WRQJ559

DOSW's solution for the win! I just tested recording on dual watch mode using the separate input and output frequencies on one of the repeaters I have had trouble with in the past with desense and the radio did indeed selectively grab the stronger 467 input signal and I came through perfectly clear, even using the base station as recorder and my mobile unit in my truck in the garage on high power as the transmitting station. Perfect solution to keep me out of the cold this winter. Brilliant solution and it amazes me I never thought of this.

Ok, that makes sense and perhaps I've been too focused on the base station centric solution to the detriment of thinking about the problem differently. I like the idea of trying the HT on dual watch at the other end of the house. Thank you.

I actually have played around with an SDR but that doesn't really solve the issue of recording my transmissions along with recording the received audio. Hooking up the handheld to the recorder puts me in proximity of my base station antenna and so it completely de-senses the audio to nothing unless I walk 50 yards away outside minimum. I appreciate the ideas though.

I have a working setup to record receive audio on my base station radio (btech GMRS 50V2) using a little sony mp3 recorder connected to the speaker out jack on the back of the radio. I use it to record the local nets and provide those recordings so folks can hear what their equipment sounds like. It's very popular. One challenge I have is when I want to participate in the nets and also hear myself on the recordings so there aren't any gaps. As you would expect, if I key up my radio the transmit turns off the speaker out. I don't like the option of a separate microphone and all the complexity that would add to mix the 2 audio sources. One easy solution that I have done is to get on a handheld radio and walk far enough away that I don't create desense on the recording base station, but that is inconvenient. I tried going down the rabbit hole of all the digital mode ham software (aprs for example) that allows folks to control their radios with PC's but that has been too complicated to understand how it would work with my simple use case which is: I want to record both incoming receive audio and my outgoing transmit audio over my PC interfaced though the k1 y-adapter port on my btech base station radio and do so with a software driven manual PTT button (not vox) to transmit from my PC mic (or headset). Anybody tackle this one, and if so what are your hardware and software components for the solution?

My callsign being 559 makes the 5 by 9 terminology quite confusing. I usually try to report by telling them how their volume, signal strength, and background noise comes in. Also too many people lie about "loud and clear" when someone actually sounds weak. Better to be honest so they know and can fix it.

Also curious of your testing results with this antenna. I like the idea of an even more compact antenna for use with my chest harness when skiing so I can keep the 935G plus under my jacket protected from the elements. So long as similar performance to the stock antenna is maintained.

@WRXP381 I would be curious to know if you agree that the noise sounds like injectors. After listening to the noise sample recordings on K0BG.com blog this seemed like the closest match. Here is my latest test recording: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10Oloo84FDnbdT4lqvJUbHP1CqDySZJ-G/view?usp=drivesdk

Yep, I should probably inspect and clean each ground strap and the connections to the alternator at a minimum. It should be noted the noise isn't extreme and I can functionally communicate using the radio it's really just an irritation. Also the leads are connected positive to the battery post and negative to the same location on the inside of the engine bay as the negative battery cable so as not to bypass the ford BMS hall sensor. But yeah, even bypassing that common ground and going straight to the negative post didn't stop it. I did clean up the strap connections from the body to the frame on the passenger side really well because of the easy access and that one is known for corrosion issues.

Update: My final solution was to throw a 30ah eco-worthy lifepo4 battery under the seat and now I have excellent quieting on transmit. Complete power isolation from the vehicle is the ticket. After extensive A/B testing with the various common easy solutions for filtering the DC power nothing ever stopped it and I had a lot of false positive placebo effects going on with various attempts. One thing that did seem to knock down the harshness of the buzz was putting x2 2200 micro farad capacitors in parallel after an mfj1142 filter (only used the filter to provide some resistance for testing, it didn't work by itself) The capacitors smoothed out the tone some. I could potentially continue to experiment with capacitors and target specific frequencies if I were to figure out the specific frequencies of the noise using an oscilloscope. But I'm so happy with the lifepo4 performance I may not pursue it further unless I get bored. Stuff I thought about trying but didn't: - Making my own power leads with heavier gauge wire as the theory is that voltage drop can increase conducted noise. Just didn't feel like re-running wire. - Further troubleshooting and cleanup of the various DC grounding points on the engine and frame (I did try HF style RF bonding of the hood and exhaust, which doesn't seem to matter for conducted DC noise for UHF, wasted effort) - The extreme of replacing injectors and injector harness. Nah, they work.

I think you're exactly right. Midland's primary customers are not those who care to know this level of detail. They are overlanders and off-roaders looking for an easy to use radio that you don't have to program, is largely plug-and-play and just works. The customizable feature rich Chicom products are for us basement dwelling nerds that use chirp.

I purchased my MXT275 in May 2022 and it had the latest version of the firmware which is wideband capable on the repeater channels. You can find out what version you have by resetting the radio and watching the version pop up on the display. The latest is R9 for wideband support. This applies to the usb-c models only.

If you go Lifepo, go big, I tried my kg1000g+ on my little 10ah lifepo4 and it would shut off at high power when transmitting. On medium it worked fine.

I have the KG1000G plus and it's a fantastic radio. I am running it in the truck and as a base station. It's a superheterodyne radio. A quality unit that is comparatively expensive for what it does. But I also just ordered a Btech GMRS-50V2 to go in as my permanent base station radio because of a couple of features that I like about it. Number 1 is the quad watch feature for monitoring 4 channels simultaneously without scanning and Number 2 is the RJ45 to K1 splitter for the hand mic. I wanted that flexibility for recording nets and other things. So even though it's a system on a chip and supposedly inferior to the wouxun, for my needs as a base station it will work great. A repeater net friend has one and sounds great on it. He did have to turn up the mic gain on it out of the box.

This will be my next step should all else fail with bonding and ferrite use. I was discussing dc to dc isolator devices with an electrical engineer friend today that should "nuke the noise from orbit, it's the only way to be sure". [emoji3]

More data points gathered today. Trying to isolate the problem area I hooked up my mobile radio to a separate power supply (in this case a dakota lithium battery). With the truck running there is zero noise on transmit. Again proving (I think) that antenna is fine, but power is noisy. I also did a second experiment, this time I hooked up the radio to truck power but ran an alligator clip test lead wire from the radio body to the seat bracket. The noise reduction on transmit was significant. Not eliminated but significant. Might try this same experiment again but with a wide braided bonding strap and see if even more noise is suppressed. This method combined with a toroid on the power lead might lick it. Just waiting for the toroid to arrive. What conclusions would you make based on these experiments?