nokones

Oh no. There goes the neighborhood.

Isn't there one of those emoji things for that expression?

It is a squawk, not a beep. Let the squawks begin. Some repeater owners are using MDC-1200 signalling as a requirement for accessing their repeaters. Besides the voice modulation you hear on the radio, it is normal for the radio to emit various types of noises, like static, intermod, MDC squawks, hetrodyne of multiple transmissions, squelch tails, and simulcast overlaps. If you don't like the various noises, turn off the radio and go turn on your computer and communicate with VOIP.

Although, not packed full of foo foo features that more than likely you won't need or ever use and is somewhat channel capacity challenged, you should at least take a look at the Midland radios. They are built better than any of the cheap POS radios that come from Pandaland and they are simple to use and most likely will meet your needs.

I remember installing one of these radios in one of my Jeep Club member's vehicle and I was unable to locate the option in the menu to change the bandwidth operation. Most of the older Midlands were narrowband only and I am not sure if Midland has updated this model to change the band operation from Narrowband to Wideband. If they did, it will be in the list of options in the menu only for channels 1-7, 15-22, and RP15 - RP22. Apparently, by upgrading the microphone to the noise canceling microphone will allow you to change the bandwidth in the MXT275. My guess is that Midland may have included a firmware update in the microphone for additional functionality in the radio.

Some time ago, I kinda remember that they were no longer accepting new members. Although, I could be wrong. If you're looking to be a member of a Club that has a repeater on Santiago, try Crest Communications, I believe they are still welcoming new members into their Club and they have been around since the early 70s. They are very active in the community.

I have several HT1000s, one XTS1500 model II, and two XTS5000 model IIIs and no cheap POS radios from Pandaland.

All FCC allocated channel pairs between 450-470 MHz are paired with a 5 MHz spread with the higher frequency of the pair is the mobile transmit (Repeater Station Receive) and channel pairs between 470-520 MHz have a 3 MHz spread.

A multi-band antenna will never be an optimum antenna for a specific band. The respective operating bands will be compromised in order to be marginal for the two bands

Back in the 90s, my car racing activities qualified the use of the Business Radio Service freqs and GMRS was not the appropriate radio service for those activities.

When I travel, I monitor all 15 GMRS 462 (main and interstitial) channels. I do not monitor the 467 channels. Also, I program all the repeaters channels as presets for the areas I intend to travel through for the just in case. I've had a GMRS license since the mid 90s and as of this date, I have only on a couple of occasions had the just in case situations to report a serious traffic collision when there was no cellular telephone coverage. I have never heard any trucker traffic, or at least I couldn't identify any trucker traffic because no one was talking about their Jake Brakes or putting out smokey reports or asking if the coup is open. I have never had engaged in any exchange of radio traffic anyone while traveling. Most of the simplex traffic appears to be FRS for a very brief period of time as you are within range. In the larger population centers there appears to be a lot of traffic on the various repeaters for the area. Essentially, most of my radio communication use is when traveling or wheeling with groups and it is usually on GMRS simplex. If it is my private travel group, we will communicate on either VHF or UHF Business Radio Service freqs.

Looks like there is some evidence of an agricultural expedition. I've been using business radio service freqs since the mid-90s for my radio comm on the track.

If you're thinking about marrying two Wouxuns together, forget about it. They have a desense problem because of the lack of shielding. I've seen maxon radios work somewhat decent and I have heard that people have married two Motorola MCS2000 with decent results. I haven't heard if anyone has tried a couple of XTLs. It would be best just getting a real repeater that has the correct duty cycle.

I have the Larsen Glassmount on the rear glass of my 23 Wrangler Rubi 2 Dr. and I have had and continue to have great success with it for my UHF radio. I can hit repeaters well over 50+ miles and I can definitely hear FRS traffic at least the 5 miles away as a desert buzzard would fly. I really don't have a need to talk simplex except when I am wheeling on the Trail and those distances normally don't exceed a mile, but on one occasion I did communicate simplex and I estimate the distance with a Midland MXT275 that is a 15 watt mobile clearly, about 10 and maybe 15 miles away. My VSWR on 467 Megs is 1.5 - 1.6:1 and on 462 Megs the VSWR is a good 1.2:1 and that is without any trimming. I decided to leave the antenna as is and not trim it. I personally don't see anything wrong with using a glassmount antenna. Decades ago, I have had great success with the Antenna Specialist Cellular Look-A-Likes on both VHF and UHF Fun & Non-Fun Bands. Also, I have used a glassmount Antenna for a CB radio, but the measuring the effective Farz accurately was somewhat difficult and it did depend on conditions. I have never tried using the rear windows defrost to see if it affects the reception performance. We don't get those types of conditions here in the greater Valley of the Sun in sunny Sun City West, Arizona. For my VHF Radio I am using a non-Ground Plane Laird B1442N Base Load antenna on a side fender mount. I was surprised with the performance of this Antenna. I was able to hear a repeater on the roof of a 5 story building about 30 miles away over and around a tall hill. I'm seeing about 1.2:1 with this antenna on 154 Megs. For my UHF DMR radio I am using the Midland MXTA25 Phantom Antenna and I am seeing about 1.4:1 VSWR on 464 Megs transmitting analog emissions. For my Cobra 29 LTD Classic CB radio I am using the Firestik II 3 foot antenna while on the trail and a 5 foot Firestik II antenna for the Highways and Byways with a spring and quick disconnect. I'm seeing less than 1.1:1 with the 5 ft antenna and less than 1.2:1 with the 3 ft antenna. The CB Antenna is mounted in the usual Wrangler JL location.

