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Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

Merry Christmas everyone.

Even the two methods above may not work at all times. In my state, there is a clique that has maintained a GMRS repeater presence of sorts, for over a decade. They are listed on MyGMRS.com. For as far back as anyone I know remembers, they have been "members only". They have always had a disclaimer to the general effect that they were not accepting new members due to concerns about potential overloading of their repeater in the event of an actual emergency. The comical thing, is that I know people who regularly monitor their channel and have never heard any transmissions from them. Others that have, heard very brief traffic maybe once or twice in years of monitoring. Obviously, overloading is not a concern so why not just say, "It is our repeater and we don't want no dang outsiders on it", which is their prerogative? Getting back on track, a while back, a guy put up another repeater with wide coverage on their operating channel. He likely did the "listen for activity" thing and hearing none, decided to park his large, "network linked" repeater on their operating channel. Had the guy done the right thing and left it as a stand-alone to benefit the area GMRS community, he probably would have been fine. Instead, he piped in garbage from all around the country via some linking network and the existing, mostly silent, repeater guys had a cow. The silent guys plus the owner of another repeater about 40 miles out were not happy and raised a stink. This led to a frequency change of the newer networked repeater which despite claims to the contrary, is still tied to some network with regular traffic from 700+ miles away on it. Had the new guy just left off the linked network garbage, the little bit of local traffic on the channel likely would have been tolerable to the legacy repeater guys. The frequent obscenity, profanity, and other noise coming in through the network is likely what created the uproar.

Merry Christmas to all!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!

I know on my KGXS20G when the output went dead the radio still looked like it was transmitting. Only way I could tell was to put my watt meter on the output to find out it was zilch.

Make sure the mics are plugged in all the way - when you think its plugged in all the way, push even harder. IF after ensuring that they are plugged-in all the way, they are still not working, then my guess is they are either not compatible or defective.

MERRY CHRISTMASS

Ho Ho HO,,, I hope Santa brought you enough radio stuff to keep you busy for the next year.. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

I've got it now.. the VM is really no different than running a Sandbox which i do. The only problem with the Sandbox, you have to reload it every time you shut it down. It sounds like the VM is the same but since you can set up several you leave them running and toggle as needed.. The Sandbox works for me as i don't venture to HTML sites that would put me in danger... When i was doing the AutoCad KeyGen thing i did run all that in the Sandbox along with my browser for VirusTotal.. Before i executed the KeyGen, VirusTotal lit up like a Christmas Tree and interestingly the KeyGen came from a trusted source.. I also run any open source software through the sandbox and check it before i actually install on my machine.. I had originally thought Sandbox was not available with Windows 10 but learned different last night, it is available under Windows 10 Professional. The VM is interesting and i'll end up playing with it.. Thanks for the info.

Merry Christmas! That is such a great Christmas monologue.

On later model vehicles with CAN buss systems, the real radio manufactures specify grounding the radios to the chassis ground and not at the battery.

Here is a little trick I use when I am surfing the internet for anything and any reason... regardless of if you have a MAC or PC, you can create a virtual machine (VM) that cost $0 dollars to run. I build/built a VM, put my anti-virus and firewall software on it and make it so the network interface can ONLY see the internet. It can't see my private network at all. Then, I make a backup (aka snapshot). From there, I do 100% of my internet browsing from there. When I am done, I shut the VM down and my system automatically restores my VM to its backup state. I never, ever have to worry about viruses or malware. If I have a file that I download and want to use, after I scan the file and confirm there are no viruses, I mount an isolated volume and turn off the VM. One the VM is off (an restored) I mount the isolated volume on my main PC and transfer it to my permanently mounted secondary volume. I know it sounds like a lot of work and a PITA, but once the initial setup is done, the hard work is over and you get pretty fast at the file transfer after you ave done it a few times. If you want to get fancy, you can save all your favorite site's cookies and login information on the VM, write a script to do the rest of the work, making it take seconds.

Wrong on both counts. I have several seats of RT Software and there are some very serious bugs in those seats which manipulate linked tables of DMR zones and groups that can completely corrupt a codeplug. Having said that I will continue using RT Systems software, avoiding those features which corrupt memory. As far as Chirp goes although it is free, it is no sketchier than any other software I’ve used and the developer is very responsive. I’ll continue using it as well. As far as triggering malware detection software I’ve seen false positives on several different CPS programs by various antivirus programs. The reason is heuristic detection. It works by watching for snippets of software that resemble malware. Programs intended to program radios match that pattern, even though they don’t have actual malware embedded. That has been discussed before; it’s not new.

He's a clown that does not know what he's talking about and a shill that only says what his Chinese handlers tell him to say. I saw a licensed H.A.M. radio operator proclaim all this right here in this forum so it must be true because the guy had a license!

