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Two can be as bad as one. It's the loneliest number since the number one.

And it won't, as long it is completely compliant with Part 95, subparts A and E.

One is the loneliest number.

I would rather that NOAA spend their (our) limited (I wish) money on maintaining and upgrading the current system not using that money to buy new and expensive transmitters at every one of their 1,000+ towers.

If these radios are "disposable" after 3 years, I'd probably rather spend $150 versus $400 and go with a Radioddity or Btech. In my usage the benefits of this radio are outweighed by the issues I've had with it (and its high cost). Honestly I have used the Radioddity DB20 ($90 radio) as my "base camp" radio for a couple of years (along with a 30' mast). It gets battered and is exposed to the elements while camped (I mag-mount it to the rear "galley" of my camp trailer exterior while camped) and it has never let me down and always works, never exhibiting the weird glitches the KG1000 seems to exhibit. It just "works"...

Because they know that for something as important as NOAA people will purchase the correct radios to receive them. And, what if they DO start transmitting on UHF? - then someone will want them to transit on HF, because their HF radio can't receive them.. Then someone will want them to transmit on commercial FM, becuase their car radio can't receive them. Then someone will want them to transmit on CB, because their CB radio cant receive them. Then someone will want them to transmit on 1.2Ghz because their cellphone cant receive them. The more i think about it, the dumber this question gets.

Thanks. I generally don't scan frequencies unless I'm cruising the highway and bored and want to listen to field workers, warehouse forklift operators, and kids on walkie talkies. I had no intention of having PRICH-SW on (in fact I'd programmed it off) but I must have fat-fingered the keypad at some point and changed the setting over the weekend. Additional testing seems to indicate that this was the source of both issues, so chalk this one up to "User Error"...

This!!! It makes no sense to add UHF transmitters just because they don’t have UHF transmitters.

Craig: The PAPA System has interconnected DMR repeaters all over SoCAL, including your area; Check their listings here. You can register as a Guest User for a free 45 day trial and then join if you like. Watch and listen to worldwide DMR activity on the Brandmeister Hoseline in real time. Then you can add interesting TalkGroups to your Anytone and go live. NOTE: How did such a discussion of ham radio dmr get into the GMRS subtopic?

It looks like there might be a cause to this. However I am still testing and investigating, as it doesn't adequately address the "dropout" problem. I just looked at my saved codeplug and PRICH-SW is OFF but on the radio it was ON. I also see that PRI-CH is set to 001 (which is GMRS-01 on my radio). What must be happening is that I inadvertently turned on priority scan and that by default it was set to memory slot 001 so any time a signal was received on 001 (GMRS-1) it would break through my normal channel. However, there only seems to be one PRICH-SW setting (not separate for the A & B sides), yet I was only having this issue on the A side of the radio and not the B side. Maybe it only works on the A side?

I am impressed! You’ve certainly gotten the most out of that combination and in a heavily wooded, high humidity area with an antenna lower than the canopy. The use of the amplifier is something I haven’t seen others do; good job! The 200 mile range mentioned by wrxp381 is highly unusual except between high elevations and across deserts, which bear no resemblance to your swamp at sea level. As long as you’re epoxying the radome, you might consider drilling and epoxying (or screwing) in some pins to prevent the halves from separating. I would not worry about tuning that antenna. You’ll truly never notice the difference between a VSWR of 1.5:1 and 1.3:1. As you know, your feedline is attenuating quite a bit of signal though and in both directions. That’s your most easily identifiable avenue to getting more power, but it could also be expensive. Again, I’m impressed!

Here’s one of the best explanations of the requirements of the NEC and antenna grounding: https://reeve.com/Documents/Articles Papers/Reeve_AntennaSystemGroundingRequirements.pdf

