nokones

The Trucker channel came about because of the old CB rule for the use of the 22 channels back in the 60s. Ch. 10 was designated for highway comm west of the Mississippi and Ch. 19 was designated for highway comm east of the Mississippi. Apparently, Ch. 10 bleeded over onto Ch. 9 from the Truckers that were using Linears so the Truckers traveling west would just stay on Ch. 19. Ch. 19 was not used by the Truckers on the West Coast and I don't recall why. Truckers coming west into California would switch from Ch. 19 at Barstow on Interstates 15 and 40, and at Rocklin on Interstate 80. At Barstow, the Truckers would run on Ch. 21 throughout Southern California to the Mexican Border. When they travel North on Interstate 5 or US 101 they would switch to Channel 15 at the Antelope Valley Freeway in Newhall and stay on 15 to Lost Hills at California State Route 46 and switch to Ch. 17. On California State Route 99 they would also switch to Ch. 17 at State Route 46 which is north of Bakersfield. On California State Route 58 from Bakersfield going east the Truckers would use Ch. 19. As they travel north from Sacramento in the very early days, they would use Ch.6 but that got changed to Ch. 17 eventually and I don't remember when but I think it was sometime around when the "Smokey and the Bandit" and the "Convey" movies became a hit. The Truckers used Ch. 17 all the way to the Canadian Border.

The FCC originally set aside the 27 MHz freqs for CB Class D operation with 23 channels and the intended use was for business radio service back in the 60s. The FCC designated Ch. 11 as the calling channel for making the initial contact than you were required to move to an approved channel channels 1-8 or 15-22 if it was communications with an intra-station as part of your business. Channels 12-14 were designated for communications with inter-stations that were not part of your business. Channel 9 was designated for highway emergencies and channel 10 was designated for highway non-emergencies west of the Mississippi and Channel 19 was designated for the non-emergencies east of the Mississippi. Most CB radios only had access to 22 channels with some CB radios having channel 22A thus, the 23rd channel. The CB Class D freqs were mostly used by business class operators such as carpenters, plumbers, tow truck operators, etc. That was the channel plan designated by the FCC back in the 60s for the use of the CB radio. Of course that plan didn't last long and the license requirement also went away in time.

CB Ch. 11 was also designated as a channel for commercial businesses back in the 60s and very early 70s.

There's no reason why Ch. 19 can't be the National Truckers' channel. The truckers can choose whatever channel they want, and there is no reason why Ch. 20 can not remain as the National Highway Travel/Calling Channel. In my opinion the travel channel should be CSQ on receive but if a tone has to be associated with this channel, 141.3 should be the National Travel Tone, just keep the receive side CSQ.

No FCC, means more radio frequency interference, higher telephone bills, and more scam telephone calls 24/7, and undesirable language on TV and Radio. Doing away with the FCC was a stupid suggestion.

Polyphaser appears to be a very good product.

Connect the radio to a fully charged battery and see if the static goes away when you turn up the volume. If it does, reconnect the radio to the power supply and see if the static reappears and if it does, the noise is caused by the power supply.

Yes, first you need to enter the menu and enable repeater channels #s 23-30 or channels RP15-RP22. Also, you can fill in the 7 blank channel positions, 8-14, that were left blank by the firmware that prevents the radio of having access to FRS/GMRS channels 8-14 because of the half-watt power restriction/limitation for those 7 channels. Also, if you're not aware, if the MXT500 firmware has been updated, the radio channel capacity has been expended from 30 to 128. If the radio does not have the latest firmware revision, you can update the firmware by downloading it from the Midland website.

If you're hearing traffic from Arizona on a GMRS channel, more than likely you are hearing the traffic on a nearby GMRS repeater that is linked with the Southwest Community Radio System (SWCRS). On Sunday the Net entertains an on-the-air discussion on various topics and on Wednesday the Net has an on-the-air discussion on the topics of anything radio whereas you can ask technical questions. The Southwest Regional Net is networked with repeaters in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Utah, and has been expanding into other States. If the nearby repeater that you hear this traffic from is an open repeater you can join in by following the Net protocol. I'm not sure if the nearby repeater to you is associated with a GMRS Club but you can checkout the Net rules on the SWCRS website at www.swcrs.org All you need is a radio capable of hitting the repeater and have the subject freq/tone info for access. If the repeater is a closed repeater than you must seek permission from the repeater owner or if the repeater is a Club repeater, you may need to be a member of that respective Club. By searching this website you can find out what are the repeater particulars.

It seems that it is the norm for the shipping companies to crush and damage the packages while they are in transport, delay the deliveries to the recipients, and have "Less than Pleasurable" level of Customer Service, these days.

The sound does appear that it may be a digital transmission affecting analog receivers most likely without any "PL" decoding. An analog transmission normally won't produce the same affect to a digital receiver. If the affected receiver was "PL" protected, my guess is it is just old fashion inter-mod that is experienced in Metropolitan areas on most systems. I ran a test simulating digital to analog and vice-versa with P25 digital.

