Doubled our performance with a new antenna.
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- Опубліковано 19 гру 2023
- #gmrsradio #overlanding #diy #vanlife
In this video we install and test our new upgraded GMRS vehicle antenna.
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There are amateur radio repeaters on satellites and the International Space Station. 5 watts of power is more than enough to hit those with a handheld. UHF (GMRS), VHF, and pretty much everything over about 50 MHz (GMRS channels exist in the 462 and 467 MHz ranges) will pass right through the ionosphere and not bounce back down to Earth. That is why GMRS is line of sight only. CB channels exist right around 27 MHz, which is why you can get some bouncing off the ionosphere and some really long ranges as a result, in the right atmospheric conditions. The upshot to all that? Height off the ground is more important than antenna, which is more important than power, because everything GMRS is going to be line of sight only with no atmospheric bounce. If you are on top of a mountain, you will get phenomenal range, even with 5 watts.
A bigger and more efficient antenna (1.5 on your SWR meter is perfectly good, a 1.1 would be even better) will make the most of the signals you receive and the power that you transmit. For those who do not know, SWR is essentially a measure of how much power is getting out of your antenna, versus how much is being reflected back into you transmitter. The bigger the number, the less efficient the antenna and the power is being reflected back into your transmitter and not getting out to the world. Too high a SWR and that power bouncing back into you radio can actually damage your transmitter. That is the whole purpose of "tuning" an antenna. To get a length of antenna that best matches your frequency's wavelength. It is a "harmonic" that allows the most efficient transfer of your signal from the transmitter to the atmosphere around you.
So height is most important, because it creates a line of sight. The antenna is VERY important because it is that interface between your transmitter and the atmosphere. Power is important to maintaining the signal in a cluttered environment where you signal is trying to reflect around, or to push through to a lesser degree, objects and obstacles around you to get to your desired destination. In other words.... Have your antenna as high up as you can. Have as efficient an antenna as you can. Then have as much power as you need to overcome any obstacles in your signal path. It is also useful to understand that an antenna does not have to be fancy to be efficient. It is all about having a length of conductor that is resonant with the frequency you are trying to work on. Paul mentions that his original car antenna is a 1/4 wavelength and that the new one is a 5/8 wavelength. These are literal values. The short antenna is literally 1/4 of a radio wavelength at about 465 MHz, which is 1/4 of about 70 centimeters or so (the actual wavelength of 465 MHz is 64.47 centimeters). That antenna is likely about 6 inches, which is 15.24 centimeters, which is 1/4 of 60.96 centimeters. How well that length matches up exactly will depend on the "ground plane" underneath your antenna and the actual "electrical length" of you antenna. The SWR meter is the best way of finding this match once you are in the right ball park on length.
Multiple lengths will be resonant with a given frequency, with 5/8 being another typical "resonant" length for an antenna. The reason this is all worth knowing??? You could hang a length of speaker wire from the roof of your house, and if you make it a resonant length, you can make a large and very efficient antenna for your home. You could connect this to your handheld inside or a base station. Yup, just some speaker wire will perform just as well, if not better, than a fancy commercial antenna. A commercial antenna is just more convenient to get. They did all the measuring and building for you, of course. I have a very efficient antenna made out of steel tape measure and some PVC pipe in a "Yagi" configuration that has fantastic gain! The easiest to make is a simple dipole of the correct length. A simple dipole is just two wires, of the same resonant length, one wire connected to the center contact of whatever connector you use, and the other connected to the ground contact of that connector. Obviously that is not going to drag behind your car, but it can hang at your house from the roof or a tree in the yard. It is also something you can throw over a branch if you are camping.
You can make an amazing dipole with two lengths of speaker (or other lightweight wire) wire about 48 inches each and some connectors. Look up GMRS antenna projects online if you are interested. Just have a SWR meter on hand to help you get the right length dialed in for the best resonance (lowest SWR, 1.00 being the best). Usually you cut the wires a little longer than you think, and then fold back the ends until you get your best SWR number. Then you can leave them or trim the wires to that length permanently. Of all the things yo could learn about radio, understanding antennas is the number one thing that will let you squeak out the greatest possible performance from even the cheapest radio. Height is might, but your antenna is also more important than what radio you are running.
Looking back, I am going to apologize for the absurd length of my comment. It's a bit ridiculous for a youtube comment, but hopefully you will see something in this wall of text that is useful, so I will leave it as is all the same. I hope you enjoy your radios and making future videos!
Holly cow! This is awesome. What a bunch of great information. Thank you for commenting and sharing all of this with me (us) to learn from. I always like to learn and this gives me a lot to digest.
