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Showing content with the highest reputation on 06/25/25 in Posts

  1. OK Boyz and Girlz, here we go. I opened up the Btech RPT50 repeater to remove the original wideband duplexer First thing I did was check the output wattage from the transmitter. The power supply was set at 13.8 volts and it was putting out 71 watts into the duplexer. Had 42 watts out of the duplexer. And not the best SWR on my 50 ohm dummy load. Right at the edge of spec. I turned the voltage down to about 11.5 volts and it showed about 65 watts out. Probably the lowest I can get it. Then I swapped the original wideband duplexer for the one that Marc so graciously tune to a single frequency for me (600). I relabeled it so some future person doesn't think it's wideband. I should probably strip the other frequencies out of the channel selection also. And I tested it and got about 48 watts from it. I said what the heck and boosted the voltage a bit and got it to put out 50 watts. I haven't put it back into service yet, soon. And testing won't be done until it cools off from the 98ºF it currently is. Says it's going to be low 70s tonight. Probably be to excited to test things at midnight, so likely around 10 or so I walk my route. Of course I'll key it up on the way home, at home on the base and try an HT from inside the air conditioned house. LOL Most of the duplexers I looked at said "40-80 watts (50 watts)" so hopefully I don't melt this one. The replacement was accepting the 71 watts without blinking and the original had the power supply set for 12.5 volts which is about 67 watts into the duplexer.
    3 points
  2. The problem with the whole concept of teaming up with an amateur radio club is that some amateur radio operators despise people with a lower level license than them. There's no way they would accept somebody from the gmrs service as deserving of their time. I have a general class amateur radio license. I am what is lovingly referred to as a no code General Tech. It's a dig that General and extra class license holders use to insult General class license holders who did not have to pass the morse code requirements. I have literally had dozens of experiences where General class license holders who passed their Morse Code test and extra class license holders who have passed there Morse Code test found out that I was a no code General and stopped talking to me in the middle of a conversation because I wasn't worthy of their time. While there is a good amount of people in the amateur world who are absolutely amazing at Radio stuff and love to share their knowledge, there are way more people who are just grumpy old sour pusses who would rather cut a finger off than help someone who isn't "worthy of their time."
    3 points
  3. Others have posted VG info already, won't add to that. I do know a couple "professional" storm chasers, they both have LMR licenses for their pursuits. Mostly so they can encrypt their radio traffic, so as to not have other chasers, especially those who take groups out to show off storms, their info.
    3 points
  4. If it gets you the distance and clarity you want, it's a good setup. "Good enough" is a valid concept.
    2 points
  5. Didn't you know that watching tornadoes is an outdoors spectator sport here in the midwest?
    2 points
  6. Reminds me of shooting at the range. There are some long-range rifle shooters who consider clays (trap/skeet/sporting clays) to be beneath them. "I shoot at 1,000 yards. What's a long clay shot, 50 yards? Pfft. Too easy." I'd love to get him on the skeet range with a ringer, a 14 year-old girl who recently hit 197 out of 200 at a national tournament.
    2 points
  7. I agree. Fortunately, the behavior that Marc described is becoming less common, at least in my area. I don’t know of any hams in our club who look down their noses at GMRS licensees, but most of us would be very happy to help an interested GMRS licensee become a ham also. For any widespread emergencies amateur radio has an advantage, but for nearby emergency communications GMRS and FRS are much more easily accessible to more people. Ham clubs should be studying how these services can be complementary to each other.
    2 points
  8. It certainly would. I ran a center mag-mount CB whip for years on another truck, but hated having the cord so visible and really hated what the mount did to the paint. Drilling a hole in the roof and moving my NMO mount there would also be better, but I’m not drilling a hole in this truck. I’m already getting into repeaters >20mi away on my 778II, so I’ll stick with this low-profile setup.
    2 points
  9. Of that I am very aware. These are mostly leaf trees so there's that.... Always had issues from the house to the shop which holds the repeater. 50w vs 25w. I could always come in mostly clear to the house, but from the house it was hit or miss. Then I got a 50w radio for the house and the problem is mostly gone, certainly not R9 reception but easy to talk and understand. Needed the extra wattage to punch through the leaves it seems. On top of that what helped later on was swapping out to the Comet 712EFC. Eventually the repeater will have that same antenna and upgrade from the Retevis 7.2dBi. So sometimes a little more wattage works. And since the 1st wideband duplexer was swapped out for the 2nd wideband duplexer I've been able to hit the repeater mostly successful with a 5w HT. R7 at best, no communication at worst. Duplexer is coming in today
    2 points
  10. Did my walk around the block with to have a record of the 2nd original duplexer. Since I do these things late at night I have a digital recorder I use to "listen" to me. I do the test of the repeater and then switch to talk around to let me know where I am in case the repeater test doesn't go through. There are a few spots on my walk that are iffy. Like I've mentioned in other threads I have 1.6KM of dense forest in the way of my signal, 70' trees with my antenna at 40'. After the new single channel tuned duplexer is installed I'll try to do the same test in the same spots.
    2 points
  11. Scadacore will let you model the RF path between your two sites by showing the terrain and earth curvature you need to factor in for antenna height. As far as equipment, the three most important things are: 1) Antenna; 2) Height above ground (AGL) at both sites; 3) radio. If you don't have a clear path, no antenna or radio will work at GMRS frequencies as the signal travels about 15% further than the horizon. Power just means there is more signal in the area, not more distance. The 20 mile distance you estimate would be adequately served with a 25W radio in most instances. Personally, I would choose an Anytone radio over the two you mention as their price/performance is on a par with much more expensive units from other Chinese manufactures. RF Line of Sight - SCADACore
    2 points
  12. If it satisfies your communication requirements then it was a good choice.
    2 points
  13. Majik

