Jones

This is a very interesting topic. I have disabled my EAS relay system until I get an answer. As for the laws on use of EAS, it doesn't violate any of them. It isn't a misuse of EAS tones, since these are real alerts, issued by authorities, broadcast for public consumption, and are simply being relayed as-is, without editing or modification. I am not an authority, nor a PEP broadcaster, just an EAS participant; so I do not generate any of my own local alerts, just relay. Obviously, if I were sending out EAS tones to tell the boys it's time for dinner, or sending zombie apocalypse messages, that would be a gross violation... but I do think weather warnings and AMBER alerts are important public information, and many times, the EAS relay message comes 5-20 minutes sooner than the same message from our cell phone providers. Here in tornado alley, sooner is better. We could get this same information using a NOAA weather alert radio, but that would be one more device for everyone to carry around. Alerts from the National Weather Service are considered to be re-transmittable for public service. All broadcast stations and cable systems are allowed to re-transmit NOAA weather radio audio, but many don't since it sounds bad on the air.... they have their own announcers/DJs read the weather. As for identification: My call sign is embedded in the EAS tones as a participating relay, as required by the rules of EAS. Immediately after an alert has been relayed, (and after ANY transmission has been over for 10 minutes) my controller has a synth voice that gives my station ID in English. (For those familiar, I run a CAT-400.)

I hope to have a valid answer to this very soon. I have sent an inquiry email to the offices of Fletcher Heald & Hildreth, who are THE experts in the field of communication law. I hope they will respond.

Very good question. I would like to know the legal part of this as well. If for some reason it is NOT legal, then I need to take the EAS box off from my own GMRS system. I use an older Sage ENDEC emergency alert system box, programmed with my call sign, to re-transmit weather warnings to my family's radios. I have it programmed to ignore watches, tests, and other non-critical events, but it will forward any weather warnings for my area, as well as any local, state, or national level emergencies, and AMBER alerts. It certainly does catch ones attention when an otherwise silent radio kicks on with the EAS tones, followed by "The National Weather Service in Hastings has issued..." This is a fully legal use of the EAS, and it is accepted on CFR 47 Part 73, Part 74, part 76, part 90, and many other other radio services. It is option on many radio services, but a mandatory requirement on others. Of course it isn't required on Part 95, but is it allowed? Very good question.

Thank you for the clarification. They really should do this like the commercial Midlands where MON defeats the RX tone, but keeps carrier squelch on. That would solve everyone's problem.

All of these Midland Micromobiles have a "Monitor" function to defeat the tone squelch. I am not familiar with these, and the user manuals are unclear about this, so perhaps someone here can tell me... When you activate MON mode on a micromobile, does it also defeat the carrier squelch? If so, that's stupid. On my Midland XTR and Syntec-II commercial radios, you can activate MON mode to shut off the tone squelch, and the radio will still be quiet because MON doesn't deactivate the CSQ, just the tone decoder. The commercial rigs will still transmit the programmed tone when in MON mode, but receive CSQ. If the micros don't work this way, then Midland should re-think this. My favorite radios for GMRS are Midland 70-1526b XTR series made by Hitachi. A real brick-house radio. 25 Watts.

I think they may be stretching the truth a bit for marketing purposes. A.K.A. They LIE. ...Just like my new car stereo amplifier is "1,000 WATTS!!" - That's what it says on the box. It's also made in China.

I may be off base here, so I hope someone with more facts steps in, but... The way I understand it, the old Part 90 VHF handheld radios can only be used on MURS channel 4, (AKA Blue Dot - 154.570 MHz) and channel 5, (AKA Green Dot - 154.600 MHz, AKA Wal-Mart Channel) which are grandfathered in as "Wide-Band" 20KHz channels. MURS Channels 1-3 are narrow band only, thus older wide-band VHF part 90 rigs are a no-go. The only other business service frequency that is still authorized for wide band part-90 radios is the "Red Dot" channel, 151.625MHz, which is not MURS.