Why does every new license holder want to setup a repeater? I would like to shed a little light on some of the important things to consider if you recently got your GMRS license and now want your own repeater. First thing to consider, are there any open well placed repeaters in your area that you are able to use? I can assure you most repeater owners want people to use there repeater. Owning several repeaters I can assure you all are welcome and encouraged to use my machines. Do you have access to a location to host your repeater? If your answer is your garage roof you should reconsider. Your garage roof will give you about the same coverage as simplex. Unless you’re on top of a mountain and all your users are at the bottom you will never be happy with this setup. GMRS is not as popular as one would like to think, unless your repeater covers 20 miles or more you may find you only have 1 or 2 users in the area. Unless you already have a group of friends together you may want to consider this before spending money on a decent well positioned site to install your repeater. So you found a nice high site and the price is right, all you need to do is get the repeater installed, sounds simple right? Some thigs to consider first and foremost are the costs because they can add up quickly. Are you on a commercial tower that requires a license and bonded climber? If so this could be by far your largest expense depending on your area. I have spent $600 to $1200 on a climber; I have had quotes as high as $2500 depending on the amount of work and heights involved. Keep in mind commercial sites require certified mounts, hard line cable, cable clamps, engineered grounding solutions and commercial grade antennas. No tower owner is going to let you install a comet antenna and 200’ of braided shield coax. This brings me to my next point, the antenna. Because of the costs involved with climbers you will want to expend your budget on the antenna. Remember a $2000 repeater on a $200 antenna is going to work about as good as a $200 repeater. Whereas a $200 repeater on a $2000 antenna is going to work like a $2000 repeater. On my first repeater I was gifted use of a 150’ tower, I installed a DB-420 on the top and 160’ of 7/8 hardline. Total cost of equipment for the antenna install was $2500, with the climbers labor coming in at an additional $800. This left me with enough to purchase an old Motorola R100 repeater running at 25W. To my surprise it had 30 miles of coverage, all due to the cash spent on the antenna and waiting for a decent spot. Things happen, more so if you have an antenna 200’ in the air with a conductive cable connected to sensitive electronics. Antenna issues, feedline issues, repeater issues all cost money and I promise at some point you will have issues that need repair and require your money! It is my opinion that the GMRS community does not need another 2 to 5 miles repeater as it just becomes background noise. What use is a public listed repeater if somebody in a mobile can’t use it 5 miles away while moving or the portable coverage is only a mile? If after reading this you are still going to build a repeater for your garage more power to you, just don’t expect 20 people to show up if it only reaches a mile. As the owner of several GMRS and Commercial repeaters I can attest to the amount of money and effort go into my repeaters. I have only touched on the basics, if you add in any kind of testing services, duplexer tuning, addition of a combiner channel to an existing tower system, RF engineering, rent and insurance your costs can sky rocket. The best advice I can give any new licensee is to try and use the available systems in the area. Take the time to learn a little about what you’re doing and to assess the usability of the service before investing in a repeater for the sole reason of saying you own one.

Where I live, there is basically 0 GMRS traffic. When I'm out and about in the back 40 I usually carry a radio so my wife can get me when she wants as there is sparse cell coverage here as well. Usually set to channel 16. There are no "listed" GMRS repeaters anywhere close to being in range. There used to be one, but it's long gone. I havn't had a radio on in a few weeks, so it started sometime in the last two weeks, but yesterday when I turned mine on, I'm hearing a linked HAM repeater on GMRS 16, the channel I usually use. I scanned the usual HAM bands I know operate around here and it's none of them. Different people as well. They're jabbering away on it again this morning. I've no way to identify this repeater aside from trying to record the morse beeps when someone hits it. Or I need a Marconi operator from the 1915 to identify them for me. The people talking on it are from hundreds of miles away in different directions, so I know it's some linked network. I have a few of their call signs , all HAM, but I think rather pointless to contact them. Either it's bleeding over or someone misconfigured a repeater somewhere, or someone purposely linked HAM to a GMRS channel? I don't think that would be kosher. I guess I need to set a radio to scan all HAM bands to see at least what HAM frequency it's coming in as, if any? Any suggestions how to identify this channel 16 bleeder? And why is it that every HAM operator seems to only talk about HAM equipment, radios, antennas, setups...that's all they ever talk about!

I’ve spent a fair bit of time modeling my own location with software, and also doing a lot of empirical testing out and about. Home to car, car to car,.. Changing variables, Height, antenna gain, and power. GMRS is UHF,.. The properties of UHF are the following,.. Lossy as heck on coax, is line of sight, can punch through manmade structures better than VHF can, but ultimately crashes into terrain and dies.. Doesn’t matter if it’s 5 watts or 500. Nothing defeats the mound of dirt. You really have only one remedy. Height….. On both the transmitting and receiving side. Power just really hasn’t ever been a substantial factor as far as variables go in anything I test or model from 15 watts to 50. Even 5 watts gets into the same places, just at a lower volume. But on UHF, the things that kill it seem to come into play well before the wattage difference between 15 watts and 50 does. Is running your GMRS at 50 watts just a waste of electricity? Tell me about why you might want to run a 50 watt radio over a 20 watt radio and not have to have such an amp draw…

I think we all have done that a time or three @Sbsyncro glad to hear that you figured it out and there is nothing wrong with your radio.

