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@LeoG I have participated in enough court cases to know that the intent of the law/rule means nothing to a judge. Only what is written. I have no choice but to interpret the rules as written with the provided definitions. Not to mention that linked repeaters with voice communications have been around long before the changes in 2017 and there have been exactly zero actions against anyone.... not one single person in a decade or more, with hundreds of linked repeaters and 10's of thousands of users nationwide in that same time frame. Not one single letter, accusation, fine, nothing. And it's not like its a secret. Leads me to think I may be right. Words have meaning. I agree it can be messy, but if they meant something else, they need to amend the rules and issue a clarification, which they seem wholly uninterested in. FCC enforcement agents are on this site... they are here and reading this stuff and say nothing. Though, I'm sure they get a good laugh from time to time.

That is a healthy approach to life in general.

Here we go again. A simple question about making contacts on GMRS turns into a spitting contest and degenerates into a ham-bashing extravaganza. There's idiots in both services, so best practice is to ignore them.

I believe most people that comment on HAM are fully aware of the subject hobby. The commenter's are not ignorant. "Some People" that are HAMs are the cause to why various comments are made about "some" HAM hobbyist but not all HAM hobbyists. Just the other day, I observed the rudeness and the responses of a few HAMs that responded to a question asked by a new person trying to learn radio and they were not willing to help this new person. The new person was asking for help regarding the power connection and wirings of a vintage discontinued mobile radio. They could have easily help but they choose to be rude and not willing to help. Maybe these HAMs were just being lazy, or want to be rude which may be their normal demeanor, or maybe they are ignorant on the subject. This is an example of what "Sad Hams" are. Their comments/responses were not appropriate and I'm sure not appreciated by this new person. If they were ignorant then they should not have responded in the manor they did or not respond at all. No, they choose to take the "Sad HAM" approach. Again, not all HAM hobbyist have this poor attitude but if the shoes fit, wear them with your "Sad HAM" pride.

Unfortunately that’s true. Every group inevitably gains embittered members. Fortunately for me the hams in my area are very helpful.

As mentioned, GMRS is not for finding anonymous men to chat with. You should try H.A.M. or the Grindr app for that.

I wasn't going to post about this... but then again, I'm surprised I waited this long. I was wrong when I posted in a different thread that you can't charge a fee for repeater use. I never had the desire to, and while I am sure I have read the rule before, I just forgot the details. It's as plain as can be that you can charge for repeater use. 95.1705 (f)(3)(ii) states a station may be shared "...On a non-profit basis, with contributions to capital and operating expenses including the cost of mobile stations and paging receivers prorated equitably among all participants;..." meaning you can charge people for use as long as you are not profiting, and everyone is charged (about) the same. Reimbursement to break-even for expenses is fine. Profit is not.

Zero H.A.M.s have been bashed in this thread, only SAD-H.A.M.s.. If you can't tell the difference then you likely need to be bashed as well.

The older 9800s had a 3.3v chip being fed 5v and eventually it would burn up. This usually hapoened to one side of the radio, and then the other. Newer versions have a hw change that corrects this and they were originally sold as the plus. Out of the box mine worked on gmrs frequencies. There is a change you can make with their cps to change 70cm to 1.25m if you want that for ham. You can also expand the freq range to the hw limits, ut running them at the hw limits does lead to some out of band emissions/harmonics. Out of 7 radios, I've had one fail due to the 3.3v/5v issue.

Wait.. What??? polite manner? You some kind of kinder gentler leftist that believes words are violence or some stupid crap like that? If someone deserves to be told to F OFF you look them in the eye like a man and tell them to F OFF. There is no polite at that point. If that's what they have coming, that's what they get. You don't try to be polite. You don't try to sugar coat it or attempt to spare their feelings. At the point that F OFF is appropriate, that's what they get. Speaking of F OFF, You sit here going on over and over on the forum that HOSTS the linking servers for the ROGUE REPEATERS and continue to pop off at the mouth about how these ROGUE REPEATERS are the bane of GMRS and will no doubt destroy the very fabric of the GMRS service, and anything else related to Part 95. You don't like the idea of linking repeaters. We get it. All too well. THE HORSE IS DEAD.... leave it be already.

GMRS is not an extension of ham. It is a separate service for a very different purpose. GMRS is intended for families and other small groups. Ham is more of an experimental platform so to speak.

Thanks for the help everyone. Turns out the ignition sense wire was in the wrong spot in the 9-pin on the back of the radio. I was told wrong by the seller on ebay (big surprise, right). He even circled for me, but wrong. The radio powered up, but I suspect the speaker was getting no power. Once correct, it all works as it should. I'm very happy with the radio.

