New GMRS antennas for 4x4s from Midland

[VinceAtReal4x4s]

Saw these new antennas for "rugged use". That look pretty cool to me and it comes at a good time since I started looking for one recently!
https://midlandusa.com/pages/ride-the-r ... alId=VTURT

GMRS guru review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGPUT3WgFto

[VinceAtReal4x4s]

Curious what you think Ron (and other Hams) of the ground plane issues/SWR of the bumper mounting. Any Australian guys here that use the bumper mount that's popular there?

[rmel]

GMRS is just over 462 MhZ. A wavelength of about 67 CM.
All you really need w.r.t. a ground plane is 1/4 wavelegnth
so your down to less than a foot for a decent "ground/radial".
So if you ground near a bumper it's going to be good.

By way of example, CB is 27MhZ, 11M wavelength, now your
hunting for a far more substantial ground plane (108"), but if
your a big rig metal you got.

As a side note, all the local 4x4 clubs up here in the Bay Area
have pretty much moved on to HAM VHF (144 MhZ), leaving CB
and GMRS/FRS.

Primary reason is "reach", and ease of getting a Technicians class
license. Once above 30 MhZ propagation is pretty much line-of-sight.
With the higher frequencies e.g. GMRS trees and foliage attenuate
the signal far more than VHF @ 144 MhZ.

[VinceAtReal4x4s]

I was also thinking of the position overall. On a forward cab a bumper mounted antenna has lots of metal up one side of it. Never did an SWR test on a setup like that so wondering how that would affect it.

Funny I was getting the opposite impression with how GMRS is being marketed so much lately to the "overland" and group trail crowds.

My ham radio will transmit into the GMRS and FRS channels, not that its really supposed to.

[rmel]

Funny I was getting the opposite impression with how GMRS is being marketed so much lately to the "overland" and group trail crowds.

Indeed, the Overland community is moving to GRMS, there's a fee for a license but no test. And there are a growing number of repeaters on
mountain tops that will extend your reach, though the number of these repeaters pales by comparison with HAM 2M VHF repeaters. HAM is
just more robust in many regards, the hurdle for some is the requirement for a test to obtain a license.