WQYC236

Hi Guys,
 
My GMRS licence was just granted but I've been benefiting from your expertise for some time now. This looks like the place to be for information and like minds. My thanks to the creators of this web site.
 
I've been playing with radios since the days of the superheterodyne walki talkies and once held the WN9MTA 

Nothing is ever easy when it comes to actually doing it. Maybe the concept would lend itself to a low powered solar application. I've talked 17 miles from a mountain top with only 4 watts.

In a perfect world some boy genius would market a repeater package with the bugs already worked out. IMO the "perfect" repeater for many GMRS applications would be a weather resistant package consisting of the repeater and hardware hooked directly to an antenna with a short lead and a water proof AC power cord. It would be designed in such a way that it could easily be hoisted to the top of a 100 ft tree or mounted on a tower with the power cord trailing behind. No line losses to worry about but the equipment would need to be of a rugged design that can thrive in an outdoor shelter with no heat or cooling. The light weight exterior would be water proof but allow air flow for cooling. I've seen transceivers build into water proof packages with additional instrumentation and speakers, why not the whole repeater assembly? I'll bet that if someone builds it, they will come. 

Wouldn't it be nice if the FCC put MURS under GMRS and offered licencees those frequencies at GMRS power levels.   

I have a pair of GMRS/MURS Terra 505s with the optional 15 inch antenna and they work great! I can typically talk 5-7 miles over average rural terrain of small hills and forest. Having said that I was having trouble talking to my daughter who is only 1.5 air miles from me on GMRS because of terrain features blocking the signal. I even tried to talk to her on my mobile radio with 30 watts output on GMRS. She could hear me but couldn't talk back. We recently tried the same test on the Terra's MURS channels and talked fine, so I really became a believer in the VHF frequencies.

I've been using the TERA TR-505's for about six months now.  They were initially marketed as GMRS/MURS radios (mine even says that on the front) but have since changed the way they are marketed. They are fully programmable radios with VHF/UHF frequencies ( if you buy the cable and down load the free software) with Hi/Low power settings.
 
VHF is 5 watts /2 watts, UHF is 4 watts & 1 watt (although the measured output seems to be a little hotter than what's claimed,more like 5.7 & 5.2 but low power is right on the money). There have been many discussions on the web about whether they are actually Part 90 & 95 certified and I never did see any real conclusions one way or the other, but like I said, when I bought them they were advertised as legal GMRS/MURS radios and I have never seen a recall issued.
 
They come with a substantial default antenna and optional 15" antenna that is almost as good as the short, 3 db, mag mount they also offer. I switched back and forth between mag mount and long antenna at a range of five miles (rolling rural terrain of Virginia) and the other operator couldn't tell the difference. I have since switched to a proper 6db, dual band mag mount which makes a big difference. The 15" antennas are well worth the money and, from my observation, will add approximately 40% or more to your range. About any kind of accessory you could want is available for these radios at reasonable prices. The initial cost is around $90 to $100.
 
Dennis 

No on the Laird, but here's what I use and it really talks. It's almost double the gain of the one you are looking at.  I have two for my cars, one is GMRS/MURS and the other is GMRS only. 
 
http://www.dpdproductions.com/page_gmrs.html#gmrs58mobile

I think that I'm going back to two tin cans and a long string...at least I know where I stand with that communications device.  

I think that I'm going back to two tin cans and a long string...at least I know where I stand with that communications device.  

I think that I'm going back to two tin cans and a long string...at least I know where I stand with that communications device.  

Sorry for the late reply but my other activities have kept me busy. Anytime you want to try a long range DX experiment send me a personal message and Ill see it on my cell.
 
Sasquatch!

Hello and welcome to the GMRS world and the web site. I'm in Castleton, VA about 55 miles from DC and there isn't much traffic in this area either. If I go into Culpeper or Warrenton, two small towns near me, I hear more traffic but out here it's pretty quite most of the time. I scan ch 1-7 and 15-22, plus about 8 repeaters in my area. 
 
Looks like you are a long way from everywhere down. Just for fun I could drive up to a high point on Skyline Drive, the mountain ridge about 134 miles NW of you and we could see if we could talk.
 
Sasquatch

Was just re-reading your post, what is "my code"? Is that a neighborhood thing? We don't have any restrictions on towers unless they get into airplane territory out my way. 