I disagree. "...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" was pretty precise... nay concise, but citizens and the government continue to F that one up pretty regularly.

Im a constitutional scholar with a gifted IQ, but my wife said I can't comment on this because it's mean to make strangers on the internet cry.

This!!! Forums are always full of people who just can’t believe that rules and laws mean nothing more or less than what is actually written in the rule or law, not what is written elsewhere. They always attempt to explain the intent, but the fact is that intent is worthless. The only thing that ever matters in a courtroom is the letter of the law. But the reality is that the road to the courthouse can be very expensive and most of us know that we can’t afford to fight as long as it might take to get to the letter of the law. That’s where risk aversion comes from.

I honestly wish they would speak up. It would clear up the confusion a LOT.

Agreed. That is a better indicator of how your radio is set.

How are you determining that they aren't there? In my experience with the TD-H8, which is similar in many ways to the H3, you can't go into the menus for offset direction and offset and see that they are set. They aren't editable in channel mode so they just show none for direction and o.oooo for offset. I know mine is set correctly because I can hit the repeater and I can read the program into Odmaster and see that it's what I programmed. Also, when you hold the PTT button, the frequency displayed for the channel changes to the transmit frequency. I don't like it, but that seems to be the way it is.

I bet they really meant to start and stop the operation of the repeater. But they way you are looking at it sound like it's within interpretation. Again, messy regulations with broad meanings can easily be taken advantage of. They can't say "Well this is what we meant" because it doesn't say that exactly.

That's funny. You do realize that in six months this thread will still be going.

Okay... I am going to try this 1 more time. Let me put it to you like this... In general, GMRS transmitters may be operated and controlled remotely. Also, in general, GMRS transmitters CAN BE connected to public networks or other networks for the purpose of operation by remote control. Since its a rule violation for GMRS repeaters to transmit on the 467 channels, preventing legal RF linking with repeaters AND remote operation IS allowed... how exactly do you expect people to be able to remotely operate their radios??? Easy. Over the network connection they are allowed to have. Otherwise, the rules allowing remote operation and network connections are completely pointless. OH, wait a minute! Now that I think about it, there are no prohibitions preventing linking of control stations or fixed stations on the 467 channels. I can't find a prohibition of linking GMRS repeaters via amateur radio repeaters or through encrypted tunnels on LMR business channels either. If your goal is to get rid of linked repeaters... you can forget about it. Even if you were somehow able to convince me you are right about the networking issues, it's not going to stop people from using other legal means of linking repeaters. While network connections are the easiest legal means, its not the only means.

Hmm, did the "Sad HAM" shoes fit?

anyone not get it?? Internet, telephone etc. is conveyed over a wireline.. PERIOD.. End of story.

Yeah, it’s just not true. It would be great if it were. In fact I think radio manufacturers should be required to give their radios to hams.

This is why my rpeeaters are not published in the open. Myself and my friends spends alot of money on maintenance, equipment and tower fees. It comes from my pocket. If my friends give me somecash towards it then fine but its not about that. I can see a club having a site thats costs and dues would help keep it at a good site vs a garage repeater. At one point a site we were in housed a 220 rpt for the local ham club. My agreement was donate to our electric bill annually. Somehow bills need paid.

Essentially we have nothing confirmed. We have an interview with a club member who said he had 2nd hand information about what happened. It's all speculation on some slim facts. All I know is the 3 repeaters went down and were also taken out of the Map section here. Made it look pretty official that they went offline. Until I get back up to NY in that area I can't say for sure the repeater I was using is gone. It was the Alliance Repeater with a 71.9Hz input tone. It was an open repeater. I was in the shadow of some rather large hills so I never had good coverage even though I was fairly close.

That's how mine is setup now also. But in the beginning I was using the RPT channels. Once you learn the basics you can move onto something a bit more complicated.

An employee spoke to them. Not an official FCC notification.

Yes, some of us do that but ham is better suited for that purpose.

Unconstitutionally of course. 4th amendment to be secure in your papers and home, Patriot Act took care of that. We do not live in a republic.

Do you know the distance to the repeater and do you have a line of sight to it ? Do you know if the repeater only requires a CTCSS code on the TX and not on the output? If they dont repeat transmit with the same 141.3 code and you have it on your RX.. you would not hear it

Again you are stretching the facts. What we heard was someone who works at the FCC and had a relationship with the owner advised him to shut it down. That's not the same as the FCC saying shut it down and it's still second hand. You can "maybe this" and "maybe that" all day but the fact is we have no confirmation from the owner of anything. You are entitled to opinons on what may have happened, we all are but it doesn't make it so. Hell I'm not a fan of the idea of linking GMRS repeaters but that doesn't mean I'm streching the facts to support how I feel.