    GMRS setup info/advice

    The Midland is a solid unit for GMRS, but it’s quite expensive. It also ONLY does GMRS – no VHF/UHF scanning. That B-TECH is far less expensive, but I’ve read reports that it’s a bit quirky, sometimes noisy, and the volume is only accessible via menus. But it has fully integrated mic controls and can scan VHF/UHF. For my mobile station, I eventually settled on the AnyTone 778II (w VOX). It’s only 25W, but sounds amazing, scans VHF/UHF, and seems to have plenty of power to throw signal where I need it. AnyTone is also highly regarded in the budget mobile/base radio segment. See if they have a 50W radio that meets your needs, but I’m betting 25W would serve you well with the right antenna and mount location.
    2 points
  14. DPL 023 is not a CTCSS tone. CTCSS is an analog tone in hertz and DPL is a digital code. The lowest standard CTCSS freq (Continuous Tone-Coded Squelch System) is 67.0 Hertz (cycles). DPL (Digital Private Line) or DCS (Digital Coded Squelch) lowest code is 023 and the highest code is 754. DCS/DPL may be either normal (D023N) or inverted (D023I) They both function the same in protecting or keeping the receiver squelched until the tone or coded is present on the frequency/channel carrier. When the tone or code is interrupted by unkeying, the tone/code will cease thus the receiver will squelched and prevent other carriers without a tone or the incorrect code from opening up the receiver. Essentially it is a Nuisance Eliminator. Motorola trade name "Private Line" is misunderstood by many because no frequency is Private unless it is encrypted. Other radio manufacturers use a different name for their CTCSS/DCS or no name at all.
    2 points
  15. I still go outside during sever weather so I can make accurate reports to the Sky Warn Net. But I sure am not going to go chasing any storms. And I will head for cover if I see a tornado heading my way.
    1 point
  16. There's a company that makes custom lengths of 7/8" heliax to order. Their prices seem pretty reasonable when I looked, but might still break your budget. I'd go with the best cable you can get for the main run. Use whatever connectors the antenna uses (no adapters at the antenna end). Then a lightning protector. Then 400 ultraflex to get into the house and to a base station, or a single adapter to a skinny coax with the matching ultraflex on one end and SMA-F (usually) to connect to a hand-held being used as a base station. My preference for outdoor connectors (and in general, actually) is N connectors. I wrap the completed, tested connector assembly in Scotch 88 electrical tape and then slide one of the heat-shrink tubes from a local Home Depot/etc. underground splice kit onto it and shrink it. That makes it watertight (you don't want water getting into your nice new cable). The heat shrink tubing and hot melt glue inside it will make a watertight seal, and the electrical tape means the connectors won't get gunked up with glue if you ever have to go into that connection again. This way you can upgrade your antenna at a later time without worrying about your cabling robbing power. If you use a commercial installer (not on your budget) you should get a PDF or hardcopy of an SWR sweep across your intended working range. Otherwise you can probably find someone with a SW-102 or similar to give you power and SWR readings. At the other end of the spectrum (pun intended) you can go all-out. My plan is 7/8" heliax from the lightning protector to a 20' mast on the roof, then a DB420-B (if the price ever becomes sane again - prices have tripled and Andrew is quoting 4-5 month lead time) antenna . The ground field is eight 8' long ground rods 16' apart connected with a continuous length of #4 copper and bonded to the power entrance. From the lighting protector to the repeater inside the house, I'll be using 400-class ultraflex. If you were in the NYC area, I'd give you a short reel of LMR600 - I end up with anywhere from 50' to a few hundred feet I can't use, on giant (table-size) reels. This is stuff left over from other RF work where LMR600 is preferable. That stuff is so thick and stiff that I made a walking stick out of an N connector on a length of LMR600. It was the end of the day and a storm was rolling in, so I just put connectors on the too-long cables to connect them to the protector bank. 2 days later I came back and cut the lengths down to the proper size, hence the leftover.
    1 point
  17. Ya, I have one of those 97S repeaters. More of a bug out repeater.
    1 point
  18. Sounds good LeoG. I fear that Retevis made a mistake when they upped the TX power. They either didn't have enough isolation in the duplexer, or choose to allow more insertion loss to get a high isolation. Either way is makes for poorer RX sens. I hope I'd dead wrong though and it's good. According to the spec sheet, the 97S is 0.20uV, which comes out to -121dBm. Many years ago when I worked on a project that had a full duplex radio I modified it (in a kludgy way) with a 1dB NF preamp and custom bandpass filter to protect the low NF preamp. The resultant RX sensitivity was about -123dBm, which is as low as you can go in the real world on a 25KHz channel BW. So the -121 of the RT97S is pretty darn good for a "mere" consumer grade repeater.
    1 point
  19. WSHH887