I was prompted by @TrikeRadio's thread from July to do a review of these, because his requirement was similar to what I needed. I work with a couple of organizations that do public events, and like most people, I sometimes travel in a caravan of vehicles. For those situations, the ideal radio would be FRS-capable (more on that later), inexpensive, and as mistake-proof as possible. A few months ago, I decided upon the Arcshell AR-5 which I got in a 10-pack from Amazon for less than $12 each. It's a UHF-only radio with a claimed 0.5 watts low power and 2 watts high power, programmable through CHIRP, and with 16 channels. It has the usual Kenwood mic/headset jack and a USB-C port so you can charge the battery in the radio. The battery isn't USB-chargeable alone, but the USB charging feature is nice and it's the reason I went with these instead of some of the similar ones which were a couple of bucks cheaper. Controls are minimal; there's an on/off/volume knob, a channel selection knob, a PTT, a flashlight button and a programmable button which I disabled. I put a drop of Gorilla Glue on each antenna, not because I'm concerned that the FCC would find out or would care even if they did, but if the antenna can come off, some of them will. My friends are horse people, not radio people, and most of them care less than horse droppings about bells and whistles as long as they can communicate. With 2 watts of power and a fixed antenna, they're functionally FRS radios, although not type-accepted. First impressions were mostly positive, considering the price. They come from the factory with 16 pre-programmed channels, and when I downloaded to CHIRP, the frequencies were all over the map. Some had codes and some didn't, a couple were FRS frequencies, and some were in the business band. This is the only thing IMO that makes them less than ideal for the non-radio public -- they need to be programmed by someone who has the software, cable, and skills to do it. They come with the ubiquitous earpiece/mic which so far nobody has bothered to use. The batteries snap in firmly without any wiggle and the belt clips are surprisingly strong for bargain radios. They're light and don't feel particularly rugged, although I've passed them out twice now and nobody has broken one. A few of them have been dropped and sometimes the battery popped off, but they all worked again when the battery was replaced. So far, I haven't had one stepped on by a horse, but no radio is going to survive that, and these are $12. The batteries fully charge in about 3 hours on the cradle and about 2 hours on USB and last 8-10 hours in use. Testing on the Farz-O-Meter 2000 showed a legit 0.5 watts on low and 2.0-2.2 watts on high power. We have only used them at distances up to about a mile, although in April, I'll have a chance to see how they perform at ~2 miles. They are programmable in software for wideband or narrowband UHF FM operation. The audio is crisp and with virtually no static They have only 16 channels, not the nominal 22 of FRS or the (bogus) 60 claimed by Midland, but in practice, we only use about 3 channels anyway. Since 7 of the FRS channels are low power only, I didn't even program them in. I programmed the 15 two-watt channels and a 16th duplicate one using a different DTCS code. The full array of CTCSS and DTCS codes is available, which is nice, because at horse events there are often other people on FRS radios. They have some convenient features available in programming such as "busy channel lockout". They are even repeater-capable, although for my purposes, that doesn't matter. They have VOX, scan, and commercial FM radio capabilities, all of which I disabled. Essentially, I neutered everything except the basic FRS capabilities, but the features are there if you want to use them. The AR-5 is pretty much the definition of "cheap Chinese radio", but for my purposes, they're almost ideal. I certainly wouldn't recommend them for any scenario where life or property would be at risk if communication failed and I have no idea how long they'll last, but at $12, they're virtually disposable. They enable you to talk to other people at a distance, which is the most basic function of a radio, and sometimes that's all you need.

I found the Bluetooth feature too distracting for me to safely use and went back to just using the mic. It has been more than a year since I stopped using the Bluetooth and I think the problem was delayed reaction time and the amount of planning you had to do to use it for each transmission. You still have to have the radio where you can reach it, the Bluetooth basically only makes the mic itself hands free. The Bluetooth was easy to set up and program. APRS took a little more time to set up. Programming is pretty straight forward, identical to many other mobile radios. Chirp plays well with Anytones. Like just about every other radio sold in the US, if you want to transmit outside of ham bands, you must select an alternate control configuration (I think there are 8 choices).

This is correct. After working with business frequency coordinators in the Part 90 bands (450-470 MHz) for many years, the same approach applies there - if you can't find a clear channel, you can still coordinate, license and install your repeater at the same site as another licensee operating on the same frequency (assumes neither is an FB8 class - centralized trunked). Just don't interfere. This often works out fine because the incumbent repeater is not being used (user moved on, or seasonal), or no longer exists, even though a license still exists. It really is the best way to fully utilize spectrum. However, the FCC's disservice was to lengthen the license term from five to ten years, resulting in tens of thousands to Peper" or non-existent repeaters.

Unfortunately there are no coordination efforts nor any repeater counsels for GMRS like there is for amateur band repeaters. Plus the fact that GMRS repeaters are limited to just eight channels doesn't help. I am glad that we are in the middle of the state which made it easier to pick a channel. There are quite a few GMRS repeaters in the St Louis and Kansas City areas.

Christmas Spirit!

