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Send me your mail address and I'll send you the proof in the bottle.

OK, Then he can't say he never got $hit for mail.

I finally made time to install the above subject radio in my 21 Chevrolet Silverado 3500HD Dually Diesel Pickup. I've been wanting to do that since I bought the Truck almost 4 years ago. I did make time for the Motorola XTL5000 UHF High Powered Remotd Mount sometime ago. The installation was a piece-of-cake and I had no problems with the install. The subject radio is the 840 channel version and I only have a few VHF channel programmed in the radio. I am not a licensed Amateur Radio Operator, thus I do not have any HAM channels programmed. The VHF radio will mostly be used for my car racing activities, in addition to the UHF radio. The UHF radio is CPS tuned for max 50 RF watts for GMRS. I'm using a Laird/ T E Connectivity B1443S Antenna with Spring 2-3 dB Omnidirectional mounted on the cab roof along with my CB K40 and B4502 UHF antennae. The VHF antenna was tuned with the VSWRs for 154 Megs at 1.05:1 which resulted in .5 reflected at 55 watts measured with my Bird 43. The radio draws about .5 DC amps on standby and about .6 amps receiving. The radio draws about 7 amps transmitting. Both radios draws approx. 14 amps when both radios are keyed simultaneously. The radios draw their power directly from my auxiliary battery which is charged by an auxiliary alternator, and are connected to a chassis grounding point.

I only accept messages on Grindr.

No attempt to make people jealous, just throwing out some stuff to help people with coming up with their own ideas on their mobile installations. Thanks on the comment.

But easy to do a denial of service.

Thanks Steve!

Are you asking about that Charlotte 575? Yes, that’s a repeater. See how it has a frequency of 462.575 MHz. That’s where you receive it. Right next to that it says “Input Frequency 467.575 MHz”. That is the frequency that you must transmit to the repeater on. That’s how full duplex repeaters work, they receive on one frequency and simultaneously transmit on another. Receiving and transmitting simultaneously is called “full duplex.” There’s also simplex which means transmitting and receiving at different times on the same frequency. Your handheld radio, if it’s a designed to be a GMRS radio, has a group of repeater channels. Sometimes they’re numbered 23-30, sometimes they’re labeled rp15-rp22 or something like that. They automatically transmit on the repeater input frequency and receive on the repeater output frequency. Tones are used to limit access. They reduce interruptions from people on the same frequency but they don’t offer any security.

Maybe this will help: Or his earlier video about the 805:

Although it’s not the least expensive handheld radio the Wouxun kg805 is a handheld that is both easy to use and performs very well, has an SMA connector antenna, which is standard for most GMRS radios and which allows easy connection to an external antenna. It’s not plagued by a too-busy user interface (in fact some people might want more display). It’s nearly perfect to hand to someone who’s just learning.

99.9% of all GMRS hand-held radios have removable antennas - if you are even thinking/wondering/considering ever wanting to replace/attach another antenna, then a radio with a permanent antenna is probably not a good choice.

HI folks, I really don't understand the purpose/function of sidetones (or the 1750Hz alert tone burst for that matter). Note: This is mostly in context of KG-935G software & settings, but I see related items in CHIRP for Baofengs. None of the GMRS repeaters I have encountered require any DTMF or "tone burst". So what is the use-case for DTMF and ANI in the GMRS context? I've set ANI to transmit a code (305), and I hear it being sent. But why (aside from a "custom" roger beep)? There are several settings in the KG-935G which, despite RTFM, don't make sense to me. SIDETONE: can be set to DTMF, ANI, both, or none. Why/when would someone select each of these? RING: can be set to a value between 1second and 10seconds, or off. "time to prompt when DTMF signals have been decoded". Huh? Why? Call Settings: I can define & name 20 combinations of "ANI" codes. (e.g. Call Group 1 is set to "111" and I named it "CGrp1". There's a drop down at the top to select "Current Group". What does this do? Sidekeys can be programmed to "SELEC CALL" which "allows you to send a call to a specific calling group." Why/How? Is there a video or other document which demonstrates how and why such features work?

