Beware of cheap 50 ohm coax

If you suffer from noise you will know that everything you can do to minimize it is a must,using cheap coax with a poor braid can make your noise issues 10 times worst,alot of people don't know that but it's true,even some rg213 coax i've had has been crap,just because it says rg213 on it and it's thick it don't mean it's good,foe me i wouldn't settle for no less then aircell 5 which is 100% shielded,it may cost more but it's well worth it if you suffer from noise.

CB radio interference cures

Follow the following steps

1. Get a 12 volt battery and connect your cb radio to it

2. Turn off the mains electric

3. Check to see if the noise level has gone or dropped in signal

4. If it's gone 100% then start to turn on one item at a time

5. If you have found the item/s you need to get some ferrite rings and wrap all the leads coming and going from that item,if this isn't possible then the only other thing you could do is move you're antenna away from the item.

6. If the noise isn't coming from your home then get a portable AM radio and have a walk about with it,the noise can be tracked down with it,if you find the noise is coming from a neighbor you will have to explain to them the problem and ask if you can ferrite ring the cables of the item causing the noise.

 7. Check your coax to see what the braid is like,if it's poor and has many gaps then the noise could be getting in that way,also make sure you use a 1:1 balun to ioslate the coax from the antenna system.

8. If all that fails then you could to switch your antenna to horizontal polarization which will cause the noise to drop alot or you could try using a small yagi to null out the noise.

9. If none of that works or is impractical then the only thing you can do is get into ham radio or PMR446,the higher up the bands you go the noise becomes less and less and that makes radio much more enjoyable.

Spammers

Due to spammers i've had to closed the comments down,it's a shame because if someone who is just getting started into pmr 446 wants to ask a question they now can't because i'm not going to spend my time deleting spam.

PMR446 range

I keep hearing people say it's all about the power of the radio,i say no it's not,antenna and the height of the antenna is 100% what pmr446 is about,you could have 100 watts running into a huge beam or collinear but if that antenna is not above everything like roof tops then it just won't work,never forget uhf is line of sight so the antenna needs to be up as high as you can get it.

Anytone AT-588 and Yaesu FT-1907

Both radios are UHF and cover pmr446,they are the only two mobile uhf radios that have pmr446 on ebay,both are under £150,the Anytone AT-588 is a new radio that's not been out long so i can't comment on it but the yaesu ft-1907 is a nice radio,if i was starting out on pmr446 i would buy it.

Here is the links to ebay to buy them ANYTONE-AT-588 Link  Yaesu-FT-1907 Link

Don't waste your time with crap handhelds that only get you out a few roads and away,buy one of the radios above and get a base station pmr446 antenna to go with it and get out for miles.

PMR446 base station radio

I have some good news everyone,i was talking to someone the other day in the radio game who is from the UK and he told me he is considering getting some custom made dual band vhf/uhf base stations radios that would cover 2 meters, pmr446 and 70cm for less then £100,he said they would only push 2watts and have ctcss,dcs,repeater split,vox,1750hz tone burst,100 channels memory,time out timer and more,that is just what we need a nice cheap dual band base station radio,he also said it would have a built in power supply and have a 12 volt input so you could take it mobile,this is great news and i can't wait for them to go on sale.

PMR446 in Yorkshire

I've noticed it's getting more and more used around where in live in Yorks,here's a great idea i had to promote pmr446,it would take a big group of pmr446 users from all over the UK,someone could design small card size leaflets promoting pmr446 and all the uses of pmr446 could print say 100 which wouldn't cost much at all and post them in their local area,we could even have a poster designed,pmr446 is lacking promotion,here's another way to help promote pmr446,make some videos like ads and post them on youtube but under different tags so people will see them even if they are not looking for them,now that argos has stopped selling pmr446 radios,pmr446 will start to go the same way as cb radio if we don't start to get the word out there to people.

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Running PMR446 off solar power

Alot of people miss one important component out when it comes to a radio setup and that's back up power,say something happens like a power cut,are you prepared ? Most are not,on this post i'm going to list a very simple solar power back up system.

Here's a list of things you will need to buy

1. 12 volt Solar Panel  (5 watts minimum)
2. 12 volt SLA battery (5AH minimum )
3. 12 volt charge controller  (10amp)
4. 12v power inverter (optional)

Setting up this system is very easy

PMR446 coax cable

People are always asking about what the best coax cable is to use,obviously the lower the loss the better,but you should also out for cheap copies made in China and the far East,not only do the cheap copies have big gaps in the braid,they also don't have UV protection,when buying any RG type coax make sure it says MIL Spec on the jacket,otherwise it will be a cheap poor copy.

Puxing programming software

Here is the puxing 6 in 1 programming software Download

It's time we had UHF cb radio for Europe

Australia and USA both have uhf cb,we in Europe have pmr446 but no repeaters are allowed nor are any base station antennas,446pmr would be great if we had a similar system to Australia and USA,as it stands we only have 27mhz cb radio which is dying a painful death,pmr446 is different,you can go to Maplins and other high street shops and buy a pmr446 handheld but 27mhz cb you can't,we need to get a movement started for uhf cb radio that allows repeaters and 4 watt radios with external antennas,we need to contact ofcom and all the major radio manufacturers to get the message across that we want uhf cb radio for Europe,if enough people put pressure on the gov maybe one day we will have what Australia and USA both have.