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Get those stupid ducks off the dash! That's an embarrassment to real Jeepers!

Yes. It's best to think of fixed stations as transmitters permanently attached to a fixed pad firmly attached to the ground under them. They are used to send information from one permanent location to another station meeting the same mounting requirements. The best example for the simpletons is a radio transmitter connected to a gauge monitoring liquid levels or pressure at one location sending to a receiver at another permanent location that receives only the information from the sending unit of the pair.

Don’t confuse Fixed Station with fixed location. A Fixed Station is not the same as a Control Station. Nor is a Fixed Station the same as a Base Station. All three are located in “fixed locations” but all three serve different purposes and have different limitations. A Fixed Station is limited to 15 watts and is required to only communicate with other Fixed Stations. Base Stations and Control Stations may have 50 watts and are used to communicate with other types of stations.

That’s a great example. Another example would be dedicated intercoms between two or three buildings.

Has anyone else here found solar power to be a pretty fun "hobby"?... Am I a weirdo?... There's just something sort of gratifying from harvesting some completely free electricity. Even if it's just on 100 watts worth of panels into a power bank. It's fun knowing that you can harvest and store a functional amount of electricity completely non-reliant on any sort of subscriber infrastructure. Can keep some phones, handheld radios, a laptop, flashlights, and the bare essentials charged if the power were to not be available. I used to be a generator nerd lol. I still have my big 9500 watt generator, but all that those do is convert a stored energy source into another... Gotta have gas, and you're essentially just using jugs of gas as batteries, and the conversion method is a loud mechanical nightmare. So what's better than just harvesting LIGHT and storing that as electricity? The sun will always be around, and if not, we've got bigger problems anyway..

Well, I'm not doing show and tell. You are wrong about the equipment. It does not have to be a desktop type rig, i.e. a true base radio; mobiles and handhelds in a house, garage, radio shack, office, etc. with an external antenna on a pole, roof, chimney or in a tree are base stations. That's what they mean by fixed location, and notice they always refer to base station not base radio. My DB20G can be setup as base station, mobile station and portable station. Even my UV5G can be a base station.

GMRS channels/frequencies are shared with FRS and channels 8-14 are restricted to 0.5 watts. Make sure your radio doesn't have any "privacy" (they aren't private) tones set. If tones are set, you won't be able to hear anything that doesn't come from a radio using the same tone. You'll need to set tones to use repeaters, but first clear them all out and listen to see who's talking and what channel(s) they're using.

Look at this: The FCC defines "Control Station" in the context of radio services, particularly under Part 95 of Title 47 of the Code of Federal Regulations. While the term isn't always explicitly defined in every radio service, here's how it's generally understood: FCC Definition (Part 95 Context) A Control Station typically refers to: l l A fixed location station that communicates directly with mobile stations and other base stations. It may also serve as the central point of control for a system of cooperating stations, such as in repeater or auxiliary setups. In amateur radio (Part 97), related terms include: Control Operator: The person responsible for ensuring the station complies with FCC rules. Control Point: The location at which the control operator exercises control over the station. Remote Control: Operation of a station from a distance via a control link, still under the supervision of a control operator. You can explore the full regulatory definitions in 47 CFR § 97.3.

Yes. "Classic" Baofeng analog models have an LCD screen with a backlight that can be programmed to display different colors when the radio was transmitting, receiving, or idle. Like other screens of the era, they could only display pre-programmed symbols, with a dot-matrix area for the frequency display. Starting with the H802 (which was a development platform and never sold to end users), Baofeng switched to a pixel-addressable full-color screen - in the case of the BF-F8HP Pro, 160 pixels wide by 128 pixels high. That lets firmware display anything it wants (like user-customizable startup images). It also means that new firmware versions can display new symbols. For example, firmware V44 added a new antenna icon to make it more obvious which of A or B would be used when transmitting when Dual Watch was on.

Thanks! No, I came on-board for the BF-F8HP Pro project. A lot of the older Baofeng software was called VIP instead of CPS and was built using a different development environment - I'm not sure which one. I believe (but don't hold me to it) that the BF-F8HP Pro CPS is the first BTECH CPS to be done entirely by a contractor, as opposed to using the factory CPS, possibly with some BTECH-specific customizations. I think it has worked out well for customers, BTECH, and myself. If you download the BF-F8HP Pro CPS manual, Chapter 4 tells you about all of the differences between my CPS and the H802 that Baofeng has been using for almost all full-color analog models. I believe in telling users everything that was changed, not just the "fixed a couple of bugs, added some new features" that you usually get. The same level of detail is available in the firmware release notes, which I also wrote.

