Leaderboard

I found several references to the use of channel 6 and a sub channel 9 in the park. FWIW

I put in another question to them to ask them what frequencies and radios they use / rent. I'll post it here.

Midland could launch a new MURS radio, I can see the add campaign... Midland MURS for Merus?

I guess I should have been more specific. I was intending to refer to a DC/DC step up converter from Samlex. Samlex has one that accepts 9-18 vDC and outputs an isolated 12.5 vDC: https://samlexamerica.com/products/fully-isolated-converter-idc-100a-12/

Well Marc, if you do go to Merus you are already radio equipped and can save the $7.00/day?

Response from MERUS: "You do not need a license to communicate over GMRS at MERUS. This is just used as emergency communications while in the park. You can wheel on any radio you would like. But you must carry or rent a GMRS to be able to contact the office while at MERUS." Well OK then. Let the debate begin. Or not.

Sorry for the double post... but I am sure this may have something to do with it, too. LOL Not gonna lie, I'm not even mad about it. hahaha

Just for kicks, I asked them. I'll see what they say.

I have that same style of microphone on a Juentai JT-6188 (a no-longer-marketed clone of the QYT KT-8900). I took it apart to do some mods to get better audio. I didn't see the metal tang on the hanger screw. Mayhaps their microphone suppliers aren't very consistent and some microphones have it, some don't. With so many clones and knock-offs of radios and microphones, it's hard to know what you're getting. Plus, with all the plastic in cars, the odds of screwing into metal are diminishing. Which means maybe some folks might not have that type of microphone, or they do and they don't know it.

I ask the boys when I have dinner with them next. 3/4 of them work with or are in the radio depots. But I know of no hacks for the mobile to open up the bands any more. Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

Agreed. I found the most traffic on 70cm yeasu c4fm, dmr and dstar. Rarely heard anything on 1.25m. Sadly, really wanted to, so I could look at those radios. Even with the popular digital modes not so many repeaters were set up for vhf. It was almost a 4-5 to 1 ratio of uhf to vhf. I looked into old motorola 33cm gear. But not many repeaters around here don't require either a 13cm or 23cm up/down link on rhe opposite side. Guess most of them were running icoms. Kinda frustrating. I thought of converting an old motorola flip phone for 900mhz.

Read the specs for the required operating voltage range for you various devices. A typical spec is 13.8 VDC, +- 10%, so they will operate properly anywhere between 12.42 and 15.18 VDC. (I have an ambulance converted into an off-grid camper, so I'm pretty familiar with setups like yours.)

My opinion is that the park would be better off renting out MURS radios. No license issues and decent terrain coverage. But there is that Midland sponsorship...

The fact that they are sponsored by Midland and the need for simplicity for non radio people I'm going with Midland FRS. Though why not just sell them?

Which are NOT Part 95E certified BTW.

They are wrong and right at the same time. LOL With very, very limited exception, this is false. Being on private property doesn't mean you can violate the FCC rules. During a life threatening emergency if you are initiating and facilitating communications to save life, you can ignore the rules (for the most part). To do the legally, you need a license, unless its a life threatening situation. Yep... it's happening now. LOL

If all he needs to do is simply boost the battery voltage the following item is what he's looking for. https://mfjenterprises.com/products/mfj-4416c For portable power where you need 120VAC I have one of the below 300 watt inverters. Some equipment will malfunction when you try to run them off one of the cheap modified sine-wave types. Mine is discontinued but there are newer models. https://gopowersolar.com/products/300-watt-pure-sine-wave-inverter/ New models. https://gopowersolar.com/product-category/inverters/pure-sine-wave-inverters/

no not really. i was being funny. like most every questions asked has a multitude of answers some correct some not.

There was one heck of a band opening this morning in Florida. My house in the Tampa area to Miami Dade 700 repeater full scale.

I expect that the ‘Rental Radios’ are, in fact, just FRS.

I'm going to take a guess here that the microphone for this radio is a clone of a for-reals Kenwood microphone, since it looks identical. I had a comercial Kenwood TK-something-or-other that had the same feature. When you hang up the microphone on a grounded clip it trips a scan circuit. Most likely, Btech has no such circuit, and for that matter they're not even expecting anyone to screw that clip into anything metal. Or some manufacturer is just cloning that microphone with zero regard to what that extra wire even does.

On an old Mororola mic I was messing with a few months ago,I found a voltage present on the "button" on the back of the mike, that slips into the mic clip. When shorted by being in the clip, the radio would scan, and when open it would stop scanning and park on the last used channel. The current from the button was just a few milliamps.