I wouldn't worry about the length of the comment when it contains that much knowledge! I will be passing this video along to some folks that I have been talking about antennas with, and pointing out this comment.
I'm sorry about all the negative comments you are getting from the technical know it all radio police. You are definitely going in the right direction!!!!
Thank you
I like videos that show people installing gear and testing. It shows others what can be expected. From out here in the high desert of Nevada..117Reno waving a hand and keep making videos.
Ah you need to drive up to the top of Mount Greylock, you'll get some real DX there.
Some day I’ll give it a try
Good info. You can't underestimate the important of a good antenna. Even a mediocre radio with a good antenna will do well. I had the same antenna and ditched it. The midland mxta26 is good so I use it instead. World of difference. Melowave makes a good antenna but its spendy and screams "Fed".🙂
For base stations Comet makes an 11' antenna that is quite good but its a tall one.
One other thing to keep in mind is repeaters help a lot. Be sure to check what is in your area. Where I'm at, with the repeater we have people talking 80 miles to the repeater and it reaches out for a long ways. I've talked to it with a handheld from 38 miles and while not perfectly clear it was clear enough to completely understand.
Since UHF and VHF are higher frequency they are line of site. So the mantra for those is "Elevation is king". If you have a problem communicating, find the highest unobstructed point possible.
Thanks! Useful info, no histrionics or drama & good demonstration of SWR, power and practical range. Well done.
Thank you Sir! I’m glad you enjoyed the video. Thank you for the super thanks. Have a great Christmas holiday and New Year.
Thanks for the ride along, I always enjoy antenna/range testing!
Thank you, more to come!
I agree with your findings ! Antenna is the most important piece of the communication picture. Subscribed and commented on several of your videos. Enjoying your content.
Awesome, thank you!
Great video, very informative. Underrated channel.
I appreciate that! Thank you!
FYI, if you set up a base station, I think Comet makes a real nice high gain antenna. Keep your coax as short as possible and use only high quality coax. If you can keep the run under 60 feet Times Microwave LMR400 coax will do a good job for you. There is also Messi & Paoloni. What ever you do don.t cheap out on any portion of your antenna system. Over 60" on GMRS and you will need hard line.
Thanks for the tip!
Greetings from central mass great content just subbed.
Thank you! I'm happy you enjoyed the video.
At home I'm running a uv-5r connected to a Ed fong dbj-uhf set at 20' my mobile unit is a5r connected to a Browning 5 DB gain nmo mount both of these radios do about 6 Watts on high setting.... The terrain here in central Arizona is comparable to yours with some mountains but it's very flat to the east of my location..... I have achieved 10 miles simplex and better than 30 to the shaw Butte repeater..... I totally recommend the Ed fong antenna it works well and Ed is a good guy....
Ok good to know. Thank you for the advice.
Hey Paul, on the air here in dalton. Hit the rootapeater in pittsfield next time your in the area.
Ok will give it a try. What channel & tone?
5 Miles is not bad for simplex. Don't be too discouraged, the 5/8 wave has a bit more gain than a simple ground plane style antenna. Great video by the way.
Thanks for commenting. Yeah the little antenna does surprising well. But that 5/8 wave is a beast for sure. We have so many mountains around here it tough with any antenna.
Rg-58 is very lossy at 462Mhz. That’s a good part of it as well.
That Hershey kisses mag mount comes with that horrible 174 "U" coax, it probably only had 2 or 3 watts at the antenna if the radio had 15 watts at the radio.
Thanks for commenting. It’s such a small coax it’s not surprising that it would be that restrictive. I’ve read and I’ve heard that Midland did it this way so that you could throw it on your vehicle quick and go.
The short run of RG-58 is not significant, not like he could run some LMR400 to the roof.
@@curtw8827 sure but it’s part of it short run or not. Also the braid on Rg-58 is notorious for being leaky.
@@forgetyourlife so I ran some calculations for 12 ft of coax at 462 mHz. Original RG174, 45% power loss, LMR24O, 15% loss, RG58 , 23% loss. I use LMR240 for GMRS. The factory RG174 is even worse since it's much longer than 12 ft. The coax fittings at 462 is a whole other discussion.
You should have removed the 1/4-wave antenna from the roof entirely prior to running the test with your new antenna. Even though the 1/4-wave was not connected, it was still acting as a reflector or a director, as if it was an element on a Yagi, or beam, antenna. You have have been having a null spot which was affecting the performance of the new antenna. BTW the new antenna is a "stacked" collinear-array of 5/8 wave verticals, which gives approximately 3 - 5 dBi of gain over the 1/4-wave vertical.
