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FT-891

I’ve had one for years but disappointed in its front end. perhaps mine was bad from the start but @Papatree’s FT-691 is pulling stations out of the noise that I cannot discern what they’re saying!

I agree with this completely, and I can go further with my own experiences. I have always believed in having radio communications at the ready for just about any reason, but especially when SHTF. Ham radio, GMRS/FRS, CB radio, MURS, you name it; I always want to have a way to communicate, and it has worked out well for me. The same goes for radio modes; voice, SSB, AM, FM, digital, even slow-scan TV (SSTV); there's not much I haven't tried. I do a LOT of research (ask my wife), and not only do I take helpful tips and hints from others to make my radio comms reliable, I work to create my own ideas and make those work as well. The reason for all of this work? I don't trust cell phones further than I can throw them. I do know a fair number of people (including some family members) that would rather trust a cell phone than a radio, saying that it's "antiquated." In some aspects that may be true, but when it's all said and done I can reach out and contact someone, somewhere, before they can. But that's a SHTF situation. I love radio, and for me it's both a hobby and a service that I know I can count on if I have to. I know that others may have differing opinions, and that's OK with me. There's something for everyone with radio. Warren, WRPC505 / WQ1C

newbie here in Waunakee - WRTA477. Trying to learn as much as I can. Started with a Wouxun KG-905G, looking to move into mobile, and then figure out a good base station.

@gman1971 it is pretty awesome. I'll see if I can find someone to chat with and record it so you can hear it. I'll shoot a video.

@marcspazsounds awesome!! If CB (11m) on FM using a radio like an Alan Multi42/RPSY-201 Titan Handled was nice, I can only imagine what it is with higher quality stuff... G.

I laughed when I read that. The Gman does NOT spend big money on his radios. Most of his Motorola gear was acquired at prices well below dealer cost. I'd venture to say that every Moto radio he owns could be sold today at a profit. Not sure many CCR owners could say the same. But, you're right about receivers.

No channels are reserved for anything except for repeater input frequencies being reserved for repeater inputs. Even that has some exceptions. § 95.1731 Permissible GMRS uses. The operator of a GMRS station may use that station for two-way plain language voice communications with other GMRS stations and with FRS units concerning personal or business activities. (a) Emergency communications. Any GMRS channel may be used for emergency communications or for traveler assistance. Operators of GMRS stations must, at all times and on all channels, give priority to emergency communications § 95.1763 GMRS channels. (c) 467 MHz main channels. Only mobile, hand-held portable, control and fixed stations may transmit on these 8 channels. Mobile, hand-held portable and control stations may transmit on these channels only when communicating through a repeater station or making brief test transmissions in accordance with § 95.319(c).

In 2018 and 2019 I was addicted to 10m FM long distance contacts. Talked to somebody on an FM repeater in NY state. The repeater was full-quiet on my receive and the other guy (who was local to the repeater) said I was full-quiet into the repeater. Another person I talked to in Texas mobile to mobile. We were 60dB over S9 both ways.. it was like we were parked next to each other. Stuff like that is a blast. It's part of what made me upgrade to a General... the solar minimum rolled in and I still wanted to talk.

A very good point for newbies out there. Power isn't everything. Having a bullet proof receiver that won't overload and maintains selectivity in a high RF environment is critical. This is why you'll see people like gman1971 spending big bucks on commercial radios, his favorite are Motorola models. I also have a collection but I'm mainly into the Kenwood stuff. People get tempted by the cheap, or cheaper, Chinese radios. For some people they might be OK for their intended usage, occasional non-critical communications. I'll admit I have a few as "beater radios" and you get what you pay for, if you're lucky. If you want something you're going to bet your life on look at buying a better radio. There is a reason why those radios carried by police and firefighters cost in the $1,000's, their life is on the line. Those radios CAN'T afford to fail.

