dosw

Just following up with a few pictures and thoughts: 1R-TZx2sXZtB5VeoNzVYUUdh537kbVpeM 1R4AwUegDgP7ah-gv4selGUVxdnPf5BFR 1QvOYWltKxpcItGcxLZCTJskw-9aolGER One is the old Bronco with an MXTA26 antenna. Inside is an RA-87 mounted under the driver's side console above the driver's right knee. Plenty of room there. The other two are the newer F150. It's in pretty good shape, so I'm a little reluctant to make an amateurish attempt at routing wiring through the headliner to set up a rooftop drilled-through NMO mount. Yet that's probably the best option. I'm thinking I might get in touch with an audio installer and let them go at it. I think the roof is probably my best option, though as you can see from the picture I have a sun roof, and I'm not sure how far back the window equipment goes. Thus I don't know how far back I'll have to put the NMO mount to be out of the way while still having some ground plane available. Inside, things are pretty tight. I like the idea of putting a radio under the center console, and then running the head unit up to the sunglass holder overhead, OR to a seat mounted bracket.

Yeah, the radio doesn't get the love that some of the Wouxuns and other fairly popular models get. But it's really pretty solid. Very close to the full 40w across the GMRS range (within, say, 5% in my most recent testing). Good sound quality. I kind of wish that it had more than six character channel labels. I like the "left" and "right" side option; I set the left up for scanning repeaters, and set the right up for the channels my family is most likely to use, as well as for open scanning. Signal reports are favorable, though that has a lot to do with the antenna and geography. It has some quirks. From the front panel you can only swap between low and high power. But within chirp there are five power options. I usually set "medium" power in the programming using Chirp, knowing that I can push the power button to get to high if I need it, for example. But I've been using it about a year now in my dusty old Bronco and it has held up great.

The things that could be better on the 5RM: It's a little on the large size, particularly when compared to the tiny UV5R. It doesn't have a squelch knob as higher end models often have. It's not weatherproof, but it's so cheap it probably doesn't really matter. It doesn't allow for dividing the 999 channels into scan-banks, as some higher end models allow. The lowest power setting is about 2.2w, which exceeds the power limits of some bands it wasn't explicitly designed to work with (GMRS channels 8-14 are max 0.5w. MURS is max 2.0w). Of course it's not made for those frequencies; it's a ham radio. But people often do use it for those bands. The display is rather hard to read in bright daylight. Some of the menus and secondary functions of the number-pad buttons are counter-intuitive or even mislabeled. However, for approximately $30, it's the best radio I'm aware of. Models that are substantially better tend to cost substantially more. It's my most frequently used handheld.

This is how this thread has gone: OP: Has anyone tried these? Others: Those won't have a very good ground plane, and that will hamper your signal propagation. OP: But this is what I want to do. Others: *shrug* then why did you ask?

You'll maybe need to show a picture demonstrating how an NMO mount on top of the 3rd brake light has a full 360 degree ground plane. Three or four feet below inside the truck bed is not acting as a ground plane. So if that's what you're expecting to consider as your ground plane, no photo needed. It's not doing what you think. Now, it may *work* to have an antenna mounted there. You'll be able to transmit and receive. But your SWR will be a little high, and your propagation in the aft 180 degrees will be relatively lousy.

I have a new-to-me F150 Lariat with SuperCrew cab. It's a 2014. The front console seems pretty full, though there's a "SYNC" panel at the base of the front panel that may have space behind it; I'm not sure. It's possible I could find room under the seat if I use a detachable faceplate style radio such as a KG1000G Plus (GMRS) or the KG -UV980P (amateur). I'm looking for examples of successful installations that seem not too intrusive or not to have that "I bolted this thing to my dashboard" look. Additionally, examples of antenna mounting would be useful. I already can't park the truck in the garage, but would prefer not becoming so tall that I also can't pull into commercial or municipal parking garages. On my 95 Bronco a hood lip-mount works great because the cowling aft of the hood is also metal, so I'm able to achieve a good ground plane. But on the F150 the cowling aft of the hood is plastic, so the ground plane would be poor with that type of mount. Cab-top is probably ideal from a functionality standpoint, but a compromise in terms of what kind of antenna I can put up there (it would pretty much be the Ghost, or frequent swapping to accommodate height obstructions).

When the radio is set in VFO mode, and you turn the knob on the right, it will move up or down through its frequency range. Step is how far it jumps with each click. If you set up the radio for GMRS, you probably wouldn't use this setting much. But it's there in case you want to move around through the frequencies to listen to things, such as in the 70cm amateur band.

240m at best, when it passes directly overhead at 17,000 miles per hour. With a decent antenna I start hearing it about 1100 miles away, a little above center frequency, and stop hearing it about 1000 miles away at a slightly lower than center frequency, due to the Doppler shift associated with its speed. It's pretty amazing, really. And it fades in and back out again not because of the miles but because of the curvature of the earth. Mariners have used line of sight formulas for centuries, of course. RF line of sight formulas are only slightly different from visual.

Line of Sight, explained You have to account for the fact we live on a spheroid.

The 701 was nothing special when I had one. 771s are great.

And it must also have a 200 mile range any time, rain or shine.

This is great information. I have a Ghost antenna (MXTA25) that I don't really use, but this would be ideal for a boat or RV where ground planes are difficult. Laird TE TRA4500N. Thanks for sharing that.

You weren't trying to call your minions in his part of the country to coordinate their burglarizing efforts, since his X post made him obviously not home to defend the place?