    GMRS setup info/advice

    One fellow regularly hits 200 miles. Then again he is a legend in his own mind.
    1 point
  20. I'm sorry you're experiencing the grief that you are, in your area. I Wish I could share some of the diversity of the folks here. Most of our Hams are discussing future antenna projects, current projects, ways to help the younger crowd get started with their stations, and even our local Gmrs guys are discussing antennas, tech projects and ways to improve their hobby ! A growing number of our hams are becoming licensed for Gmrs, and vice versa, with our Gmrs crowd seeking out classes for their Tech and General licenses. Most behave and conduct themselves as adults, and try to help fellow operators.
    1 point
  21. My local club is blessed that the local radio station has allowed us to put our repeaters at their tower sight. The reasons they are doing this is the fact that we are a non profit organization so its a tax write off for the radio station. The other is the owner supports amateur radio. We still have to have a licensed and bonded person to climb the tower to do any maintenance and we have to pay for our portion of the electric bill each month. We also had to put our own building up (shed) to hold all of our equipment. We are also responsible for any and all maintenance of our equipment to include antennas, coax, etc. Again we are very fortunate that the radio station allows us to use their tower free of charge. There is a real good chance that we will have to move all of our stuff if the radio station ever sells. As mentioned, finding an abandoned tower is not going to happen. They all belong to someone. Finding a tower owner that will let you use a tower for free is not very likely to happen either. Then there is the cost of antennas, coax, repeaters, other associated parts and supplies that will be needed. I sure would not bother installing a Midland or Retevis repeater on a commercial tower. Coax is another story. If the tower has any height then you are looking at more than 100 feet of coax which means you are going to want to use 7/8" or larger Heliax cable. And don't bother trying to install consumer grade antennas on a tower. As good as Comet and other brands are for consumer use at home, they will never hold up installed up high on a commercial tower. You will be paying someone to climb the tower to replace the antennas every few years. Commercial repeater antennas are not cheap.
    1 point
  22. Well I am actually going to find that out tonight. I have a Btech 50w repeater and it has a wideband duplexer in it and soon I will be changing that out for a single channel tuned duplexer. The receive should be more sensitive. The receiver will be the same, but the desense should be much less with the >-85db vs the >-45db of the wideband duplexer
    1 point
  23. I have experienced what Marc described, but I learned to avoid them so it has no impact on me. If they are becoming less common it's mostly because the old farts are dying out. Adding to what Marc described, a lot of HAMs want to only have meaningless social chat, which is not what I got radios for. I deleted all the nearby repeaters from my channels because I'm fed up with these people. I asked about joining a club in my hometown and was told no, to start my own. After I moved I went to the nearest club meeting and was mocked for only doing 2m (and 440). I've asked about starting nets twice and was turned down. Gave up on ARES when they made training and deployment as criteria. Skywarn was moved to a repeater I won't use because of policy. Really nothing left for me on HAM. GMRS turned out to be disappointing as well, but I monitor it more now than HAM. Back on topic, there is a new GMRS repeater only up 30ft but the owner wants to link to a node (did he miss all the brouhaha?). Same frequency used by other repeaters that likely overlap his area. From what I recall the linked system owner shut down so I don't know why this is even still available.
    1 point
  24. Or I got luck and got one that was fairly accurate. I have two of them and they both read the same for power and SWR. I had one on my home base and when I got the new one I swapped out to see if it would read the same. It did, so I didn't even swap them back. Just took the older one and it'll go into my shop setup.
    1 point
  25. Not going to be the receiver sensitivity that'll be the issue. The wideband duplexer is what is really going to limit the sensitivity.
    1 point
  26. That is just sad. I guess that is where Randy came up with the term "sad ham." I have been very fortunate that I have not had such experiences. All the hams I associate with are very good people. And many of them are dual licensed.
    1 point
  27. Lscott

