SvenMarbles
-
Posts
219 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
2
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Gallery
Classifieds
Posts posted by SvenMarbles
-
-
-
28 minutes ago, warthog74 said:
That’s slick. I’m game.
3323 Kewaunee Rd. Bellevue, Wi 54311
30 feet
2-3db gain
25 watts (about 15w after duplexer and line loss)
Thanks.
Ok so Ive generated 2 different ones. One is your simplex range to ground units, and the second is your "repeater range" that shows repeaters that you'd be capable of hitting assuming they were at least 150ft high.
-
9 minutes ago, warthog74 said:
That’s slick. I’m game.
3323 Kewaunee Rd. Bellevue, Wi 54311
30 feet
2-3db gain
25 watts (about 15w after duplexer and line loss)
Thanks.
Standby
-
17 hours ago, warthog74 said:
Nice. I went cheap also. Two 3/4” x 10’ chunks of EMT conduit with a coupler from Menards. Two cheap mounting brackets off E-Bay. Bolted the brackets to the garage. Cut a chunk of wood and mounted it to bird house's 4x4 post, then drilled a hole near the end to run some zip ties through attached to the mast. Helps eliminate some swaying. Height of antenna (gmrs tuned j-pole) is roughly 30 feet off the ground. Total cost was less than $50. Whatever works right?
The mission is simple,.. Get your antenna up high. If you want to spend $4,500 on a proper 35ft tower, that's alright. but the result is essentially the same as doing things like this. My tower has been up in the state that is is for nearly 6 years..
-
Yeah typically if the just publish the tones outright on the listing, it's an open system. Scroll down a little lower on those pages and a lot of times the repeater owners writes something there explaining the repeater a bit.
-
I'm playing around with this really awesome tool that I found. It factors in the topography (elevations), height of your antenna, the gain of your antenna, wattage (ERP), and it actually generates a detailed "heat map" overlayed on the standard google map showing how you're getting out.
My example below. I've found it to be pretty accurate. I actually went out to one of the far flung isolated specks of red to try to get a copy from back home, and sure enough it came right in..
It's kind of a clunky old windows 95 era web page and it's in another language and you have to register an account, but if you're interested in getting your coverage map made I could generate one for anyone interested. I just need the key data points of your station..
-Your location (within a street or two if you're concerned with privacy)
-Antenna height
-The gain of your antenna (3db, 6db, 9db, etc)
-Your output power in wattage
-If you're using lossy coax on a 100ft run you should probably let me know about that too, it'll matter.
This map will assume that receiving stations are mobile or HT with an antenna about car roof high. It's possible to adjust the parameters to assume higher receive antennas to see how you hit high mounted repeaters for example.
Let me know.... I'm having a lazy Sunday and can sit here doing this for a bit..
-
12 hours ago, WRWE456 said:
Hello and welcome!
The problem is that in a grid down type of situation repeaters can be down as well because most are powered from the grid, although some have back up batteries or generators maybe solar even. So they can not be relied on for emergency communications planning. VHF and UHF (GMRS is UHF) are basically line of sight communications. If the two antennas can see each other then they can talk. If you can both get enough altitude as in hill top to hill top you may get 100 miles or more. 250 miles? Not likely. For that distance you will need to look to the ham radio world.
There is a lot to learn about about radio comms for it to be effective in emergencies or just to be competent with it in general.
Look for better quality radios for emergency use. They need to be reliable.
Yeah 250 miles probably isn't going to be practical. Impossible? no.. I mean if you wanted to pour endless amounts of money getting a couple of high mounted repeater placements on some towers and daisy-chain them, then you could achieve it. But then as you point out, it would run kind of contrary to the whole point of emergency coms. Too many points of possible failure.
It sounds like the guy is looking for something more peer-to-peer (simplex). Even in the ham radio side of things, you can't exactly achieve that in a reliable way. There's nothing inherently different about 2m and 70cm ham, just different licensing. And on the HF side, you can talk around the world, but only when the conditions cooperate. You can't pick the landing spots of your signal. So that's kind of out for "emergency coms'. NVIS would be semi-reliable for a 250 mile wide shine down spot, but now you're getting into some pretty elaborate gear, a general license, antenna-ry, and a crowd of "ham guys" that might be annoyed that you're using the band that way and not just calling CQ and making contacts.
There's only one remaining option that I can think of. LoRa. Theoretically, if you can run a trail of nodes (and find places that they can live) all along the way maybe about 15-30 miles apart, then you could have something. This is going to be more of a texting back and forth type thing though, but it would be off-grid, reliable, and doable...
