Yagi beam spread

[lazarus1024]

I realize I am somewhat putting carts before horses (they can still push them, right?), but I have a question on Yagi antennas. I am, if I have the time today, getting my 6dBi omni antenna up into my attic to test placement. Just a quick test from my bathroom roughly below where I am planning to place the antenna I am able to hit the repeater I am looking to use. No way to test Tx/Rx from my brother-in-law's house which is vaguely in the same direction (more below). The Rx back from the repeater was weak and moving the antenna around in the bathroom a little changed from weak to nothing, to slightly better weak. I'd imagine getting an extra 5-7' of height by having it up in the attic should help a fair amount. Also not having a low E window, or tile, with concrete backer, insulation and then finally the plywood and siding will help even more.

But I am letting my anxiety leak out that I'll be able to hit the repeater, but it'll still be too weak to be very usable and just plotting and scheme ways to improve my situation. I assume since it is over the horizon, by a lot, I've got a 100ft high ridge, about 1.5 miles from my house between me and the repeater, then about another 14-17 miles to the tower, which is sitting at probably only 50-80ft higher altitude at the top of the tower than the ridge line near my house is, that the more altitude I can get on my antenna the better. So if attic placement doesn't help, getting it mounted to the peak of the roof on a 3-4' j-pole mount, getting another 5-6' above how high I can get it in the attic should help even more (plus no losses from the attic structure, but it is just plywood sheathing and vinyl siding it has to go through since the repeater is out a gable wall).

 

Now, that said, I'd like to avoid roof mounting if I can. My wife won't be thrilled and its frankly a lot more work then needing to deal with grounding, proper mounting/securing, etc.

 

So my thoughts turned to install a yagi and using an antenna switcher. That seems reasonable enough.

 

However, I am also trying to hit my brother-in-laws. He is over that same ridge, but a total of about 4 miles away. Not on the same path. Doing some quick and dirty math his location and the repeater appear to form a scalene triangle with the angle between the repeater and him at my location being somewhere between 37-41 degrees. That seems like a fairly wide angle to get good gain on both locations from a Yagi. At least to get more gain than the supposed 6dBi I am getting on the omni antenna I am installing now. Is that too much horizontal dispersion? It seems like the higher the gain, the narrower the horizontal beam width would be on a Yagi and from what little I can dig up in poking, I'd see something like a 3dBi horizontal beam width with a 7dBi 3 element Yagi. So I'd likely see even lower gain for those two points if I pointed it directly between them, than I would be with a 6dBi ombi. And a 5 or 7 element Yagi wouldn't really help that, as it would just narrow the beam width further.

I'd of course prefer not to be in a situation where I've got a Yagi pointed at each spot PLUS the omni and needing to switch between all 3 depending on what I want to be doing (if I do, I do, just of course trying to avoid that). I might be borrowing trouble for another day, but just trying to get a better understanding of Yagi radiation pattern. Is it that as the gain goes up, the beam pattern narrows? or is it reducing radiation pattern of the direction it is pointed, so the lobs are reduced and that is where the gain is coming from? For example, could an 11dBi yagi actually produce 7 or 8dBi of gain on a couple points ~40 degrees spread? Or am I tilting at windmills on this on trying to get a Yagi to hit two points, too broadly spread?

[WRPD494]

If and when you get your tech - you also have some rights on parts of 10 and 6 meters... then you can play with some other propagation methods, including ground wave and NVIS.  Then experiment with horizontal and vertical polarizations... then...

Enjoying hearing the reports of your tests! Be smart and safe while in the attic and on the roof.  

[lazarus1024]

3 hours ago, n4gix said:

Your BiL is already covered by your GMRS license per FCC regulations, so there is no tearing need for him to get his own... 

ahhh. Thanks. I thought my License only covered immediate family (spouse and children). Good to know, thanks! (I’ll still encourage him to get his own license at some point). 
 

