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This was commented about on the Facebook group and I figured I would share it here. We did have (there were a number of us on the air at the time) an interesting contact a few mornings back. A guy keyed up and said he was coming through the Johnstown PA repeater. Problem was there is no Johnstown PA repeater. I was on the Johnstown600 which is in Ohio and could tell he was coming through that repeater since it has two different courtesy tones. One for local keyup's and one for linked keyup's. So I knew he was on my repeater. It got interesting when I corrected him about where the repeater was and he replied that he was on a handheld radio in Wheeling WV. which was later verified to be 127 miles from my site. Obvioulsy he was on a hill over there and not down in Wheeling since it sits in a big hole. But that's pretty good for a 5 watt portable radio. Yes, the propagation for UHF has been interesting for about the past month.

DMR/P25/NXDN (as I recall) all use the /same/ AMBE CODEC; they just wrap the encoded audio in a different set of headers. D-STAR uses a different, incompatible, AMBE CODEC. Fitting both CODECs into one radio means paying the license fee for both. D-STAR uses actual call-signs for routing and identification -- which wouldn't be of use in the commercial realm where a system (and all associated radios) operates under a single call-sign (hence the 7-digit IDs used internal to DMR for radio identification).

I went ahead and ordered the mount for the rear light on the cab. With shipping and tax it was over $400. It's crazy expensive, but it will look really slick. Because of my garage door, I'll end up just using my Laird 6" 1/4 wave antenna most of the time. I don't want to risk hitting a taller antenna. As it is, the truck barely fits in my garage (it showed up a few days ago).

That is the set up I am currently using. Just got it up and running a couple of weeks ago. Still working on the grounding side of it. I have a galvanized steel mast made of 1 1/4" EMT conduit. The antenna's are an "Arrow Antenna's" brand GMRS 7 element Yagi. Very nicely built antenna. Much beefier mount than the one on amazon (but costs twice as much). It is mounted about 3' below the top of the mast. At the top I am running a copper tube J-pole GMRS antenna by KB9VBR. I run DX engineering brand 400 Max coax with N connectors from each antenna to a 2 position Diamond antenna switch. The interesting thing is just how well the Yagi works even in directions other than where it is pointed. Now I have not had this setup very long so still learning how it works. Most of the time there is no noticeable difference but once in a while the Yagi will pick up a signal that is too weak to hear on the J-pole. I have to assume that those signals are in the general direction that the Yagi is pointing. Now for my situation most of the stuff I want to reach is in one general direction so I don't need a rotator and the J-pole will cover anything local in all directions. I am situated on top of a 500 foot hill facing the direction that I mainly need to work so it really is ideal for me.

I see this comment/suggestion a ton, or similar. Its a lot more complicated than that. DMR, P25 & NXDN are permitted on amateur radio, however, D-star is not a permitted mode on business/public safety radio. It would honestly be a firmware nightmare. The reason people use commercial digital radios in amateur radio is to get secondary (or primary) use outside of amateur radio. To build a radio that can also do all commercial digital radio, yet acknowledge the amateur bands and permit dstar only in the amateur range will be a pain. You have to realize that besides the few (myself being one of them) nobody is going to pay what they would be forced to ask. Right now, for the NX5000, conventional P25 entitlement is listed at $600 per radio, and DMR is around $100. That would mean, if the D74/D75 hardware is up to the task, the $600 hardware + $600 + $100 + NXDN costs = $ 1300+ radio to be locked down to amateur band. Would you pay that? I wouldn't, and I'm looking at more expensive items as well. Why not make them include YSF as well (this is open source). It should also be noted that the brand new VP8000 is the first radio I'm aware of that actually recognizes GMRS & Amateur radio as wideband out the gate in the firmware/software without additional purchases. That radio is going to cost an individual about $4000, well into IC7610 territory for a handheld. Looking more at this D75, I probably won't get one since I have the D74, unless new features are announced at the Tokyo hamfest end of the year. I'm more excited to see the D710 "replacement" announced at Tokyo than this HT.

