JLeikhim

The 50 watt mobiles will transmit on the 8 sole, repeater/simplex channels and create havoc for other GMRS users. Bad idea, even for "rural" .

The 50 watt mobiles will transmit on the 8 sole, repeater/simplex channels and create havoc for other GMRS users. Bad idea, even for "rural" .

There is only one day left to post YOUR comments on this critical item. Only 6 so far have commented in dissent. You can make an express comment filing if you wish . I did, and mine was wordy.
My old boss had a saying about allowing a camel to put his nose in the tent. Eventually you have the whole camel in your tent. Midland is interested only in maximizing sales of product, not protecting the GMRS service. You might like their product, fine, but Midland wants to distort the rules to sell product, without any regard to the technology that has existed since the inception of GMRS many decades ago. Point of fact, they have no problem ignoring that GMRS is a wide band 16K0F3E emission and sell radios that are narrow band and are reduced in performance. They did some trickery on one already certified radio model and claimed it could be made wide band via software. If so, it would be illegal to do so. So far I have no evidence that the software slipped out the back door, actually works. That is the company Midland.
1) More digital noises on the channels will become very annoying. I can tell you from experience, that the rodger beeps from FRS radios at the national parks will drive you nuts. Now with 50 watts and persistent GPS locations from 5 or 10 ATV's and voice communications will be impossible. Yes you can use PL but, if you are in the wilderness, sometimes it can be a safety net to listen in CSQ. Midland can do all this SMS messaging and geolocation on 900 MHz ISM band like their competition in this space. They can have mesh networking as well and extend the footprint substantially.
2) A digital voice option in GMRS would be great. However Midland describes a 4:1 TDMA solution that will not work in simplex which is 99% of their market. They are apparently un-knowledgeable about this and have thrown it in for arguments sake. If Midland were to develop such a product, it would not be a standard like P25 or DMR, it would be proprietary and incompatible with everyone else (Like Yaesu C4FM Fusion). If the radios are strictly digital, there would be no interoperability with existing FM wide band radios. Good luck on calling for help with your radios as you hear only digital voice. Midland can also do this on 900 MHz ISM band like Motorola DTR. There would need to be no FCC rule changes as ISM rules are very flexible.
None of what Midland has proposed should be approved. Especially adding digital data to high power radios.  If a digital voice option is to be considered, it should be described by the user community and should be a recognized standard like DMR and should have FM wide band mode as a primary mode of operation for interoperability with existing radio population. Frankly, a blanket approval of part 90 DMR radios, would be sufficient. But Midland wants more than that as a proprietary option will be cheaper to make and will lock in users to their crappy brand.
Please dissent on Midlands entire proposal and do so quickly. An Express Comment is fine. Just Say No to bad engineering.
https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/search/docket-detail/RM-11970

This is a good point. A lot of these cheap radios lack proper bandpass filtering for the receiver and when connected to a decent antenna all manner of out of band signals from broadcasters to NOAA ( notoriously excessive power transmitters) will sap the gain of the receiver RF gain stages and block the receiver from picking up weaker desired signals.  
The ISO-tee is a method of injecting a desired signal into the receiver from an RF signal generator and comparing its reception when the ISO-tee is terminated with an antenna versus a 50 ohm resistor load.
 
Ideally there should be little change. If there is, you have interference due to either on channel noise or out of band signals getting past the receivers filtering, if any.
 
Unfortunately much of the cheap radio equipment leave out the proper filtering relying on the user either having an inferior antenna, ignorance of the problem, or both.
 
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I think the Channel 19 was a truckers channel long before 40 channel radios were mainstream. So i dont think being at center of the band was the reason.

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I think the Channel 19 was a truckers channel long before 40 channel radios were mainstream. So i dont think being at center of the band was the reason.

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I think the Channel 19 was a truckers channel long before 40 channel radios were mainstream. So i dont think being at center of the band was the reason.

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You would have had better results with a metal ammo box. An ideal ground plane woukd be an aluminum disc about 13 inch diameter. You can try lining the box you have with aluminized HVAC duct tape.

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You would have had better results with a metal ammo box. An ideal ground plane woukd be an aluminum disc about 13 inch diameter. You can try lining the box you have with aluminized HVAC duct tape.

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Wake me up when Baofenshuii has a shortage of flashlight LED s and can no longer offer that "feature" either.

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Using a tone on an emergency channel will just make comms more difficult.  
How about this, at the trailhead/parking lot, place a 3x5 card in the window of your vehicle with the FREQUENCY that your group will be using.   First thing SAR is going to do is find your vehicle.....
As for sub channels/tones,  your best choice for simplex comms is to leave it off.

A countrywide option would be to use FRS channel 9, tone 11 or 911.

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Wake me up when Baofenshuii has a shortage of flashlight LED s and can no longer offer that "feature" either.