This should be a unique experience for sure. My wife and I actually use technology to route ourselves on to the back roads telling the map program to avoid major highways when we want to see somthing different. No advise here but I wish you luck on your trip.

Paid repeater? All ham radio clubs encourage membership and gleefully accept donations. We might have a difficult time paying for all that goes into the expenses associated with repeaters otherwise. Im not a Papa member and I certainly can’t speak for them but I suspect that if you donate what you can they’ll not mind you using the repeaters.

666 - Mark of the Beast 911 - Terrorist Attack 322 - Skull & Bones Society 111 - Your latest RST report

"Fars."

I think my problem is I’m too far from the closest dmr repeater to me. I’m going to drive closer and see if that helps Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That would be the offending signal - I’m listening to them crystal clear right now. Truck 850 just got back in the yard

The NEXEDGE48 system is construction workers working somewhere in downtown Detroit. Lots of broken English / heavy Spanish accents, talking about Congress street and Jefferson, heading back up Woodward. I’ll upload calls a little later when I have a bigger batch

I bought one of these about 9 months ago to use with my repeater built from 2 Wouxun KG-1000G 50W radios and a Fumei mobile 50W notch duplexer. I initially used it to replace a TRAM 1486-B with 6.5dBd gain; the Comet has 6.85dBd gain. The installation was at 45 feet above ground and the results were marginally better. I could only get around 5 miles range with either antenna. I live a swamp in southeastern Louisiana so there are many 80+ foot trees over flat ground. I used an EZ-Hang slingshot to place a rope 75 feet above ground. Didn't get much of an improvement in range and I had to use 126 feet of KMR-400 coax. I measured 62% insertion loss through the coax. I bought a professional spectrum analyzer and tuned a used Phelps-Dodge 6 cavity BP/BR duplexer I found on eBay. I detected another slight improvement. What seemed give me a more solid range was inserting a NooElec ultra low noise amplifier between the receiving radio and the duplexer. Suddenly, I had a fairly solid range at 7.5 miles radius, and 19 miles while driving on top of overpasses. i conducted range testing with a 20W (that transmits 16W) Btech 20V mobile radio. I also used a Surecom simplex repeater with an HT to parrot the full duplex repeaters output because I was testing by myself while driving around. Anyway, after 2 weeks of excellent repeater coverage, a rainstorm cause the two halves of the Comet CA-712EFC radome to separate. The top half of the radome is now permanently 75 feet up in the tree! Realize that I have a rope tied to the top of the antennas that hang off a branch. I replaced the Comet antenna with the TRAM again. Under the same conditions, the range is about the same, but not with solid coverage. I will probably buy another Comet CA-712EFC and pull it up the same tree, but before I do so I will epoxy the two halves of the radome together. The compression connection between radome halves isn't designed or strong enough to mount the antenna from the top with all that coax hanging below. I do recommend this antenna. It works well, but I wish there was a way to tune it. It is made with a collinear coax design. Mine came center tuned at 465mHz, but the VSWR on the input frequency of 467.55mHz was about 1.5:1 VSWR and higher than the output frequency of 462.55mHz at 1.3:1 VSWR. I would prefer better tuning on the input because if the repeater is deaf, it will also be mute.

And here I was thinking programming a GMRS radio for a repeater was a PITA. I clearly underestimated how complex radios could get.

Chirp almost always gets bonked as a virus. So do a lot of the good programming cable drivers.

Normally a Lightening Arrestor is placed inline within 16" of the antenna cable entering the building. Ground would go to a suitable ground.

Both of my Wouxun radios pull in NOAA just fine. No reason, if my existing radios pull in NOAA just fine.

