DominoDog

Well, I won't say that every repeater needs to be linked, or that they should. In fact there are some linked repeaters that I wish were not linked for the reasons you mentioned. But I do not think we should have laws that say it can't be done. If people want to do that and think they need it, then who am I and who are you to say they can't? I really just want to give your comment a dislike because I didn't really see much benefit from it. You compared repeaters to phone lines and tried to be funny. Not really impressed. The bottom line is it needs to be up to the repeater owner, not Bill or Joe on the Internet that likes to make jokes and pointed comments. If people have a community that could be better served with a linked GMRS repeater, then they should have that option and not have their hands tied by unclear rules.

I get "can't read radio" error in Chirp when my programming cord isn't plugged in all the way. The connector and radio don't mate exactly well, and have to push it snug. EDIT: Are you sure you even need the repeater? If you didn't, that would cut out some complexity.

From what I can gather as a layperson, the rule needs clarification. People want/need to link their repeaters. That is a normal, expected use of repeaters. "Hey lets get together and talk over a broader area." That is a clear cut normal use of radio and falls within the expected use of GMRS. The rule shown very strongly leans towards "We don't want you putting autopatch on GMRS" more than "no you can't link repeaters"

I have the 230911 firmware and am having no problems. Kind of wanting to hold off on updating to 230923 now, perhaps there are issues. I will agree on CHIRP / ODMaster software not wanting to play along. CHIRP doesn't like the settings menu, doesn't seem to be able to align completely to the radio. Something doesn't line up right. But if all you are doing in CHIRP is managing channels, it should be fine. Just understand the CHIRP radio settings tab doesn't line up with the radio's actual options. Probably will be fixed in a later version of CHIRP. But overall I do like the radios, and so far I like Tidradio.

I would love to have one, but jumping from a $50 Tidradio H8 to $750 Kenwood D75 doesn't seem wise just yet. Maybe I'll find a bucket of hundred dollar bills, though.

My main thing is, I'm the radio enthusiast. I'm the holder of amateur and gmrs licenses. I know (or to be more precise, I am learning) the rules, they are just here to hike or ride bicycles. I want them to have fun, not worry about identifying on the air because they made no agreement to do so. I'm the agreement holder with the FCC. And I don't even mind identifying on the air. If I ask my family, who rarely even uses the radios, to identify, it would go something like me identifying, then them trying, then them forgetting halfway through what the callsign was, then them asking me what it is, then me replying that it is on a little label on the bottom of their radio, then they will say it poorly, and several minutes and much more unnecessary radio chatter later, we are all happily identified. Or I could just say it once.

Well my license reads as "radio station license" so the grant holder, the radio station licensee themself should only need to identify once every fifteen minutes, not every one of us adding up to four or three or two or twenty times every fifteen minutes. I think we assign more rules to ourselves than is even required. No where did I read that this was expected. I'm not even about to ask my family, who does not even know or care about the rules, to come on the air and try to remember my callsign every fifteen minutes right after I do it. Just so we can keep in touch while hiking. I do not think that is the purpose or intention of GMRS. I'll identify every time as required, as we use the radios. EDIT: What I have been doing is when I first start using the radios, I'll find a channel that is suitable and seems clear. I'll then identify "WRZS227 and family operating on GMRS channel (whatever)" and will basically just yield to any other traffic, and then we just talk as we need to and as conversation dies off and comes back up I'll give the call sign "and family" again. So far the FCC hasn't rained down hellfire or sent any kill commands to our walkie talkies.

Well it seems like the interoperability is more useful than I may have realized at first glance. That makes sense.

There is no quick, easy, simple fix for everything. GMRS is almost universally-agreed upon to be a mess with the FRS interaction. If we want to clean up GMRS then FRS will suffer. Personally, I say we remove FRS completely out of GMRS frequencies. GMRS then loses one of its voice channels to strictly APRS-like digital position reporting, etc but gains all of the FRS shared channels for its own use. What do we do with FRS, then? If I were in charge, it would be merged with MURS. All the little blister-packs of FRS radios are hereby banned from manufacture. Those on store shelves can be sold and those out in the wild can be used, but no more can ever be made and none can be repaired. Once they're gone they're gone. We will just need to bite that bullet and deal with thirty years of FRS blister pack radios till they all naturally break or get lost, etc. My suggestion is basically that we delete FRS. Anyone that doesn't want a license and doesn't want to fool with one can go buy MURS. The only issue was that we "already have so many FRS blister packs" to that I say we just need to rip the bandaid off and ban their manufacture and hope people just lose them or break them quickly. I agree, there is nothing wrong with discussion. There won't be a clear path. One will have to be forged and any direction anyone chooses will have others naysaying the whole decision. Look at Amateur radio, they can't even figure out their digital modes. There's Fusion, DStar, DMR, several others and apparently none of them play together well. Interoperability is not something humans do well. They don't do it at all without careful planning and only then if compelled by government to do so.

I have a little Bluetti EB3A and contrary to popular opinion, it has done pretty well for me. If you can work it within its limitations, it does really well. I haven't checked it for noisy output. That might be my go to unit for radios, if it ends up being quiet and clean. I can't say anything bad about Bluetti. I wouldn't even have an Ecoflow unit if I didn't fry my own Bluetti by accidentally giving it too much voltage when experimenting with panels. Dumb mistake. But they chose to repair it for free and ship it both ways on their dime. I can't complain at all. I have definitely watched a couple of Hobotech's videos. I like the personality he puts into the videos.

My daily solar rig is a "just do your best" approach. It's very simple but there isn't much that can go wrong. My maximum input is 220w and I have three 100w panels. But their max voltage never goes above the max input volts so I am good. But my panels are just laid flat to the ground, so I don't get any benefit of tracking the sun. It's fine, though. If I get a perfectly bright moment I can see the inputs maxed out at 220w which is perfect for me. Most of the time it hovers down around 160 which is also just fine. It's a rainy Sunday here and is good to see others' good ideas with their solar setups.

The LiFePo4 batteries are my current favorite. Everything a lead acid does, these can do better. Lighter in weight and smaller in size for the same capacity as lead batteries. You can't overcharge or over-discharge them because they have their own built-in cutoff circuitry. They last longer, too. They hold more usable capacity than a lead acid battery. They last many more charge/discharge cycles as well. The only area I think they fall short of lead acid technology is that they have extremely poor performance in freezing temperatures. But, they also make self-heating types that will keep themselves above freezing.

The only problem I have with power stations like this is the amount of noise they put out. They are so buzzy. I have two Ecoflow River2 Pro's that I swap out for my camping setup. Use one while the other charges, etc. They put a loud buzz into the 12v power output that I can hear thru the audio on handhelds that are powered on while charging, and they put a loud AC inverter buzz on audio equipment if it has an amplifier. I'm not even going to test how noisy they'd be on a radio transmitter. For general use, they have been a game changer for camping and for keeping my tool batteries charged for work. But noisy for sensitive electronics. Far noisier than I expected them to be; the River 2 Pro is one of Ecoflow's flagship models. It's their biggest small one. Well, I'll say they are noiser than I *wanted* them to be. But it has to be very difficult to make something like that quiet. The best thing I've found for backup power is just a battery. You can use the solar power station to charge a good backup battery, but I don't know if I would use the power station to run the transmitter directly, unless I just had to.

Ok so what I keep seeing pop up is reference to the "Communications act of 1934" so... that's how they do it I guess. I like to ask the hard questions, especially if I find the topic interesting.

Conversely, the gas station at the top of the hill has been broadcasting about 1600w of wide band energy in the 400-700nm range onto oncoming road traffic for the past decade. Can the FCC look in to that?