WSAH999 Posted January 29 Report Posted January 29 Looking into getting a GMRS base station, not exactly sure what's good or not. I'm looking ideally for superhet, 15w (at least), biggest thing is it has to also be able to pickup 136-174 band. Besides using radio to communicate I enjoy grabbing satellites. Any suggestions? Quote
WRKC935 Posted January 29 Report Posted January 29 There is nothing out there that is going to be GMRS and any other band or radio service. I understand what you are asking, but it's not something we can openly answer due to the fact that amateur radios are NOT type accepted to be used on GMRS. There are a number of satellite radios out there, new and used, that have all the bells and whistles needed for satellite work. But I will say this. Sat radios are set to be operated in the lower part of the UHF ham band. So you are looking at the radio being designed for 420-430 Mhz operating range. Sure it's worked to 449.9 but possibly not as well. GMRS repeater inputs are at 467Mhz. That would be 30 plus Mhz away. Not to mention that antenna's for satellite work are all high gain stuff that are also tuned for 420 to 440 Mhz range. The issue here is this, when you build an antenna with gain, vertical or a yagi, the available bandwidth of the antenna drops because the elements are interacting with one another and are designed to do so at a specific frequency range. You try pumping 467 Mhz through a yagi designed for 430 Mhz and you are going to have little to no gain, and your SWR is going to be through the roof. Your best bet is get the satellite radio that you have had your eye on and NOT worry about modding it to operate on GMRS and then get a GMRS specific or commercial radio and program it for GMRS operations and have two. That way you can monitor one while operating on the other. And the better satellite radios are going to have window filters in them that will block RF outside their designed operating bandwidth to boot to give them better performance on the range they are designed for. So there is that too. WSAH999 1 Quote
WSAH999 Posted January 29 Author Report Posted January 29 34 minutes ago, WRKC935 said: Your best bet is get the satellite radio that you have had your eye on and NOT worry about modding it to operate on GMRS and then get a GMRS specific or commercial radio and program it for GMRS operations and have two. Yeah I sort of figured that. Considering for the satellite related stuff I can just use SDR. (And have been. Just didn't know if there was a radio that had the GMRS channel only TX while you could still receive on a bunch of other freqs) Quote
SteveShannon Posted January 29 Report Posted January 29 6 hours ago, WSAH999 said: Looking into getting a GMRS base station, not exactly sure what's good or not. I'm looking ideally for superhet, 15w (at least), biggest thing is it has to also be able to pickup 136-174 band. Besides using radio to communicate I enjoy grabbing satellites. Any suggestions? The KG-1000G plus from Wouxun is very popular with those who have purchased it. Some consider it the best mobile radio specifically built for GMRS. It is certified for GMRS and transmits on GMRS only. But it will also receive a wide array of frequencies between 50 MHz and 985 MHz (not completely inclusive), including 108-179 MHz: https://www.buytwowayradios.com/wouxun-kg-1000g-plus.html You might want an antenna switch as you can switch between a good GMRS antenna and something else for the other bands you want to listen to. WRWE456, WSAH999 and WRXB215 3 Quote
WRYZ926 Posted January 29 Report Posted January 29 A dedicated antenna that is tuned for GMRS will be best. With that said, some 2m/70cm antennas will work just fine for GMRS with a SWR of 1.8. Though there I no guarantee that all dual band antennas will work for GMRS. I do know that the Comet GP9 base antenna and Comet 2x4SR mobile antenna both work well for GMRS. WSAH999 1 Quote
WRXB215 Posted January 29 Report Posted January 29 I agree with @WRYZ926. A dedicated GMRS antenna will be better but there are others that will work quite well. The Nagoya UT72G is a GMRS antenna but I'm using the UT72 VHF/UHF antenna and it is working just fine. WSAH999 1 Quote
WRYZ926 Posted January 29 Report Posted January 29 We would all like to see a perfect SWR but as long as you are 1.8 or lower you will be fine when transmitting. SWR is not as important for receiving only. WSAH999 1 Quote
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