This looks like it’s going off the rails. I would quit looking at what’s coming out of the packet decoders until with 100 percent certainly the mode is positively identified. For the various modes the RF has some very characteristic features. For example DMR, P25 Phase-2 and Tetra are all TDMA based with particular bandwidths of the signal and slot timing. P25 Phase-1 is like NXDN, both are ONLY FDMA based. But, NXDN has two bandwidths, narrow and very narrow that are used. Once there is zero doubt about the mode then worry what’s coming out of the decoders. For now it looks like garbage mostly. Even if the voice payload is encrypted the headers are not. It’s has to be this way for the state machine in the radio’s firmware to figure out what type of packet it is and what to do with it. If you’re getting good decodes then at least the packet type should be identifiable even if the payload is encrypted. Assuming it’s a Motorola system then the encryption is likely one of several types, basic - enhanced - AES/DES. The basic mode used on Motorola radios is a low bit count scrambler type proprietary to Motorola. It’s available on many of their digital radios. The enhanced encryption is usually RC4, a 40 bit stream encryption, available on many radios besides Motorola. I have it on several of my Kenwood NX-1300DUK5’s. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/290-nx-1300duk5/?context=new The AES/DES encryption is available on the higher end Motorola radios only, I believe, and on other manufacturers as well. It’s also on my Anytone D878 and D578 too at no extra cost. Currently you’re not likely to find much in the way of decryption software since the FCC rules now make it clear it’s against the law to decode encrypted transmissions you’re not authorized to receive. The guys doing the SDR software have said they won’t touch it for that reason.

Probably something to do with VHF propagating better/more fars than UHF and because NOAA does not care if you bought the wrong radio. I'm sure some radio-dork will chime in with a 10-paragraph explanation saying the same thing unless i'm totally wrong, in which some radio dork will chime in with a 20-paragraph explanation saying I'm wrong.

I found this info here https://www.fjarskiptastofa.is/english/telecom-affairs/registration-and-licences/temporary-licences/

It looks like you will be able to operate on amateur radio bands in Iceland with a valid US license. Here are a few links for you to read. https://www.arrl.org/us-amateurs-operating-overseas https://www.arrl.org/reciprocal-permit https://www.ira.is/english/ I did not find a definitive answer on GMRS.

A 3 X 5 is an Index Card. https://www.grainger.com/product/10R346?gucid=N:N:PS:Paid:GGL:CSM-2293:99F1R6:20501231&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwnv-vBhBdEiwABCYQA-Oks7zKch__SP6G2r5GATaxNpbBAGXCBQV2UWKx6ruIopnXgsID-xoCkmEQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

What's "anti-virus?" Oh, right: Windows!

A signal strength and readability report is a standardized format for reporting the strength of the radio signal and the readability (quality) of the radiotelephone (voice) or radiotelegraph (Morse code) signal transmitted by another station as received at the reporting station's location and by their radio station equipment. These report formats are usually designed for only one communications mode or the other, although a few are used for both telegraph and voice communications. All but one of these signal report formats involve the transmission of numbers. ITU-R Radiotelegraph Signal Reporting Formats Signal Question Answer, Advice, or Order QSA What is the strength of my signals (or those of...)? The strength of your signals (or those of...) is... scarcely perceptible weak fairly good good very good QRK What is the intelligibility of my signals (or those of...)? The intelligibility of your signals (or those of...) is... bad poor fair good excellent

Nope, that don't work on my win11 pc with a UV-5G Plus even with the new chirp update from 3/22/2024. What I posted earlier will work. Select Baofeng, and GM-5RH Will work.

It's not really difficult, but it is needlessly complex, mostly because of leftover commercial radio characteristics: First, you have to create a list of talkgroups. Then you have to create channels. A channel consists of a channel name, Brandmeister ID (or other digital ID), timeslot, color code, frequency, bandwidth, whether transmit is inhibited, whether it's an analog or digital channel, and if it's digital you need a talkgroup assigned. That's why you have to create the list of talkgroups first. There are other fields as well including encryption etc., but you get the idea. Then you have to create at least one zone and assign channels to the zone. You may (not mandatory) also populate a database of digital IDs which links the call sign, Brandmeister ID, and contact name. This can be downloaded. The newest DMR radios have room for 500,000 contacts. My radio handles 200,000 so I can only load most of North America. On your radio you select a zone and then select a channel within that zone.

Tell us more. 200 miles simplex on UHF? Are you on top of a mountain, surrounded by desert?

Aluminum will work, but your mag-mount wont stick to it as well as a cookie-sheet.. However the wife will probably complain less about using the foil vs the cookie-sheet. I'm sure that "some people" will leave a more detailed, 10-paragraph explanation complete with the molecular differences between steel and aluminum and the RF calculations, all just to say "it will work" ....

There is nothing wrong with running a 20watt unit. My 20watt mobile units serve me just fine, especially when traveling in a caravan or as a loose-knit group. My 50watt base unit may or may not expand the range at which I can reliably reach those mobile units, as there are impediments, limitations, and points of diminishing returns with all things physical and electrical. but it does have many features that make it handy to use as a base unit (such as scan groups) that my mobile units do not necessarily have...and if I am paying more for those extra features that extra wattage doesn't hurt my feelings any.