Also because I was interested I didn’t some roof top testing this afternoon. I slapped my

UT-72 on a cookie sheet and took it up on my roof with my DB-25g and battery pack. Man, reception to the repeater is VERY dicey and only in small spots. Like move the antenna a foot and nothing sometimes. Just like my testing in the attic with that HYS 350-500Mhz 6dBi antenna. What is interesting is I am guessing I am getting a ground plane boost off my roof deck, despite being tar shingles and plywood, unless it is the residential wiring run under where I was testing (most of the house electrical runs about 2’ under the leak off the roof and then down the spine of the house and then branches out to its respective circuits). 
 

At any rate, I found generally lower reception by trying to hold the antenna/cookie sheet up high vs just sitting it on the backpack I was using for the radio and battery pack. I managed to catch some guys chatting on the repeater for a bit which helped me test. Like I said, move it a foot and reception can drop out…

Interesting I got down on the ground and though the reception was spottier standing there with the antenna, it wasn’t by much to the repeater. In fact the best reception of all was wandering down hill from my house about 50ft, I found one small spot with about as good reception as I was hitting with the higher gain antenna in my attic (31 or so Rx strength and the chatting came through nice and clear with hardly any hints of static). 
 

though trading up to VHF and completely different. From my roof top I was getting I think 5 weather stations. From the ground I was picking up 1.5 (station 2 well as usual and I think it was station 5, barely). FM radio was also cleared on the roof than on the ground. 
 

my guess is this is an NLOS behavior with the repeater why 20ft of altitude didn’t seem to help much. Same with further from the roof deck. It’s hitting diffracted radio “hot spots” from the GMRS repeater. With VHF that is seeming to matter a lot less. Altitude is long and moving around on the roof didn’t impact the weather station receive much at all. Getting the antenna on top of the chimney cap had slightly, not noticeably better reception on FM radio and weather radio bands than sitting it on the roof peak 6’ lower. 
 

for my next trick I grabbed my HYS 6dBi antenna out of the attic and roamed the roof with it. It took me a bit to notice I knocked the top element back in, so I had to fix that. Once I did I started getting reception again…but not as good as that sweet spot in the attic and not quite as good as the best reception I could get with the Ut-72 on a cookie sheet. Then again I had to handhold the HYS antenna which may have been having some impacts. The Ut-72 I saw about 28-29Rx power according to my DB-25g radio from the best spots on the roof, about 26-28 on the HYS holding the antenna. Best spot IN the attic is 32 or 33 which is about the same as I saw with the UT-72 (that was 31 or maybe 32) on the ground holding the cookie sheet and antenna in that one sweet spot.

 

Generally anything at 30 and higher appears to come through with minimal static on GMRS (weather radio doesn’t seem very clear until at least 40). About 25 has static, but is mostly intelligible if the person is walking clearly and loudly. 20 appears to be the limit to break squelch with it set to 1, but I doubt you could Use it for anything except Morse code. No idea if the radio is using any kind of logarithmic scale or not (maybe/probably, it doesn’t seem linear). 
 

So I have hope. I have 35’ of KMR400 cable showing up today. If I comes early enough I’ll reinstall the antenna and hook it up with my SWR/power meter to double check the tuning on antenna length and install with the 35’ of cable attached and see if I can drop the cable down to my basement. Fortunately I’ve got a conduit for AC attic units so it’s easy to drop the cable down. I just need to poke a hole through the spray foam, drop it down and reseal it (I’ll probably use rope caulk for now as I am Not sure the antenna is in its permanent spot). 

I am hoping I can crash one of the repeater net check-ins one week and head back up to the attic so I can try moving the antenna all around again to see if there is a better sweet spot for it. Though first I’ll probably hop on the GMRS local facebook group and see if I can arrange to test with someone with it installed where it is. If it works okay, I’ll probably call it a day. 

[lazarus1024]

2 minutes ago, WRPD494 said:

If and when you get your tech - you also have some rights on parts of 10 and 6 meters... then you can play with some other propagation methods, including ground wave and NVIS.  Then experiment with horizontal and vertical polarizations... then...

Enjoying hearing the reports of your tests! Be smart and safe while in the attic and on the roof.  