Not really a wad. spent 450 on a Harris X-100 portable and setup a buy that will happen later this week of an APX 7000 V/U r1 for 1500 but that was about it. Other than that it was dumb stuff. 20 bucks on a Cisco 800 small office IP phone PBX, 50 on an MW800 computer, couple other things. I did buy materials for building two antenna's that are for a customer but will get that money back once the antenna's are built and sold. I am sure there were other things I bought but can't remember what they were at this point. Outside of that, I saw a number of friends that I only see during Hamvention. And one of them I do see a bit more often had my KVL that I got back. Looking forward to the new radio, and getting the programming worked out on the one I have in hand.

Without getting into the debate on Part 90 vs 95 figured I'd list some basic Repeaters for UHF that would be good base units if your shopping for new. Low Power RT97 - List Price - $536 (Sale Price - $371.99) - https://www.retevis.com/rt97-portable-gmrs-repeater-mobile-repeater#A9150CX1 Midland MRX10 - List Price - $ 459.00 - https://midlandusa.com/products/midland-mxr10-repeater Mid Power Bridgecomm BCR-40U - List Price $1499.00 - https://www.bridgecomsystems.com/collections/amateur-radio-repeaters/products/bcr-40u ICOM FR6300H - List Price $1819.00 - https://theantennafarm.com/shop-by-categories/radios/repeater-systems/uhf-repeaters/11680-icom-fr6300h-detail Kenwood NXR-810K - List Price - $1770.00 - https://theantennafarm.com/shop-by-categories/radios/repeater-systems/uhf-repeaters/9640-kenwood-nxr-810k-detail Motorola SLR5700 - List Price $ 3700.00 - https://theantennafarm.com/shop-by-categories/radios/repeater-systems/uhf-repeaters/9581-motorola-slr5700-detail To be noted none of the mid power repeaters come with a duplexer. That will tac on another $300 and up depending on what you purchase. Granted there are many UHF part 90 repeaters used on the market that can be had for way less money than above but wanted to list new prices. If your searching online and someone is advertising a GR1225 on GMRS for $1000 I'd think twice. For mid power I have no experience with the Bridgecomm or the new NRX (however have many of the older Kenwood) units. Just wanted to put some info in one location. The low power units are nice because they basically work out of the box. I also realize the prices on the mid power units look high when your comparing to some of the CCR world but they will outlast pretty much all the home brewed stuff as they are built to do what they are. Some used older stuff that can be had reasonably are the Vertex VXR Series, Motorola GR1225, Motorola MTR2000, Motorola Quantar, Kenwood TKR850, Midland Base Tech II (Was a solid unit), ICOM FR4000 and the Motorola XPR series.

I picked up a Bird 43 wattmeter and some slugs.

For the RX, the receiver multi-coupler is tuned to accept 460 - 470MHz. The repeater is a Quantar and has a preselector built in to accept 467.575. Thanks!

I have a rotor on my tv antenna and it works like a champ, so it is already on my mind but I will manually move it and see how well it works before going to the next level.

I understand the CODEC differences. To make the radio a bit more “universal” Kenwood could have included dPMR which is used in the EU for both their license free and commercial services. It’s a close relative to NXDN. It’s not used in North America in a significant way currently. That could change. There is the option to use several different CODECS which is encoded in the OTA protocol. That would have allowed the use of the existing one for D-Star. Certified-Interoperability-Guidance-Paper-2019.pdf

I think it’s going to look great and I suspect the location will give you good performance. ?

That exceeded my budget for the weekend.

I spend about 99% of my time listening instead of transmitting, so it should not be an issue. Plus, the wood base can take a lot of heat. The plastic around the enclosure might be another story ?

I still use two of these as Motorola radio programming computers. One had been placed on my boat, when I had one, for coastal navigation and Motorola related uses. A laptop replaced that use case on the boat though for a while. Great old school Motorola computers. The touch screens still work on mine, but one has the orange/Emergency button broken on top. Some firefighter tried to JBWeld it back and it became a programming computer at that point. Mine run WindowsXP, but still useful for what they are.

That's a smoking deal. I'm jealous......

Since you’re using them with a switch you’re intending to use one at a time. Just keep them one wavelength apart vertically and you probably won’t have any detectable effects. Try it.

