dosw

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.