When I installed my new radio it was clear it wasn't going to fit the way my previous radio did. Here is what I came up with. Perhaps it will help someone with ideas for their next install. Radio- I installed a mobile radio (Icom IC-2730A) in my truck (2015 Tacoma). Some things I came up with could just as easily be used with a radio like the KG-1000. The radio has a remote head and I ended up installing the main body under the passenger seat. I attached a layer of speaker cloth around it with velcro to keep dust out. It is attached to a piece of leftover fake wood flooring that is basically 1/4” plastic with a rubber backing which prevents it from sliding around. The head unit is installed with magnets to a bracket that is screwed to the same flooring material and was painted black and cut to fit into a cubby and attached with 3M tape. Mic Cable- I installed a cable with a cat five jack in the center console box to the radio base for the mic. The mic can easily be stored away in the box without having to unplug it and the remote face can be unplugged and stored away as well. Cool thing for removing and storing the head unit is a case I had for glasses that it fits perfectly into to protect it and is made of metal so the magnets on the head unit hold it in the case. Mic Holder- I am not a fan of the hanger style mic holders so I found a button style on Amazon to attach to the mic. I didn’t want to drill holes for screws to mount the mic clip incase I wanted to move it so I cut a piece of aluminum, tapped it for some 6-32 flathead screws for the mic holder then 3M taped it in place to the center console. Speaker- The speaker under the seat was less than optimal. I tried installing a remote speaker in the cubby behind the head unit but this was too muffled. I played around with other locations like in the overhead console but when I was waiting for the speaker I had ordered I had thrown a small speaker I had laying around loose into the cup holder and it sounded great. So I decided that was the best route to take and installed it permanent. I have plenty of other cup holders. I drilled about an 1/8” hole to run the wire in the bottom of the cup holder. I lined the cupholder with some foam and hot glued the speaker in place (keeping holes to minimum). I found a speaker grill on Amazon that looks like it was meant to be there and attached it with more 3-M tape (again no holes if I can avoid it). Someday when I feel like busting the board for the head unit mounting loose from the 3M tape I would like to put the bracket on a hinge so you could access the space behind it for storage. A project for another day.

50W is good, especially when you have a long-run of that leaky coax, to get more juice squirting from the antenna. 50W is also good to step on the other guy that is irritating everyone but only has 20W.. all else being equal.

The first thing that comes to my mind is that you can always dial the power down on a 50-watt radio, but once you hit the max on the 20-watt there is nowhere left to go.

It is my understanding that that Rubicon guy is really not a Rubicon guy and he is really a Nissan guy with a Chinese made Jeep Key Fob. Real Izarubicon people drive Rubicons with real American Jeep Keep Fobs.

I'm assuming you mean the Nagoya UT-72. Share with us. Are you looking at the UT-72 amateur radio VHF/UHF (144/430Mhz) model, or the UT-72G GMRS (462-467 MHz) model? The reason I ask is because you will likely get better performance from the UT-72G GMRS version. Amateur radio antennas and GMRS antennas are generally not interchangeable because they are tuned for different frequencies.

Are you talking with your friends on the trail, or trying to bounce signals off the moon and talk to strangers across the planet? If you are using your radio for talking to your friends on the trail then SWR of 1.4 is fine and SWR of 2.4 is good enough. Stop overthinking it and just enjoy the radio.

LMR 400 loses about 2.7 dB over 100 feet at GMRS frequencies. So 40 feet would be 40% of 2.7 dB or 1.08 dB so you lose 20.6% of the power your radio inserts into the cable. That’s just the cable loss. That’s really not terrible; it’s just something to be aware of.

Because they all have a better signal/are closer to the repeater than you, and you have an HT with a small antenna/are further away/have more stuff between you and the repeater. The best thing you can do is connect to a bigger/better/external antenna or get closer to the repeater. A mag mount stuck to a cookie-sheet placed up high/near a window can work great.

Sounds alot more interesting than the talk I hear around here! Not trying to ruffle feathers. It was just an observation. You can talk about anything you want to talk about, well, I might have to report you if I start hearing any talk about Taylor Swift.

I had a very early unit and the antenna came right off. Since then I have seen reports ranging from people just needing to give it a rough-twist to get it off to not even being able to get it off with a crowbar and a hammer. For BTech to get certification for the radio the antenna must be non-removable (because it transmits data).. Once word got out that they were easily removable it looks like BTech upp'd their glue-game.