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Nor is tone 07 the same in all radios,

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Wake me up when Baofenshuii has a shortage of flashlight LED s and can no longer offer that "feature" either.

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Wake me up when Baofenshuii has a shortage of flashlight LED s and can no longer offer that "feature" either.

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You would be better off buying a Kenwood TKR850 repeater

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You would be better off buying a Kenwood TKR850 repeater

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I had a similar experience with the BCR-40U repeater. I had to ship it back twice. The first time it was a faulty duplexer. The second time was for low power (15 watts) on transmit. I wanted a refund, but they informed me they would charge a 25% restocking fee! 
I bought an Anytone 878UV last year. It would program and work analog mode but would absolutely not work digital! Every time I tried to transmit I'd get a popup error message "Repeater is out of range" along with a voice announcement.  I drove to the tower and got the same results even though I was standing literally in the shadow of the repeater's 900' antenna.
Long story short, I had to ship it back twice, and both times I had the same problem... I asked for a refund but was informed again about the 25% restocking fee!!!
They can afford to give away at least three or more of their 878 bundles every month, but cannot make good on my defective radio???
I'm kicking myself for falling for their lack of integrity.

I posted my Bridgecomm experience a while back. The units definitely have a problem with DPL.
I would write a letter to them firmly requesting your Sales tax to be refunded back to you - and copy your State's Sales Tax/Revenue department. It's not their money to keep...
 

In my state, the criminal enhancement is written "use of a communications device", so it really does not matter if a CB, Ham, GMRS, cellphone, or paper cups are used in the commission of a crime. Also the state laws prohibit interference with police as well as commercial broadcast. So in effect, if you are running a pirate radio station they can bust you.

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The Chinese radios lack an effective IF FM Limiter stage so they are susceptible to all sorts of multipath induced noise.

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Both schemes apply 50% ( less resistive losses ) power to each antenna.

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Both schemes apply 50% ( less resistive losses ) power to each antenna.

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Preface:  This thread isn’t to start a war against 2 different manufactures…  you do you!  I’m sharing the FACTS of what I’ve done here and the experiences that me and my users have had!  You can leave the arguments off this thread!  Kayyyyyy, thanks, bye!
 
I have to share this success story because it’s worth everyone reading IMO.  I will start by stating that I’m well over 5 figures in on the Rugged 575 repeater in Naperville, IL on a commercial tower which has the receive antenna at the top at 300’ and the transmit 50’ further down at 250’ (Which I paid to install).  It’s been quite a learning experience and I don’t care how much money you may have; experience wins here!  You can check the repeater listing for the back-story and read from the bottom up:  https://mygmrs.com/repeater/3838
 
I’ve had this repeater on air since 8/17/2020.  As a whole, it’s worked VERY well for what I need for my family and for the hobby in the suburbs of Chicago.  While it doesn’t have near the traffic as other local repeaters (Joliet 550 which is another local only repeater (Not linked) which is also taller), it’s stayed on the air 24/7/365 with zero down time.  The repeater was the VERY CHEAPEST component in this ENTIRE build with the antenna, feed line, and tower climbers costing FARRRRRRRRRR MORE of course.  In the words of Corey, a $1,000 radio with a $30 antenna is a $30 radio and a $30 radio with a $1,000 antenna is a $1,000 radio.  This is and always will remain true and he is correct 100%.
 
With this theory, off I was with a cheap $365 Kenwood TKR-850 which was also aligned by Corey up in Wisconsin (Thanks again for your help here sir!) with a massive antenna and feed line system.  It worked VERY well for the last year and a half and is still a working backup system at this point.  I was also lucky to finally tie into the sites master UHF receive antenna at the top through a 1-8 split multi-coupler (so no duplexer as I’m using 2 different antennas) which made ALL the difference in the world VS using 1 antenna with a duplexer.
 
Fast forward a year and a half later we come to the Motorola Quantar which I finally had the time to take on and install and has been installed for about 2 weeks now with ZERO changes since I left the tower site!  This Motorola Quantar repeater *IS*, up until now 2/26/2022, the best repeater you can get according to the people I’m surrounded by that know more than I do about it – You all know who you are!  They are *ALL* right (again, I never said they were wrong!).  I never doubted them or thought they were wrong, but I wasn’t “in tune” with the whole, IMO, “overhyped” Motorola game to say the least.  (Can you blame me?!)  Here it is in plain text:  I WAS WRONG ABOUT MOTOROLA.  In particular the receive is INSANE, which always has been the selling point of this particular repeater and it’s one of the main reasons why this repeater excels over Kenwood (and others I’m sure but I cannot comment as I have no personal experience) ...  It’s hard to fully explain in writing but the Quantar has *ALL* the things that “normal” repeaters (any brand other than Motorola) simply don’t have and simply put, it runs C-I-R-C-L-E-S around the Kenwood TKR-850.  Without getting too complicated, a pre-selector being the most important part is key here combined with a receiver that makes a Kenwood look like a children’s play toy.  The experts that know more about it can explain better but it’s more of a “system” than “just a repeater”.  This is why it takes up 3 times more rack space and sucks down electricity like Darjeeling even at standby…
 
