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WRFE959

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  1. Yes. It’s worth it to me. I have the original battery with higher capacity. I get great battery life with the 935. So it’s not like I am pushing make it through the day. And for travel, I prefer the compromise so I don’t have to take the charging base with me. The radio still lasts all day and I can use the chargers I already carry with me. And if worse comes to worse I can use the 10,000 mah external battery I use for other charging. it’s definitely a compromise that I am willing to make.
  2. I received my new battery for kg-935g. It has a USBC port on the back. Turns my favorite HT into an even better travel radio. I hated having to carry the charging base with me. Now I can charge it with the USB gear I carry with me anyway.
  3. I have been down your path. I have a 50W MXT575. I love the 6db Midland antenna for my truck. Great set up. Tried to use it at my house. Experimented with it on the roof on a pie plate for a ground plane. Not great. Not even as good as the same radio and antenna on my truck in the driveway. Then I tried an Ed Fong. Short mast with minimal height. A little better. Then moved up to the Tram 1486 and all the way up to the peak of my roof. Another step improvement, but still not satisfied. I am currently at a 12 element yagi (PCTEL) with a rotator. 12 db gain. The best I can do without a tower on height. Much better. Stronger on receive and transmit. The most stable so far. I am still not clear of the trees, and have some near by elevation gains that I have to contend with. But I do have others in my area with a very similar set up and better elevation. This set up is the best by my judgment when they hit the local repeaters. Full quieting, very strong signal. Also the higher gain means you can use less output power, which is always a plus. In any case, the comments about good quality coax are a must to pay attention to. Messi and Paoloni makes some great coax. But Two Way Radios has some great folks to help you with many of the items I described above. They have been a big help for me. You can order coax to the exact length you need, so you don't have any unnecessary loss, and no connectors. Your mileage will vary. Depends on your starting elevation, obstructions, repeater height, your budget, many factors. I am sure that any of the intermediate setups for me above would have been perfect, if I lived even a half mile away from my current location - with a little extra elevation and a clear view of the horizon. So don't take my experience to mean those options will not work for you. How far you need to go also depends on your goals. Do you want to hit every repeater in your state and the surrounding states??? You're going to need lots of gain and lots of height and as little loss as possible in the feedline. Do you want to be able to hit a single well placed repeater and be able to check in on your local net. Maybe a lower cost option will work for you. One last thing if you happen to have the 575 version: I used the shortest coax possible, and have a radio that allows the mic to be run on ethernet cable. That shortens up my coax and minimizes losses that way. I cut the coax length in half by doing that. And it gives me two locations for my radio. One at the radio upstairs, and another downstairs where I ran the cat5 cable to. At some point you do get some loss on the ethernet cable, so test your lengths before running through your walls. And I put a wifi switch on the power supply, so I can turn the radio on and off from downstairs - even remotely turn it on and off if I want to reach out to my base station while I am mobile.
  4. Thanks Dennis and Alex. Sounds like I need to do some RF interference searching. The SDR is a good idea, and I will start there. The shielding idea is interesting. I was lower on the roof line until last week. So I did have a shielding effect going on. The lower elevation was a problem, but I did not have this variability like I do now. That may be an indication of the source of the interference. Some scouting on google maps and some drives sound like they are in order also. The lower gain/fixed direction yagi would force me to sacrifice some repeaters. But it is another idea to get me thinking. Thanks again guys.
  5. Thanks Alex. That's helpful. I'll follow up on the idea of another RF source somewhere. RTL-SDR is a good idea. I have been interested, but not taken that step yet. I did not think of it as a troubleshooting tool for this issue. I did try ruling out interference from my end, and did not find anything. But with your comment, I am going to put some more effort into that as well. "Yagi will help for sure, but rotator is a pain, and maybe there is a easier solution." - Do you have suggestions for a better/easier solution? I have a 12-element yagi, and used it at lower elevation without a rotator. But decided to push for height with the omni first. I would like to explore any other options before going to the yagi-rotator setup. I understand that can present new challenges, more equipment to fail, finding a good rotator, etc. -Scott WRFE959
  6. I am still working on a reliable base station. Several local repeaters available to the east, west, which I can reliably hit, and further off to the north which I have not been able to hit with my base station. Elevation at my house is not great. I have done the best I can right now with antenna height. Tram-1486. 25 foot M&P hyper flex 13 coax 50 watt mobile radio with good power supply. My receive signal quality varies significantly throughout the day. I always have noise in the back ground but some times the noise is low and signal strength is strong. Other times noise is very high and signal strength is weak. When signal strength is weak, the best local repeater may not even hold the squelch open. I know the noise would drop if I could get more height. In my mobile setup just a mile or so from the house and probably 50 feet of elevation gain, most of that noise goes away. But I can’t move the house, and I am at max height for now. Just trying to understand the variation throughout the day. I would be very happy with the good signal times. But the bad times are very bad. I have noticed stronger signal in the morning and evening in general but that is not always true. Some evenings still a weak or varied signal strength with high noise floor. I can also observe fluctuation in direction. When the repeaters to the east are strong the west repeaters are weaker. And vice versa. Can someone give me an explanation about the cause of this type of variation. Is it weather conditions? Does the sun effect the signal quality? Will a higher gain yagi antenna make a difference in this type scenario? I have read some comments about more gain improving signal receive but would like to hear some confirmation of that before I go through the trouble of switching to a yagi with a rotator. I would prefer to stay with the Omni antenna. But I need to work on signal strength. Any words of advice from someone with more base station experience?