That one I can see. That looks nice.

I went 20 years (until I rolled the Jeep Cherokee) with a Yeasu FT-100 (HF/6/2/70) main unit located under the passenger seat using double-sided CARPET TAPE. The control head was remote mounted just under the parking brake hand-lever (enough clearance that all buttons could be seen and manipulated). The key feature was that I ran the power cable directly to the battery (out from under the seat, under the running board, up the kick-panel, around the door gasket and through the outer fender -- this was a No-Hole mounting all the way). I'd expect lots of noise potential from a rubber duck located inside a vehicle, especially one with half a dozen displays running who knows what frequencies (ARM-based embedded controllers tend to have clocks running from 50-200MHz, start adding harmonics and intermod/heterodyning and you could have lots of potential signals to contend with).

Two things stand out to me. 1st why do you have the mic clipped on the antenna? That almost certainly can only negatively effect it's performance. 2nd Does it do that when an external antenna is connected? I can get some interference on my KG935G+ if I do the same thing with the rubber ducky on it. Move it a few inches away from the dash and it stops. That's in an 98 Ranger. No issue with roof top antenna connected. There are so many electronics in modern cars it's not surprising. Most of the time just a little distance is all that's needed.

I setup my RT97 on a hill in the desert and got several miles of farz in all directions, where transmitting on simplex had no range (because of the hills). I got mine from retevissolutions.com, but I would have got it on Amazon if it was available due to faster shipping and the painless return policy.

Just a pure guess, but the Rocky Talkie is probably transmitting at Narrowband.. See if there is an option to change it to WIDEband (probably isn't), or see if there is an option on the Garmin to switch to narrowband.

Welcome @WRVJ545 ?

Welcome! Glad you figured it out.

In all seriousness, I do applaud your effort and your passion, Kirk. I myself suffer from a lack of both passion and seriousness. That said...will you please expand your "rant" series to include a separate rant for each of the GMRS channels?

Got my GMRS license last week - WRWF929 Got my first radio in from amazon Downloaded Chirp and uploaded a list of local repeaters. I am a legend in my own bath tub!!! LOL! Still in listen and learn mode. But having a ton of fun!

I live on the east side of a large valley at around 3300 feet elevation. There is a repeater on the west side of the valley at 4700 feet. I do not have a perfect line of sight. I had been hearing traffic on the correct repeater frequency occasionaly but couldn't tell if it was on that specific repeater. At one point I had thrown a slim jim roll up j-pole in a tall oak tree and did open the repeater with a handheld. I spoke to someone that didn't know where they were or what repeater they were on. Last week my daughter and her family were on the other side of the valley. I had asked my son-in-law to see if he could hit the repeater in question. He texted me that he could and that he was listening. I was able to talk to him on my 5w handheld but the signal wasn't very strong and reception was spotty at best. I threw the j-pole back up in the tree, 16' off the ground, and has a great signal. I am 83 miles from the repeater. Pretty good for GMRS. Just a good reminder of what a few feet of elevation and a good antenna can do for you. I got my s-i-l and I each a roll up to carry when one of us goes up into the high country. The picture is the peanut gallery watching me throw a line into the tree.

I have had/used the KG-1000G, the 1000G+ and the DB-25... The DB-25 is probably my lease-favorite radio, and the KG-1000G+ is my mostest-favorite Part 95 GMRS radio, with the older 1000G right behind it.

I have a theory that they wait until I purchase a certain radio and then wait a short time to release the new and improved "plus" model. It has happened too many times to be coincidence.

Hello WRWB509, I am also very new to gmrs and radios in general. I have found the Notarubicon youtube videos to be helpful and I have also been watching videos from David Canterbury on radios and antennas.

Yes, range will definitely help. In a previous life, I used VHF comms for oil spill cleanup operations, then UHF was for a "command net" which was slightly shorter range, not FRS/GMRS but there were many that brought their own radios that were FRS/GMRS (pre-2017 changes). I would only like to see FRS/GMRS compatible unit as it would augment what I already have, lots of Garmin Rino's. Thank you for sharing the links, I may have to save my pennies for more toys to use with my other toys.