73 de Larry, K3LT - WSDI872
Thanks for this information. I’m still learning this radio stuff and having some fun in the process.
with a 50watts mobile radio you will cover much more ground. i got XTL2500 motorola and work pretty well...
Thanks for the comment. Yeah the 50 watt would work better for sure, but line of sight around here is terrible.
Loved the video. Always looking for repeaters in VT I travel from Bennington to Ludlow/Rutland Killington . It seems to be totally void of any GMRS repeaters. i have same Midland and use their 6 DB antenna.
Thanks for commenting. Check out mygmrs.com lots of repeater locations and you can contact the owners for use permission. I don’t think VT has many repeaters but there is one in Hoosick NY that would get you Bennington. Happy you enjoyed the video.
thanks, hardly if any repeaters@@paulethier3416
You were only putting out 11 watts with your car not running because the radio was only getting 11.8 vdc input power. With your car running the alternator was providing 13.8 to 14.2 vdc to your radio.
Thank you for commenting and sharing that information
Have these radio MFR's not heard of VRM's? That small of a variation should not make a difference if the radio is designed properly. I guess its because its all Chinese made stuff that they can't be bothered to put any effort into the PS in these?
@@bill875even the Midland radios have that issue. Tried one with the car off, 41W the meter read, started the vehicle, 49W.
Height is might, on both ends..so is your power at the antenna . Cable loss plays a huge part in both receive and transmitting
Thanks for the comment. I’m still relatively new to this radio stuff and I’m learning something new almost daily. I appreciate the input.
When you were showing the swr reading you were standing outside and the door was open I'm just curious if it would be a little better or maybe worse if you were inside the vehicle and the door was closed I know it would sometimes make a difference back in the CB days oops just let my age show lol 😂
Thank you. I knew that but when I got filming I was worried about camera angles and stuff. Total oversight on my part.
Cohoes just a little over sn hour north of me looking to get into gmrs myself
You have a lot of repeaters in your area
Antenna and coax are everything. $5 antenna and coax hooked to a $1000 radio and you have a $6 dollar setup.
Thanks for commenting.
You remind me of me and my wife when I get an antenna, shes the only person that does that with me. than you sir for you great content.
Forgot to ask, would it make a difference if the antenna is mounted on the side of the hood ?
Oh yeah we do it all the time she’s a good sport
Midland makes a 50 watt version of the 275 model that you have. But that one you have to wire direct to car battery. Also the coax on the antenna that came with the radio is EXTREMELY high loss for the frequencies that GMRS operates on. If you were to buy a 1/4 wave nmo antenna and put it on the new mag mount you got, you can compare and see the difference quality coax can make.
Yes sir. I have a 1/4 wave on the way for my NMO hood mount. We will do a video soon actually comparing a ghost antenna and a 1/4 wave. I chose the 275 for that exact reason. With the 12 volt plug I can move vehicle to vehicle so I like the convenience of it. Thanks for the comments.
Get your ham license as well if you like to play with radios!
Maybe someday I will. Thanks for commenting.
Can't disagree. The tech test is really easy so even though it is a test its really not hard so it's worth considering. It really opens up some coms ability.
The antenna is it supposed to go on gmrs swr 1.0 or something better like 1.2 no More like 1.58 is not working good
When’s the 50 watt base station going in Paul
Soon I hope
Looks like you changed the coax too. The coax could be a larger percentage of the improvement than the antenna.
The coax on the stock antenna is part of the antenna and can not be changed. The new coax came with the antenna base. So, yes you are correct. Everything antenna related is new and upgraded from the stock antenna. Thanks for commenting.
was that channel 19 simplex or Repeater 19
Repeater 19
did you tune that antenna (for 465 mhz)? 1.5:1 is not bad, but I think 1.2:1 SWR is achieveable with that antenna
I did not tune it, because I’m going to be changing the antenna mount to something other than the magnetic. Once I find out that works well for me, I will tune it at the final installation.
@@paulethier3416I went with a Nagoya antenna and lip mount myself. NMO200 I think is the antenna model, and I picked up a Nagoya mount to match.
Now go from your 15 watt radio to a 50 watt mobile and you might actually get another mile. Every little bit helps.
Thanks for the comment. I was wondering how far 50 W radio would transmit compared to a 15. Do you think it would only be a mile or so? I was debating about getting a 50 W. I’m not sure it’s worth the investment.
