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You will have to renew. The fee will be the same $70, but the renewal will be good for ten years. The new rules however took effect immediately.

It is a Comet CA-712EFC 9dB gain fiberglass antenna. Seventy feet of 1/2" heliax feeds the Bridgecom BCR-40U repeater. Here is a picture of it assembled and with the joint sealed with shrink tube prior to installation.

Nice job on the repurposing of the old satellite antenna mount. Keeping the power as low as needed is a good thing. There's no point in simply being a "Gator Mouth" with "Cricket Ears" after all... Here is a picture of my roof's antenna farm. The far left is the repeater, the center is my 2m/70cm ham, the two on the chimney mounts are my backup antennas for 2m/70cm and 70cm ham and GMRS. My J-Pole is not visible in this photo:

Honestly, no. Although it would be a bit taller, that's not enough of a difference to extend your range much. The increase in "gain" only translates to effective radiated power (ERP), not distance. UHF frequencies are effectively "line of sight" with not much if any leakage beyond the horizon, which is not surprisingly known as the "radio horizon". Here is a link to a 'line-of-sight' calculator: http://www.calculatoredge.com/electronics/lineofsight.htm Enter your repeater's antenna height in the first box and assume about 5' height for an HT or mobile radio. You will be surprised at the actual correlation between height of the transmitter antenna and effective range!. These are results for the effective radio horizon for different antenna heights. 30'/5' = 11 miles. 60'/5' = 14 miles 120'/5' = 18 miles 240'/5' = 25 miles 480'/5' = 34 miles Notice that the increase in height of the antenna isn't directly proportional to the effective distance. Doubling the height from 30' to 60' is only a 3 mile increase. It's a case of diminishing returns, especially when comparing the massive increase in the costs of that height!

Back around 1980 one of the repeaters my shop owned was an antique (circa 1950) VHF RCA. It used a pair of 3-500Z tubes in the final amp. Those had to be replaced in pairs even if only one failed for any reason. At the time it cost around $300 for a pair of them. As of today, they are around $220 each. That repeater I programmed with a six second hang time.

At that height expect 1 to 2 miles HT, and up to 4 miles mobile. Height is Might! Welcome to the insanity er, hobby!

There's no reason these days for a repeater to have a long "hang time" since the main purpose was to avoid wear and tear on tube type finals by constantly being keyed on/off rapidly. My repeater is programmed to have a 1 second delay before dropping carrier.

Currently there are few 'used' 70cm duplexers listed. There are several new ones but for astronomical prices!

When I assembled my Comet mono-band 70cm antenna, I used anti-seize on the threads, tightened the connection firmly, then wrapped in 3m electrical tape, followed by a layer of coax-seal, then for the finish, put a nice bit of heat-shrink tubing over the entire junction. Perhaps a bit of overkill, but seeing as how I was paying someone else to install the antenna on the steep roof of my house, wanted to protect it as well as I possibly could. At sixty-nine I'm barely able to walk a straight line on a flat surface. My days of tower climbing and roof-running are barely visible in my rear view mirror.

Thank you and your son for practicing proper radio procedures. I know just how much it might seem to make folks think they're being 'nerdy,' but the more you use it the more natural it becomes. I still remain reticent to use the term 'over' however as I feel it should be obvious when I've stopped talking... One of my pet peeves (thankfully mostly confined to movies and television) is when some nincompoops say "Over and Out." This is contradictory information since "over" means "I'm done talking and am awaiting a reply" whereas "Out" means "I'm done talking and do not expect a reply."

It may be impolite. It may be unnecessary. Nonetheless, it is - within the conditions stated - perfectly legal.

Honestly, I would go with the FCC's definition. There's nothing about a short, declarative sentence that is the least bit ambiguous, IMHO...

Somewhere between sometime and never, I suspect.

Very well written sir! Thanks for sharing.

Ha! Wait until Mike discovers "Q" codes...

Call Kidde and they will replace those 5 defective extinguishers at no charge. They will also send a return label for free return shipping of the 5 units.

I saw this posted yesterday, and think it is urgent enough to be a sticky here! http://wildfiretoday.com/2017/11/02/37-million-fire-extinguishers-may-not-work-kidde-issues-recall/ https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2017/kidde-recalls-fire-extinguishers-with-plastic-handles-due-to-failure-to-discharge-and# Kidde recalls 37 million fire extinguishers, so you might want to check yours. You don't want to discover your fire extinguishers are among those that fail during a fire!

Truthfully, any fractional wattage is irrelevant in terms of performance. Only truly anal retentive types are micro-focused on such trivia.

I think that it's ridiculous to specify "hundredths of a watt" as in "3.07W (high power)"...

It's still way too early for anyone to make any announcements about new products. It will probably take until around this time next year.

As Gary points out, you need not worry about anything. The only change in the rules that will affect you will be that your license will be for ten years rather than only five!

You would probably have better luck with a proper UHF antenna. An antenna cut for 145 MHz just won't work well at 463 MHz

First of all, thanks for joining and asking questions! Your existing GMRS license will cover all of your family members: parents, brothers, sisters, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, inlaws, and even outlaws... <just kidding on the latter> If you are interested only in base comms between houses, the Midland (w/power supply), and an antenna ~20' elevation should do the task well even in simplex mode. You might wish to look at the WLN-CD1 portable radios available from Amazon and elsewhere. For $15 each, they are prefect for repeater coms, or local simplex use. They are perfect for younger children as well.

Since UHF is essentially "line of sight" then the range may be estimated using a line of sight calculator such as this one here: http://www.calculatoredge.com/electronics/lineofsight.htm Assuming a height of 30' at each station, then LoS is roughly 12 miles for good quality communications. You may find that depending on the terrain, that you may exceed this estimate by several miles.

I'm not sure what you mean by the GD-77 looks "cheap." I can assure you that it is a solidly built as any MD-380/390 or clone. It does weigh a few ounces less than an MD-380, and has a somewhat slimmer looking profile since it just a hair taller...