Not sure if you've made some purchases by now, but the Yaesu FT-857(D) is a great value; I had one and LOVED it. Had to sell it to finance a fledgling photography business. Even though Yaesu has finally discontinued that radio, you can find one fairly easily online. Warren, WQ1C / WRPC505

Yup. Talking face to face you get to read the other person's body language and not form your opinion on what just come out of the mouth or the fingers on the keyboard. Some people say things in jest, but you can't tell unless you read their body language. There is a lot of nonverbal communications that's lost when using messaging apps etc. Maybe that's why this county is going to crap. People don't talk to each other in person so much any more.

I have been a licensed Ham and GMRS operator for over 20 years. I come from a career in Law Enforcement in the Cincinnati, Ohio area. Back in the late 90s most of the GMRS users on one of the high profile repeaters were mostly police and fire personnel. We all had fun playing radio, seeing how much we could reverse engineer our favorite batwing gear and respected each other. The repeater owner for that system had passed away so the repeater had went off of the air. Sure there were others but life, kids and other obligations were calling. So I took a break from GMRS and still played on digital in Ham. About two years ago I found a radio, dropped it in the charger and found that one of the local repeaters was still on the air. I immediately connected up with one of the members from our group in the 90s. He filled me in on the current condition and how much activity was taking place on the several GMRS repeaters in the city. So I listened for a few weeks......Wow was I disgusted! The lack of respect and decorum that these people have is appalling. The sad thing is most of them are hams (have been ran off of repeaters there) and are not even repeater owners...It's basically, I bought my $20 piece of crap radio and I'm going to do anything I want and no one can stop me....With all of this has came with profanity, music over the radio, keying up on top of others and other nefarious behaviors that some may relate to CB but I'm pretty sure its not legal there either. Plus being the son of a retired union truck driver, I used the CB when I was little and did not treat the service with that outlook. So I called the "flagship" or high profile repeater owners and said we have to do something. Hell, one of the repeater owners was even called and exploitive word that is not appropriate for this site, while he wasn't on the air and on the repeater that he pays for a nd supports on his own. We had operators telling the repeater owners they did not have any rights to restrict their use and that all GMRS repeaters are there for free use of the service and there are magical unicorns in the air farting dollar bills,,, ok so I made up the last. At the beginning of this year I began to draft an initiative to change things and bring class and decorum back to the service. The GMRS community in the city consists of about 140 operators. The majority of which are good, rule and law following individuals and do not wish to "freeload" as the small amount of individuals that have no skin in the game wish to do. Since forming, the Association has Incorporated, elected board members with the five founding members, adopted by laws, obtained a EIN number and received our 501c3 determination from the IRS which is huge. The Association has adopted a Operational Policy and Code of Conduct that all members must accept when petitioning for membership. The membership fee will be $40.00 per year. We have also registered as a charitable organization with the Kroger Company and Amazon. Our activities are described as expanding the education and technical abilities of the GMRS radio service while available to assist any public service agency in the event of a declared disaster with Emergency Communications. So that is where we are now. The applications will go out this week. The dues program will go live on June 1st, 2022 with a two week grace period for payment. Long story short; if you are not a paying member in good standing your repeater access will be revoked by the repeater owner as described in 95.1705. The relationship between the Association and the repeater owner is clearly explained in a executed memorandum of understanding for each repeater. We currently now have nine repeaters involved. The Association also has within it's powers to create a committee to evaluate any repair/maintenance reimbursement from a repeater owner. Within our operational guidelines, we have also restricted the use of the service to being another Ham repeater to talk about Ham Radio topics. If you want to talk about ham radio, there are a plethora of 6m, 2m, 1.25m, 40cm and 33cm repeaters in our area that sit silent in idle at all hours... Go there.... We also have operators passing GMRS callsigns around like they are ham radio operators, 15 minutes! use your unit number, you are taking up Airtime and hogging the repeaters. Another bad habit from the hams is not thinking about what to say before you key the mic. Operators will key up and uh uh uh and oh wow plus others. I understand my public safety background broke me of it, think about what you are going to say before you key the mic, say it and listen... You cannot hear someone else while you are yappin...We have also instructed our members to stop the Q codes and 73s, GMRS is a totally different service from Ham... If you want to talk ham radio, use one of those many repeaters that sit silent Now you are probably reading this and thinking, wow, pretty drastic...... No, absolutely not, the repeaters we have here are all owned by individuals. That means they are PRIVATE property, if you do not want someone to be at your property or to use your property you have the right to say that. That up to this point has not been respected. Imagine this, you are sitting on your couch, your door swings open, some guy from down the street kicks in your door, starts bashing your house apart and leaves.. What is the difference when people are doing what was described in the above, or stay keyed up for long transmit times, just resetting the TOT and not letting the repeater come up for air. Our organization has been received by the masses very well. A repeater is a complex and expensive piece of equipment. 80% of our repeater equipment is equipped with the capability to restrict access on the analog system. We will evaluate if we decide to use this as it will keep anyone who does not have the correct access information into that repeater with MDC technology. Other than that we are looking forward to getting our membership trained with the ICS modules and becoming more involved with our communities in any way we may serve. Just my story and my two pennies on radio clubs in GMRS. I have said from the beginning of our endeavor, we must do this right and thorough. I believe we have built the foundation. Take care, Jamie