Thanks a lot Steve

Yes, click on their name, go to their profile, then click on the envelope below their name:

What Steve said tongue and cheek is actually right and why we are going to see a ham test for at LEAST the next 10 years even if the requirements are relaxed by the FCC. I am 53 and got licensed when I was 22. Not long after the creation of the "No Code Tech" license. We only had allocation for voice above 50Mhz so we couldn't do too much damage. But others will tell you we were lepers, the bane of ham radio. We were going to bring about the end of ham radio and the hobby would be gone. That was the Fud's opinion of it anyway. The ARRL isn't going to be able to allow a test-less ham license because the old guys that are now older and much more opinionated will raise 9 kinds of hell at them for even thinking about it. Nut that mentality will fade as those guys shuffle off their mortal coil and begin fertilizing the flowers at the local cemetery. But I will say this. The test ain't that hard. And there are some here that if you put 1/10 the effort into studying for the test that they do in winding people up in here and beating dead horses, you would have your license in no time.

You need the antennas to be 25' apart, one directly over the other, to achieve the isolation of a duplexer. That is 25' from top of bottom antenna to bottom of top antenna. If they are not directly 1 over the other, you loose your isolation. For horizontal separation, you need 2000'+ apart to get the same isolation as vertical separation, or a duplexer. 40' apart and at slightly different elevations is not enough, you are getting desense, which is 1 reason you are getting no range out of the repeater. As for 30W vs 40W, the difference in the field is minimally noticed, you are still limited in range by height you get the repeater, not wattage. When figuring height for how far the repeater can reach, you need to use the bottom elevation of the bottom antenna.

I have two of the H8s. No problems at all. Side/top buttons do what I program them to do Weather, light and FM radio. I do not update the firmware if it's working as it should. If there's no benefit to updating, I don't do it. Just to get the latest and greatest is not enough. Overall the H8 is a very good radio and has become my daily driver. The more expensive Icom ID51A stays at home.

I was at a local Ham swap about a year ago. A local radio dealer was there. They weren't selling anything, but looking to hire a radio tech to do radio programming. They had some sample radios there as example what what one would be working on. One was a multi-mode EF Johnson - Kenwood, drool. https://www.efjohnson.com/viking-vp8000-portable-radio These are a bit outside of my budget range, even used. https://www.ebay.com/itm/156479419419?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=tvRZDxRVQp2&sssrc=2047675&ssuid=j_t98fioS_6&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Extremely helpful thanks you again!!!!!

He would think it was a free peanut butter sample.

@nokones you do love making me jealous don't you. Nice install.

Start by listening without a DPL code on the receive side. Understand that not all repeaters have a squelch tail and many will not have people listening at all times. By listening without a code or tone you’ll hear everything. Once you are sure you’re hearing the repeater work on transmitting to the repeater. You must have the right DPL code on your transmitter or the repeater will disregard your transmission. Once you know you are able to transmit to the repeater, then go back and add a tone or code to your receiver to limit what you receive to the repeater.

Yep, I watched those two videos by @OffRoaderX just the other day and now I'm thinking about the 805. AGAIN! It would probably be a good one for my wife. She used to work for a company that sells, services, and rents Kenwood radios so she has held some real quality radios in her hand and my CCRs don't quite cut it for her.

Every one of those is a repeater. Nets are usually held on repeaters.

Thanks Steve, I guess I was confusing myself between all of the listings on RadioReference, whether those are repeaters or just chat 'nets. I've been listening to plenty of ham chatter (I'm not licensed yet on amateur), but yet to make GMRS contacts. Having a lot of fun trying to figure it all out. Thanks again

If it's operating illegally I guess they would be very unlikely to complain if ordinary legal users hijack it for their own use. That might be enough to convince them to shut it down or get a legit business frequency and move off the GMRS channels.