This is not exact, but a formula that can give you a rough idea (all you experts out there please do not comment negatively on this, I already said it is not exact). You can use the formula that for every 100% increase in power you can estimate approximate a 1 db gain. Pretend you were on CB and someone was doing a 3 on your meter with their 4 watt radio. If they peaked it to 8 watts out they might do 4 pounds on your meter. If they put in hi output finals and were able to put out 16 watts they might do 5 pounds on your meter. If they got 32 watts out they might do 6 pounds on your meter. If they got 64 watts out they might do 7 pounds on your meter. If they got 128 watts out they might do 8 pounds on your meter. If they put a huge amp and got 256 watts out they might do 9 pounds. You get the picture as you go up in power you need to really up your power to get a single "S" unit. Now here is a test you can do. Again this is rough theory. For every 100% increase in height you can estimate a 50% increase in range. If you took a tiny bubble wrap FRS radio on level ground and it was at you mouth level (about five feet off the ground) and it went a mile if you then got on top of a ten foot ladder you might get 1.5 miles. Now on level ground do the same test in a car (by an overpass) and when you run out of range go on top of the overpass and see how much additional range you might get. Do you know where there a 5 story parking garage get on top and that one mile FRS radio might do 4 or 5 miles. Height is everything. On your GMRS radio you saw what a gain antenna did with your mobile. Imagine what a 7-9 DB gain base antenna can do with some height. Although power is not that important I would definitely get the 50 watt radio. It will probably clean up your signals in your fringe areas. I would start like you did. A good gain antenna ultra high quality double shielded coax or for the base antenna maybe hard line and on GMRS base installations keep your coax/feed line as short as possible.
Wow! What a lot of great information. I’m not sure if you saw my video about the CB radio when I went on top of the mountain near my house. I might give that a try with this GMRS and see if I can get anybody to reply just to see what type of distance I’m getting. Thank you for sharing all of this great information and for commenting.
Using a 50w on the base, I have talked to my brother in law on his 50w mobile, 46 miles away, over a mountain that's probably 1800 feet above direct line of sight. Not that the signal was great, but it was good enough to understand most of what we were saying.
Go on 11M ssb and see what real range feels like.
Someday I hope to do just that. Thanks for commenting.
I like having both 11m and GMRS. Local talk and no skip can be nice too. I see them as equally valuable.
GMRS repeater with a Zello gateway is tough to beat. I think I showed a video of what it takes. Pretty cheap to do
@@muddytiresclub4264 even when it comes to local, 11m will do better, as it does not relay on "line of sight" or a repeater to achieve some good range.
in a forest or hilly places, uhf is far from being a good option. enjoy both, we put out money on the one option that is a whole rounder.
Using the GRMS repeaters is hectic at best, one of the problems with F.M is that its Easly blocked, unlike SSB or AM where few stations could be heard at the same time (the main reason to why aviation is using AM and SSB locally and globally)
The problem with 11M SSB is that it has all that range with skip. I was on last night and skip was covering a friend just 6 miles away, with a peaked radio. And yes, I have talked from California to Australia on a mobile, so I know the possibilities.
@@javabeanz8549 There are 40ch (legal ones) to choose from, I never seen a situation where they all been busy. choice of antenna can enable skip to be better for local communications (Ie, directional vs omni directional), it is all question of range, more range = more possibility of faraway communications and noise.
what radio was your wife using?
UV5R Baofeng
That skinny coax on that manufacturer supplied antenna was losing more than half your output power.
Thank you for commenting.
You must have a massive amount of interference over there. I can hit a repeater 30 miles away with my handheld and be legible. My Grandson and I talk on simplex at 7 miles in the city with very little break up.
You’re lucky our line of sight here is limited to about 5-6 miles with max of 10. We can get up on top of the mtn we can go 30 to 40 miles no problem..
You have no idea how gain works. If you’re losing power through the antenna it’s through the coax not the physical antenna. The size of the antenna only manipulates gain. Please do research before you put silly things on UA-cam.
Thank you for pointing out the obvious. Stock antenna and coax compared to a better antenna and coax. Just trying to show the difference between the two. There is no need to be rude.
@@paulethier3416 you said “that this antenna makes the radio lose half of its power”. You didn’t say coax, cable or even antenna system. If you meant to say coax then use the right words, words matter.
No I'm pretty sure I said " It's been estimated by some that this antenna makes the radio lose half its power" Why not leave a comment that says "The stock antenna is losing most of its power because of the very small coax cable that it came with" . I would have responded, "thank you for the comment and sharing this information". Then we can all learn from that statement and your knowledge of antennas. But instead here we are doing this because words aren't the only thing that matter.