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Sorry, I certainly didn’t mean to imply they were having a problem with communications. My title was intended to include radio communications as one of the interesting aspects to the job these folks do, but really I just wanted to share the video my friend took about this large truck. I just thought it was interesting.

Yesterday a friend of mine and I heard about a long truck carrying a big boiler during one of our ham radio nets. So we drove down to see it. The “truck” consists of a pull tractor, the load, and two pusher tractors. A notice from MDT says it’s 217 feet long and 29 feet wide. Another video said the boiler is 360,000 lbs. The truck travels at night on state highways to avoid traffic. While I drove my friend videoed the truck on my phone:

I'm pretty sure this crew knows what they're doing without input from the experts at mygmrs. These guys don't exactly look like amateurs. Thanks for the cool video, Steve.

I'm very familiar with the KPG-49D software for the TK880 radio and I'm sure it's probably no different than the KPG-44D program. How can I help?

Does such a thing exist? It occurs to me that it took me several months to acquire the basic knowledge to operate on GMRS without constantly questioning myself and going back and watching dozens of youtube videos and coming here and asking endless "dumb" questions. It wasn't very... accessible. Coming originally from the depths of the 80's hacker community as I do, I just accepted this, and put in the work, but it occurs to me that most people coming to GMRS are probably fairly normal, and instead just give up. I've been trying to set up a class for my local makerspace on GMRS operation, but it occurs that there really isn't *that* much to know, assuming you only shallowly care about the technical side. Has anyone sat down and done an in-depth "Zero-To-GMRS Operator" document to get people up and running without all the gaps? If not, does anyone want to write one?

Well, after 3 years without a CB radio, I bought a new unit. It's a Cobra 75 All Road. I haven't been following CB, but i do know the FCC rule changes about a year ago now allow FM use. I have been curious about it, especially knowing how well FM works on 29 MHz. I had a customer tell me they were interested in this radio, asked if I had an opinion about it and asked if I would install it for them. So, I bought one to check it out. I have to say, it's a little weird running a "stock" CB... but so far, I like it. It's just AM/FM with weather channels, but the transceiver is remote and the controls are in the mic (a familiar setup). BUT, the mic and all the controls are done wirelessly. The mic plugs into any USB port you have, or comes with a power outlet adapter. The mic works over Bluetooth so well, that I had the transceiver in my Jeep, but tested the mic range in my son's Jeep. It works about 30 feet away, which was awesome. I haven't chatted with anyone yet, but I was listening to AM Skip from all over the country. The receiver sensitivity seems real good so far. I am going to ask a friend of mine with an FM CB to help me do some range testing. I'll follow up soon and share the results.

Appreciate the advice. I am in no rush. So we will see what the budget is when I get there.

I am debating between the XS 20 or the 1000 for my Jeep. I want the 50w power but I want the XS20 cost. Lol Right now I am using the Kg-935t HT and it way our performs the cheaper HT's I had before.

I've been known to get my Jeep dirty from time to time 2006 LJ Rubicon & 2012 NotARubicon Ch16 or Ch19, open. Also scan/monitor all channels so I can rescue Toyota's in distress Mottino Wash, Marble Canyon, John Bull, Doran/Odessa (Calico), anywhere in Old Dale

Wow, now that is a big load folks!

I will also add that if an analog signal comes along and happens to be as strong if not stronger than the digital signal you are trying to listen to, the analog will either make it impossible to hear the digital signal or you just wont hear it at all.

For those of us who have been on the wrong side of digital fighting analog and those of us who know how radio works, WE dont want to see it. Its not as easy as just putting a PL tone decode on your radio. PL tones do NOT stop digital from interfering with your analog signal. I dont know why so many people think that it does. If a digital signal comes along and happens to be as strong if not stronger than the analog signal you are trying to listen to, the digital will either make it impossible to hear the analog signal or you just wont hear it at all. Meanwhile, the digital user will have no clue and quite honestly, probably wont care what he is doing to someone else. Plain and simple - Keep digital out of GMRS! You want digital? Please, go get a Ham license. The Ham bands are dead in many areas and have digital repeaters just spewing out RF identifying themselves with absolutely little to no activity. There are other areas of the bands that have absolutely nothing at all going on on them. People think I make this up. I am not kidding! Please leave GMRS alone. Mixing digital with analog is a good way to cause everyone to vacate a band and then no one is using it and what will you have accomplished in the end? Nothing other than you shot yourself in the foot and went 100 steps backwards.

That appears to just be the way the site works. Some open repeater owners have stated they wished the “request access” button didn’t appear on their repeater. Others have said its not necessary to request access, but they like to know who’s using their repeater. Of course many GMRS repeater owners do require that a user seek permission. Unlike ham radio repeaters where the license is assigned to a trustee but belongs to the club (along with the repeater hardware and site) a GMRS repeater is licensed to an individual and that individual has full say over whether to share it or not.

I wouldn’t make a blanket statement like that. This is why the topic doesn’t get a serious discussion. There is a way to partially accommodate a digital voice mode if one is willing to consider reasonable options. Read the attached document, particularly the last few paragraphs. GMRS Digital Voice - 20231127.pdf

Okay I'm throwing more darts here. Do you use an external speaker? If so are you sure it's plugged in all the way?

Forgive me if you know some of this already. Since you mentioned it only happens on repeater channels my first question may seem odd but are you using repeater channels to contact a repeater? You wont be able to use preset repeater channels for simplex as TX an RX are not the same frequencies. My second thought is if you are contacting repeaters It is my understanding that Midlands tone chart differs from others. Is it possible you have the wrong tones on RX. Try turning tones off on the RX of your repeater channels then you should hear all despite if it is through a repeater or simplex. One last thought if you have two radios close to eachother one may be desensing the other canceling out your receive. You may need to seperate the radios with some distance. I hope some of this helps.

Touching on what @OffRoaderX was trying to help with (and hes on the right track) if you open the user squelch with no tone squelch or DCS squelch, so you can hear static, is the static also very quiet or is it loud? If it is quiet when the squelch is open (monitor mode, too) then the radio's output is likely damaged in some way. Either the audio finals are fried or the speaker jack is possibly causing a partial short. If the static is loud, then you likely have a programming issue leading to compatibility problems between wide and narrow band.

According to Land Cruiser Lifestyle "The Midland MXT400’s repeater channels are wideband by default. You can change the direct channels to wideband as well using Midland’s programming cable and PC software."

Agree on this one. When I got my ham call sign, the first thing I did was change it to something more fun (W7SXY). Then when I sat for my general exam, the test guy looked at my call sign and said "uh, ... seriously?" I guess "some people" have no sense of humor lol

Yeah, mine almost looks like WORM (WROM258). XENU007 would be cool though.

I WISH my callsign was that pretty! He should be thanking Xenu for what the FCCs hath blessed upon him.

That’s not bad. It even sounds good in NATO phonetics. I wouldn’t worry about it.

Just vanity operators...

He can get a new license. There was a guy on here who did that quite frequently after he wore out his welcome, but it costs $35 each time and there’s no way to know what his next license will be. It will almost certainly have the same first two or three letters. There are no vanity licenses in GMRS.

That's great!!! It could only have been better if it said "NOTARUBICON".

I had pretty good drone setup that I used to make videos, but the rules got tougher, it got harder to fly in a lot of areas, and I dont make that kind of videos anymore.. So I sold it all earlier this year. This was the last video I made with my drone - also got help from a friend that has one of those fancy 'stunt-drones":