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Showing content with the highest reputation on 06/07/23 in all areas

  1. wayoverthere

    KG 1000G

    If you bought it through the mygmrs shop, here is the page with contact info: https://shop.mygmrs.com/pages/contact-us The other vendor that sells the kg100g is buytwowayradios, and here is their contact page: https://www.buytwowayradios.com/contact-us
    3 points
  2. I would assume so since it is used for commercial radio application. The link below is the main site for dPMR. https://dpmrassociation.org/ The standards documents are found here. https://dpmrassociation.org/dpmr-downloads-technical.html Looking at "Repeaterbook.com" they don't have a selection for dPMR so it's not possible to do a quick search for dPMR enabled repeaters. For example looking at the UK, I might be making a business trip there in the near furture. https://www.repeaterbook.com/row_repeaters/index.php?state_id=GB I was interested in the mode due to the possible trip. They have a license free service there called PMR446. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PMR446 The analog FM looks very much like our old rules for FRS but uses a different frequency range. Remember in the UK the Ham 70cm band is only 430 to 440 MHz. Which prompted me to as some time back if anyone notice European visitors using their PMR446 radios here on the Ham band. It would likely be at major tourist locations like Disney Land. There also two digital voice modes approved for their license free service, DMR and dPMR. https://kenwoodcommunications.co.uk/files/file/comms/uk/pmr446/PMR446-White-Paper-V6_18AUG2016_JT_KB.pdf Since I don't have a dPMR radio I'm looking at taking one of my Kenwood DMR radios and programming it up for FM and DMR on their PMR446 frequencies. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/290-nx-1300duk5/?context=new https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/255-tk-d300e-fmdmr/?context=new Oh, they have the same issue there too with people running non approved radios and power. Their radio commission, like the FCC here, seems to ignore it. There is a message board like this one but mainly for the UK. You can get an idea on what goes on there by reading through some of the threads. https://www.transmission1.net/
    3 points
  3. I just bought a RigExpert Stick Pro which works up to 600 MHz. I have the NanoVNA with the N connectors and I feel comfortable using it but it’s a pain in the ass to recalibrate every time you want to switch to a different band or zoom out and realize that your calibration doesn’t include what you’re trying to do. The RigExpert is much more convenient. Is it $300 more convenient? I think so, but time will tell.
    3 points
  4. One word: wrist strap & belt-clip....
    2 points
  5. I created a fork of the current version and reintegrated what Dan removed in January without modification. I was able to get a list of repeaters in Texas (after upgrading to Premium, naturally) and it worked great. I even did a test where I entered Lat/Long and it returned the list in order of distance from that geographic point.. that was very nice! I run Linux on my machine so can simply run the code direct without any special build requirement. But I will try to setup an automated regular build (for Windows and Mac, too) and should be able to setup automation to keep up with changes to the base Chirp app as well. I did manage to rebase the code with two changes to Dan's code from today and tested again successfully. So as drivers are added, bugs are fixed and features added the code should keep up with the latest while still providing the mygmrs functionality that was added back in. I saw that Rich is planning to add a zip code-based location search to the API. I might be able to add that at some point as well if you get that done, Rich. Though, I am not quite as familiar with Python so will have to figure it out as I go. You can access the forked repository on GitHub at https://www.github.com/bsefting/chirp. Hopefully I'll have some Windows and Mac builds on there in the next couple of days. I'll update when I have more, Brian
    2 points
  6. Wow and that even rimes! ?
    2 points
  7. Well this got a lot of comments from people and photos taken at the Hamvention last May. The match was about 1.1:1 or so at our group frequency of 448.5MHz. It’s a 1/4 wave design. Ran DMR at 1 watt so the average power was about 0.5 watts.
    2 points
  8. Mine says “DEA” on the back. For some reason people stay away from me at concerts.
    2 points
  9. Awesome, Brian! I was going to do the same thing but didn't want to worry about keeping in sync with the upstream changes. If we have an automated process we can keep the fork up to date. Great work! Looking forward to an update!
    1 point
  10. She’s a YouTube personality and the foul fowl is her foil.
    1 point
  11. Bamishere

    Bamishere

    Steve Shannon Thanks
    1 point
  12. ??? I, um, okay sure, what the hell… I got nothing ?
    1 point
  13. I typically saw the orange or yellow plastic ones. You mean like this one?
    1 point
  14. you gotta use one of those aluminum hard hats for ground plane? but back to this fine antenna hat and more importantly how did it go over with the chicks ?
    1 point
  15. Also, radio frequencies aren't ionizing radiation, so there is no risk from exposure *unless* the flux is high enough to heat your skin. No one's cooking with a ten watt microwave...
    1 point
  16. Yeah, the infield was a mess. Looks like they ripped up the asphalt they put down the prior year but left chunks of it, pebble sized to fist sized, all over the place in the walkways. Made walking a bit tricky and if you had a wheelchair it was a poor experience.
    1 point
  17. The weather was great. A bit warm on Friday and sunny. Saturday it rained a bit early in the morning. By 10 AM everything was dry, NO MUD, partly sunny and it cooled off to the low to mid 70's. Looked like a really good turnout.
    1 point
  18. I purchased the AURSINC NanoVNA-H and the Surecom SW-102 from Amazon. Originally I just had only the NanoVNA but like Sshannon mentioned it doesn't provide power (watt) or impedance matching information. I intend to make my own antennas as well as ensure my radios will last me in the field using the proper gear. At around $125 for both tools you cant go wrong with them in your tool box. Even if you hardly use one over the other, it wont break the bank just to have it when you do need it, or when another radio friend might benefit from that information. The $500 MFJ's or the RigExperts is a different story. Only consider those if you are making antennas to sell or get involved in competition where it makes sense to be as close to perfect as possible.
    1 point
  19. There are, but I don’t know about amateur radio use? Repeaters can be used with dPMR modes 2 and 3. The unlicensed dPMR446 and dPMR mode 1 do not use repeaters.
    1 point
  20. The field should be minimal under the radials. And as I mentioned I ran only 1 watt using DMR. Since DMR uses two time slots and on simplex only one is used thus the average power is around 0.5 watts. Next consider one is holding an HT a few inches away from the face with an output power of 4 to 5 watts at about the same frequency on GMRS. So, which one is really worse for RF exposure?
    1 point
  21. WRXN668

