berkinet

Unfortunately, a lot of crap is made right here in the US and some quality product is manufactured overseas. Not only that, but some products sold by American companies are imported, especially at the low end of the line. But, I think Corey hit the nail on the head when he wrote... ... and many other things in life.

Indistinguishable from a wide band UHF frequency jammer.

At the risk of stating the obvious... I am not sure what the point would be for most people, well, other than the fun of trying it. Should you actually be able to reflash the MXT400 with different firmware, it would no longer be Part95E certified. In which case, you might as well just buy the Luiton to begin with. Of course, if you don't care about running a Part95E certified radio, and you have some MXT400s that you'd rather have running wide-band... well, that makes sense.

A couple of comments related to this discussion. #1) I'd be surprised if the cost per unit of certifying a radio for the FCC adds more than a dollar to the unit cost. Based on this site (and others), the cost of getting a radio certified looks like it is usually under $5000 #2) As to the difference between two, otherwise identical, radios. One being Part95E certified, the other Part 15 or Part90. My guess is the only difference is operational limitations to conform to the Part95E rules. I really doubt there is any difference in the actual transmitter or receiver circuitry. So, If my second comment is accurate, and the two radios discussed in this topic are truly identical (other than changes to comply with Part95E). there is no way anyone listening could possibly know if you were on a Luiton LT-590 or a Midland XMT400. YMMV

According to their web site (http://luiton.com/), Luiton, Baofeng and Anytone are all manufactured by Bond Telecom.

I think @hans also pointed out the “relationship” between the two radios a while back.

What part of “The transmitter output power of [a]... ...repeater... ...must not exceed 50 Watts” is not clear? There is no mention of a duplexer because one is not specifically required to have a useable repeater. You could just use two antennas with sufficient separation. BTW, the power loss in a good quality UHF duplexer would be under 0.5db.

Since a duplexer is neither required, nor even mentioned in the regulations, it is 50 watts out of the xmtr antenna connector. § 95.1767 GMRS transmitting power limits. This section contains transmitting power limits for GMRS stations. The maximum transmitting power depends on which channels are being used and the type of station. (a)462/467 MHz main channels. The limits in this paragraph apply to stations transmitting on any of the 462 MHz main channels or any of the 467 MHz main channels. Each GMRS transmitter type must be capable of operating within the allowable power range. GMRS licensees are responsible for ensuring that their GMRS stations operate in compliance with these limits. (1) The transmitter output power of mobile, repeater and base stations must not exceed 50 Watts.

Well, from what I see on ebay for GR1225 UHF repeaters, there are several at or below the $399 price tag for the Retevis RT97. On a good (I.e. lucky) day you could even get an MTR2000 under $400. BTW, should you decide to go for the GR1225, make sure you get a guarantee that the final PA is good. These radios have a nasty habit of either blowing or desoldering the final if run at too high a duty cycle, or too high power output. You should also ask to have the duplexer tuned for you. However, if you run a GR1225 at 50% duty cycle and 1/2 power, it will give you excellent service and is small enough to be portable.

Lithium batteries are expensive and probably overkill. I would use any good quality alkalines. In other words stay away from the cheap brands.

Keep three factors in mind. 1) In an emergency you will not want to, or even be unable to, recharge batteries. 2) The shelf life of most rechargeable batteries (how long they will hold a charge) is horrible, alkaline batteries have shelf lives of up to 10 years. 3) The useful in-use life of an alkaline pack is much better than most rechargeables.

I’d suggest you might set aside your ruffled feathers for a moment and read the email you posted carefully. While I may not agree with everything he wrote to you, a lot of what he said is good advice and at least good food for thought. If you discard all the advice that is given in a tone that disagrees with you, you may be missing a lot if valuable information.

Tip... Make sure any radios you will not be using on a regular basis can run on Alkaline (or lithium) batteries. Then store two or three sets of batteries with, BUT NOT IN, the radios and tag each set with the date. Never leave batteries in or connected to a radio you will not be using in a regular basis. Also, make sure everyone knows how to install and change the batteries. Then, once year replace one set of batteries (choose the oldest set if they are not all the same age) with a fresh set and use the, now surplus batteries, in some non-essential device. BTW, Although virtually all even half-decent radios come with rechargeable batteries, many, like the Baofengs, have optional packs that can hold alkaline batteries.

I will limit my comments to this incorrect assertion about California property tax law making it too expensive to remain. I am no fan of California's prop13 tax limits which place the major burden of property taxes on new homes and recent purchases. But, the fact is your friends would not have seen their taxes raised. Don't believe me. Here it is in the words of the organization that came up with proposition 13 in the first place. https://www.hjta.org/hot-topic/fire-victims-worried-about-your-prop-13-rights-dont-be/