Lol. For sure. I am not a fan of heights, but I’ve re-roofed a couple of houses before. Fortunately it’s a pretty low pitched roof, only about 4:12. I won’t get up on roofs if they are steeper than 5:12. For attics, I’ve spent too many scores of ours in attics working on electrical, HVAC and insulation. Doesn’t mean I haven’t almost put a foot through the ceiling a couple of times. But not yet

 

my Dad did go right through the ceiling of my brother’s room when I was 12. Almost broke half a dozen ribs hitting the joist as it went down. Fortunately he didn’t go through over the entry way foyer. That would have been a 16 foot tall, not an 8 foot tall. My house is only a single story. Which doesn’t mean I can’t get pretty hurt still. 
 

what is sad is I am still years away from retirement (and more than a year till I hit 4-0. If maybe not much more than a year). I am already thinking things like “hmm, make sure the property I find (I prefer to build my retirement home) is a high point and not in a valley”.

[WRPD494]

Good questions all, and understand the anxiousness.     In general, you are doing "all the right things" and experimentation and discovery is part of the hobby of radio (yes, hobby, if it isn't fun, why bother?).    Not to downplay the serious nature of comms during emergencies, because during an emergency the HOA, or wife's concerns become at a minimum tertiary or quartenary(sp) to everything else you'll be dealing with.

I suspect the attic install is going to get you closer to usable comms, if not ideal, with the repeater.  Have a backup plan to go with a "pushup" mast (cheap milsurp poles) that can get you the height and rotatability you might need - plus very easy to swap yagi with omni with...   If you both (you and b-i-l) can hit the repeater - there is option one. If you can semi-easily rotate the attic yagi and hit the b-i-l, option 2 when/if the repeater is down.  Switch to omni if the tests show that is the best way to hit one or both.

Every situation is unique, but you have the tools to suss out what is going to work for you.  Test it out, and then play with your solutions across day/night, weather and seasons (vegetation has an impact on some freqs). 

My discone in the attic even with all the less than ideal surroundings hears tremendously well. Looking forward to hearing how your attic tests go.

 

[axorlov]

Hard (impossible) to say in advance. Experiment and tell us! Something as simple as this may be the answer: https://www.ebay.com/itm/372242500835?epid=2256171885&hash=item56ab61cce3:g:jm8AAOSw0o5aoGy4

[lazarus1024]

And now I I anxious about vegetation growing in and losses on cabling…

my house is parked at the edge of some woods. Not incredibly thick, but still a fair number of trees (thank goodness no evergreens!)  

 

I found the best spot I could using my portable battery pack and trying to use three hands to hold it and my radio, mic and antenna on the board I mounted it to to then screw it to a truss. Anyway, reception to the repeater is very dicey in the attic  sadly I wasn’t able to arrange anyone to sing opera for me on the repeater so I could just move it around and check Rx. So I was basing the best spot off the kerchunk reply to my Tx. Most spots I couldn’t get/receive a reply. I found several where it would just barely get a reply. After probably 45 minutes of testing I found “the best spot” in that area of the attic. Most of the spots I had maybe 6-8” around one spot where I’d get reception. Not sure how much it means, but on my DB-25g I am getting a peak of 32-33 on the power meter for a reply (no idea out of what as I’ve seen it go over 100 for really powerful signals like talking to my mobile with an HT in the same room testing). The received signals sounds reasonably clean with only a small amount of static. No idea how I sound though. And this is just based off picking up the repeater Morse code identification tones once from the spot and the repeater kerchunk in response to my Tx. I am assuming the repeater is 50w and based on Tx power testing my radio is really only hitting about 15w. I am going to see if I can coordinate testing eventually with someone on the local REACT net/Facebook group. Of course it’s not that hard (though more $$) to boost my Tx with a more powerful radio.
 