What's confusing is I used to be able to talk for at least 30 minutes with out any problems and that was with an older, lower capacity battery. The issue seemed to show up after the two Motorola's were programmed this last time. We added some frequencies, checked the power output to a dummy load, and also checked the frequency alignment. Everything looked good. I'm wondering if the CDM 1550 LS+ series has an internal adjustable set point for the low voltage alarm? Maybe that inadvertently got changed to a higher voltage number. Does that sound reasonable?
 
I have also been considering what you are suggesting with a duel battery set up, more so for emergencies than just my convenience. 

99% of commercial mobile radios were designed around end users who made short transmissions in bursts - dispatchers, drivers, etc... They were never intended for the 50-75% duty cycle that the hobbyist/gmrs world utilizes them for without additional cooling. Hence why they run extremely hot if you are BSing for 20minutes or longer. The UHF CDM is intended to be run at 40watts in high power. Additional cooling such as a small fan on the heat sink would be a good idea depending on your talking habits. The reason the software allows you to program up to "48watts" is to adjust to 40watts without having to do an alignment/power calibration on the unit in the field. Depending on soft-pot settings sometimes "42" gives you 40 or "46" gives you 40 etc... 
 
-RfMedic

Very interesting results, thanks for posting!

Be sure and let us know how these experiments come out, especially communicating in the hill terrain. 

Welcome to the forum!  This is a great place to be.

A couple of years ago there was a Doctors office near me that was using GMRS. I set my simplex repeater on that frequency and PL for a few days...after that, never heard them again. I guess having to hear themselves repeated back all day was annoying! Imagine that. 

Welcome to the forum!  This is a great place to be.

I ditto on turning the power down. 20/25 will do as well as 40 in most cases, as the higher the tx power the more chance of drowning your input, even with dupexor (unless you are spending $3,000 on it, and even then I have turned them down to necessary power only. 
 
When I worked for M we had a customer that used a 25 watt mobile for 2 way and phone interconnect, and 2 HT600 portables, but her repeater antenna was on a 500 foot tower she owned. We had the repeater all rigged up blowing A/C directly into it, as she liked to use that phone for 20-30 minutes at a time, and it was an R100 repeater! We had it set down to get about 2 watts out the antenna, and it had great coverage, more than she needed.
 
Input path to the repeater will determine the usability in most cases not power out. Too many guys have CB mentality, not what you need.  

This is an update on the DKDCG guy I wrote about earlier. I was back in the same town on Saturday and sure enough he was still there "warbling" through all 22 FRS/GMRS frequencies! I was actually trying to have a LEGAL conversation with my grandson on his new GMRS hand held radios about three miles away and finally had to sign off because of this idiot.
 
His standard operating procedure is to "warble" twice on each channel and then move to the next until someone responds to the noise. If someone answers, he always says the same thing "I didn't know this radio was working", and then proceeds to move through the frequencies again. This went on for the entire two hours that I was there. Never underestimate the power of stupid people with time on their hands.
 
He did mention the apartment complex he lives in so we may be getting closer to a lawful solution to what is becoming a bigger problem.

next up is getting it all assembled in a metal box to allow plenty of cooling, etc... then replacing my bad feedline and getting my antenna back up on the roof.  if i can reach the school great, if not, then i have to find a new home for this repeater with more elevation.  i'm going to use the good cable this time, maybe half inch and put the radio up closer to the antenna for a shorter feedline.  we'll see.

Ha! If I have another conversation with him I may tell him he made the big time on MYGMRS! 

Speaking of the unlicensed, I'd like to expand that term to the "Don't Know, Don't Care Group"  (DKDCG)! I spoke to one of these on Saturday while I was in a small town of about 30,000 people near me.
 
I had the radio on scan when I heard that annoying warbling sound produced by somebody hitting the "Call Button" on a walkie talkie. If that wasn't annoying enough, the scanner was following him up through the channels, one, two, three, four, etc. After listening to him move through all the channels twice, I thought maybe someone was actually in trouble and trying to find help on any possible channel. I identified myself and asked if someone needed assistance. The response was "No, I'm just trying to see if this radio works". 
 
To make a long story short we talked for maybe 3 or 4 minutes while I explained to him (obviously an adult male) about licensing and the power and channel restrictions. I encouraged him to stay on the FRS only channels if he wasn't going to get a license and to especially avoid the Repeater channels, explaining that he could be interfering with legitimate communications. He responded with short, unintelligent answers. I finally signed off and went back to scanning mode, only to hear him back on the repeater channels warbling through every frequency, just as if nothing happened!

 
 
​The famous turn of the century evangelist Billy Sunday once said, "Anybody can get born again, but stupid is forever"!