As a fellow repeater owner... I agree with your rant... In fact, I have an aproved only closed repeater and first problem maker, change the codes. Per FCC I have the rules in my favor. There are two types of users, those so thankful and the other who think it like public access and they can say whatever. Keep to you guns... EDIT: My repeater is not listed and it more word of mouth, friend of a friend....

Kinda sucks. I feel for you. Only takes one bad apple to spoil it for everyone. Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

Well, it's been not quite a month now since I received a partial refund* for a brand new BCR-40U I purchased back in February. I received the unit in early March and it was bad out of the box. I contacted Bridgecom who instructed me to 'open a ticket'. In fact, they don't do anything until you go through the process of opening a ticket. Then you wait anywhere from a day to a week for a response. I had my suspicions as to where the problem lay and informed Bridgecom that I could, with their approval, crack the cover and diagnose the problem and, that I am not only qualified to do this, but have state of the art test equipment (if required). However, they basically insisted that I send it in to them (at my cost ~$90 USD) I sent it insured of course, but even if I hadn't, it would have been about $50 to ship it back. It turns out, it was a bad duplexer (as I suspected), and so they sent it back and it worked fine, save for yet another issue (I'll get to that). Less than a day later, it stopped working for no apparent reason. This time I decided to at least look at the programming and found that the repair tech left in a test channel and, after I removed it with the software, the repeater started working again. Now to the next problem... One of the first things I found wrong with this repeater is that if you program in a user with DCS on RX, that is the only user you can have, included the sysop/control user. Tone squelch users, you can have as many as you want up to the limit of 23 users/coded squelch per channel. After reading the manual and all of the sales literature, which makes no mention of this limitation, I Contacted Bridgecom (again), and they basically became forthcoming and stated it was a limitation of one of the chips controlling coded squelch system. It is also important to note, that per the instruction manual, the unit IS CAPABLE of multiple DCS users. Indeed, I think it was me pointing out that fact they agree to refund my money. After that last confession and 2 primary failures, I decided enough is enough. You spend good money for a new repeater you expect better. So I requested and received a refund, well, sort of. The refund appears to have been short the tax I paid for the original purchase. Compound that with the fact that I had to pay to return it twice (once for the repair and once for a refund) at a cost to me of just shy of $200, I am out of pocket about $250 just for 'trying' a (brand new) Bridgecom repeater. I'm really sad to have to write this, but others should be warned. I very much wanted to support a small American vendor/manufacturer, but I've never been so disappointed with any vendor/manufacturer. Between the failures, slow service, basically false advertising (the DCS issue) and, having to pay to return (again twice) a unit that was defective from day one, it was just too much. I'm kicking myself today because what I should have done was purchase a used Motorola repeater for less than what I paid for the 'new' BCR-40U. And I am not talking buying off eBay either, there are plenty of mainstream dealers where you can get a used MTR2000 or even a Quantar for less than the BCR-40U. Bottom, line, I have to call the Bridgecom BCR-40U a 'Don't Buy'. Not just for the defective unit, but also their warranty policies which leaves a customer out of pocket. I had to pay for their problems? WTF?? Indeed, given their service/warranty policies, I don't think I'll ever buy anything from them again. Just my own experience, FWIW!