not remotely as reliable, but it is interesting the height effect and the difference in UHF at a distance and VHF. On my main floor with the antenna near the ground (maybe 3’ off the outside ground) all I can get is Wx2 from my house. The weather station is about 30 miles away. And it comes through with some static. Testing in the attic I can pickup Wx3 and 5 also. 2 is crystal clear (it says 65 power on the radio) and 3 and 5 have just a hint of noise (50ish power). I’d have to double check 3 and 5, but I am fairly sure they are 60 and 70 miles away respectively to my south west and west and very much over the local horizon. I noticed no Rx impacts on the weather stations or general FM 88-108 radio band.

for GMRS I am curious if the large dead zones are caused by outdoor things like nearby tree trunks, or features in the attic itself. That strongest Rx spot for the repeater is, interestingly enough, about 8” from some residential power wires running near the top of the antenna perpendicularly. With the wires between the antenna and the repeater.

Now if I just had a spare antenna to test from the roof…

 

actually what I’ll probably do is take my Ut-72 Nogoya up on the roof and slap it on a pie pan and use the mobile radio with the battery pack again and see if I can hit the repeater from there and if the reception is better. If it is better, that would be very telling since it’s something like 4.2dBi vs the HYS antenna I just mounted in the attic that is 6.

I think it is possible I’ve got an okay minimal, but still enough, performing setup to use the repeater and be intelligible to anyone in range of the repeater. Which is my goal (well, I’d prefer perfection). I should have 35ft of LMR400 tomorrow to run it down through an interior wall to my basement where I’ll setup the radio.
 

it did also occur to me that if I can hit my BIL with this omni antenna in the attic okay, I don’t need a Yagi to hit him also. I can just use the Yagi for the repeater and switch to the Omni if I want to talk to him direct. Hopefully I can test all the things (except with a Yagi. That’ll need to wait a few weeks as I am prepping for a vacation camping with my kids for a week soon). 
 

I’d imagine the test at my BIL should go a lot better this time around. I hope. Last time it was testing with my 11yr old on my back patio (which it turns out actually isn’t a direct line to my BIL’s from there as I misjudged the direction a little. So the signal was passing through the house). He was using my UV-9g and one of those Abbree dual band antennas (18”) which actually works fairly well on GRMS. Though I’ve since gotten a Nogoya 770g for it which seems to work slightly better. And on the other end I had a Midland 105 with a UT-72. I lost him once I hit that ridge line between us and I could just barely here him a couple times headed over there to pickup my daughter from school as it’s near my BIL’s. 
 

with the realization that the Midland is both narrowband and transmitting at a third or less power than my DB-25g…and I’ll have a DB-25g in my car using that UT-72 antenna and a DB-25g at my house using a 6dBi antenna up about 8ft higher and with less house in the way I am figuring that is a significantly better chance of success. Plus I’ll actually drive all the way over to my BIL’s rather than just trying on the way to and at my daughter’s ES. His house is a half mile further and at slightly lower elevation, but that extra half mile might actually move it out of some radio shadows from the ridge. Or that’s my hope. That other option is get up on his 2nd floor or attic (or on a ladder) with my HT and the Nogoya 770g 

and of course the other option I am likely to pursue that helps me and my interests is getting my HAM technicians license this summer which I plan to do. So far I’ve taken 4 practice tests and passed 3 of 4 without having done any studying (other than what I’ve learned about radios over my life and especially recently). Though I do plan to read the actual study guides before signing up for an exam this summer. I imagine VHF will work better for me and there is a VHF repeater not too far from my house. Though it’s possible it’s over the ridge to the north of me (my BIL’s and the GMRS repeater are over the ridge to the south of me. My house sits on the backside of the southern ridge about a third of the way to the river valley floor another 200ft down and maybe 3 miles away. Then up about 300ft vertical and a mile north to the next ridge. A HAM license doesn’t get me taking to my BIL though. I can convince him to spend $35 on a GMRS license and get him to buy an inexpensive base station, antenna, and power supply if I can show it’ll work. Not sure I can convince him to study for and get a HAM license. Though I guess if I do once I have a base station setup for my house for 2/70 and I break every law sacred to man if I can repeat the test with my son sitting at home on the 2 meter base station and that works to a mobile car based radio  to his house maybe it’ll convince him (hopefully neither the FCC nor any other HAM will slash my wires, cut my cables or tar and feathers me if my son, unlicensed, “rogers” me a few times on 2 meter to test).