If you don't mind spending the money, don't want to mess around trying to build something, and just want to buy an "out-of-the-box" GMRS repeater system ready to go, call the folks at Bridgecom Systems. https://www.bridgecomsystems.com/ Ask them about a BCR-40U analog repeater with a BCD-440 duplexer, and their recommended antenna and coaxial cable, all pre-tuned and set up for you... -- plug and play -- Again, as I have said in previous posts, I do not work for or represent Bridgecom in any way, but I do use their equipment at 5 of my sites, and I'm happy with it. ...and it will run on 12 Volts DC, or 120 VAC.

The repeater antenna I recommended, the DB404-B has a gain of 5.9dBi, with no beam tilt. That is a great antenna to use if you have it high in the air, and height always out-performs antenna gain. A 10dBi gain antenna at 30 feet will do well in a situation like this, but won't have the range of a 5dBi antenna at twice the height. One must also keep in mind that antenna gain comes as a compromise. To make gain, the antenna must have a narrow beam-width... as in the antenna system is designed to pull the energy up off the ground, and down out of the sky, focusing it into the horizon. If you have a high-gain antenna on a tall tower, it will have great distance range, but will also provide very poor results up close to the tower site. The signal will simply over-shoot the target radio. Real world case: I take care of a UHF Ham repeater in Campbell Nebraska on 444.475/449.475. It is using a DB420, which has 11.3dBi gain, and it is mounted at about 290 feet on a commercial tower. Other repeaters link into this site from well over 40 miles away. I live 7 miles away from this site, and can use a 2-Watt handheld from my back yard just fine. If I travel closer to the machine, I drop in and out, and can no longer hold the machine when I'm 1-3 miles away, due to no ground coverage, and signal overshoot. I'm inside the shadow ring of the antenna system. Summary: Use a higher elevation, and a not-quite-so-high gain antenna for a project like this ranch. The lower gain antenna will have much better ground coverage near the tower site, without shadow rings around the site, and the height will make up the distance covered.

As far as antenna brands, everybody has their favorite, but some of the more well respected brands are Laird, Pulse/Larsen, Maxrad, and the old standard, (yet highly over-rated, and over-priced) Motorola. For your mobiles, get good quality NMO mounts with high-grade low-loss UHF rated coax. For antennas, I would recommend Laird QW450 for chrome, or Laird QWB450 if you want them in Black. The chrome ones are around $10 each, and the black ones are only a couple bucks more. (This does not include the NMO mount cost.) At that low price, and considering the conditions you will be using them in, I would highly recommend buying a few spare antennas, and toss one in the glove box of each truck. That way, when you go under some low brush and break one off, you can just screw another on and keep talking. A pair of traditional CT pliers can quickly swap one of these out in the field in an emergency. (If you work with wire fencing on your ranch, then I'm sure you have a pair of CeeTees on your belt right now.) For your repeater antenna, I would go with a Commscope DB404-B. You can use a lesser quality antenna for your base station in town, even a home-made J-pole will give good results, but for a repeater out in the middle of nowhere, you really should do it right once, instead of climbing back up to replace antennas every-other-year. For coax cable on a repeater, use 7/8 inch Heliax. For coax at the home base, use LMR-400. (or Heliax) You will likely cover BOTH ranches if you can centrally locate a repeater on a Rohn HBX72 tower. That will get your center of radiation up at 75 feet above ground level, which would give reliable coverage to handhelds for about 10-12 Miles radius, and likely 25 miles from your mobiles. If that won't cover your ground, then try a taller tower, or go with the idea of a separate repeater for each ranch, each on a shorter tower, and on separate channels, as they are too close to operate on the same channel pair without interference in the center. You could even use a third frequency to link the repeaters together if you needed, but now we're getting complicated. I guess the next set of questions are: How far is it from the farthest edges of your properties? How tall and wide are these ranches? Can a single repeater be centrally located on a higher elevation area? ...and is there electricity available, or does this need to be a solar-powered repeater?

