Cold weather issue

[Guest ready to quit]

Ive been messing with GMRS for about a year now and I am having a issue broadcasting in cold snowy weather.  Im fairly certain its an antenna issue but I cant find any type of local help.  Everyone just says to get my ham license and ditch gmrs all together.  

 

I have two antennas and I get the same result with both.  

#1 is a magnet mount short antenna like you would put on a car roof that is ground planed on a large garage louver outside.  (it works best)

#2 is a larger car type antenna that you would bolt to a car near the trunk, it has the 4 antenna ground plane at the bottom and I had it cut to GMRS 22 by a local shop.  I have it on a 20ft pole off my roof

Normally I can send and receive fine I guess on the short one but it doesnt seem as good as it should probably be.  I cant hit repeaters 20 miles away but I can talk to most of the city simplex with my btech 50W.

My big issue is cold weather.  It knocks me down to maybe 1/4 a mile.  My test shows that I can transmit the same distance with no antenna at all.  

What am I missing here?  Is the cold air affecting the metal antenna?  

[SteveShannon]

Check your feedline. It sounds like maybe it or your coax connections are separating when they get cold. That’s just a guess of course. An antenna analyzer would tell you what’s going on probably. 

[WRTC928]

2 hours ago, SteveShannon said:

Check your feedline. It sounds like maybe it or your coax connections are separating when they get cold. That’s just a guess of course. An antenna analyzer would tell you what’s going on probably. 

I concur. It's almost certainly something in the feed line. The antenna itself would be minimally affected by cold weather, and presumably the radio is indoors and doesn't get cold. That only leaves the coax and its connectors as the potential source of the problem.