 

heck, he is the one that floated the idea of “so if the cell network/internet went down, how do we talk? You are only a few miles away, but driving or biking over to ask “is everything okay” seems dicey in that instance”. So I might have some leverage.

 

 

[JohnE]

Lets address your BIL house first. How far is he from this 100' ridge and is he the hole in the donut or level/above it, that will make a vast difference as to weather it will work. My suggestion is to do a plot on Google earth and look at the elevation profile between the 2 points. Seeing where he is in relation to you It will also give you a compass bearing as to where to point the yagi if you go that route.

Quote

Just a quick test from my bathroom roughly below where I am planning to place the antenna I am able to hit the repeater I am looking to use. No way to test Tx/Rx from my brother-in-law's house which is vaguely in the same direction (more below). The Rx back from the repeater was weak and moving the antenna around in the bathroom a little changed from weak to nothing, to slightly better weak.

was that done w/portable? Are you planning to put a base in? there is a vast difference from potable to "base"  w/fixed antenna in terms of TX and rx abilities. the fact that you can hear and I assume hit the repeater in question is a plus. This IMO says that you should have no real trouble TX/RX wise w/repeater w/base radio.

Now to the yagi question, the higher the gain of the yagi the narrower the beam width. A 3 element (7.1 dBd gain) as suggested above should give you 60to almost 70 degrees of beam width. A 6 element ~10.2 at 50-60 degrees BW. Now w/that being said no amount of gain is going to overcome an obstical/height problem. The mountain can not bow to the wind.

[lazarus1024]

For the terrain, it’s a fairly level angle from me to the first ridge 100ft above and 1.5 miles away. From there, there is a valley to another, lower, ridge separated by about 1.75 miles. He is about a further .75 miles behind that second ridge. His house is at an identical altitude to mine. Altitudes relative to sea level
 

My house 550ft ASL, 1.5 miles ridge 1 650ft ASL, 1.75 miles  630ft ASL,  .75 miles 550ft ASL. 
 

On the repeater and attic testing, I was testing using a Radioddity DB-25g mobile base station nominally rated at 25w (I am seeing 16w Tx in testing). So not an HT. 
 

for my original testing with my BIL I was using an HT and a midland 5w mobile base station with a medium gain antenna for both. So I’ve got some home about 3-4x the transmit power and several decibels more gain might get me…something, between our houses. I think there is a chance most of my testing was in the shadow behind the first ridge as the valley goes kind of deep (maybe -150ft) before it comes up steeply to that 2nd ridge and the road itself where I was testing is sitting a couple of hundred yards behind and probably 20ft below the top of the 2nd ridge. 
 

I got very faint reception sitting at the bottom of the valley between the two ridges before driving up and being behind the top of the second ridge. My hope is being further back from the edge as it’s a much gentler slope from the school to his house will get it more out of the radio shadow along with extra power, some extra altitude (even if it is only 10-15ft) and some extra gain will get it done. I’ll hopefully find out early this week. 
 

also thanks for the info on the Yagi’s. I’ll evaluate once I have it wired up as a permanent install. If it’s close, but not great I may try a 5 element Yagi in the attic and the cable switched. If it is marginal I might try the 7 element. If it’s not remotely there I’ll have to shoot for getting it up on a pole above the roof I guess rather than trying to up the gain (well, or both). 

[n4gix]

20 hours ago, lazarus1024 said:

I can convince him to spend $35 on a GMRS license and get him to buy an inexpensive base station, antenna, and power supply if I can show it’ll work.

Your BiL is already covered by your GMRS license per FCC regulations, so there is no tearing need for him to get his own... 

[n4gix]

20 hours ago, lazarus1024 said:

ahhh. Thanks. I thought my License only covered immediate family (spouse and children). Good to know, thanks! (I’ll still encourage him to get his own license at some point).