    Here with another TK880 issue

    See attached file and read the instructions below I had found on-line some time back. ==================================================================================== KPG49D v4.02 Password Bypass -> KPG49D.exe: 0x0000418A change 74 to EB Once modified, when the Data Password dialog box opens, just hit enter or type anything and it will then go onto read the codeplug. The password is located in the .dat file at 0xB5-0xBA. KPG-49D V4.02.zip
    1 point
  28. dosw

    GMRS setup info/advice

    It would be very hard to find a mass produced antenna with so much gain that it would cast its signal too high or too low for another antenna at a 140 foot offset 20 miles away. That's 0.00135%, or 0.076 degrees. That level of focus of signal is in the realm of laser beams, or antennas for communicating with equipment on the moon. Another way of looking at it is that a boat's radar, which is designed to have good resolution characteristics, could merge two objects into one if they're less than 300 feet apart at 20 miles.
    1 point
  29. Trees are one of your worst enemy when it comes to UHF, especially cedar and pine trees. And it's not always possible to get an antenna above the local trees either. We look forward to updates.
    1 point
  30. Yeah, they're fine otherwise (they read 8v when not on the charger). Since I have enough of them (all four radios came with two batteries, plus the two batteries from warranty replacements), I can just swap with a spare from the bin without worrying about charging them while using the radio. I'll mark this one but keep charging them separately.
    1 point
  31. Since the radios have a real off switch that physically disconnects the battery from the radio when off it really doesn't matter a whole lot as long as you turn the radio off when you charge it. I've been using the charging stand since I've got the H3s and I only charge them when they are turned off. Sometimes I charge the batteries separately when I need a new battery now and pull from my extra pile, then that weak battery gets charged out of the radio. Just don't charge the battery while the radio is on and you shouldn't have any issues.
    1 point
  32. @SteveShannon I didn't take pictures, but I tested the new battery. Drained it to 7.3v and charged it overnight - it's reading 8.5v across the terminals while it's on the charger. Success! Looks like maybe they fixed the battery management circuit and the high voltage coming out of the batteries when they're plugged in and fully charged. Now if only I didn't have a stack of the bad batteries that look identical to the one good one.
    1 point
  33. LeoG