Is that rise between your town house and ranch? If so, that might be a problem, but likely not. I can get 15 miles from base to mobile anytime in the flat lands of southern Nebraska, so I doubt it will be a problem for you. Installing a repeater on the high ground at your ranch would be ideal, since the base in town would easily bounce off that, and so could your family members working out on the ranch with handhelds. Even non-family workers could use it, as long as they have individual GRMS licenses. MTX 400 is a good radio, but don't use the cheap antenna they come packaged with. Use high-quality antennas and coax cable. Also, don't use the cigar-lighter plugs they come with. Wire them up correctly, permanent installation style, and use a suitably rated power supply for the base. On the mobile, (I assume pickup truck) drill a hole, and use an NMO mount antenna on the roof, as close to center as practical. Don't skimp with a mag mount, or try to use an antenna mounted on the front fender, or you will be disappointed. In my professional experience, a quarter wave on the roof, (which at UHF is about 6 inches tall) will out-perform a high-gain co-linear antenna on the front fender any day.

I have one of the new Bridgecom VHF repeaters, 2 of the older Bridgecom VHF repeaters, and 2 of the older UHF repeaters on the W0WWV Link System in Nebraska. It is a Ham system, but the repeaters are the same, and I have had good service from them for years. On the oldest ones, I did have to replace the power supply capacitors after about 5 years of 24/7 service. No, I don't have any financial interest in Bridgecom, but I do use them, and can recommend them. They aren't Motorola, but you're not paying for that name either. As near as I can tell, they use Maxon commercial internal components. The company does have outstanding service, and the techs answer their own phone calls when you have questions. I do not know who makes their duplexers. I use Sinclair, dB Systems, and Phelps-Dodge duplexers. -Bart

Nope, but if you find out, you might try to remind them that digital modes, including P25 are NOT legal for use on the GMRS portion of the band. If they are interfering with your licensed analog GMRS communications, and you can locate and document this, please report the interference to the FCC. Call 1-888-225-5322, ask for the Enforcement Bureau (EB). I can almost guarantee that this will be a long, drawn-out, ordeal, but you might get some resolution in a few years.

Hey, if the machine was free, and it will only cost a couple Benjamin to have it factory programmed and tuned, then I would say SCORE!!

For checking antennas, I use a Bird 43 THRULINE directional Watt meter with the frequency-correct insert slug for whatever band I am testing. But then, I do this kind of work professionally. These meters are very nice, but a bit out of price range for the typical radio enthusiast. a new Bird 43 will set you back about $350, and the slugs run from $100 to $300 a piece, depending on power level and frequency range. ...and they don't read SWR. They read forward, and reflected power in Watts. You then have to do the math to figure out the Standing Wave Ratio (SWR). (There's an APP for that)

Any tunable antenna should have come with a cutting chart that shows how long the whip should be for a given frequency. Check the chart, measure it, and cut it off to the correct length. If you do not plan on using repeaters, then set the antenna length for 462.600 MHz. If you plan on using repeaters also, then you might want to split the difference, and set the antenna tuning for 465.000 MHz. That should give you good coverage for the GMRS band. If you want to get picky, and actually check and set the SWR, then the first thing you need is an SWR meter that will work on UHF frequencies. The typical cheap CB type SWR meter will not work at UHF. To get an accurate reading, you must also use a 1/2 wavelength cable going into your SWR meter. This is frequency dependent, will vary depending a cable velocity factor, and IS critical. NOW... All that being said, With your UT-72, I believe you have a fixed, non-tunable antenna. It doesn't look like you can set the SWR on it. It is just a quarter-wave whip on 2 Meters, and will function as a 3/4 or 5/8 wave on 440. Either way you look at it, it isn't going to be much good on GMRS, as from what I can see, it is a Ham-band antenna.

If your asking about GMRS/UHF, then once you get the antenna cut to specification, is should make no difference if you move the magnet mount to the top of a car, truck, train, or Maytag washer, it should be about the same SWR, since the quarter wave ground-plane is only about 6 inches. If you use a mag mount, it just won't matter that much which vehicle it is on, it is a compromise, sure; but it should get the job done just fine in most cases. If you want a great mobile antenna, I would suggest a quality permanent NMO mount type antenna, but most mag-mounts will do a very respectable job... with no need to re-tune after changing cars. Basic unwritten rule of magnetic mount antennas: -- Have at least a quarter-wave of metal all around the magnetic base for the ground plane. This means: About 6 inches (in radius) on UHF. About 18-20 inches (again, radius) on MURS, VHF, 2-Meters and about 8 feet on CB antennas,which is why mag-mounts don't work well there. (hahaha.. Partial joke, partial truth)