I have the Surecom SW102, and the NanoVNA. Advantages to the NanoVNA: You don't just get SWR, you can get an SWR curve showing you where the dip in the curve is, and can identify immediately whether the antenna is too long or too short. With just an SWR meter you have to take multiple samples and plot your own curve. Also the NanoVNA does a LOT more than just SWR. Advantage of the SW102 - It tells you the power level being transmitted. And it's very simple to use. But for accurate power, and to avoid annoying people you'll need a dummy load, too.

From The Importance of Being Earnest: It seems like whether one is a rag chewer on an amateur repeater, or on a GMRS repeater, or a rag chewer here in online forums, we're talking about the fools clever people, of course, which makes us all clever fools.

Exactly. The people with "skin in the game" are the ones who adopt this. And they're relying on someone's layman theory, not iron clad findings.

But you're experimenting with other peoples' liability, without an actual legal consultation on the issue, and other associated due diligence. That is irresponsible. And people are justified in being skeptical. People who adopt are trusting your discussion with a friend who practices law not pertaining to communications law, putting themselves at risk.

I've re-read the FCC Part 95 Subpart E language several times over. I've watched the video twice. I've re-read the FCC language, and followed all the references in Subpart E through to the other documents they refer to. And still I don't see any new information here that would change my mind that the FCC has explicitly disallowed what the video is claiming to be legal.

It's a ham radio, and your technician's amateur license would allow you to transmit with that radio in the 2m (144-148MHz), 1.25m (222-225MHz), and the 70cm (420-450MHz) bands. Dual-band antennas are pretty common. Tri-band are less common but still available. Unless you specifically need it to work on some other band, a common dual-band 2m/70cm, or 144/430MHz, or VHF/UHF antenna is probably what you want. I thought that radio comes with an Abbree dual-band antenna. If you're looking for an external dual-band antenna, there are many options out there.

Every {condo,online,otherwise-fun} association has one.

If I recall from when I was looking this up a few hours ago, neither of this person's radios were CHIRP compatible. But the advice is solid otherwise; since the Samcom isn't marketed as a GMRS radio, nor type approved for GMRS, it probably comes with programming that all over the spectrum.

On Amazon I see two versions of the K12. Both state 22 channels, but one claims to be 136-174MHz, and the other claims to be FRS. Did you get the correct set? Let's assume you did. Then your problem is probably on the Samcom side: The Samcom FPCN30A aren't GMRS, they're more general UHF radios. Their test certification through the FCC was for LMR, though they have a frequency coverage of 400MHz to 470MHz. Additionally they have 20 channels, where a typical GMRS radio would have 22 (plus repeaters). That evidence is enough to tell me that your FPCN30A radios don't come, from the factory, programmed to GMRS frequencies. So if you set channel 7, you might actually be on a frequency totally unrelated to FRS / GMRS. For example, the "how to program your SAMCOM Two Way Radio" guide shows channel 7 being set to 446.5000 at 25kHz bandwidth and with CTCSS/DCS turned off. These aren't type approved GMRS / FRS radios. Installation guide: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81Y1Nhp44qL.pdf If you're visually receiving a signal but not hearing anything, that's usually an indication that you have a CTCSS or DCS tone set in the receiving radio that is not being transmitted by the transmitting radio. So your step-by-step troubleshooting guide should be: Verify that the FRS radios are set to channel 7, and that the samcom is set to the correct frequency for channel 7: 462.7125. Verify that the FRS radio has no CTCSS or DCS tone set. Verify that the Samcom radio has no CTCSS or DCS tone set. Verify the volume is set to about middle on both. Key up the FRS radio and listen to the Samcom. Did you hear something? Key up the Samcom radio and listen to the FRS radio. Did you hear something? I know you said you have the frequencies set the same, and the tones turned off. But this isn't rocket science; either they are misconfigured (in which case, double-checking should reveal the problem), or one or the other of them is defective. Those are the only two possibilities. In either case if you didn't hear anything, then you have to test with other radios to see which radio is failing to transmit, or failing to receive. The point is to isolate the culprit. If you found the culprit, either it's still misconfigured, or it's defective and should be sent back. If it's the Samcom that is defective, send them back and get actual FRS or GMRS radios, just to simplify your life.

Well, I use it for keeping track of each other skiing, communicating with friends and family back on land when out of cell tower range sailing (marine VHF doesn't really have repeaters in my area), hiking, camping, and even quick things like backing up to the trailer with someone guiding me back. But it doesn't really bother me that there are those who like to chat with strangers. Diverse use cases is probably what "general" means in GMRS.

No... it's not necessarily a problem. Comet antennas have the washer inside the NMO mount. Other antennas I've seen have the washer on the outer ring of the antenna instead of inside. I actually prefer Comet's approach. But either one will work. The Comet approach is more solid. Putting the o-ring on the outer flange of the antenna is going to work fine for some mounts, and not work for other mounts. But I haven't seen a mount that wouldn't work with the washer on the inside, assuming the antenna is also designed to work that way. Many antennas, inside the threads it's not water proof. The comets are.

I have found that when I have external earpiece or speaker (or VOX recorder) plugged into my UV-5Gs, and my AR-5RM that I get a similar mic pop. It's VERY loud at the start of receiving a signal. So loud (regardless of volume level) that I can't really use an earpiece with those radios. And my voice activated recorder records a really loud pop at the start of each incoming transmission. So I'd say from my own experience with Baofeng radios that's just how they are, and you're not experiencing anything particularly unusual with yours. You won't have better luck by trading them in for new ones. They all do it, all of the Baofengs I've seen, at least. I'm not Baofeng bashing, either. As <$30 radios, they're great. But this feature isn't very well refined.