    GMRS setup info/advice

    I could do a Radio Mobile calculation to let you know if you have line of site or not. I would need pretty specific gps location to do so.
    1 point
  34. I’ve been running this little Midland for a few weeks now in various regions (MidTN, Chatty, Northern AL, Bham, MidMS) and have been quite impressed with its performance. Sure, other antennas can throw farther, but this little guy is doing very well with its diminutive profile. Would recommend.
    1 point
  35. dosw

    GMRS setup info/advice

    RF line of sight could be a problem, depending on how high you can realistically mount your antennas. An antenna mast with mounting hardware could easily set you back a couple hundred, to get your masts up 30 feet. On the other hand, mounting each antenna fifteen feet up on the roof, with one property 140 feet above the other property, could get you right around 20 miles. This is good news because it also means RF line of sight roof-top to roof-top is something you can verify with a couple of inexpensive handheld radios. So before buying nice radios, and before buying masts and antennas, buy a couple cheap GMRS handhelds for $30 each. Each of you stand on your roof. And try to talk to each other. If you get nothing, no static, no roger beeps, nothing, you're just out of luck. Those wooded areas between you are attenuating too much of your signal. On the other hand, if you're able to break squelch and hear each other a little, you can proceed. Now assume that you were able to break squelch for each other. What next? Each of you get a 25w to 50w radio, however many feet of LMR400 cable you each need, lightning arrestors, some fittings, and appropriate mounting hardware for the roof. Get a couple of antenna such as the Comet GP6NC GMRS antenna. Oh, and get 13.8v power supplies. Adding it all up you'll be spending around $525 to $725 each. As for repeaters; a repeater is useful if it can be higher than the other radios, and/or positioned somewhere between the other radios. It's useless to put a repeater on your roof, if the goal is just to extend range from your roof to the other person's roof. A repeater won't be giving you more range. What a repeater does is it allows one radio talking to the repeater to hear another radio talking to the repeater. If A and B cannot hear each other, but A can hear C, and B can hear C, then putting a repeater at position C will allow A and B to hear each other by talking through C. Another thing to do is to investigate what ham repeaters are in your area. If there are no GMRS repeaters, you may discover there *are* ham repeaters. Then you get licensed for whatever type of repeater exists in your area. If you find GMRS repeaters, great, get your GMRS license. If you find ham repeaters, you and the other party need to study for a couple weeks and get your ham licenses. If you are fortunate enough that there are good repeaters in your area (ham or gmrs), then you don't need to spend 500-700 each. You can each get a $30 radio that is made for the service type you're getting licensed in, and talk through the repeater. In my area there are about seven or eight pretty good GMRS repeaters. But there are also at least 25 very good 2m or 70cm amateur/ham repeaters. If that ratio holds true elsewhere, even if you don't have a GMRS repeater in your area, you may find there are one or more decent ham repeaters.
    1 point
  36. You have to start somewhere. We have a neighborhood group that currently is all simplex. Our biggest issues are earthquake and tsunami. Though after the Palisades fire, my area is similar geographically to that area, fire has popped up on our radar. It began after a neighbor had a home invasion and the LAPD showed up two hours later (she was hiding in her home on the phone with 911 as it happened). So now some of us have a secondary means for summoning help. Help that will be much quicker and probably better armed. A secondary use is we just check in with those more limited in mobility.
    1 point
  37. My granddaughter is at the age where she enjoys talking to me on GMRS using her parents radio or sometimes her grandmother's handheld. Good times.
    1 point
  38. WRKC935