Thank you for sharing the link to the Emergency Preparedness series. However, after looking it over, I have to say it seems based on a number of unstated assumptions - many of which I believe are untrue. There also seems to be an implied prejudice towards a hierarchical communications model and the use of amateur radio. The fundamental problem with any system that relies on ham radio is the requirement for licensed operators at every operating location. As you noted, getting people to get even the most basic Technicians license is a non-starter. There is also some assumption that Part 97 operations will offer a richer set of communications options. However, in practice. unless you live in some very isolated area, and particularly for the type of system you say you want to create, the only Part 97 options would be VHF (2M) and UHF (0.7M). When you add an uneven terrain, into the mix the difference between VHF and UHF is pretty much nil. Because GMRS allows repeater operations, as far as practical operations go, it is pretty much the same as Part 97 UHF. The main differences lie in the options available for linking repeaters via radio. GMRS is limited to use of the assigned GMRS channels for radio links, amateur is not. However, in a semi-isolated area like the Sierra Foothills that should not be a problem. If you use GMRS you can flatten the model shown in the Emcomm Doc you linked to and allow communications directly between the Community coordinators and the emergency service providers. Though, you may still need to provide staffing for the service provider sites as they will probably be unwilling to manage communications back to the community. At $7 per year ($70 for 10 years) cost is really not an issue. Or, looking at it from another view, if $7 a year is keeping people away from your system, you have some serious issues to deal with before you even think about radio. What I have written above is not simply theoretical. Take a look at BeCERTAINN in Berkeley, CA. This organization which provides pretty much what you describe in your first post, but just within the city of Berkeley, now has over 40 GMRS licensed participants, most of whom got their license for the sole purpose of participating in BeCERTAINN. Hams have a, rather unfortunate, predilection for making things more technically and organizationally complex than they need to be. For immediate response emergency systems that is the opposite of what you want. You want simple and easy with the least amount of equipment and the smallest number of operators and transactions necessary to make the system work. As shown in the emcomm doc, it takes 4 people, two of whom must be licensed hams, to pass a message from a home to a service provider. By basing a system onGMRS, that number drops to two or three and no ham licenses are needed. I strongly suggest that GMRS + maybe one of the following, FRS/CB/MURS/Paper-notes/voice, is what you really need.

Two people have already given you the answer to your question: One or more repeaters, possibly connected together using simplex links. This will give you wide-area coverage without the need for iffy message relaying. A single well placed repeater could easily cover 300 to 400 square miles. Motorola GR1225s are available for around $500 (make sure the finals are good) and MTR2000s for not much more. Personally, I'd go with the MTR2000. You can also build your own out of a pair of half decent HTs. If you do decide to build out a repeater network DO NOT BUY THE MIDLAND RADIOS. They only do narrow-band and for best performance, you will want to take advantage of the GMRS rules and use wide-band for your repeaters.

" Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference." Pick one.

Good News! The CW test is gone. Also, you don't need to know ohm's law, the relationship between frequency and wave-length, or anything about antennas. All you need to do is learn all the answers. For example, to get a tech license you must answer 26 questions correctly out of the 35 on the test. Those 35 questions are drawn from a pool of 423 publicly available questions. You just study the questions, take practice tests, and keep doing that until you can easily pass the practice tests. BTW, out of the 423 questions, maybe 25% are pretty much common sense, and another 25% make total sense once you see the answer. So, you really only have to work on less than 1/2 the questions. There are a lot of online resources, for free, and for fee. Good luck.

Since Amateur Radio is officially designated as a service (Part97) by the FCC I cannot imagine your city is using the term with any generality. I see two options: A) talk to the city anyway and see what they say. or get a Tech HAM license, build your tower and mount a GMRS antenna on it. You wouldn't ever have to own a single piece of HAM equipment. BTW, the downside of asking first is once they have officially said no, you are totally out of luck. I suggest you go with plan "B."

BTW, GMRS is intended (but not reserved) for family type communications (see the scope in the fcc regis). As a result, you will hear a lot less general traffic and people looking for someone to rag chew with than on services like ham or CB. For the same reason, there tends to not be an accepted lingo or slang or jargon in common use. Users tend to talk in plain language.

Welcome.DO try to make some time to glance through the Part95E rules. (sorry, I don’t have the link handy) DON’T be afraid to ask for help with any questions you have or problems you may run into.

It seems to me the central challenge is to use the tower to mount a remote station in order to hit a GMRS repeater that is 138 miles from "my" mountain. ​In other words place a remote controlled station on the mountain top to talk to the remote repeater. The secondary issue is how to get from "home" to the local mountain top. For this task it seems you could just link the two stations using GMRS simplex. Technically this would be a remote controlled fixed station and subject to the 15 watt transmitter output power limit. The use of highly directional antennas would be ok since the limitation is on output power rather than ERP. Any of the 462/467 main (25kHz) main channels could be used. If you mount a repeater on the local mountain top you would just use standard linking procedures (depends on the repeater controllers you use) to tie the two together. Each repeater would then have two-inputs and would operate when either was active but only transmit on the link whenever the local input was active. You could use any 462 mHz or 467mHz main frequency. Though, 467 would probably work better to avoid desense from the local transmitter. You could also create a full-duplex link with each repeater listening to the other repeater's output (different channel pairs of course). But, that would require an additional duplexer and would probably be overkill in this application. If you do not install a repeater then you would need to create a remote-controlled base/fixed station on your local mountain top. You could then use GMRS or Wi-Fi for the link from your home to the remote-controlled station. However, A remote controlled station is already, in essence, a repeater so it is probably best to just build the local repeater and then add the linking, CAVEAT: This approach will work well in a rural or sparsely populated area. But, in an urban environment you might have occasional to continual co-channel interference.

It sounds more like RTTY to me. Did you listen to the sounds on the link I posted earlier?

It seems this topic has drifted from its original purpose and it is time to start a separate “FirstNet” topic.

Take a look, or listen, at https://goughlui.com/legacy/soundsofhf/index.htm