FCC is very broad in their rules about one's extended family. I like to joke that they only disallow "outlaws" in their rules.

[dhardin53]

I have a GMRS license, I intend to follow the FCC rules as written .  The family or extended family only use sounds very cut and dried. In reality In my limited GMRS motoring in my small portion of central Illinois. Even now with a temporary roof mount increasing my monotiling foot print, and mobile monitoring the 50 miles around me. Not that much is going on. I have 2 repeaters within 40 line of sight form me. The activity is nearly none existent. I have never heard anyone using repeater channels in simplex on a repeater pair.  

I guess my point is extended family for this area has become you/your family and more often close people in your party are using the GMRS  in a respectable manner. 

My location 90% of my monitoring are independent small business communicating with there  co-works/closely-knit family. Myself I see noting wrong. Some will disagree,

In short  "When in Rome do as Romans"  

[PartsMan]

How flat is the signal of a 6db antenna? Does he need to tilt it away from his uphill target?

[lazarus1024]

I may be looking at the wrong charts, but I think the half power beam width of a 6dBi omni is around 42 degrees. A 10dBi would be around 25 degrees. A 15dBi would be about 14 degrees. Of course the closer to perpendicular the better, but being a few degrees off shouldn't noticeably impact the gain at all on a 6dBi. It seems to be once you start getting in to the 10+dBi range that it matters a lot for elevation and angle for far objects. Of course with an HT it matters a fair amount because you might be holding it at a funky angle, which can be problematic for a hair gain antenna (though you have to be holding it pretty wrong, even with like a 4.2dBi antenna).

Based on the near ridge, its probably only around 1-2 degrees above perpendicular in respect to my antenna and the repeater is roughly level with my antenna (this is a guess because I don't know the exact AGL of the tower or the exact height, but my house is about 50-60ft higher elevation, the tower I think is probably around 150ft tall, but it is something like 16 miles away so the curve of the Earth reduces the LOS angle a fair amount). Anyway, at least to the repeater I did a lot of playing around with it and my antenna is almost perfectly perpendicular to the ground and that was the best signal strength on receiving (I can't test Tx at the repeater end without someone to help out).

I did test at my BIL's. No joy. The reception near my kids' ES is bad at best, but I can get reception. It is fractionally better at the entrance to my BIL's neighborhood a quarter mile up the street (probably because no large brick and cinderblock building in the way and it is maybe 10ft higher elevation). Once I start driving in to the neighborhood though total loss of signal. Even on Monitor I couldn't pick anything up from my house with my son broadcasting. That said, he didn't have it on monitor. I don't think he was actively trying to broadcast to me. I can easily hit the repeater from my BIL's house. So that is something. We should be able to use the repeater to communicate. Though I'd still like to manage simplex communications between our houses.

I am going to go further down the rabbit hole and try getting a 5 element HYS UHF Yagi. It has pretty good reviews and takes down in to two pieces. So it is fairly manportable if I ever have such a fun project. Anyway, I am thinking that, an extendable 12ft painting pole that I think will adapt to my camera tripod and 25ft of KMR400 coax should get me a setup I can take over to my BILs, setup, get me several dB higher gain than the UT-72 on the roof of my car and I can probably get it 7-10ft higher elevation. I still have some hope that 4-5dB more gain at his end and a bit of extra elevation might get us something. Of course there is a lot more juice to the squeeze. Attic/roof mounting would gain a further 6-10ft over my planned portable setup. An 11dBi Yagi on both ends is yet another 7dB gain over this next test setup. More powerful radios would be 4-5dB more gain. We have some options still. But before going $$$ to try to get it to work, I figure my planned portable setup would be practical and useful for other projects without sunk cost on something I'd have no real use for (Because if I got 11dBi Yagis, I don't see needing fix Yagi for anything other than trying to talk to my BIL. Sure, I guess I can set it up for higher gain to the repeater and leave the Omni for broadcast "locally" is something. But honestly that's probably what I'd do with the portable 9dBi Yagi is set it up in my attic for longer term use, but leaves me the option I can go up there, break it down and take it with me for a portable setup.

