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GMRS during power outage
DownEastNC and 2 others reacted to WRHS218 for a topic
I live in a smallish mountain community not far from the South Gate of Yosemite. Several months ago I showed my son-in-law my KG-905G and after discussing GMRS for a while he ordered one and got his license. We have tested our radios and we can talk to each other from our houses. He and my daughter live 3.7 miles away with top of a ridge between us. I have lived here more than four years now and have become accustomed to power outages. Last week we lost power around 0730 on a weekday. When this happens to one of us we normally text each other to see if the other is in the dark as well. This time I couldn't text. My phone also couldn't get online. The Verizon tower is a little over 1 mile away with a direct line of site. I tried calling but didn't get an answer. My son-in-law called me a minute later and I was able to receive the call. We coordinated channels and were able to communicate easily with our GMRS handhelds. My phone was pretty much useless. When the power came back on three hours later my phone returned to normal. We are working on a communication plan for future outages and emergencies. This is the first time my cell coverage has been affected by loss of power. So this was a good reminder that cell phones don't always work during power outages and it is good to have GMRS as a back up if your geography allows.3 points -
Yes, you can use an amp but why? It would be less expensive to just buy a higher power radio without the multiple point-of-failure hassle.3 points
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That my point... I would pay for the right product and if it fails will bitch for refund or suit if my radio gets bricked for a replacement... MacJack2 points
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OK, now I'm starting to get my thick head around it! Thank you guys so much for elmering me on this one!2 points
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Power amplifier
WROA675 reacted to AdmiralCochrane for a question
No. No difference that you could tell1 point -
Power amplifier
WROA675 reacted to MichaelLAX for a question
Except that Papatree and I are unable to communicate simplex on one of the 5 watt channels, yet do so fine on one of the 550-725 channels using 25 watts in his case and 18 watts in mine.1 point -
In an emergency don't count on any repeaters to be functioning. Some may have provisions for emergency power, many don't. The ones that do will likely be reserved for emergency traffic only, not open for general communications. For the later you'll need to rely on simplex or put up you own repeater and then insure it has power to continue operation in a grid down situation.1 point
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The difference is one gets paid for their work, the other is a volunteer that does not get paid. The whole idea of open source software is that the community chips in. Anyone that has the skills and interest can chip in to bring closure to the driver. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM1 point
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I believe the rules state 50w maximum. For a base with a good antenna and feedline 5w is more than enough. I have a StationMaster fed with 1/2" Heliax at 50' and I get out just fine. As for an amp, just use what you have as there's going to be no noticeable difference between the two power levels. Invest your time and money into a good antenna system.1 point
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Power amplifier
WROA675 reacted to Radioguy7268 for a question
You would also have to realize that in order to bump up your transmit power by just 3dB - you would need to double the transmit power up to 36 watts. How high did you plan to go? Is the transmit power where your system is lacking? The old GMRS rules specifically ruled out using external power amps. Not so sure that the newer revision still does. You also need to realize that most cheap amps will amplify noise as well as signal across a broad range. In short - if you're throwing off some spurious birdies - the amplifier is going to increase those spurs as well as your desired frequency. It's not going to make you popular with your frequency neighbors. As BoxCar said - invest in a higher power mobile if you truly need more power. Or just get a better antenna. Or better coax. You're probably losing 1 or 2 dB just in your cheap coax - not to mention any poor connectors or adapters you might be using.1 point -
Welcome!
DownEastNC reacted to PhilVB for a topic
GMRS Radio newbe from VA Beach VA here. Look forward to learning lots.1 point -
Channel question
mbrun reacted to wayoverthere for a topic
Only if you have a tone set on your receive....think of tones as a filter on what you hear, rather than keeping others from hearing anything. If you have a tone set, you only hear signals with that tone. If you have no tone set, there's no filter in place, so you hear everything on the channel.1 point -
Construction / Development site Repeater
Radioguy7268 reacted to gortex2 for a topic
For Part 90 gear I would recommend a good used MTR2000. They made high and low power and they are pretty solid. I also ran a Kenwood TKR850 for a bit which was solid for my limited use.1 point -
Oh, one other item. Some of the commercial digital radios will accept remote commands to do things. For example turn on the remote radio's transmitter so the base can monitor what is going on or send the current GPS info for those radios with that feature.1 point
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Hmm... I order almost once a month from motorolasolutions.com, the site is not slow for me, but again, in computers it really depends... if you run the site with a Pentium III I am sure it will be a bit slower than if you run it with a Ryzen 9... Absolutely solid advice here: Get a NOS, or a slightly used XPR 7550e. I have an entire fleet of those and I've never had a problem. G.1 point
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Antenna in the Attic solution, help with parts and connectors
n4gix reacted to AdmiralCochrane for a question
And discount what you will hear about the Slim Jim variant. It has been debunked, it has no more gain than a plain J-pole. The myth of the Slim Jim goes back to an early article about the design that "hopes" to have higher gain. No such improvement was ever detected, but the legend goes on via "Post Office" game repetition of the original story with the details left out.1 point -
This is the exact setup I am running here in AK. Retevis RT97 somewhere between 2200 and 2600 feet up. Mounted the back of a 50 watt solar panel. The battery is a 35 amp/hour SLA which I have stored about 18" under ground to try and protect it from the extreme cold snaps we get. During the summer I can easily run a much smaller battery. A 9 amp hour battery and 30 watt panel was more than sufficient during our summer. The larger battery and panel is needed for cold temps and low sunlight in the winter here. There is a small solar controller mounted to the rear of the panel as well. I have an N9TAX single band GMRS antenna. The repeater can be heard out at 20-25 miles and I can get back into it at that distance with 5 watts. 1 watt under ideal circumstances. The repeater does suffer from desence a bit as I can always hear it further than I can get into it with an HT. If I drop it to low power it performs almost identically to my HTs (VX-231s and PR400s) in that if I can hear it, I can get back into it with about the same quality.1 point
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Welcome!
DownEastNC reacted to PACNWComms for a topic
New GMRS license holder, but not new to FCC licenses overall. Just needed another radio in my commute car, and this was the cheap, easy, and fun way to go.1 point -
WROG864 Mike
phottomatt reacted to mbrun for a topic
First off, welcome to GMRS. Those radio are officially GMRS radios because power is just over 2w which is one of the crossover points from FRS to GMRS. I have four of them from back when they were rated at 5-watt. Yes, it is protocol to use your callsign for legal operation under your license. As you might expect, my wife and I both use the same callsign. However, when we are communicating with each other we append ‘Base’ ‘Mobile’ ‘Unit 1’ ‘Unit 2’ etc… depending which radio we are using. Our radios have labels on them, so if another family member is using one of them they too know what to append to the call sign. Using the callsign takes getting use to when you first start out, but it becomes second nature with practice. In some cases, it is so much so that you may find yourself repeating it far more that you legally need to. But is is also good practice IMO starting out. When you switch to radios that use repeaters, in all likelihood the repeater owners will want you and others to comply with the FCC rules regarding callsign usage. Again, welcome. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM1 point -
Welcome!
DownEastNC reacted to mbrun for a topic
Good Day Jim. Welcome to the forum. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM1 point