    Bird 43 Wattmeter

    That's in line with what I was seeing as well. Ultimately I would like to find a 10C, an 10D, a 100C, and a 100D. I mostly expect to be working with 2m and 70cm for ham and the similar GMRS and MURS bands, I'm OK with only using part of the range of the meter so long as the equipment I'm testing will usually use half of the range. Your meter itself is in a lot better shape than mine. Mine was in a testing and production-shipping lab for what originally was a paging company, before they got into selling paging systems and then later selling unified messaging conversion systems for other carriers. I have a transmitter that I'm pretty sure was used to send out pages to beepers, crystalled for 462.900MHz. I expect it was pretty high wattage and that the 250W-scale 400-1000MHz unit I have was properly sized for the application.
    1 point
  22. If you do what others tried, mounted HT antenna on a hard hat, the match sucks, no ground plane. I guess the Tin Foil would fix that. ?
    1 point
  23. I'm going to venture out on the limb and say it is more about SHTF preps than anything else, but that is what I'm seeing from my seat, opinions can vary.
    1 point
  24. Also, when yelling important stuff on your HT, hold it sideways. It looks much cooler that way.
    1 point
  25. Lscott

    Bird 43 Wattmeter

    1 point
  26. Lscott

    Bird 43 Wattmeter

    1 point
  27. An antenna with radials mounted to the top of a hard hat really seals the deal!
    1 point
  28. There is no ambiguity. Part 97 does not require type acceptance so using a Part 90 radio is perfectly fine, and there are many hams who use older Motorola or Harris commercial radios. One needs to be aware of a couple things when using a Part 90 radio: 1) As @Sshannon shows above, many Part 90 radios will do 136-174 and 400-480 MHz. Obviously most of that range is NOT amateur radio (or even MURS or GMRS) so you need to make certain you are only transmitting where you are authorized to do so. 2) Unlike amateur radio, the FCC regulations for MURS and GMRS *do* require radios to have type acceptance, and a Part 90 radio like these does not have that type acceptance and as such is not authorized for use on those services.
    1 point
  29. BTech Pro only sends a position report with your call sign, no messages. It is more like a MDC function then APRS. I'm also a APRS user going all the way back to my first which was a Kenwood TH-D7A(G) along with a TM-D700A
    1 point
  30. My Alinco DJ-MD5 does VHF 136-174MHz / UHF 400-480MHz
    1 point
  31. SteveShannon

    Bamishere

    I think you will have better results writing to customer support for whatever company you bought the radio from. This is a public forum, not dedicated to any specific company. The owner of the forum has an online store as well and perhaps that’s where you bought the radio, but that might be better handled by looking at the contact information on the invoice. Good luck!
    1 point
  32. I have had a lot of people ask me about affordable Watt/SWR meters and the SureCom SW-102 comes up a lot. It's not my first choice, but the SW-102 can be a good, inexpensive meter. It is not exactly calibrated from the factory. It is really close in most instances I have seen, and "close enough" for most uses in the GMRS community. In this video, I calibrated the SureCom SW-102 against my Daiwa CN-901. Out of the box, the SureCom was within a couple of watts (a little lower than) the Daiwa. Also, the SWR was only 2 points off. Even after calibration, there is only 1 point variation. I adjusted the UHF power, as shown in the menu at the end of the video, line 5. When you adjust the power reading, you are taking power away from the reverse power value and adding it to the forward power value. This is the way the SWR reading is calibrated as well. In my case, out of the box, the SW-102 showed 41w compared to the CN-901's 44w. The SW-102 showed an SWR of 1.4:1 compared to the CN-901's 1.2:1. Honest, anything under 3.0:1 is safe to use and anything under 2.0:1 is in the "good" category. An SWR of 1.5:1 or better is considered great. Based on the differences both before and after calibration, and price points of $50 vs. $300, I would be confident in recommending the SureCom SW-102 to use as a tool that is definitely "good enough". Don't let Perfect be the enemy of Good. If you have any questions, let me know.
    1 point
  33. If all you want to do is tune antennas, an antenna analyzer is better than an SWR meter. An SWR meter will only show you the SWR of the antenna for the frequency you're transmitting on and it can be completely wrong if you're looking at a system with lossy cable. An antenna analyzer connected directly to the antenna can show you the actual response of the antenna. An antenna analyzer connected to a piece of cable can help you determine problems with the cable, including losses through the cable and velocity factor. In addition, having a cable cut to the right length can help the antenna system. An SWR/wattmeter cannot distinguish between those kinds of things. Also, a good analyzer can reveal where the antenna is resonant, which is not necessarily the same frequency where it has the lowest SWR. An SWR meter cannot. However, if you just want to make sure you don't damage your radio by having it connected to high SWR, an SWR meter is ideal because it can be left inline. Also, if you want to test the output of your radio, an antenna analyzer won't do you a bit of good. For that you need a wattmeter. They're different tools for different purposes.
    1 point
  34. How will passing the ham test make the GMRS Pro useful?
    1 point
  35. I just noticed what the autocorrect did to the title of this topic. Deployable, not deplorable. Sheesh.
    1 point
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