Oh, hell. No implications were intended but it’s amusing to see how you reacted.

I think that was meant "let's take a look at them regs" more than "Since you haven't bothered to read these yet"

That big spool of coax might have a use, but you’ll need to figure out what kind it is. I suspect it’s cable tv coax which is 75 ohm. It has its uses, but probably not much for GMRS. When communicating through a repeater you’ll be transmitting on a different frequency than you receive. By definition the simplex repeater would not do that.

Which goes to show you how badly the regulations are written. If they were written precisely then there could only be one interpretation. And that is how they are suppose to be written, very narrow meanings so you can say yes or no if they were adhered to. I think the bureaucracies love to write these so they can be interpreted differently for their friends and hammer people they don't care for.

If it’s one with both a gas tube and a blocking cap then yes it might be directional. Here’s a datasheet for a polyphasor with just a gas tube. Note that it says bidirectional: https://www.polyphaser.com/Images/Downloadables/Datasheets/103-0324A-A_datasheets_US.pdf Here’s a datasheet for one with the gas tube and cap. It’s also bi-directional. https://www.polyphaser.com/Images/Downloadables/Datasheets/098-1013G-A_datasheets_US.pdf Here’s a link to a directional one: https://www.polyphaser.com/Images/Downloadables/Datasheets/RRX4025A_datasheets_US.pdf

If you take it apart you’ll see that electrically it doesn’t matter. It’s really just a gas tube perpendicular to the center conductor of the feed line. Mechanically, having the long side towards the antenna makes it easier to mount in a bracket with the antenna connector convenient to unscrew.

That's what I thought.

This would appear to be the relevant rule in Part 95 E: (3) A station may be shared only: (i) Without charge; (ii) On a non-profit basis, with contributions to capital and operating expenses including the cost of mobile stations and paging receivers prorated equitably among all participants; or (iii) On a reciprocal basis, i.e., use of one licensee's stations for the use of another licensee's stations without charge for either capital or operating expenses.

That's because it didin't.

Didn't know it went over state lines. I thought there were 3 simulcast repeaters all in NY.

I don't want you to say anything at all. I was simply trying to explain that your overaggressive attitude and unfounded insistence on being right in the face of logic and evidence presented to the contrary a) make you come off as a dick, and b) will never convince anyone of anything. But hey, by all means, if you want to just be blocked by half the people who read your posts, keep it up!

That's what I was missing. I forgot the setup/install manual was part of the service manual for this radio. @Skunkworks Go through that manual starting at page 16, go through every item for your setup and install. Then go through the programming and make sure all the options match your hardware setup (speakers, remote head, etc.)

There is a ton of info online for the kenwood stuff. The 690/790/890 series is a good unit. On UHF changing to low power its a great GMRS deck. I ran one of each in my truck for years. There is a on board jumper that gets touched depending on heads and other options. You may peak at that. https://www.repeater-builder.com/kenwood/pdfs/tk-890hb-svc-man.pdf I'd start with the manaul and double check stuff.

Something is very wrong. Those radios, right out of the box should be loud and clear at up to at least 1/2 mile or more, assuming no mountains/hills between the cars. I would try more testing outside to rule out a problem with the radios or something in one/both of the cars causing the problem.

I just sat back to let somebody who has one to answer. Most of my experience is with the Kenwood hand held radios. I have a lot of the Kenwood radio programming software. I'm not sure if I have that one on file.

Did you do a search first? There are several threads which mention the TK-890H. One mentioned that they burn out quickly. Another mentioned that because it’s a 100 watt radio it would be a poor choice for GMRS. The people here with the most Kenwood experience and who post prolifically are @Lscott and @tweiss3. Maybe they have some insight. And here’s the results of a search: https://forums.mygmrs.com/search/?&q=TK-890&quick=1&search_and_or=or&sortby=relevancy

N9taxlabs makes a dual band GMRS Murs roll up jpole. Quite easy to pull it up in to a tree with a throw weight and some line. I recommend get the 16’ cable and BNC connector options. BNC mod what ever HT you plan on using with the Jpole. 12lb test fishing line or higher will make getting the antenna into a tree easier. Tie the fishing line to your throw weight (or water bottle) heave it over a branch, cut it off the bottle and tie it to your paracord and pull it back over the branch with the antenna. https://n9taxlabs.com/shop/ols/products/dual-band-murs-gmrs-slim-jim-with-10-or-16-foot-cable