    abandoned radio tower

    Well, define 'abandoned'. There are a number of towers that are owned by someone, all over the US that are not currently active, but are not by what I believe you are inferring, abandoned. Many are indeed owned by the major vertical real estate companies like Crown Castle or American Tower. Some are owned but private individuals or businesses that are not in the vertical real estate business, but do own the property a tower sits on. You are no doubt asking because you want to put up a repeater and think if you can find an abandoned tower, that you can just roll up in there and get to work putting up a repeater on it and no one will care. Well, good luck with that. First issue is there isn't a piece of property anywhere in the US that's not owned or claimed by someone else already. And if there is a tower on it, someone put that tower there. As a person that manages and maintains a tower. Like a real tower, not a 20 foot pipe on the end of my house, but a 240 foot microwave tower sitting on 1.3 acre's of land with a building. Here's what you face, IF you can find an abandoned tower or one that someone will allow you to have full access to. First is an electric bill. Because you simply are NOT going to find some rich benefactor that will not only allow you access to their tower, but pay your power bill as well. Second is the building condition. If it's truly abandoned, and unused, then it's not being maintained. So the roof will leak, the door may or may not even close. You may face it being full of animals, birds and lots of poop. Bird poop will give you an incurable disease. Don't remember what it's called, but look it up, it's a thing. So getting the building ready to put a repeater in might require a hazmat suit and respirator to just be in and out of the thing. And mold.... yeah, gonna be plenty of that too. Now, getting the power turned back on may well require permits, and civil engineering plans with PE stamps to obtain the permits. We had to do that too. More money. If the crack heads have been there stealing wire, then you are rewiring the building. Again, been there and done that. More money. Then there is the tower. What shape is it really in? Is it a guyed tower, or free standing? Is it rusted or in reasonable shape? Guyed towers will hide dangers. The anchor heads will rust just below the ground and you will not see that if you don't dig them up. Simply attempting to climb a tower with that issue may cause the tower to fall, with you on it. Then there is the base pier, the grouting and all that other stuff that since you are asking this question, you know nothing about. You don't posses the knowledge to even judge the structural integrity of the tower to begin with. This can create TWO issues. First is simple. If you are on the tower and it falls, you die. Second issue is you have someone else on the tower and it falls, they die, and you get sued by both the tower owner in front of 12 people that have equally no clue about a tower but know YOU were allowed to access it and it's down and someone died. And not only will the family of the dead guy be suing you, but so will the tower site owner to claim you were at fault, and responsible, but also to protect himself from that family from coming after him. Just depends on who gets to the court house first with the lawyers to file the suit. A friend told me once ' I can't afford free" and free towers typically very few can afford, and they don't figure that out until they have made some level of commitment to do something with a site that they have no business being involved with. But I will tell you this. There are NO FREE ABANDONED towers anywhere that you are gonna just walk into and put up a repeater at without significant cost. And remember that we haven't talked about repeaters, cable, antenna's or any of that yet.
    1 point
  39. Don't forget the barn door effect. If a conversation is going on on one repeater and someone keys up on the other repeater, it is highly likely that they will be close enough to hit both repeaters, and what will happen is that they will come across the other repeater as long as someone is talking which would cause the receive to be open. It would make it sound like someone was keying over the person talking. PL tones only keep the receive from opening up unless someone with the proper tone keys up. Once that person with the proper tone keys up, it opens the receive allowing everything in, hence the "barn door effect, however, in normal circumstances, just the person using that repeater should be heard. I have a repeater right down the road that is local. There is another repeater 35 miles from me that, when you are on the hill tops around here, you can get into it and definitely hear it well. I know there have probably been many times where I probably clobbered a person talking on the other repeater when I put my callsign out on the local repeater near me. The two repeaters? Same deal as what you are asking about. Same frequency, different tones.
    1 point
  40. For testing, and to learn, type the following in to row 1: under RX Frequency, type in 462.62500. under TX Frequency, type the same thing: 462.62500 QT/DQT is Kenwood's trade-name for CTCSS or DCS a.k.a "Tone Squelch" - Decode and Encode - just leave those both blank for now. under Channel Name, type "Channel 18" under W/N, select Wide instead of Narrow, unless you are talking to Midland MicroMobiles or other FRS radios, then select Narrow. Under TX Power, select Low for the time being. You will change this later, remember, this is just for testing and practice programming. Scan Add - Yes (or no, doesn't matter yet) Optional Signal - leave it blank or select None. Then drop down the program menu from the top bar, and select "Upload data to Radio" and go from there. Your radio should re-boot after a minute or less with FRS/GMRS "Channel 18" showing in the display, and you should be able to talk to another radio on 18 with no private code set. (Private code is Midland's name for CTCSS or Tone) If it works, go back and program in channels 1-7 on Low power, and 15-22 on High power. You can add repeater channels later as needed. To find the frequencies to use, just do a google search for "FRS GMRS Frequency Chart" and you'll find it. Also note that is is illegal to use FRS channels 8-14 on a base or mobile radio, so just leave them out. Those are for half-watt handhelds only.
    1 point
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