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The History behind the Travel Tone

Sure you can: You're driving in your Jeep on some off-road adventure with your new KG-935G instead of your dirt-laden UV-5R which you programmed for free with CHIRP. When you use your UV-5R you have actually started to memorize which of your favorite channels for simplex and repeaters by channel number, so you can just go right to that channel by number. But now you've got your 935G and how does it get the same order of channels, so that you don't have to go manually channel by channel to get to Crestline when you need it?!? Because using the "free" Wouxun software you must individually input all "X" number of channels that you have in your UV-5R one by one. Admittedly you only have to do this "data entry" once, until... Now you discover a new repeater and where does it get programmed: at the end of your existing list! So instead of being able to put it right next to your other favorite repeaters, you have to scroll on the fly to get to it, until you memorize what channel number the new repeater was entered into. Why is this?!? Because "free" Wouxun software has NO import, export or even "save as csv" features, which would allow you to take your UV-5R library and just PLOP it into the Wouxun software and then tweak it as needed. Now, I have never purchased RT Systems software, but I am tempted to do it for my legacy Yaesu FT-857d, because owning it for all these years, I still have NO channels in memory because it is a PITA to do so manually and there was no Yaesu software, free or otherwise, when they released it years ago. Why does CHIRP, a "free" program, have the ability to copy and paste entries from one model, UV-5R, to another CHIRP supported model? Because a bunch of dedicated computer geeks get satisfaction from constantly improving an open source computer program while paying their rent and groceries from some other source. The guys at RT, well this is their day job, so they need that $30 to earn a decent living wage to support their families. They don't hold a gun to your head to buy their product; it is just BETTER than the free Wouxun software for that one purpose; maybe more! BTW: I do not own any Wouxun radios (affiliate link not below), but I did once (the UV-3 tri-bander) and sold it on eBay after Baofeng came out with a cheaper model that used all the same accessories as my other Baofengs (mostly my batteries). I did not like typing all my channels into the free Wouxun software back then either! But I did recently buy a TYT-UV88 HT, which is modeled after the Radioditty GM-30 and it can transmit on the Ham bands, as well (a feature that is important to me - all in one radios). The TYT software is clearly better than CHIRP in many ways BUT I still was grateful that CHIRP supports the UV88 because I used CHIRP to quickly import all my favorite simplex, repeater and scanner frequencies in the order I am always used to using them. Once imported by CHIRP, I then use the TYT software to "READ" it from the HT and presto(!), all of my stuff is in the order I need and use it! Now a little tip, I learned from programming my Anytone AT-779UV (the clone of the Radioddity DB-20G) with its "free" Anytone software. Break up the programming into segments and put gaps in between so that as you grow, you can add new channels contiguously to your old ones, and not at the bottom of the list. So for example: My first group are the 30 GMRS Channels GAP My 2nd group are my GMRS Repeaters with Local first and then more distance ones I use afterwards, with a small GAP in between GAP My 3rd group are the 5 MURS channels GAP My 4th group are the 23 repeaters belonging to the Ham Repeater Club in SoCal for which I am a dues paying member (PAPA System), because I want to be able to hit one of these no matter where in SoCal I am driving GAP My 5th group are all my favorite 2 meter repeaters GAP My 6th group are my 4-2 meter simplex frequencies GAP My 7th group are all my favorite 440 MHz repeaters GAP My 8th group are my 3-440 MHz simplex frequencies GAP My 9th group are my public service scanning frequencies, starting with KNX-AM on 450.700 because in an emergency I hope to be able to hear their broadcasts as needed (with scanning turned off of course on this channel). MAJOR GAP All the way at the bottom of my 500 channels, I have the 7 NOAA channels. Now here is what Wouxun gives you for free: OF course as a GMRS only user, your level of programming complexity is much less, but many of your "viewers" are also Hams and even you will need to add more Repeaters in time.

I have my base station back up after my lighting strike. I monitor MURS, and GMRS Channels 1-22. I have the FRS 8-14 programmed for monitoring. I have overserved a great number of people using the Travel Tone" . I have all the channels programmed into my D578 with the travel tone. If these users are using the travel tone in my book they want to be talked to by other operators? I get some positive replies and some less the positive replies when I try to talk back to them. So what I guess I am asking. Is why use the "Travel Tone" if you don't want to be bothered? Thanks WRCW870

CHIRP will quite happily program your FT-857D... I used CHIRP to program mine several years ago. I also left plenty of blank space between my 'grouped' entries. I even have specific favorite 40m, 20m, 10m, and 6m frequencies programmed!

thanks for the astute answer on checking the frequency. Both my radios were off frequency for channel repeater 15 which is what my local repeater transmits on. I have reprogrammed one and waiting to get the other one from my son to correct it. We should be good to go then. thanks so much for your assistance. I would have never thought to check that.

There are already illegal cross band repeaters operating between MURS and GMRS for exactly the reason above. I think it would be a better bet going digital, DMR. There are SFR, single frequency repeaters that take advantage of the dual time slot nature of DMR. The repeaters don’t need expensive tuned cavity filters. No new frequencies are necessary either. Being narrow band, 12.5KHz wide channels, it might be possible to spilt one or two of the existing wide band repeater frequency pairs into two channels. One or two SFR’s could operate on one of the existing analog input frequencies and the same with the output frequencies. Thus one old analog repeater frequency pairs could accommodate up to four digital SFR systems. One could “sell” this to the FCC as making better use of the current spectrum while simplifying the the system hardware making it more accessible to the general public.