If I can get SOMETHING out of this setup, that gives me the confidence that we can improve things. If I can't even get the slightest static filled murmur, I'd be willing to try moving the portable setup to my BIL's attic or upper story window to try again, but if that fails, I am not sure I want to pursue even more equipment. Maybe I have unrealistic expectations of what another 10-12dB of combined signal strength that higher gain and more powerful radios should get, but I'd think if I have 0 signal over background noise, that a 10-12dB increase would only at best give me poor connection if it does get me above the noise floor.

And of course, it's possible that if both radios have been in Monitor rather than squelch, that my son might have been picking me up at my BIL's house and would then have transmitted back. My transmissions weren't strong enough to break squelch even at the lowest setting and his were intermittently breaking it, so I changed it to monitor and I could hear him (weakly) until I started getting back in to the neighborhood. But based on what he told me later, I don't think he was trying to periodically transmit to me, just responding to my broadcasts. So I have some hopes here. I am just not willing to dial it up to 11 with an investment of maybe $500-1000 of equipment when the terrain dictates there is no possibility of this working without one or both of us putting in a tower (not going to happen at our properties) or a tall mast (I doubt our spouses will allow that either).

 

PS I'd just jump right in to testing that portable Yagi and radio from my BIL's 2nd story or attic, but they are still pretty tight on COVID restrictions with two little kids as they can't be vaccinated yet even though all adults and all my kids are vaccinated. I work with what I've got, not what I want. And at least right now and I don't have a 2nd power solution for my 2nd DB-25g other than powering it from my car. So one of us would need to get a 13.8v power supply to test from his house.

[lazarus1024]

In central Maryland mostly I am hearing HAMs talking to other HAMs on GMRS. Or at least guys chatting about HAM equipment they want to get and getting advice from someone else. That and guys just generally chatting on how things are going, what were you doing last week.

Our local Civil Air Patrol wing also uses GMRS for SAR ground communications (and of course someone on Air Band when chatting with any SAR planes). But in terms of traffic? There seem to be a small number of guys who have a regular talk time or at least I hear them on weekends and weekdays chatting around the same time on certain days and the sound familiar/talk about the same kinds of stuff. So I assume it is the same guys. I haven't paid much attention to call signs they are using. Of course our local REACT club/organization uses the repeater for events and tie up airwaves sometimes with larger events they help with and during some disasters, though I haven't been listening in/involved in GMRS long enough to hear much of that.

But in terms of overall use? Now that I have my attic antenna up and mobile radio setup as a base station, I've had it setup scanning a couple of times when I've been in the room working out (its in one of my storage/utility rooms that is setup for an exercise room) or the next room working on other hobbies. Maybe 3-4hrs total and I heard all of one broadcast on one channel. Quiet otherwise. On my UV-9g that I've been playing around with more the last couple of weeks I'll leave setup scanning sometimes while I work in my office (other side of the house from where my base station is setup. My wife doesn't want the radio in the office permanently and it would also be the difference of 35ft of KMR400 coax for a permanent installation versus probably 75, plus needing to open up the walls, rather than dropping it in to my basement through existing conduit). Anyway, that's more when I am hearing the regular talkers on a couple of channels. Mostly using the repeater, but not entirely. I've also picked up some coms that are likely people talking vehicle to vehicle on the interstate a distance away. But even being in a fairly populous county, possibly in part because of terrain, within my radio horizon on GMRS the air waves are probably 97% empty over the course of the week. But even the repeater doesn't seem to get more than maybe 4-6% utilization normally (and that's factoring in weekly net check-ins). Not that I am complaining mind you. I am happier with it being pretty quiet, which means any use I have isn't pushing people out, or their use isn't impacting what use I want to have. Of course it does make it more difficult to setup equipment not having anyone to easily test with. Though I guess that in part means I just need to get friendlier on social media and try to (nicely) wrangle some of the REACT/GRMS facebook group members to help me test and make some friends to talk to.