I have seen people use telescoping flag poles and some of the longer painter's poles. There are many ways to get an antenna up in the air. Get the best antenna you can that fits your needs and don't skimp on coax either. Use LMR400 or equivalent coax. The DX engineering 400Max and R & L Electronics Jet Flex400 are good LMR400 equivalents at a lower price. You will want a duplexer if you are planning on using just one antenna for any repeater. Otherwise you will need two antennas spaced out far enough so they don't desence each other. The Retevis RT97 portable repeater is a good choice for portable/mobile type uses as it has a duplexer built in. The only thing one needs to add is a power source, antenna and coax. The RT97 puts out 10 watts before the duplexer and 5 watts out after the duplexer. This is enough for local comms as long as the antenna is up as high as you can get it. They can be found on Amazon for $350 or less.

Both eyes open now......and I see a typo on my last post here. Win 7 will not run the latest version of CHIRP for me...... On topic, I sure hope all those folks affected by them hurricanes can get back to some form of normal life soon. Being from CA, I would rather deal with an earthquake any day over a tornado or hurricane.

i support this 4 year old suggestion, desperately need dark mode option

The wrong steps will do that....... For what it's worth, my Kendwood D74 did receive air and ok, but it was significantly quieter than FM signals.

I like Gretsch

Strats are nice, don’t get me wrong. I’m a LP guy myself.

Still pissed that these young whippersnappers don’t have to visit the local FCC field office and build a spark gap transmitter like you did?

Of course. They’re on the same frequency. DMR sounds terrible on an analog radio.

To your first 3 bullet points: ALL of that spectrum is already allocated to Part 90 (either as paging/radiotelephone or LMR) and will never be reallocated to a family service. Do a FCC ULS search for your proposed frequencies to see what I am talking about. Requiring Narrowband would be theoretical if there was new spectrum available, but narrowbanding the existing frequencies will be utterly useless when there's already interstitial channels (FRS) between existing GMRS channels which would cause a lot of co-channel interference issues. Digital Voice would not be within the rules either unless the point above with narrowbanding was able to be settled, and even then would only be one permitted modulation to prevent splintering of the service in a way that causes more issues than it solves. There's already super stringent regulation on data over the voice channels so I do not see a full digital modulation being easily accepted, never mind allowing multiple. With all that said, there would not be any grandfathering allowed since these would be sweeping changes to the service that would mean that some of the currently grandfathered users would become unintentional interference to the other user base. Moving the service definition will never happen either as all parts of 47 CFR have regulations which dictate frequencies and use cases for each service, none of which cross-over or are movable by current rule - FCC won't rewrite the book for GMRS especially with the current "attention" happening. Part 90 equipment on Part 95 - that is actually doable and I was working on in 2017 and 2019 but would need to be a separate effort from everything else considering what I mentioned above about all the other pieces. Add type acceptance onto frequency/spectrum management for a service and this would stall before it got any traction. I think you have a lot of spirit with this but sadly none of it is truly doable except the last part which should be tackled first to show that existing certified radios can be used in Part 95, which be default in 2024 opens up the "commonality of digital capable radios in a family service" and then work up from there. Sadly though there won't be any "free lunch" and GMRS will not see any change in frequency allocations unless something else is given up which this being my day job as well... I have yet to come to a workable conclusion that could be pitched to the FCC.

With a strong signal, most normal people will not notice.. With a (very) weak signal it becomes more apparent and irritating.

