appropriate for a situation where the shit has totally hit the fan, just maybe not to the point to where the zombies are chewing on the door knobs.

    Which is a long way of saying, they're useful in a whole lot of real world situations that might not reach the level of a massive, metro-wide (or worse) problem, but which someone is a lot more likely to encounter in reality than those larger scale problems.
  24. Like
    SteveShannon reacted to WRUE951 in MyGMRS.com Home Page Haywire On 06-21-2025   
    been working fine since yesterday afternoon..  
  25. Like
    SteveShannon reacted to LeoG in Feature: See all repeaters that hit a certain location   
    Can't you just go to map and zoom in on your area to see the repeaters that are there?
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