  7. I have two MXT 575's. I get the advertised output. I have spent quite a few hours working on this, and trying different solutions. Here is my learning curve. 1) Operating Voltage. As stated above, if your vehicle is not running, you will have a lower voltage into the radio. That will reduce your output wattage. To get 50W I have to have 13.8V input to the radio. 2)I did not read every response above, but I did not see anyone discussing coax loss. If you are measuring power output at the end of your coax you have to account for coax loss. Try measuring with a short piece of coax, or a better coax quality. You should see an improvement in power output at the end of the coax. 3) If you are measuring SWR at the radio, and you have a poor quality coax (either due to design or damage) a low power will give you a false low SWR because of the high loss. Low power to the antenna, and reflected power is lost in the line on the return. If you are working on tuning, focus on the higher power outputs. Use the repeater channels as these are where you will really be wanting to get the best response (467 mhz) 4) Pay attention to other elements in your coax line which you might not be thinking of. I had a recent problem with high SWR after modifying my set up. I was confident in the antenna and the radio. After a few hours of confusion, I discovered it was a PL259 connector I added that was bad. It created a high SWR and low power at the antenna. 5) MXT575 and MXTA26 are a great combination. I am very pleased with my set up. I have very good receive, get good compliments on the transmission quality. I'm able to hit repeaters at 60+ miles away (obviously due to their great location). But the 6db gain Midland is a good antenna. Never stop learning. There is always something new to learn in this hobby. There will be people on here who love Midland and those who are in the opposite camp. Midland makes good equipment. Simple and easy to use. Sometimes you get people on this forum who are commenting from their experience of Midland equipment from years past. In other cases, some users prefer more options which might make another radio better for them. But that brings more complexity too. All that to say, stick with it. Change something. Measure. Record. Think. Try Again. Read more responses. Repeat.
  8. I purchased two MXT575's. My mobile with the 6db midland antenna is working great for my needs. I can work all my local repeaters very reliably with my setup (20-30 mile range). And if I am stationary with a clear view of the north sky, I can check in on a repeater just over 90 miles from my location. Couldn't ask for much more with the MXT575 + 6db antenna. I particularly like the simplicity. Yes, I have a couple of Wouxon's where I can program in 1,000 channels. But honestly, all those channels turn into clutter. Let's face it, I am generally working 8 frequencies or less. I know some of you have multiple repeaters on the same freq with different tones - which has not been a problem for me - and from the map I look at around the country most do not have this problem. And I do enjoy checking in on other repeaters when I travel. But as mentioned above, I can make note on my phone of the repeaters I want to try. It takes 5 seconds tops to swap TX tones. I leave the RX tones open to listen for traffic. My second is for a base station. Still working on antennas for that one. I need more height at home to really get the performance I want. But I am able to check in on local repeaters. And it makes a very clean installation. I can hide away the main unit. I purchased a RJ45 extension cable (for mobile and base). With all the controls on the mic, the base unit and power supply are hidden. Very nice install. For my base installation, I even put a WIFI power outlet on the power supply. So when I am around town, if I want to contact Unit 2, I can turn on the base station from my phone, and call out to my base station from the mobile. The 575 returns to the last state, so powering on the power supply turns on the 575 to the last channel. Couldn't be happier with the 575.
  9. I had a 275 for years, and now I own two 575s. The 575 covers all the gaps for me that I felt were missing in the 275. I know some are not fans. But for me, they are great. I have mine mounted under the truck seat with a RJ45 cable up to my dash, and plug the 575 mic in there. Clean. Simple. Does everything I want it to, and it doesn't do the things I don't need. I understand that others have different needs and are fans of other radios. I like the extra power, wide band, and split tones on repeaters. I am not a HAM and don't need to monitor stations I am not planning to participate on. Simplex or Duplex, I have been impressed so far. I have them paired with the 6db gain Midland antenna, and am more than pleased with the performance.
  10. I received an email from Midland today that the MXT575 will be out next week.
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