Very good question. I am utterly amazed there has not been more talk about this topic. While I am not an expert on the subject I will share what I do know. - There is no official need for DTMF in GMRS. It is a feature that can be used when you have a special need for it. - DTMF codes are commonly used to remotely control repeaters and to control other electronics that might be monitoring the frequency. - In some radio circles (outside GMRS) some repeaters and other radios might require both a tone burst to trigger a remote receiver to open up. This is a feature that equipment that long pre-dated CTCSS and DCS sometimes needed for operation. I know of no cases in GMRS where is applicable today. Perhaps someone else will have a current day example where it is being used. - Sidetones refers to the feature of your radio that allows you, the operator, to hear the tones that your radio is sending out. This could be your radio’s ANI-ID, manual DTMF from button presses, or even select-call calling tones. The term ‘Sidetone’ comes from telephony and refers to the sound emitted from the ear piece portion of the phone. If you press a button on the phone’s keypad you will hear the tones from the ear piece. In your radio, when sidetones are not active you could very well be sending out DTMF tones and have no idea that you are. If you are using DTMF for anything, turn sidetones on so you know when and what you are sending. - The ANI-ID on your radio is a number that you establish that identifies your radio. You have six digits available and values must be greater than 101. - If you have ANI-ID turned on, when you press and/or release your PTT, your ANI-ID is sent out. The BOT, EOT and BOTH values you see in one of you radio’s function menus determines if your ANI-ID is sent out when you press PTT, release PTT or press and release. - If a receiving radio has a DTMF decoder within it, your ANI-ID will appear on their display suggesting to them which radio is transmitting. - The ‘Ring’ feature is one that, when properly enabled, allows other radios in your group to cause your radio to ring to attract your attention. For this to occur, the transmitting radio must have a valid ANI-ID value configured, the receiving radio must have an ANI-ID configured, and the transmitting radio also needs to have the receiving radio’s ANI-ID entered into the Call Group it is using. So, for example, if you have two radios, one with an ANI-ID 101 and another with an ANI-ID 102, radio 101 can cause radio 102 to ring, and radio 102 can cause radio 101 to ring. The Call Group fields are where you enter the ANI-ID of the various radios you want to be able to call/ring. Think of them like speed-dial memories. For radio 101 to call 102, radio 101 would have 102 in one of its Call Group cells. - When you have one of your PF buttons configured to make a Call, that button causes two things to be sent out in rapid succession: your ANI-ID and the receiving radio’s ANI-ID. Using the 101 and 102 radio example above, this takes the form of ‘101#102’. - Some wildcards are supported in Call Groups. Instead of entering ‘101’ in a Call Group, you could enter ‘1**’. The later would case all radios whose ANI-ID begins with ‘1’ to ring. - Ringing is not enabled by default on Wouxun radios. One must expressly enable it. - One way to enable ringing is to set the current channels SP-Mute mode to “QT*DT” or ‘QT*DTMF”. Since SP-MUTE is a channel-by-channel setting you can have some memory channels configured to ring when called and others that do not. - ANI-ID needs to be programmed, but it does not need to be turned on to always send out to use the Select call feature. I have found zero Wouxun documentation or videos that covers this. Admittedly I struggled for sometime trying to piece it together. Thanks to [mention=5881]IanM[/mention] who provided some enlightenment to help me bring it all into focus. I have found some BF stuff that covers the subject a little, but terminology is slightly different. These features have, in my view, practical use in large organized group and family outings. They have also had merit, and perhaps still do, in some LMR circles. I recently have been configuring all my radios to have unique ANI-ID, and setting up Calling Groups. I have yet to work to work out the specific details of the SP-Mute mode called ‘QT+DT’ or QT+DTMF. But my current understanding is that the radio will not break squelch until it hears an ANI-ID in DTMF form and then when it does there is some other unique behavior. I will soon be exploring that and documenting its behavior. Hope this helps. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM Edit: If you to do some experimenting and to see things work with little complication do this: 1) Configure multiple Wouxun radios. Give each a unique ANI-ID starting a 101 and going up. Use 101 in your KG-935G. 2) Set each radio to GMRS channel 01 (462.5625), low power. 3) Make sure all radios are using the same CTCSS. Say 67.0 Tx and Rx. 4) Set the SP-MUTE mode for channel 01 on all radios to QT*DT. 5) On your KG-935G radio, enable sending out of the ANI-ID each time the PTT is pressed. 6) Turn all radios on. 7) Press PTT on the KG-935G and immediately press 102# and watch what happens. Then repeat using the ANI-ID for all other radios. This simulates a select call. 8) Press PTT on the KG-935G and immediately press 1** and watch what happens. 9) Press PTT on the KG-935G and immediately press *# and watch what happens. When you have made it this far and have seen ANI-ID show up on the radio displays and you have successfully experienced ringing, then move to programming your call groups in the radios if you decide you want to use them. You may also wish to explore the different behaviors you get if some radios are in the 100 series, some in 200 series and some in the 300 series of ANI-ID values. BTW, Despite PTT-ID being a menu option on the 805G, the ID is never sent out of that radio, nor will the radio ever display one if it receives one.

>What's missing from myGMRS.com? A dark theme!