Btech 50x1 & V1 GMRS Frequencies not connecting

[Ubiety]

Ham has, at least, analog and digital modes. Analog for "old school" voice yacking and digital for D-Star, APRS, WinLink, FT8, etc. Ham opens the door to a lot of fun stuff and it is pretty easy to get your tech. As far as your antenna question - in all likelihood 467 MHz will not be optimal for your antenna but should be fine. If you care you could use an SWR meter to see if its ok. Most likely ok maybe less optimal. Maybe... I have seen antenna's resonant frequency be pretty far off so "optimal" can be a bit of a crapshoot. I use Comet antennas and like them. Funny just looked at the link and that is the new antenna on my Jeep ;) Got the extra spring guy as well. No complaints on APRS 144.390, not sure if I have done much else with it. Fairy new antenna - then this thing that has us all stationary...

I would argue that analog and digital are kind of the same, they use the same RF TX/RX "backend" but digital modes add a modem to modulate/demodulate your digital data (e.g. an email or jpg file) turning it into the squeaks and beeps that can be sent over good old analog.

I really have to applaud your taste in antennas! A cheap external mag mount antenna for the handheld will help as well; though adds an extra wire to the setup.

 

[California Overland]

Different antennas do different things, longer is not always better. That antenna you bought will work fine. That frequency range is what its tuned for. It doesnt just stop working outside of it.

Honestly for GMRS 6 inch quarter wave antenna would work just fine and a 12 inch half wave would work great as well. One of my favorites for trail use is a little 6 inch quarter wave from PCTEL. Cost all of 9 dollars from the antenna farm.

Don't look for antennas marketed for GMRS look for antennas marketed for the UHF Business band. GMRS is right in the business band.

Heres a good graphic talking about antenna wave length/dBi gain.

View attachment 146606

Thanks for that info. Sooo much to learn and all so foriegn... but I'm catching on.

So it sounds like my antennae is over kill. Go big or go home seems to be in my nature. We'll see if having that big thing on the front of my rig gets annoying or breaks. It's gain is 6db so maybe it isn't the best for the California Sierra mountains.

I did buy a Nagoya UT-72 to go with the handheld, it's gain is 3.5db, so that might be best in the mountains.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B016SIJX28?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title&th=1