I used to belong to a CB club many many years ago in Colorado Springs, I just got my GMRS license, don't have a radio yet. Over the years I've looked at ham radio, but the cost of equipment kinda kept me away, gone are the days of build it yourself Tandy kits. I'll have to see if there is much activity near me, I'm between Waco and Austin here in central Texas, there are a few low power repeaters in and around Austin, and a big on near Waco. Used to be a sideband group in Salisaw Oklahoma I could reach on 10M. with an Antron 99 at 30 ft. Will have to wait & see how the GMRS plays out down here

I agree with this part, as I was having to do the same thing. Working in commercial/military radio for thirty years and doing amateur/GMRS for much of that, I needed something better than a cell phone when in the wilderness. Having a background in satcom, i also carried a satellite phone and later a satellite beacon that can sync to my cell phone to send messages. However, it is the GMRS radio that is cheap and common enough that I almost always make contact with someone when out and about. Like others have mentioned though, I have also experienced the end of many auxiliary communications services and emcomm entities in Oregon, as they only bring radio experience to the table much of the time. While they help with parades, and disaster comms, in my area of the country, they often lack the Incident Command Structure (ICS) training, and miss many of the collaborative training opportunities with city, county, and tribal elements. My advice to emcomm people still doing that work, stay engaged or you may be replaced with technology, and foster the relationships with Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT), local fire and law enforcement and emergency medical professionals......take that first aid class or learn to teach CPS with AED. Take the ICS certification classes and show up, and you may keep that "seat at the table" when the decision is made on interoperability and inclusion. Washington State in contrast, does appear to keep emcomm volunteers, and engage CERT, ARES, RACES, and AFMARS, combining the efforts of the state military department, and civilian emergency management along with some coordination with FEMA Region Ten headquarters....while keeping the line between state/county/city/tribal and federal apart. Representing the corporate side of the house, I also partake in a weekly check-in via HF and UHF nets, which is in use as both commercial and hobby radio comms....but with some emergency management aspects added in for those that wish to participate. The cool thing with radio and the many aspects of it, is that you can participate at whichever level you want to, be it commercial, military (even for civilians - Military Affiliate Radio is not just for the military), public safety, hobby use, and emergency use. All are useful.

Not trying to derail the topic too much, but this is a huge pain point for me. Amateur radio is not a "hobby". There are hobby aspects to it, 100%, just like there are hobby aspects of GMRS and FRS. However, its really intended for non-commercial exchange of messages, experimentation, private recreation and emergency communication. It has origins dating back to the 1800's and the birth of radio as we know it. There are huge amounts of technology that exist due to amateur radio, such as microphones and even cell phones. In fact, the antenna type used in every smartphone in the world was invented by an amateur radio operator that is still very active in Ham radio. Just a little something to think about.

Hobby radio is going by the wayside. It sucks, but it's still the truth. GMRS is not a lot different than ham in this respect. I realize it's not 'hobby radio' in the sense that ham is but it's not really commercial either. Commercial gets boosted as subscribers and reaccuring fee's keep many businesses away from going cellular but everyone else has gone to cell phones. And you can't blame them. The manufactures are marketing Android based radios now that will act as a phone in certain situations and they are making radios that work on the cellular network for those that really miss Nextel. All I can say is if you enjoy GMRS / Ham Radio or both, stay with it and don't worry about others not seeing a use for it. Phones work great until they don't. Radios will most likely work after the cell network is cold if something drastic happens, but don't let that be the only reason you are messing with radios. It really takes the fun out of it.