Ham UHF vs GMRS

[Lscott]

5 hours ago, Adamdaj said:

I am having trouble seeing what Ham UHF, has over GMRS.

1. The majority of digital voice modes are on Ham UHF.
2. Ham UHF has a satellite sub band for FM operation, and some birds have linear translators for SSB, which can accommodate multiples stations at a time.
3. Fast scan TV. 
4. Some have high power EME, moon bounce, stations using digital or analog modes. 
5. World wide linked repeaters, using different types of digital voice modes.

There’s more but the above is what comes to mind.

[WRFS791]

Amateur radio gives a bit of a false impression. I can drive across Arizona and through major cities on 2 meter and 70 cm and not get any response on simplex or repeater, via my mobile rig. Honestly, I turn it on now only to listen to aviation band traffic when traveling. 

222 MHz? I've never gotten one response in Maricopa County on several working repeaters. In Yavapai County, I occasionally get a response on the machine.  

33 cm gets a bit more repeater use.

All of these are without use of nets. 

 

[marcspaz]

 

41 minutes ago, WRFS791 said:

Amateur radio gives a bit of a false impression. I can drive across Arizona and through major cities on 2 meter and 70 cm and not get any response on simplex or repeater, via my mobile rig. Honestly, I turn it on now only to listen to aviation band traffic when traveling. 

222 MHz? I've never gotten one response in Maricopa County on several working repeaters. In Yavapai County, I occasionally get a response on the machine.  

33 cm gets a bit more repeater use.

All of these are without use of nets. 

 

 

VHF and UHF Ham bands don't perform any different than GMRS.  They are still LOS with the occasional ducting making comms interesting.  Typically, when I am on the road, I use 20m or 40m General class frequencies for random chats while driving.  It works a lot better, and you can get monoband antennas that are only about 87" that work very well.

 

I have made exactly zero contacts on 220 and 33cm.  Even though there are repeaters up, the band segment may as well not even be allocated... its so dead around here.  And I talking over a 25+ year timeframe. 

[Davichko5650]

5 hours ago, marcspaz said:

 

 

  Typically, when I am on the road, I use 20m or 40m General class frequencies for random chats while driving. 

I do mostly 20/15/17/10 on HF mobile when looking to talk when mobile. Short contacts, ragchews, whatever. Use the ATAS120A antenna. I also will tune it to the closest SW band to the ham bands and listen to whatevers' out there. I can then tweak the receive tuning with the up/down controls on the FT-891.  Monitor 146.520 and Channel 20 GMRS when roadtripping as well, have made a smattering on contacts there.  Talking longer trips here, not around town, I do HF mobile in the city as well as 2m and GMRS.

[marcspaz]

2 hours ago, Davichko5650 said:

Use the ATAS120A antenna.

 

I have an 891 in my Jeep.  I really need to get an ATAS.

[tweiss3]

7 minutes ago, marcspaz said:

 

I have an 891 in my Jeep.  I really need to get an ATAS.

Get the little tarheel ii and autotuner, works better and can tune while in motion

[marcspaz]

1 minute ago, tweiss3 said:

Get the little tarheel ii and autotuner, works better and can tune while in motion

 

A few years ago, I was looking at those, bu there was a 4-6 moth lead time.  So, I bought a Diamond SD330.  I'll have to see if there is still a long lead time.  I like the power over coax feature, which is the biggest draw for me.

[tweiss3]

There was a lead time last I checked, but I found one at a hamfest for about half the price. The inclusion of 80m is a big plus as well. I've heard the ATAS can be injured by tuning while in motion. Either way, having HF mobile is a huge plus. Now I just looking for something better than the 891. 

[marcspaz]

3 hours ago, tweiss3 said:

There was a lead time last I checked, but I found one at a hamfest for about half the price. The inclusion of 80m is a big plus as well. I've heard the ATAS can be injured by tuning while in motion. Either way, having HF mobile is a huge plus. Now I just looking for something better than the 891. 

 

 

I would have to ask what you mean by better?  It's not feature-rich, but I have confirmed contacts in 104 countries while mobile (actually in motion) with the 891.  It performs better on receive and SSB better than any other radio I have ever owned or operated.

 

This is the list of countries (DX Entities), with the memorable being Alaska, Australia, Japan, Hawaii and South Africa.