Anyways, getting on 2 separate antennas with 50’ of vertical separation was the first BIG step basically doubling the usable coverage especially for hand held radios which was done last year.  The 2nd step was the Quantar which doubled everything yet again.  Many of you see Quantars on Ebay for $800 or $1,000 bucks and its hit or miss… I can assure you that by the time you’re done getting it CORRECTLY tuned and shipping it to and back, you can simply DOUBLE that number.  I’ll put the numbers below so you can actually see but it’s NOT cheap.  Sunny Communications out of Cali has done me right numerous times and they are the one that provided this Quantar this time too!
 
Now for the tuning:  A big shout out to Mark Dannon at Northcomm in Plano, TX.  This man deserves a gold medal and is a FORCE to reckon with.  His intelligence, experience, and overall willingness to not only help and DO IT RIGHT from beginning to end is just the start in addition to his post-sales support.  He has equipment that your normal “radio shop” simply doesn’t have, and he *DOES* do it better.  I’d even challenge ANY radio shop to tune a Qunatar, then send it to him and he’d make it even better.  I’m LITERALLY not a spokes person for this guy or his company and I am *NOT* being paid to put this review here but what he has *IS BETTER* than any other “radio shop” and he specializes in Motorola Quantars too.  I have to iterate this loud and clear that your repeater is only as good as the equipment that tuned it and this guy has it all dialed in and WILL run circles around others even with “$40,000 worth of equipment” (measly) … Trust me here as he has far more than that…
 
In closing, I want to state some insane improvements which the numbers show in plain text proving its worth.  I’m redacting names and call signs but if you read this and recognize the scenario then you know who you are!!
 
1) A gentleman in the SAME TOWN only 6 miles east, in a VERY, VERY hard to service area in low elevation next to several high rises blocking the signal couldn’t even get in on an HT 6 miles away, had to stand on his balcony to BARELY SCRAPE IN now get in now gets in FULL QUIETING on a 5W HT anywhere in his apartment.
2) A gentleman 59 miles away who could barely scrape in 2/10 quality on his 50W mobile and couldn’t even hear the repeater on his HT now gets in 9/10 almost full quieting on his mobile and can hear a conversation loud and clear in his living room on an HT 59 miles away with the same 50W of power going back out.  Even better, he can get in 4-5/10 quality on his 5W HT but he has to be OUTSIDE to do so…  Literally how is this possible… The curvature of the earth alone is in the way.  No this isn’t a band opening; this is EVERY DAY….
3) Personally, I could scrape in with a 1/10 quality (literally all static) on the first level of my sister’s house in Downers Grove, IL which is only a measly 11.15 miles away from the tower is now 8/10 almost full quieting on the first level on a 5W HT (Tree city, trust me here).  Was 6/10 on house level 2 is now 10/10 loud & booming full quieting from the 2nd level of her house on the same 5W HT.
4) Another gentleman hasn’t EVER even been able to even key the repeater from his work on a 5W HT can now get in with a 7/10 in quality.  More perfection…
5) And for me personally… I’m only 9.5 miles from the repeater at my house…. Not far, right?  Except when I wiggled/moved around just a bit people couldn’t tell I was moving around…. Now I can be crazy with my 5W HT and hold it sideways like you see in the movies (DUMB), walk around while talking and literally no one even notices…  Literally no picket – fencing…  Like some magical sorcery…
 
Literally I’m not making this up…  Upon talking to others, we’ve noted that the Kenwood TKR-850 was a $1200 - $1600 repeater when new VS the Quantar being $20,000 - $25,000 new…. Well, it shows…  Damn does it show…
 
I’d encourage ANY wide area repeater owner to upgrade whatever system you have to a Motorola Quantar (With the right tuning!!!) and TRUST me, you and your users will be glad you did.  I’m not knocking Kenwood (Well I am for their repeaters) but literally the Quantar has it beat hand over fist!  Sorry, this might sting to some but for others it’s a “Duh, I told you so” situation!  I still have THOUSANDS of dollars’ worth of GOOD Kenwood radios…  (NX300’s, NX800 Mobiles, TK8360’s, etc etc etc) and I’m *NOT* going to go and replace them all…. I’m still going to use them; but I’ll be DAMNED if I don’t think twice…. THREE times before considering another radio purchase and trust me, I have a LOT of radios lol!
 
They say Motorola invented the 2-way radio and now I see how & why.
 
Thanks for your time and feel free to comment and leave questions below.  I’ll do my best to answer them between work and life.