Glad it helped! I haven't seen anything in the settings on my x1 that indicated a need for the mic button to be grounded; the only setting I've seen on anything that used it was the Vertex LMR radios, which stop scanning when you take the mic out of the holder. (Its kind of nice have it scan, and ever stop on the current channel or back you what you set as "primary" when you pick up the mic)

For sure. Our case is a good example. The repeater owner linked to his webpage with information on his repeaters. He provided a RF propagation map that seems pretty accurate. The Cascade and Olympic mountains create a pretty hard cutoff, so the the coverage "circle" is anything but. I live at the north end of this map and can say the repeater is very strong much further north of the coverage circle. The primary users of the repeater seem to be around the south end.

This is kind of fun. Today, I made a new setup for operating in the field. I assembled two 25' masts from a 31' mast and a 19' mast, and strung the main element of a homemade OCF 80m antenna between them. The small element tapers off on a slant, with a rope staked in such a way that the end of the short element is about 5' off the ground. Both masts are also setup to receive vertical VHF/UHF antennas. So, I can work Amateur HF, VHF/UHF and GMRS all from one massive setup. I plan on putting this into operation for a 24 hour race I am doing communications for. I'll probably be up for 30 hours with at least 26 of them on the air. So, I'll find out just how good of an 80m NVIS and 10m-20m DX antenna this setup is. If it works well, this will be my Field Day setup. I'll shoot some pictures and video from the race to share later.

Were you able to check with a multimeter as @KAF6045suggested in the other thread? If it's something acting up when the mic button is grounded, I'd be tempted to disassemble the mic and disconnect any wires connected to the hanger button. (I know my vertex mics have a ground wire to the mic button it uses to detect "on hook" for scanning...when one wouldn't scan, I traced it down to that ground wire being broken)

Yes, although the Thales AN/PRC-148 and Harris AN/PRC-152 are the very early models. The Harris lacks the GPS module while the Thales lacks the dual RF module. My cost was just under $6k for those four radios total, while retail it should have been closer to about $24k. The Harris XG-100P was only $1200 as an IWCE pre-release sample. That included RPM12 and programming cable as well. Great deal I could not pass up. I still use the radio for amateur use mostly, and on corporate P25 Phase I for testing.

Great thread. I have dealt with Motorola, Thales, and Harris for a long while, and ended up working with Harris for field testing both the military AN/PRC-152 series and the XG-100P Unity radio for various agencies (my personal collection shown in the attached picture). Harris brought a multi-band radio with GPS to the table first, but then did not support it well when the sales did not take off (who could afford the XG-100P). In preparation for the 2009 Police and Fire Games, and Later the 2010 Olympic Games in Canada, many fire and police elements in northern Washington State were provided grant money for XG-100P/M radios. I bought a demo unit while working for the oil industry, being an intrinsically safe radio that allowed me to carry one radio instead of three (VHF,UHF and 7/800 MHz). However, I only have RPM12, so know I am missing out on some newer features. Compared to the military Motorola APX7000 (dual band I was issued), the Unity was a great radio. It still is for me now, but is heavy and lacks some refinement of newer Harris radio. They still come up on auction sites and used radio vendor sites for $800-1200 often though. There are people I know that use them for bragging rights as well, for those that want to flex on their radio geek friends. As mentioned by others the "mission plans" on the XG-100P are much like those on the true military AN/PRC-152 as well. Harris makes a great radio, but the price also reflects that. Now, if I could only buy AN/PRC-152's without dealing with export models (type of encryption or lack thereof) as having AM and FM (satcom, HPW and other military specific waveforms) in the same radio in very convenient, but comes at a huge cost many hobbyist can't afford. But, I see that like Motorola making Trbo DMR and P25 TDMA in the same radio, only a wish that may never happen, or will only happen a huge cost.

I followed @wayoverthere’s advice and got a ProClip for my RAV4 and KG-1000G: I just had to drill a 2nd hole to match the middle holes in the head unit. The mic hangar is just a metal hangar with the 3M sticky on the back. I think it's similar to this one at WalMart. (can't remember where exactly I ordered it from)

I'll try to summarize what came out of the discussion... Some people think that repeaters need to ID. Some people think there is a loophole somewhere that can be leveraged. Almost everyone agrees that regardless of the answer, the FCC appears to not care. Everyone is continuing to do whatever they feel like because it seems (unless you interfere with Public Safety) there are no repercussions, regardless of what the answer really is.