It's a shame that happened like that. We decided right away not to even consider linking our GMRS repeater. We already have our 2m repeater linked to AllStar. We don't have many rules outside of following the FCC regulations on our repeater. The three big ones are: no foul language, no discussing politics, and no business uses. We are strict about no foul language since there are kids that use our repeater on a regular basis. And politics usually leads to arguments. After talking to another local GMRS repeater owner, we decided to follow his advice and not allow business use. He had a big problem with the big commercial farms wanting to tie up his repeater and we didn't want that to happen with ours. We checked Repeater Book and My GMRS along with listening on all of the repeater channels first. We then reached out to the other GMRS repeater owners within a 50 mile radius of our location. SO far we have not had any issues with unlisted repeaters. We do occasionally pick up a different repeater on the other side of the state when there is a band opening. Merry Christmas everyone.

Why would anyone be foolish enough to use a utility that is on the internet that is absolutely free and only gets updated when the crows fly upside down? This applies to all sites, not just this one. The onus is on you, not the site giving misinformation. Only way to do it correctly is to do a site survey for a predetermined amount of time to be 98% sure you're not going to cause or receive interference.

It's refreshing to actually see someone else on this forum taking advantage of VMs. I've been doing it for many years and it's the only way for general surfing as you do, but the main benefit is it's the best way organize and use all your radio programming software. If you're using some of that antique Motorola software that will only work on 32-bit you can load Widows 7 or Windows 10 VM and it just works. The best part of using VMs is when you are installing new software, you simply take a snapshop before you install it and if things go south, all you have to do is take one mouse click and you're back on the previous and clean version of the OS. For the people that want to experiment with VMs, you can download and legally use VMware for free as a personal user.

The latest update fixed it for me, so everything moved over nicely. Now when I update it’s much easier for both.

OffroaderX seems to always know what is in notarubicon's heart

578 is my everyday radio, but I generally just use it on 2m

Dual-boot is a blast, for sure. I used to run a Windows / Ubuntu dual boot, which was helpful for doing design work for endpoint software and scripts. With an OS-based hypervisor, you can run as many simultaneous virtual machines as your available resources allow, with whatever OS you want, without ever having to shutdown the host OS. Also, as long as resources are managed correctly, none of the other VM's should ever impact performance or availability of the host OS nor any of the other VM's. The only constraint is, if you shutdown or reboot your host OS (the main operating system instance on the computer), all of the guest virtual machines will also be restarted and/or shutdown. With automatic dynamic resource allocation, I can run 7 to 10 guest virtual machines on my PC and not miss a beat. The biggest benefit to the typical home user is complete isolation from the internet. So there is no risk of virus or malware attacks, data loss or theft, or privacy violations (when combined with VPN service, anti-virus software and some common sense about what not to put on the VM.) It is definitely a bit advanced for the average home user, but there are a ton of resources online that can provide step-by-step instructions. And I know that since you are able to figure out a dual-boot system, which is much harder to accomplish IMHO, you should have no problem getting an OS-based Hypervisor setup.

If you run something that infects your VM with malware you just blow it away and create a new one.

Yes

I'm referencing a virtual machine, not Vertical Network. You can create a virtual computer in a local hypervisor on your PC or MAC, sharing your storage, RAM and CPU. Here is a screen grab from my PC with the VM shown.

Good to know...I have RT for my 2730, and I've been eyeing the id50/52 (not that I really need more radios, but the near repeater thing would be nice)

From the Chirp page: Warnings from AntiVirus and AntiMalware software about CHIRP Users of CHIRP may experience false positives from their anti-virus/malware software, their browser, etc. Unfortunately, there are not easy solutions to this problem as CHIRP is a volunteer effort without the financial and legal resources to secure agreements with these companies. Further, CHIRP releases fixes and features very often, so that users get the latest stuff as soon as possible. That means the "reputation" for a given version of CHIRP may be lower, the newer it is. For more information about false positives and AntiVirus in general, see some if these articles: What are antivirus false positives? How to tell if a virus is actually a false positive Still paying for antivirus? Experts say you probably don't need it Below are some common examples of what you may see, and how to handle them. Recommendation: Tell your antivirus provider that the file is not a virus! They won't know if you don't tell them and especially if you're paying for their services, make them get it right. If you can report the file as safe, it helps the other users of CHIRP because it decreases the likelihood of them seeing a warning and improves the general "reputation" of the CHIRP project. (The webpage goes on, but due to advertising I didn’t copy it all. If you want to know more go to https://chirpmyradio.com/projects/chirp/wiki/AntiVirusWarnings

Yes, that's my backup plan if Plan A does not work, but if they use a DCS tone, it is quite a feat to figure it out. Plan A for me is to take my Baofeng UV13 up to the repeater, tune it to the input frequency and scan for the Tones when the repeater is being actively used by others.

I've had multiple requests pending for over a year. If the repeater is listed as open, and I've had no response to a request for access, I just use it. If the owner doesn't want me on it they'll let me know. I'd do the same if it were my repeater; i.e. just turn it on and let it go.