All Activity

All repeaters have some kind of repeater controller. There’s an open source repeater controller built on the raspberry pi.

Not necessarily.. But, usually. Generally speaking, on average, usually, statistically speaking, most of the time, a purpose-built repeater is going to perform better than a Frankenrepeater.

Ok so stay away from things like this

Only home-made/rinky-dink type repeaters come with those raspberry pi things.. It operates as the 'controller' between what is probably two radios scotch-taped together to control or coordinate the two radios and/or do things like Auto-ID. A REAL repeater, has no such rinky-dinkn'ess .

Newbe question time. Why do some repeaters come with this raspberry pi thing.

I ordered a couple of the new Baofeng UV-5RM Pro GPS radios and was looking over the Baofeng programming software. There's a couple areas(Program Password, Frequency Range, Embed Information) where they ask for a Password to unlock it. Does anyone know what it might be? I looked at the Baofeng website but there's nothing there about this issue. Thanks.

RF Agitator

Thanks for responding but the membership page is noy available.

https://midwestgmrs.org/ I would look there for info.

I would like to join the Midwest GMRS Organization. I live in Aurora Indiana & have a base & mobile set up.

Most of my work in HF/VHF in the ASA was making sure no one could hear your radio or you couldn't hear anyone else's. That and DF'ing you to call in that airstrike or listening to find out what you were up to and countering it with force. Swearing at Bird Colonels in Russian to get them to blow up on the radio is just a fun way to spend a few minutes!

No. Totally different companies Sent from my SM-S911U1 using Tapatalk

"Well, you see, little Timmy, sometimes a man buys a radio so he can meet other men and exchange signal reports and talk about antennas." "What about talking to friends and family?" "Yeah yeah, they do that too, but first, let's talk about mag mounts and ground planes..."

True Sent from my SM-S911U1 using Tapatalk

I know that Colorado has their GMRS Channel 3 program. I don't know if any other state has adopted that plan or not. I know there was talk about trying to make that a nation wide program. One problem is getting everyone to recognize such a program and then use designated channel/frequency only for emergencies. A prime example is CB Chanel 9 which was the defacto emergency channel for a long time. You will hear all kinds of conversations on Channel 9 now days to the point it would be useless as an emergency channel.

They do. But some older commercial equipment got both part 90 and part 95 certified. Now manufacturers are too lazy to get both. Sent from my SM-S911U1 using Tapatalk

Some dual band 2m/70cm antennas already work for MURS/FRS with acceptable SWR of 2.0 or less. And you are correct that it would not take much to dual band MURS/FRS antennas with just small changes to the element lengths.

Uh oh, Smiley just waded into the swamp

Emergency Maritime Channel in the Maritime VHF Band is channel 16, also used for safety and common calling, per Part 80 Rules & Regs. The use of channel 16 is regulated by rule and does not require a station or individual license while operating on-board a vessel or in port. No, the use of the Part 80 freqs cannot be used on hiking trails and even for your land yachts.

As dosw said, the repeater would help you only if you could get it between the two locations. And again, elevation is your friend. 10mi in flat-ish land is a lot to ask without some height.

If you and your family member are both holding the radio at five feet off the ground, and there are absolutely no contours to the earth or other obstructions between you, you'll get about 5.5 miles range. This is because even lacking contours, at 5.5 miles the curvature of the earth will block your signal, if both antennas are at 5' off the ground. If you can get both antennas 20 feet off the ground, the curvature of the earth will attenuate the signal at just under 11 miles. So, again, if there are no contours to the terrain, and there is nothing else between you, the curvature comes into play at just under 11 miles. If you can get one antenna 30 feet off the ground, and the other is 5 feet (base station to handheld, for example), you will get 9.44 miles of range. To get ten mile coverage with one handheld radio (antenna 5 feet) and the other radio a base station, the base station's antenna needs to be 36 feet off the ground. Here's a formula you can use: range[miles] = 1.22459*sqrt(height[feet_antenna_A]) + 1.22459*sqrt(height[feet_antenna_B]) But that formula applies if the earth doesn't have any variations in the terrain. This is Kansas, but it's not *that* flat; there is some variation. That variation can help you or harm you. If you're able to take advantage of slight hills to get the antennas higher, great. If the slight hills block your antennas, not great. As for a repeater, it doesn't change physics, it just adds a third antenna to the mix that, if placed in a location between you and your family members, or if placed high on a hillside that all of you can "see" at the same time, is able to be the antenna you talk through. Repeaters make a lot of sense where I live; there are mountains around me, and everyone lives in a valley below the mountains. So if someone has the ability to place a repeater 1000 or 1500 feet above the valley, everyone can access that repeater all over the valley. But you're in flatter terrain, and may not find such advantaged repeaters. Also, this isn't a power issue. A 50w radio can't blast through the curvature of the earth. And if you all could "see" an antenna elevated a thousand feet over the area, you could all hit it at 2w from many miles away, until you reach the curvature limit again. A theoretical 1000 foot high antenna communicating with a handheld at 5 feet would have 41 miles range. The farthest repeater I can hit is 64 miles away, and I'm at 5000 feet elevation, the valley floor is 4200 feet, so we're both well above the obstructions around us and the curvature probably wouldn't eliminate our "line of sight" until we get to a distance of about 75 miles.

A better antenna, mounted as high above your roof as possible (and the same on their end) might work.

There's an area in Utah that uses Channel 9 / Tone 11. Using a low power channel with a tone seems butt stupid to me, but I guess it's easy to remember... Edit: I misremembered slightly. 9 / 11 for when a rescue is underway. Which...changing channels when you're already talking to the guy also seems butt stupid when you have a comms link set up that works. https://utahavalanchecenter.org/education/group-group-radio-channel-initiative

Both MURS and FRS lie just above the Ham 2M and 70cm bands. The ratio between the mid point of the 2M band frequency range to the mid point of the MURS band is 0.953. The ratio between the mid point of the 70cm band frequency range to the mid point of the FRS band is 0.946. It's an almost identical ratio so a simple reduction on the element length would likely work just fine for both to modify a Ham dual band rubber duck antenna.

I am a new radio user. I purchased the Baofeng AR5RM hand radio. I want to talk to my family that live within a 10 mile radius in the Kansas City, KS area. I have a GMRS license. Questions. How do I optimze range, at this point it only goes about half kilometer? Need at least 10 miles. Do I need a repeater to boost signal? I have Chirp installed on my computer.