Base station for home, would this rig work?

[Guest Judehey]

My wife does solo hiking in the nearby national park. Distance is no more than a couple miles,  but the terrain is hilly. Or handheld GMRS have a very limited range due to LOS. My thought was to have a base station at the house, with an antenna up by the roof. Here's what I was looking at:

Steel pole mounted to side of house projecting above roof

Midland MXT115 

Power supply

Approx 60 feet of DRF400 coax 

Lightning suppressor

NAGOYA GPK-01 NMO ground plane

Midland MXTA26 antenna

Would this work? Am I missing anything? 

Thanks

[mbrun]

My wife does solo hiking in the nearby national park. Distance is no more than a couple miles,  but the terrain is hilly. Or handheld GMRS have a very limited range due to LOS. My thought was to have a base station at the house, with an antenna up by the roof. Here's what I was looking at:
Steel pole mounted to side of house projecting above roof
Midland MXT115 
Power supply
Approx 60 feet of DRF400 coax 
Lightning suppressor
NAGOYA GPK-01 NMO ground plane
Midland MXTA26 antenna
Would this work? Am I missing anything? 
Thanks

A ground rod for installation in ground just before cable enters the house. Your suppressor will connect to this.
A 6AWG bonding conductor for interconnection between your new ground rod and your existing main electrical ground rod.
Ground clamps for connecting the bonding conductor to both ground rods.
Waterproof rubber tape to use for sealing all coaxial connectors outdoors.
Coax in two lengths, one to go between ground-plane kit and the suppressor, the other to go between suppressor and radio. So make sure you either buy pre-made cables of the correct length, or purchase connectors and tools for terminating the cable yourself.
A bracket or other means of attaching the suppressor directly too the ground bar. DX Engineering has these.
An antenna analyzer or SWR meter so you confirm all performs well before, during and after the installation.

Don’t wait to check SWR until after installation. Check things in steps. Antenna on ground plane mount, antenna on ground plane with first coax, antenna on ground plane with first coax and suppressor, then complete system. Do it in stages, before, during and after installation to catch issues early to avoid having to take it down just to troubleshoot your issues.

Get your antenna as high as you can practically get it. The greater its height, the deeper into the woods it will reach, but expect the trees to retard your signal.

Test your range HT to HT early by getting up on the roof and conducting tests with your wife in the woods now so you can get a sense of what to expect later. The point at which the two of you can just barely hear one another should become clear with a good base antenna installation.

Good luck.


Michael
WRHS965
KE8PLM

[DownEastNC]

11 hours ago, Guest Judehey said:

Midland MXTA26 antenna

Just curious, why are you using a mobile antenna for a base station setup?

[AdmiralCochrane]

4 hours ago, DownEastNC said:

Just curious, why are you using a mobile antenna for a base station setup?

He's asking if the MXTA26 will work.  It will work but there are better dedicated base station antennae.  Many hams start out with mobile antennae on their first low budget rigs, since he is already dedicating more money than first low budget, he's probably pointing toward a better dedicated 65cm band antenna.  Internet search is his friend; search for GMRS base station antenna. 

I would do all I could to get the antenna up higher. Another 10 ft could make the difference between useful and not so.  Unless I am mistaken, the harder the surface rocks are the better chance of signal propagation into shaded/non line of sight areas via "knife edge" propagation.  Soft soil and trees - dead zones in the non LOS regions. 

[Guest Judehey]

Thanks, 

I will look for a better antenna. 

I was planning to put the lightning arrestor at the base of the antenna and run a ground wire.  Is this wrong? 

[mbrun]

Thanks, 
I will look for a better antenna. 
I was planning to put the lightning arrestor at the base of the antenna and run a ground wire.  Is this wrong? 

The ideal situation has the arrestor located at ground level (or nearly so) and either mounted directly to the ground rod, or mounted securely nearby (within a couple of feet) and then interconnected to the ground rod with heavy copper wire. One segment of coax then runs from the antenna to the arrestor and another from the arrestor to your radio in the house. Ideally too, only a small length of coax should exist outdoors between the arrestor and where the cable enters the home.

If there is something that makes that arrangement technically infeasible (like living on the top floor of a 10 story apartment building as well as other situations), then compromises are often necessitated.

If you are using a metal mast, you are encouraged to connect that mast to the ground rod as well, doing so at the base of the mast.

What has you thinking that the arrestor mounts up at the antenna?


Michael
WRHS965
KE8PLM

[axorlov]

2 hours ago, mbrun said:

If you are using a metal mast, you are encouraged to connect that mast to the ground rod as well, doing so at the base of the mast.

That is pretty much a requirement, to ground the mast. Silly amount of static is easily accumulated on insulated mast just from the wind blowing around. Arrestor should be placed near where coax enters the house. Ideally, at the ground level, as mburn explains. In my case, even though the house is single story, I have an entrance at the roof parapet, and this is where I have arrestor placed. #4 wire is running down to the grounding rod, and this rod is connected with another rod at the electric panel with another #4 wire. This setup is in compliance with the code. You can probably go away with much worse setup, but you at very least, ground the metal mast and coax shield. Otherwise your radio will be a path to the ground for the static.