Alaska

Andorra

Anguilla

Antigua and Barbuda

Argentina

Aruba

Australia

Austria

Azores

Bahamas

Barbados

Belarus

Belgium

Belize

Bermuda

Bonaire

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Brazil

Bulgaria

Canada

Canary Islands

Cape Verde

Cayman Islands

Ceuta and Melilla

Chile

Clipperton Island

Colombia

Costa Rica

Croatia

Cuba

Curacao

Cyprus

Czech Republic

Denmark

Dominican Republic

Ecuador

England

Estonia

Finland

France

French Guiana

Germany

Greece

Guadeloupe

Guyana

Haiti

Hawaii

Honduras

Hungary

Iceland

Ireland

Israel

Italy

Jamaica

Japan

Kaliningrad

Latvia

Lithuania

Luxembourg

Madeira Island

Malta

Martinique

Mexico

Montserrat

Morocco

Netherlands

New Caledonia

New Zealand

Nicaragua

Northern Ireland

Panama

Paraguay

Poland

Portugal

Puerto Rico

Romania

Russia

San Marino

Sardinia

Scotland

Serbia

Slovak Republic

Slovenia

South Africa

South Cook Islands

Spain

St Helena Island

St Kitts and Nevis

St Lucia

St Martin

St. Maarten

Suriname

Svalbard

Sweden

Switzerland

Trinidad and Tobago

Turks and  Caicos Islands

Ukraine

United States

Uruguay

US Virgin Islands

Venezuela

Wales

[MrCoffee]

On 10/26/2023 at 11:24 PM, WRQC527 said:

In my humble opinion, it's not an issue of ham vs GMRS. Or what ham has over GMRS. There are advantages to both. GMRS doesn't require a test, just your $35 and a promise to obey the FCC rules. And the license covers family members, up to a point. But the frequencies are limited, and channelized. Ham radio requires a test, the same $35, and only covers one person. There are many more frequencies available with UHF ham radio. Both ham and GMRS can operate simplex or through repeaters. You'll probably find more repeaters on ham radio. I use both, since I have ham radio friends who communicate with me, and I use GMRS to communicate with my non-ham wife through a repeater if I'm out somewhere with no cell coverage. My suggestion is to use both and don't fall into the "one is better than the other" trap.

Also, there are a few mobile ham transceivers out there that do HF, VHF and UHF. They're not cheap, and you may end up rolling the dice in the used market to find them. The Icom IC-706MkIIG, IC-7000 and IC-7100, the Yaesu FT-857, and others.

This is a very good reply, well said. 

Only thing I would like to add. When making a purchase on a radio, be sure the output power will work on the band you plan to use.  I found that the 706mrk2G will transmit on GMRS but the output power drops down to about 1.5 watts.  

WRQC527.... very well said.

[tweiss3]

28 minutes ago, marcspaz said:

I would have to ask what you mean by better?  It's not feature-rich, but I have confirmed contacts in 104 countries while mobile (actually in motion) with the 891.  It performs better on receive and SSB better than any other radio I have ever owned or operated.

It is a great radio, but in my mobile use case it falls short. I was hoping to get over the few issues, but I'm annoyed enough that I'm looking (not really finding) for something else.

1) Typical Yaesu, actually operating the radio (changing modes, VFO to memory, etch) is horrendous, and I consider it bad enough it's not useful while in motion. 

2) The memories are a pain. Changing groups is ridiculous, and they won't allow repeater offsets to change.

3) I can't get the large/small steps for frequency tuning to work the way I want. It does for a short time, then i screw it up again (reference no. 1).

[marcspaz]

@tweiss3 I can see all that. I wish I had a recommendation for you. I just set it and whatever it's at is where it stays until Iget where I'm going.

 

I was able to work around the offset issue by running splits instead. But that was the only creative solution I came up with.

[Lscott]

1 hour ago, MrCoffee said:

I found that the 706mrk2G will transmit on GMRS but the output power drops down to about 1.5 watts. 

That about what this attached chart shows.

IC-706MKIIG Freqequency Mod Power Output.pdf

[Davichko5650]

18 hours ago, marcspaz said:

 

I have an 891 in my Jeep.  I really need to get an ATAS.

