WRQC527

Welcom in!

For some of us, it's much, much too late. Welcome to GMRS.

My post was very clear. What I'm saying is exactly what I said, not what you think I said.

This is one of those if/then statements where people link two unrelated concepts to try and make their point. In fact, the whole post is a veiled rant against hams. The reality is that GMRS requires a license so the FCC is reasonably assured that you may have at least heard of the rules. Amateur radio allows a person, even at the Technician level, to use all kinds of frequencies, and at power levels that can actually cause interference on other frequencies, and in some cases actual harm to living beings. Therefore, testing is required so the FCC is reasonably convinced that the licensee is aware of the many more rules, concepts and hazards that apply to ham radio.

Give it a day or two. From what I've heard it's not an immediate process. This site will eventually update.

Check oout the AMSAT website. It has everything you need to know about listening to and communicating through Amateur Radio satellites. Somewhere buried in this site are instructions on how to make a satellite antenna using literally hardware store parts. I built one and made my first contact through a satellite with a Baofeng UV-5R. There's also a pass prediction section where you can specify your location and pick a satellite to see when it will be passing your location high enough above the horizon to hear. Heavens Above has a similar feature. https://www.amsat.org/ https://www.heavens-above.com/

I have an Arrow beam antenna that works well. I use it with my FT-60 and an MFJ diplexer. (They call it a duplexer.) I've got several memory channels set with different UHF downlink frequencies to account for the Doppler shift. All my satellite contacts have been through the SO-50 AMSAT satellite. I have yet to make one through the ISS.

It's good in the sense that it will scan, and its versatile in that you can set up channel groups, etc, but it's not nearly as fast as a dedicated scanner. If all you need is scanning for listening, I would lean toward a dedicated handheld scanner.

In my experience with my MARS/CAP modded FT-70, it does transmit on GMRS, but with reduced power. So you could set up groups, etc, but as far as GMRS functionality, it's lacking and not even legal. My UV-5R can also scan and has actually better performance on GMRS, but again it's not legal, and you can't set up groups of channels. Functionality on both ham and GMRS is a matter of how much you want to bend the rules. My Yaesu HTs are generally more sensitive and better for scanning rail frequencies but not really good for GMRS. So to me you may need multiple radios to reach your goal. That's just me though.

Personally, I've always run isotropic radiators on my vehicles.

The problem is obvious. Those fins are horizontal. You need to turn it 90 degrees so the fins are vertically-polarized. I'll bet you double yor range.

Nice job. I've worked comms at a several 50k trail runs here in SoCal. Nothing overnight though, just all-day events. It's always rewarding to use our equipment for the greater good.

I got me a 3-section 8' to 24' painter pole. The bottom section is fiberglass, the middle and top are aluminum. I think it was about $50 at Home Desperate.

What radio are you using? What is your antenna setup? How is your radio connected to the power source? Does the static get worse when you are moving? What model / year of Jeep? There are a lot of variables and causes for what you are describing. The more information you provide, the more we can help.

I have that same style of microphone on a Juentai JT-6188 (a no-longer-marketed clone of the QYT KT-8900). I took it apart to do some mods to get better audio. I didn't see the metal tang on the hanger screw. Mayhaps their microphone suppliers aren't very consistent and some microphones have it, some don't. With so many clones and knock-offs of radios and microphones, it's hard to know what you're getting. Plus, with all the plastic in cars, the odds of screwing into metal are diminishing. Which means maybe some folks might not have that type of microphone, or they do and they don't know it.

I put in another question to them to ask them what frequencies and radios they use / rent. I'll post it here.

Yep, both prices ($7 and $15) are on their website.

Response from MERUS: "You do not need a license to communicate over GMRS at MERUS. This is just used as emergency communications while in the park. You can wheel on any radio you would like. But you must carry or rent a GMRS to be able to contact the office while at MERUS." Well OK then. Let the debate begin. Or not.

Just for kicks, I asked them. I'll see what they say.

Very interesting! It makes a lot of sense, and could save people a lot of heartache. I wonder how they handle licensing? (Serious question. Legally speaking, you can't just hand someone a radio for a licensed service and say have fun.)

I'm going to take a guess here that the microphone for this radio is a clone of a for-reals Kenwood microphone, since it looks identical. I had a comercial Kenwood TK-something-or-other that had the same feature. When you hang up the microphone on a grounded clip it trips a scan circuit. Most likely, Btech has no such circuit, and for that matter they're not even expecting anyone to screw that clip into anything metal. Or some manufacturer is just cloning that microphone with zero regard to what that extra wire even does.

You're absolutely right. And after reading this apparently endless thread and many just like it, this famous quote comes to mind. “I’ve made up my mind. Don’t confuse me with facts.”

My dog wasn't broken but we fixed him anyway. That's the old saying. "If it ain't broke, fix it til it is."

Nice. I'm 5 states away from working all 50 states. I've also contacted Japan, Australia, South America, eastern Europe, Canada and Mexico. Not nearly as many countries as you, but I'll get there. I've only been doing HF for a couple years.