Do you have access to the back of your radio? I have the equipment and do it for my riding group. If you do have access just take a multi-meter and do a continuity test. That will tell if you are grounding out or not.
Not totally true. Rugged uses China based/made equipment whereas PCI uses better equipment like Kenwood and Icom radios and their intercoms are made in shop (LA Area) in the USA.I have a couple Baofengs that we use at base camp and to lend to those in our group that don't have radios. I used them prior to installing a rugged set up in my pre-runner. they work great for what they are.
Here is the channel list I have programmed.
Location Name Frequency
0 151.625
1 weatherman 151.625
2 BFG RELAY 151.715
3 BAJA PITS 154.98
4 MCDONNELL RACING 152.345
5 CHECKERS 151.925
6 FAIR 150.86
7 MCDONNELL RACING 152.345
8 MCDONNELL#2 158.445
9 CHECKERS VEGAS 151.505
10 BFG PITS 153.395
11 MAG7 153.38
12 NATIONAL RESCUE 155.16
13 CORE 153.245
14 LOCOS MOCOS 151.775
15 BITD 151.49
16 PCI RELAY 154.515
17 LOCOS MOCOS 151.775
18 BECKER 153.62
19 BECKER2 153.185
20 DICKER 153.245
21 DICKER2 151.58
22 EJR1 151.535
23 EJR2 151.13
24 GHANSEN 152.225
25 HERZOG 151.76
26 HOGMAN 151.67
27 HUNT1 151.175
28 HUNT2 153.425
29 KOCH 153.68
30 LICITRA 153.35
31 LICITRA2 153.095
32 MONGO1 152.975
33 MONGO2 157.5
34 MCGILVRY 157.545
35 RJR1 151.58
36 RJR2 153.23
37 SMD1 150.95
38 SMD2 151.13
39 SMD3 151.855
40 SMPUP 157.56
For those of you that are reading the PCI vs Rugged posts.....it's like reading a Chevy vs Ford argument. We have a big mix of them in our group and each has their positives and negatives...there is NO clear winner. and generally any pro/con will be based on what the person has in their car
I’ve owned rugged before rugged was a thing. No failures whatsoever. I’ve logged 1000’s of miles as well from full dust to full water. Both PCI and rugged are excellent choices
Do you have the rest of the list?I have a couple Baofengs that we use at base camp and to lend to those in our group that don't have radios. I used them prior to installing a rugged set up in my pre-runner. they work great for what they are.
Here is the channel list I have programmed.
Location Name Frequency
0 151.625
1 weatherman 151.625
2 BFG RELAY 151.715
3 BAJA PITS 154.98
4 MCDONNELL RACING 152.345
5 CHECKERS 151.925
6 FAIR 150.86
7 MCDONNELL RACING 152.345
8 MCDONNELL#2 158.445
9 CHECKERS VEGAS 151.505
10 BFG PITS 153.395
11 MAG7 153.38
12 NATIONAL RESCUE 155.16
13 CORE 153.245
14 LOCOS MOCOS 151.775
15 BITD 151.49
16 PCI RELAY 154.515
17 LOCOS MOCOS 151.775
18 BECKER 153.62
19 BECKER2 153.185
20 DICKER 153.245
21 DICKER2 151.58
22 EJR1 151.535
23 EJR2 151.13
24 GHANSEN 152.225
25 HERZOG 151.76
26 HOGMAN 151.67
27 HUNT1 151.175
28 HUNT2 153.425
29 KOCH 153.68
30 LICITRA 153.35
31 LICITRA2 153.095
32 MONGO1 152.975
33 MONGO2 157.5
34 MCGILVRY 157.545
35 RJR1 151.58
36 RJR2 153.23
37 SMD1 150.95
38 SMD2 151.13
39 SMD3 151.855
40 SMPUP 157.56
For those of you that are reading the PCI vs Rugged posts.....it's like reading a Chevy vs Ford argument. We have a big mix of them in our group and each has their positives and negatives...there is NO clear winner. and generally any pro/con will be based on what the person has in their car
Dave this "ground" you speak of isn't really a connection to ground and is one of the most commonly misunderstood aspects of antenna installation.
Dave this "ground" you speak of isn't really a connection to ground and is one of the most commonly misunderstood aspects of antenna installation.
what we are really talking about here is an antenna ground plane. this can be accomplished several ways but again has nothing to do with the antenna being grounded.
an antenna ground plane acts as a reflector. think kinda like a sat dish where the antenna is in the middle on an arm and the dish is reflecting the signal toward the antenna, or the "whiskers" you see at the base of some antennas commonly used on stationary systems like in chase trucks.
your antenna needs a ground plane to operate at peak efficiency.. this is nothing more than a metallic (non ferrous metals like aluminum or copper are fine) disc the antenna based is mounted to and does have electrical connectivity between the shield of the coax and the ground plane.
often times, like in an offroad car that has aluminum panels, these will work well for a ground plane. but if your antenna is mounted to a plastic roof or on a tab off the frame, this wont get it done, and range/performance will suffer.
ground plane size is dictated by the frequencies in use. it can be bigger dimensionally than what the minimum requirement is, just not smaller.
the other biggest problem I see is people are way to rough with the installation of the coax. coax doesn't work like a traditional single conductor wire......think of it more as a conduit or pipe. the diameter of this "pipe" is critical.....so sharp bends, crushing/flattening of the coax by bundling it with other wires and zip tieing it to death......all contribute to the degradation of the coax. this in turn causes the coax to reflect back much of the energy it is trying to push out to the antenna.....and in severe cases this RF energy that is bounced back to the transmitter can damage it.
it is for this reason the radio manufacturers warn you to NOT bundle the coax nor cut it shorter. shortening can be done but it requires specialized tools to crimp/solder a new connector on and very few can do this correctly.
there are some "zero ground plane" antennas (just mount them anywhere without a ground plane)but in my experience they don't work as well (range) as a properly installed traditional antenna.
it takes specialty meters to measure antenna VSWSR (the amount of energy that makes it out vs being reflected back) or actual wattage output. anybody messing with your system should have these tools.
Ground plane - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
lol just was this thread was from 2019.....and yeah that would do it.
Why doesn’t your group have comms. It’s sooo much more enjoyable to ride with music and talk to your passengers normally