I'm not necessarily knocking the UV-5R, I own 3 of them myself. I'm just saying if one operator is running a non-programmable GMRS radio, and the other operator has a relatively complicated radio that he programmed himself for frequency, tone, offset, N/W bandwidth, power level, etc,... Well, which one do you suppose is the problem? Operator error is the root of many failures, and it is hard to make an error if you set your MTX115 to channel 2. The only issues I can see with an MTX that would confuse anyone may be with "Private Code", "Security Mode", "Silent Scream", or whatever brand name they are using for CTCSS/DCS. When in doubt, shut that off. The other issue would be repeater mode on either radio. As for your neighbor being in repeater mode; if he can hear you on say...17, but you can't hear him on 17, then that is highly likely the case. If you can hear him, but he can't hear you, then maybe your MTX is in repeater mode. (Is there a little "R" in the channel display somewhere on your MTX that only shows up on the high channels? Note that there IS a difference between channel 20 and channel 20R. etc.)

Just a guess here, but... If you are running an MTX115, and your buddy is using a Baofeng (UV-5 perhaps?).... You're not the one doing anything wrong.

Another update... There WAS indeed a ham radio repeater on that tower. KB0E at 147.120 is down. https://www.repeaterbook.com/repeaters/details.php?state_id=29&ID=11194

Reply from Southwest Missouri Regional SkyWarn director Michael Blake: I am happy to say we are not on the PBS tower that fell, I am on the process of helping NOAA get their station back on the air, using one of our antennas, this will be the set up until they can get there antenna and coax installed on the same tower we are on,Thanks for checking on us. It means a lot to me.Michael Blake So there is the official word from N0NWS. On another note, for those who are not familiar with the "repack work" going on, our fabulously intelligent government has ordered all TV stations above channel 34 to "Re-Pack" themselves onto lower channels. This also means that some lower channels must move down the dial. Most must install new antennas. This is also causing the displacement of some FM stations, since lower channels means larger antennas for TV transmission. The Government nuts are doing this because they have "Sold" all of the TV channels above 34 to the cellular phone and broadband companies, so the TV stations have to move out by the end of THIS YEAR!!! ...an impossible feat, but congress idiots seem to think that changing channels of a transmitter site is about the same as changing the channels on your TV set.

The 2000 foot fallen tower was owned by Missouri State University. The primary service was for KOZK-TV, channel 21, the PBS affiliate. Also on the tower was NOAA Weather Radio station WXL46, at 162.400MHz. Both of those stations are out of service till further notice,, and do not have backup facilities. The above article incorrectly stated that KSMU-FM was also on this tower, but it is not. KSMU-FM is still on the air from it's primary tower location. Suzanne Shaw, vice president for marketing and communications for Missouri State University, confirmed that KOZK-TV remains off the air, and that the collapse also affected the NOAH weather station, but not KSMU. Shaw said she had no estimate on when the station would be back on the air, but said they were talking with local broadcasters to partner with them in some way. I do not believe that N0NWS has any repeaters at this location, but I have emailed the Ozark SkyWarn team to ask. If I hear back, I'll update this thread. -Bart South-Central Nebraska SkyWarn

I have been picking up some of the newer model lately on eBay as well... The Kenwood TK-8180h. About the same radio, slightly smaller. Also available in 25 Watt model. Channels are individually programmable for high or low power, wide or narrow bandwidth. As far as I know, the 8180 is also Part 95A accepted. I use Kenwood software to program. The cable is the same as my Leixen VV-898 ham rig.

At 180 feet above ground, you should get around 25-30 Miles of coverage. Let us know how that works out. ...and Hello to you also.

Most ham operators should be familiar with the amateur radio division of Vertex Standard Radio company. They call themselves Yaesu. Yaesu Musen Co. of Japan is the parent company of Yaesu/Standard/Horizon/Vertex.