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Well I finally got a chance to experiment with the handheld while listening to a long conversation. The dropping audio problem turned out to be the squelch, and once I turned on the receive DCS for the repeater then the squelch behaved itself and the dropping audio problem went away. With DCS off the audio was coming and going. So I suspect a programming or audio circuitry error in the Wouxun KG-S88G, but here is the workaround.

Have I got a deal for you guys. ? My old Asus EEE resets back to the early 2000s every time I shut it down. FYI you will get errors from windows update and browsers if you try to operate that way very long.

https://mygmrs.com/repeater/2309 If you scroll down past the map, there are some instructions on how to set up zello on that repeater. Hope this helps.

^ ^ ^ Thank you, ss. User JeepCrawlers first reply in that thread is indeed edifying. Then, there's mbrun's comment! Hahaha... "When I hear roger beeps, I immediately think of kids playing with toys and cheap radios, sort of like clipping playing cards onto one’s bicycle to rub on the spokes and make noise while you ridding. Fun for the person making the noise, annoying to everyone else." I am further edumacated! Thank you. ?

If Kenwood ever started to produce the TH-D74A again in a DMR format they likely couldn't keep them in stock on the shelf. I would be interested in buying one just to get away from the Chinese stuff.

The 70cm is close enough to GMRS frequencies to get a good idea of performance. Many 70cm antennas can be used with out problem on GMRS. The Nagoya 771g will likely be a good choice. Smiley antenna has a good 465MHz antenna line that is equivalent or better than the Nagoya. I think the ABBREEs are more of a novelty/“Airsoft” antenna. They work, but I find signal stick, smiley and Nagoya to be better

I’m gonna put up a repeater and make it a requirement that everyone must use a roger beep and the more annoying the better. We’ll hold contests! And it’ll be on channel 19. ?

Are there plans or people interested in expanding the Net to the Pacific Northwest? -Josh WROJ763

Disregard, I was able to toggle closed then open and now the access button is disabled... Hello, I own the Macomb 675 repeater in Michigan. I have set it up on .675 with a pl of 141.3 and DO NOT require permission. I still get request almost daily for permission with I feel compelled to approve. I have it set to "open" FWIW... Is there a way to eliminate the "REQUEST ACCESS" button, or even better, have a pop up with a canned message? I've been replying with: We do not require permission. The Macomb 675 is an open repeater and you are free to use it within the parameters of your GMRS license. Welcome.

The Nagoya 15.3-Inch NA-771G is widely considered one of the best antennas for GMRS HTs. Yet the 28.3 Inch Length ABBREE SMA-Female Dual Band 144/430Mhz Foldable CS Tactical Antenna is much larger. Has anybody ever directly compared the two antennas? Is the Nagoya always superior to that ABBREE or does the latter have an edge over the Nagoya in some circumstances and, if yes, which ones? I only use HTs, by the way (mostly a Wouxun 935G), so I wonder if ever should ever use the ABBREE or is the Nagoya always the best choice? Thank you!

Ok. It took my little rat brain a few minutes to understand. So yes, I turned the computer clock back to 2005 and initiated the software. It allowed me to switch it over to wideband. Thank everyone for your help! Hard to believe that something could actually be that simple.

I think I just go back to playing with my D-Star, NXDN and P25 radios.

You can download the 935G programming software even if you don't have a programming cable and just open it. It will be the default settings of the radio including the factory channel presets. If it looks OK to you, then reset the radio (menu 57) to factory default.

It is technically possible, but I sure wouldn't do it. There is so much loss running duplexer that the idea of adding a diplexer to share the antenna sounds painful. Like, depending on the quality of parts, your talking about reducing your transmitter and receive signals by 24dB to 30dB. Real world, one of my duplexers has 10dB of loss and one of my diplexers has 14dB of loss to provide 60dB of separation. With a station that only has about 20w to start would give you 0.3w... one third of a watt is nothing.

The interstitial channels do in GMRS: (b) 462 MHz interstitial channels. The effective radiated power (ERP) of mobile, hand-held portable and base stations transmitting on the 462 MHz interstitial channels must not exceed 5 Watts. (c) 467 MHz interstitial channels. The effective radiated power (ERP) of hand-held portable units transmitting on the 467 MHz interstitial channels must not exceed 0.5 Watt. Each GMRS transmitter type capable of transmitting on these channels must be designed such that the ERP does not exceed 0.5 Watt.

Narrowbanding was mandated after 1/1/2013 so any time in 2012 works as well.