The main CPS is in Visual Studio 2019 C# + .NET 4. That was as modern as I could go and still maintain support for Windows XP and 32-bit operating systems. Since CHIRP now requires Windows 10 and newer, 64-bit only, we needed to have something available for users of older Windows versions. I'm pleased that I could extend support back that far. Visual Studio 2019 will be supported and receive fixes from Microsoft well into 2029. The helper programs vox and devox (used to convert to/from the radio's voice prompt format) are in regular C, also built with Visual Studio 2019. ffmpeg uses its own toolchain with many local modifications. That was the hardest thing to build, both because it dropped support for XP and 32-bit binaries years ago, and I had to put it on an extreme diet to get the executable (without needing shared libraries) down to less than 2% of the normal ffmpeg size. Since ffmpeg is a GPL program, it is built as a standalone executable. The CPS installation provides the GPLv3 license, ffmpeg build script and links to request the complete source + toolchain. They aren't included by default because they weigh in at around 4.4GB. The installer is Inno Setup 5.6.1. That version was chosen because it is the newest version that still supports Windows XP. All of the CPS executables including the installer and uninstaller, except for vox, devox, and ffmpeg, are digitally signed with my Windows code signing key, issued by DigiCert.

No, net control is not a control station.

Just get an FRS radio. No license is needed to talk and you can listen to all of the same channels.

Update: I contacted Radioddity about the TYT TH-9800. explained my issue. I have had this gear for over a month but they replied that they would replace it. I am not surprised due to the reputation of this particular machine BUT they did act fast with no pushback, as least for now. Thank you again for all of your input to lead me to not keeping a piece of gear that doesn't work. As a newby, I would have kept it and eventually trashed the $ amount paid.

I've done a lot of solar power station/panel reviews on my YouTube channel. I "preach" solar to anyone who'll listen. We get a lot of sunny days here in Arizona so it only makes sense to use solar power.

Show me a GMRS base station. One that is manufactured to fit the qualifications of a true base station, not cobbled together from a portable or mobile transceiver and power supply. The only units I can see that approximate the requirements of being in a fixed location are repeaters however, they fail the "communicates only with other fixed stations" prong of the FCC definition.

That doesn't match what FCC said. (I put that in another thread.) They specifically said "any station..." without qualifying it except for the specific fixed station limitations. So IMO a base setup definitely fits when it follows the fixed station rules. [And that's not what this topic/thread is about anyway.]

Love my anytone 778, in fact i have 2, have one in the car, and the other was my base unit until i came across a 50w anytone 5888 for $50 in "unknown" condition (translation... replace the fuse in the lead and it works) which is now the base radio...

I'm seeing that after reading what Boxcar posted.

In order to be a control station it must be a fixed transmitter at 15 watts or less. Usually fixed meaning it only communicates with another fixed station. As soon as the net controller responds to others on the repeater he's not following fixed station etiquette and not a controller.

Yup. The BF-F8HP Pro was a collaboration between BTECH and me. I'd been saying for over a year that "I want to fix everything that's wrong with the UV-17 Pro GPS as well as add many new features". Baofeng ignored me. BTECH listened to me.

SWR has nothing to do with the noises you're hearing.

He did hook up the rig to the SWR meter and from the looks of it. It reads vswr: 1.01 FW: 18.65W on 462.626mhz Trans% 99.99%

Welcome, Nate! If I were you I would find some Notarubicon videos that address your interests. He has them on many different topics that relate to GMRS. Of course the regulations specific to GMRS are here: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-D/part-95/subpart-E

I didn't say there's activity. I'm trying to breathe some life into the 220 repeater. Very limited success so far, but if I don't occasionally get on it and put out my call sign, nobody will know.

Yeah, that is very odd. Privacy tones make it so you can't hear a signal unless the tone is present. You should hear the signal with no tone and it should go away when the tone is enabled, unless your radio is broken. That could be possible. You hear noise when tone squelch is enabled because the radio is broken, and you're just hearing random noises from the radio itself.

Honestly if you’re going to do anything that’s more permanent than peel and stick you should really just punch a hole and install a through-hole NMO mount like @gortex2 showed.

That is the sound of telemetry data, while listening to it with an analog receiver. Its very common to hear on FRS/GMRS channels in rural areas where farming is mostly still family run and they don't have big budgets for automated monitoring and control systems.

Sounds like you are trying to connect to AOL by phone.

Agreed. I have mine set to monitor one channel only, the one I'll transmit on. It's convenient to have the other three available with the touch of a button, but monitoring four channels, and being forced to switch to transmit on the last active channel, is not appealing.

Hi Mike, What do you mean by “for this area?” What characteristics do you value when you say “best radio?” In other words, define “best”. Range? Nearly all mobile radios have the same range assuming the same antenna. Price? The prices will vary greatly depending on features, brand name, etc. Reliability, ruggedness, waterproof construction? All are characteristics that some people want but which are inconsequential to others. If you can better define your question, we can give you our answer.

I play. I enjoy it. Ya, I'm one of those. I have 200 watts of panels on my work truck and a charge controller with an AGM battery connected to a 3KW sine inverter. I use my tools off the back of the gate or I can power my house during short outages. I picked up 4 LiFePO4 100Ah batteries and have 400 watts of solar but only a 10 amp charge controller so I haven't don't much with it. I just keep picking up parts and pcs so it I need them at some point I can assemble a power system in an hour or so.