If you bought the antenna from Amazon, you run a great risk that the product is genuine pure chinese junk. In otherwords, it may be counterfeit. Think about it, how can a reseller buy the authentic product from the original manufacturer or distributor at a ridiculous low price and sell it at the prices they do and make a profit when the wholesale price for the authentic product is several times more than the price an Amazon reseller sells the similar product? If you buy cheap you get cheap. Buying cheap is not always a good thing if you want it to perform, last, fit, and not have to throw it away before a reasonable amount of service/use time. I have found that Midland is better than most in producing a great antenna product for GMRS. The Midland mounts and antennae sweep and resonate the best on GMRS freqs than most products used by professionals even in public safety systems. My only complaint about the Midland NMO mounts was the cheap cable connector would fall apart easily but it appears they resolved that issue with a better quality connector. It's my guest that anyone complaining about the quality of a Midland antenna product most likely bought it from Amazon rather than from Midland. I wonder how many people that bought a Midland antenna product directly from Midland has the same issues I read in these postings? I suspect not many if any at all. I have bought many antenna products directly from Midland without those said issues. Also, I have purchased numerous quality products such as, Laird and Larsen, recently and have seen "Less than Perfect" results on GMRS freqs as compared to better results on public safety UHF freqs, and vice-versa with Midland antenna products used on non-GMRS freqs. Midland has an incentive and GMRS is their primary focus rather than the non-GMRS freqs whereas, Laird and Larsen's primary focus is the public safety and Business Radio Services arena. In my opinion regarding Diamond, Browning, and Comet antenna products, they may be OK for the Amateur Radio Services but they don't seem to be suitable for the Public Safety and Business Radio Service freqs. If they were suitable than they would be used by the professionals in those services. The GMRS freqs are smack in the middle of the Business Radio Service allocated freqs so it would seem me that it would be better to use such antenna product for GMRS freqs rather than a HAM radio geared antenna product on GMRS. Also, unless you are not sweeping the antenna along with the cable and mount as a system, to determine where it is center resonating you really don't know if it is performing optimum on GMRS or not. Sweeping and determining the center resonate frequency is the only proof in the pudding. Just because you're able to hit a repeater or two, DMS, but, it will appear that you're at least getting the job done, somewhat.

Are you following these procedures to activate the repeater channels. Selecting the narrowband or wideband setting has nothing to do with if you can or cannot access a repeater channel. You have to set the radio to activate the repeater channels. The procedure are as follows: The MXT575 can talk to GMRS repeaters, which can greatly increase radio range. You can enable and disable the repeater channels on the MXT575. There are 8 repeater channels. 1. Press the MENU button to enter the menu. Use the VOLUME buttons to navigate to menu setting “rP”. 2. To enable the repeater channels, press the LOCK button. Use the VOLUME buttons to choose between “oF” and “oN”. 3. Press the LOCK button to confirm your selection. YOU MUST PRESS THE LOCK BUTTON TO CONFIRM YOUR SELECTION OR THE REPEATER CHANNEL SELECTION WILL NOT BE CHANGED. • When activated the repeater channels will be displayed as the channel number (Ex. 15, 16, 17, etc.) and the RP icon • Repeater channels will appear immediately following the standard GMRS channels (ex: 20, 21, 22, 15rP, 16rP, 17rP, etc. I hope that this helps

And so is the radio, analog only.

The frequency(ies) for remote microphones that TV broadcasters use are around the 450 freqs and most likely the signal was skipping across the water.

I'll confirm that two Wouxun are not a good solution based on my personal experience. What did I learn from that experience, do not go cheap if you want it to work and have others enjoy your efforts to support the GMRS hobby and be one of the Kool guys on the spectrum with a repeater.

FYI - Unless, the radio is type-certified for Part 90 freqs, you can not legally transmit on both Part 95 and Part 97 freqs, pursuant to Part 95, Subpart E.

And 206.5 Hz

I do have that file but now I'm not sure if that was the file I found that worked or this one MXT500 V1_172_2023_03_23 Firmware. It won't upload correctly. I attached the readme file butMXT500 Firmware Update Instructions.pdfMXT500 Firmware Update Instructions.pdf I think the reference file was not accurate and that may be the reason that I used the file mentioned above.

When I get home today, I'll check and see which version I used. At the time I upgraded there were two update versions which one of them didn't increase the channel capacity. Also, did you read the Readme file on the procedure to follow?

The Midland MXT500s are capable of being programmed with both narrow and wide band channels before and after the firmware update. The Midland MXT500 is a great radio for new GMRS user to learn how to set up the radio with both simplex and duplex channel operations. The performance of these radios are also very good and a great compact radios for vehicles with limited space for installation. The construction of these radios are very rugged for rough environments such as off-roading. For me, I need a Radio with more features such as "Talk-Around", a real monitor feature that disables the PL decoder when enabled and not just momentary, and not just blows squelch when the button is depressed. The channel capacity is also not enough for my needs and there is no programming ability to have channel banks (Zones), and a display with more prorammable characters. Also, I need to have the ability of selecting non-standard "PL" tones beyond the standard 38 tones, and the ability to program the non-GMRS freqs in the 450-470 MHz range outside of the 22 GMRS allocated channels. I am currently using a mobille radio that has almost 600 channels programmed in 25 Zones. Some Zones have 22-25 channels programmed in the same bank. It is a great radio for loaning to your friends for a quick install with a cigarette lighter connector and a mag-mount.

Which version did you use? I'll check mine let you know. I remember there was some confusion when I updated mine. Also, the instruction/procedure was kinda tricky.

I thought the something and since I'm a member with Crest Comm. I was about to send off an email asking when will the tones be published on the website for their members.

The Midland MXT500 radios are now 128 channels and if you have the 30 channel MXT500 radios you can upload a new firmware version to increase the channel capacity.