You didn’t provide much background. I don’t know if the preprogrammed channels will survive a reset. Your seller can advise you. What I would suggest is to download the configuration from the radio before performing a reset. As far as your second question, whether CTCSS should be on, it depends on whether whatever radio you’re transmitting to is set to expect CTCSS. If you’re just transmitting in hopes that someone will hear you and chat with you, then leave CTCSS off. If you’re trying to get into a repeater that requires CTCSS, then turn it on, but you must make sure to set the right CTCSS tone to transmit. When getting started it’s usually better to leave CTCSS off on the receive side, at least until you know what you’re doing.

Ok, got it. Yes, in the amateur market, Kenwood went with Icom for D-Star, Yaesu made their own YSF, and some of the CCRs tried to copy DMR. I'm still not convinced they meet the DMR standard, or use the correct AMBE+2 codec. On the commercial side, in terms of use on amateur radio, P25 is compatible with P25 across the board, NXDN is compatible with NXDN across the board as is DMR.

I think it’s still possibly multipath.

I found a list of Railroad frequencies from a massive pre-programmed code plug for the Wouxun KG-UV9X and I turned them into a CSV file for you: Railroad Channels.csv

This is the kind of stuff we see. This one is actually on HF but we have seen this noise much higher into VHF/UHF as well but this type of unnatural spikes across the band or covering multiple channel slots is what you want to find. Look at the visible jagged spikes below. The other thing to keep in mind, though not as likely as you mentioned you tried a few different radios, but as 935 was pointing out on my post that a lot of this SOC/SDR style, cheap Chinese radios have the front-ends as wide as a barn door and are susceptible to desensing, mixing and intermod. There is an area near where I live by the airport and county dispatch that any Baufeng, BTECH or other cheap SDR gets slammed and sometimes it is so clear it sounds like they are dispatching right on GMRS or our UHF frequency but we don't get that at all on Yaesu, Kenwood or Icoms.

People are covering some a lot of good info above. As one that spends a lot of time on VHF/UFH I can tell you there are some really pesky interference sources lately. The extra wide or drifting carrier is kind of a telltale sign it is not likely a radio. The most common we have tracked down recently are: Switching Power Supplies Cell and USB chargers Home and Auto (They switching powers supplies) - this is very common in cars and comes and goes as the device charges Solar Chargers and Grid-Tie Inverters - people are adding more and more solar arrays by the day. (Worse during daylight hours) LED lighting systems If it really gets annoying buy or borrow a cheap SDR donglem go mobile and use that with a portable laptop to track it down. Also check your own house as well. I will see if I can find a spectrum pic of some of the madness we have seen.

We have two repeaters that cover virtually all of Southern California and the use of roger-beeps is very strongly encouraged.. This discourages "some people" from using the repeaters making for a more pleasant repeater experience for everyone. One of the repeaters also has it's own roger-beep.

I usually do a single wrap of electrical tape over the exposed threads to keep them clean, wrap the whole thing in linerless splicing tape (3M 130), then wrap that with electrical tape (3M Super 33). I'll wrap from bottom to top in exterior connections - same way you'd shingle a roof, for the same reasons. Have never had an issue with it - Type N connectors are better than PL259 not just for loss, but they're technically weatherproof as well (although I wouldn't trust them by themselves).

I suspect it was a couple of guys with FRS radios...

Being listed as a guest is gonna be a non-starter. Part of the verification process for a node is license verification. Not sure if you gave your license or not, but your account here gets tied to the repeater node. You of course also realize that it's the holiday season and people are doing other stuff. Please be patient it does take a couple weeks to get things in order.

Unless the local repeater offers that you can't. Go to the main page and look at the network for repeaters on networks. https://network.mygmrs.com/map

It’s OK, I don’t have any friends to talk to either?

I'd be interested in possibly expanding coverage in South Central Oregon. The Klamath Basin. I have no idea how to go about it. I'm retired but on a limited budget and have time to do something. I might get into ham one day but the study material just doesn't stick with me.

I am interested in expanding the net to Northwest Washington. I run the repeaters in Whatcom County. While I have a baseline knowledge of RF and setting up repeaters I do not have what it takes to get them linked. there is a local net Tuesdays at 1800 on the Lookout machine. and Pacnw send me a message for the tones on Lookout. There are parts of Seattle it will reach.

Why I joined, to see if there was anyone else in the area. Definitely looking for more activity in the Pacific Northwest. I know FRS/GMRS is used often in WA/OR/ID, but have experienced more users in Montana. My time in Seattle has shown that the UHF spectrum is saturated, with FRS/GMRS being almost constant. Actually interfered with a lot of commercial UHF testing as a result. Will be checking this thread from time to time.