axorlov

I have ARRL membership. To me supporting ARRL is in the same bucket as supporting other causes I find important, even if I do not receive any direct and immediate payouts or benefits. For me they are together with AMA (motorcycle, not medical one) and local art institutions. ARRL has plenty of good printed and online technical materials.With regards to QST vs On The Air, I think On The Air is clearly targeted to youth, judging by the language, style and form of the presentation. Nothing wrong with it, but I find QST better for me.

Comet CX-333 is not terribly expensive, but it's all relative, depends on one's budget. If you plan to be on 1.25m, sure, go for the tri-band. Otherwise, many of ham dual-band will cover 2m, 70cm and GMRS for less money. I use Diamond X50NA, it works great on 2m and 70cm, and has acceptable SWR on GMRS band (below 1.8). 6m is a sort of monkey wrench here. 6m is more popular than 1.25m, but everything depends on local situation. SSB or CW on 6m would prefer horizontally-polarized antenna and a different rig. Local FM on 6m would be of vertical polarization, but still a different rig, from 2m/70cm/GMRS. There are transceivers that cover 6m, 2m, 70cm, and GMRS, but they are not legit in the eyes of FCC (for transmitting), and this tidbit might be important to you.

Hahaha, good eye, I did not notice that! Where is Gman when we need him. Example of chinese CCR approach to the certification: no clue, but important to assume right poses.

I agree. This is how I interpret the rules. But from the technical perspective, the radio is compliant. Operator will be a good neighbor, unless deliberately decides to be a problem.

For FCC Authorization search, this is the mother page: https://apps.fcc.gov/oetcf/eas/reports/GenericSearch.cfm Radio indeed has 95E certification for (almost) 5W and 20W with 11KHz deviation. Certified as narrow banded, like most of the recent GMRS radios. Out of the recent radios I can only think of new Midlands that are certified as wide banded.

The repeater output frequencies are listed. The (+) or (-) means the repeater input offset (+ or -0.6 MHz for VHF, and +5 MHz for UHF). Whether you can add VHF frequencies to your radio depends on the radio. Some GMRS radios can listen to VHF.

Tram Browning BR-6140, $51 on amazon and elsewhere. Unity gain, 2 ft tall, N connector, comes with mounting hardware.

This repeater is placed high. I can hear it all the way from Livermore from some locations, sadly not from where my house is. In the Bay Area I was able to communicate via it with 4W HT from Fremont and Redwood City with good signal quality. And with 40W mobile it's no problem at all.

Cool! I understand the problem, I'm currently considering options of mounting antenna on BMW i3, which is fully plastic. Should it be my car, I'd drilled it, but it's not my car. Right now I'm torn between sticky plate on the roof or rear spoiler, fabricated mounting bracket that will be held by hinge bolts of the rear hatch (preferred option so far), or slot antenna inside the rear spoiler (full stealth install and an engineering challenge). I also saw pictures of upside-down mounted HT antennas inside the corvettes, on the roof cross bar.

Steel plate with one sticky side + mag mount. I think Midland has them bundled with their radios. If it was me, I'd try to use 3M Heavy Duty Double Sided Tape with 16GA or thicker steel plate. The tape is available on Amazon in different widths and thicknesses. It's a bitch to remove, need to use hair dryer or heat gun. I do not use it for antenna mounting (I just drill), I use it for other applications where I can't use bolts, rivets etc. Other option: see if you can fabricate a bracket that'll go under the bolts that hold the hood/trunk hinges, and use 1/2 or 5/8 antenna for better efficiency.

Sorry, can't help with Baofeng programming, but can you hear BARN-R1? They transmit voice id message every 30 minutes or so, you'll be able to check if your receive frequency is programmed correctly, even if nobody on the repeater. Edit: SShannon posted while I was typing. Good troubleshooting steps.

Awesome install! Especially the custom mount for the V71 head. My target is much less ambitious. I ride for years with FT1DR clipped to backpack or tailbag, with APRS on. Today my mount is ZZR-1200, before it were several 600-750 sportbikes. I'm trying to come up with something small under the seat or cowling, with permanent antenna, without the need to use it on the way, only when stopped.

Questions: what motorcycle(s), cruiser, dirt, street, etc...? How exactly installed, hidden, open, removable, etc..? Do you use voice while riding (I don't plan to)? Antenna?(!!!) What about the antenna?

For good selectivity you probably want to look into LMR gear. Part 90. TM-V71A is a good ham radio (too bad I sold mine), with APRS, AX25 modem and kitchen sink, but will not beat good Part 90 single-bander with narrow UHF filters. And also not cool with FCC to use for GMRS.

Yeah, anything below 2:1 is fine in my book. In my book, I have to emphasize. Others might have different tolerances for the imperfections of the real world around. Another thought is that SWR is only one metric of the antenna, and does not really address efficiency. Quality dummy load on fender mount will have perfect 1:1 SWR, but will not be an efficient antenna.

What PACNWComms said: sample to sample variation, and also what Admiral said: installation difference. It's pointed out in the original post: roof mount vs hood mount. Car with hood mount can hear but can't reach out. That would hint to better antenna efficiency on the car with roof mount (duh, no surprise). I would also add that location of the test matters. The car with roof mount, at the time of testing could've been under heavy interference. Before you invest in test equipment (crappy SW-33 or such) and time to learn how to use it, and then buy it again now the proper test equipment (major $$$), I'd suggest to switch locations and run the test one (five) more times. And to decide if performance difference is really that big and worth investigating.

True, I would think. But also it would be wrong to expect any actual info divulged on open forums by anybody who is in the know. I just think that using frequency hopping equipment at incident site will not protect anybody, but only attract attention from all kind of agencies. If they could not monitor (and that appears to be a low bar to clear), they could send a ground team and extract decryption key the old way: with pliers and iron bars.

That comes to mind too. Being familiar with encryption export/use debacles from 1990s I would not be surprised that there is a government-mandated backdoor too. Only for "authorized" use, sure.

I'm not sure about DTR, but DLR has only four digits for the hopset, making 10000 combinations. Is DTR the same? May help with facilitating crimes somewhere with understaffed underfunded sheriffs departments, but for 3-letter agencies seems to be easy to brute-force. No?

The group is certainly legit. But they always had only BARN-R1 operational, the rest or repeaters listed are in planning stage for about a decade already. The R1 moved around, and current location has good coverage of South Bay, but I can't use it from where I live, so I do not follow these guys closely.

I'd be interested to know what your group (and others) did during the fire and snow events. What kind of help, or activity, or coordination was done. Water, food, help with evacuation?

I see the comment is a sort of jesting and tongue in cheek, but let's be fair. Spark will blink in a glass jar, with both eyes. The ionization properties of air and glass are very different. Another thing to consider, when lightning comes inside, it's already weakened by being bled off by a proper grounding and lightning protectors [hopefully] installed. Leaving cable in a jar vs not leaving it in a jar may mean burned-up radio vs not burned-up radio. Of course, when we are talking direct hit, everything is off the table. One can get a coolest scar ever vs going to the other side of the grass.

If you mean regular mail, like USPS, it is not going to happen. FCC stopped sending paper licenses with callsigns for ham and GMRS about decade ago. You can print your license if you log in into your account with your FRN number.

Congrats on Extra! The King of Airwaves, the Ruler of 3.6 MHz, I bow before you.

In this case answer is clear: narrow band. Look from this angle, FRS radios will still hear your high-power mobiles, narrow or wide, but your mobile will hear FRS better when you program it to narrow band.