Def worth the money!  I had Hamsticks on magmounts prior to getting the ATAS, and had VG results with those as well. Had the 20m one on all the time, had the quick release mounts, and on the other, switched between the 15 and 10. 'Sticks. The 15m would work at about 1.4:1 on 17m so that wouyld give me 3 bands using an antenna switch.  With the ATAS, same good signal reports and it's a simple button push to change from 40 thru 6m.

[Davichko5650]

4 hours ago, tweiss3 said:

 I've heard the ATAS can be injured by tuning while in motion. Either way, having HF mobile is a huge plus. Now I just looking for something better than the 891. 

I've not had any issues tuning while in motion. Might be the mounting, which is on the L read of the tailgate on my Exploder, so the body of the antenna is below the roofline, kind of out of the wind.  I do watch it on bumpy city streets, but there I have stopping places vs. on the highway.

For mobile, I dunno what could be better than the 891.  Yes you'll need to set things up before you roll, but after that, smooth sailing!

[DominoDog]

On 10/26/2023 at 10:31 PM, Tiercel said:

I am interested in your input.

Since it seems that no one mobile transceiver will cover both HF and UHF 

Well there is the Icom IC-705 and the hot new not-yet-released Yaesu FTX-1F that does HF/50/VHF and UHF.

[SteveShannon]

22 minutes ago, DominoDog said:

Well there is the Icom IC-705 and the hot new not-yet-released Yaesu FTX-1F that does HF/50/VHF and UHF.

And the IC-7100 (which is mobile) and the FT-991. 

[WRYZ926]

22 minutes ago, DominoDog said:

Well there is the Icom IC-705 and the hot new not-yet-released Yaesu FTX-1F that does HF/50/VHF and UHF.

There is also the Icom IC-7100 which is 100 watts on HF, 50 watts on VHF, and 35 watts on UHF. And it can be Mars Modded.

I would love to have an HF rig in my Ford Escape but I am veery limited to antenna height since I park in the garage. I'm running a Comet dual band SBB1 in the middle of the roof and it barely clears the 7 foot garage door.

[WRYZ926]

@SteveShannon hit submit quicker than I did. 

 

I would love to have the IC-7100 if I can just figure out a good solution for an antenna that I won't tear up by forgetting to fold down or remove. 

[DominoDog]

I plastered my dashboard with "NO DRIVE THRU's"  and "CLEARANCE 10 FEET" with my label maker because knowing me I WILL FORGET. I actually have forgotten TWICE...with the labels everywhere.

 

Maybe I need more labels.

[Lscott]

12 minutes ago, DominoDog said:

I plastered my dashboard with "NO DRIVE THRU's"  and "CLEARANCE 10 FEET" with my label maker because knowing me I WILL FORGET. I actually have forgotten TWICE...with the labels everywhere.

 

Maybe I need more labels.

Maybe you need a shorter antenna. Use a short 1/4 wave around town. When out on the highway you can swap it out for the original one.

[DominoDog]

It's on a Chevy Express van and I need a ladder to get up there. It's a Comet CA-2X4SR, about 40 inches length, thru-hole mounted NMO. That is a good option, but I'm not climbing up and down to change antennas and I like the 2X4SR it is great for everything I do. Ham 70cm/2m, actually shows a 1.2 on GMRS. I'll just avoid drive thrus as best I can, and try to hurry up and buy the "spring" kit that replaces the lower rod. At least then it would have some give.

[WRYZ926]

My Comet CA-2s4SR stays on the rear rack my SxS due to the length of it. There is no way I could run that and still pull into the garage at home. I agree that it is an excellent all around antenna. The highest SWR I get is on the GMRS repeater channels (467 MHz) at 1.7.

[Lscott]

Try driving around with this monster on the roof.

https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/471-mobile-mount-with-antenna-rear-view/

I had this on my old Jeep. The tip would scrap the glass on the roll up door, and you know how big those are, at the oil change shop when I pulled in.

[DominoDog]

I gotta say, you know someone is really into radio when they give up drive-thrus and convenience to have an antenna.  My setup is too high to pull into the Sonic drive-in stalls. I can do it but the antenna touches the gutters and I have to look out and up and pull just close enough that I can push the red button + barely touch the antenna. The things we put up with just to chat with other people about radios