Depending on the age of your MXT500, after channel RP22 (Ch. 30), you will have the ability of custom programming channels 31 through 128 with any GMRS repeater channels. You will need a mini USB C cable and the programming software to custom program. If you have one of the older 30 channel MXT500 radios, the Midland website will have the firmware that you can download to expand the channel capacity to 128 channels.

California has several regional nets throughout the State for emergenies that are interconnected for point-to-point interagency communications. Mobile Units are not allowed to use the system except for rare occasions in the far remote rural areas. There is no public access for this system. 99.9% of the public safety agencies' Dispatch Centers do not have any means for direct radio communications with the public. Some CHP Platform Scales and Commercial Vehicle Inspection Facilities may have CB Radios for directing/instructing/ordering truck drivers at those facilities.

It is my understanding that the shits would be in your Jeans and diarrhea could be in your genes

Not all GMRS repeaters and/or simplex channels are set for wideband emissions. A Motorola XTS/XTL series radios set for the opposite band emissions will still receive the other radio, but it will just be choppy.

I be more than happy to check your CPS settings if you send me the .cpg file. And I can check your settings on my XTL2500 to see if it is related to a CPS issue.

I assume you checked the receive freq setting for accuracy in the CPS? How about try setting the receiver tone decode on a channel for CSQ to make sure it is not a tone decode issue. Also, check the respective Conventional Personality Receive and Transmit settings match for either Analog or Astro. If you can receive with the CSQ setting, make sure the MPL box is unchecked for that channel in the Zone/Channel Assignment section. If a DPL tone is used and the tone is not an inverted DPL for receive make sure the receive DPL Inverted box is unchecked. Those boxes can be accidentally checked without your knowledge. Make sure the Speaker connectors makes a tight connection at the connectors. Sometimes you have to really squeeze the connectors together and make sure the pins are properly aligned. Make sure the wires are a tight connection at the 4 connector pins. Try the speaker on another audio source to make sure that speaker is in good working order.

I got my XPR5550e from eBay. It was brand new still in the box and I paid $450. I am using the Motorola CPS 2 software.

I guess remember stuff like that because I never did drugs and the Van Clubs in Southern California were using CB Radios way before it became popular and we were into traveling all over towing our Ski Boats. I was a member of the Van Spectrum Van Club which was almost as big as the West Coast Van Club The Van Club I belong to had their own private CB channel that no one else had access to before the 40 channel CBs were introduced. We would call it the Adam Channel and used it locally, but when we traveled outside our local area we would normally use the trucker's channels because we were towing boat trailers and we needed to hear the Smokey Reports because of the 55 MPH speed limit for towing trailers in California.

No BTech stuff for me. But I do have a three-year-old KG1000G Plus and it puts out 51 watts and my three-year-old Midland MXT500 puts out 49 watts. I guess that is not too shabby for just sitting around all this time.

Oops, the actual cable loss is really 2.14 dB. I'm not saying that I made a mistake a few days ago in measuring the loss, lets just say that I measured the loss a lot better today than the other day.

Rugged Radios has licensed several VHF and UHF Business Radio Service frequencies for use in Northen and Western Arizona, South Eastern California, and Southern Nevada for off-roading use with permission. These freqs are used without any tones. While off-roading in the Kofa Wilderness Area a couple weeks ago near Quartzsite, I noticed 3-4 of their VHF channels were busy with quite a bit of traffic. We did notice a lot of Side X Sides in the area. I haven't tried monitoring the Rugged Radios UHF channels because the group I was with uses GMRS 16, with DPL, and I usually don't like scanning with the same radio because of the traffic by our group. I also noticed some off-road traffic on one of the Itinerant VHF freqs. inaddition to the Rugged Radios VHF freqs. I was a little surprised that VHF freqs were bring used by other off-roaders instead of GMRS freqs. I'll have to make any attempt to monitor the other Rugged Radios UHF freqs. to see if those channels are being used. I use to hear CB AM traffic on Ch. 16 while off-road, but haven't heard anything lately on the CB while off-roading.