-
12 hours ago, WRWE456 said:
LOL I bet you would. I just look again found one one ebay for $900.
Did you really? Wow I was only kidding. It was only a $250 radio as of very recently.
Well disregard that recommendation, unless you find a better price.
-
1 hour ago, WRWE456 said:
The Alinco looks like a great radio, just read a couple of reviews. However I could not find it in stock anywhere with a casual search. Discontinued?
Wow you're right! they seem to be VERY RECENTLY discontinued. Not in stock at DX engineering, where I got mine less than a year ago.
Well I'll sell you mine for $2,500.
-
If it's a bad USB it could likely be handled by a general electronics repair guy. There's a few remaining..
-
I’m probably a strange example of someone in the radio hobby. So get this,.. I’m a life-long radio hobbiest, who has no interest in being a ham..
I like radio, the science of it, antennas, tinkering, and the ability to posses an end-user only method of relative long distance coms for PRACTICAL purposes.
I don’t really care to “make contacts” or chat with randos..
I COULD pass a ham tech exam on any given afternoon with no need to study. But I would have to actually make time and arrangements for doing so.
But frankly GMRS is better suited to my needs anyway. GMRS is essentially 70cm ham radio, and the call is good for the family. There’s repeaters and everything
. It’s a practical service that allows utility coms and not just “say your call, chat with other ridged ham guys about whatever”. You can actually use GMRS for actual practical coms to the wife for a grocery list, or whatever..
Ive got the big house radio and our cars equipped. It’s a complete domestic radio situation. Our local repeater is 2 miles away and covers 60 miles.. There just isn’t another radio service that works this way..
-
Are you trying to listen in on a digital system? Pickin’s are slim for those. Limited to Uniden basically, which sucks because they aren’t good radios. They’re $600 for a decoding codec in a radio with a silicon labs radio chip and bad front end, all housed in sub par plastic injection mold casing.. I’ve been a hold out for that reason..
If you’re interested in an EXCELLENT and modern (still in production) analog unit, look for the Alinco DJ-X11. Triple conversion superhet. Shortwave all the way to 1.3ghz. Built like a Motorola.. Won’t overload connected to big outdoor antennas.
-
10 minutes ago, kidphc said:
Kinda tough.
Data burst can't be longer then one second.
"3) Digital data transmissions must not exceed one second in duration."
Can't have more then one data transmission inside of 30 seconds.
"(4) Digital data transmissions must not be sent more frequently than one digital data transmission within a thirty-second period,"
Data transmissions have to be manually activated. The devices can not store and forward packet modes for data.
Sounds like they don't want you to. Realistically, speaking even an aprs packet is 2.5 seconds long. Ft's' being streams and automated (well kinda), looks like verbiage was put in to stop exactly that kinda of thought.
Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk
I’d be interested to know what the character limit would be. Depending on the “data mode” it could be enough to send a reasonable message. 1 per 30 seconds isn’t a terrible limitation
-
So anyone familiar with part 95 knows that there are some rules variances between what you can do with mobile, HT, and “fixed station”.
If you’ve got a handheld, take it in the house, and screw it into your home mounted antenna, do you then have to treat it as a fixed station? Screwed into your car antenna, then it’s a mobile? Is it always still a handheld?
-
Has anyone tried the GMRS texting functionality? I believe the GMRS-Pro is the only model currently in production that supports it. But under Part 95, it is permitted to transmit from an HT your GPS location as well as a “brief text message” via a data mode.
Typically narrow banded data can have a longer functional range than phone. If FT8 can be used to send short data messages narrow banded on low power across the world, I’m interested to know what 5 watts can do to send a data burst. Could be a really nice feature to use with family if the coverage area is decent.
Anyone here played around with it yet?
-
1 hour ago, WRXB215 said:
I totally agree. If we the people don't take personal responsibility, the government will step in even more and then it won't be fun anymore.
It’s worse than that. The FCC likely has no interest in getting involved and the end result in 15 years could resemble the babbling idiots on CB channel 20.
-
Someone touched on it a bit, but it was going to be my follow-up point.
While the sentiment might be “it’s their repeater to do what they want with”.. They’ve also sort of helped themselves to occupying one of only 8 available repeater positions on the dial.. As far as I know, there’s no governing body that allocates these places to someone looking to erect a repeater. So with that being said I do believe there is SOME responsibility of good stewardship to the GMRS users at large when it comes to how you’re doing things.
Tones don’t really matter. If you plop two blow torch repeaters on the same frequency, the tone will open the repeater and let all traffic in. So the idea of “well I’ll start my own repeater then with my own rules” isn’t really possible if your local repeater spots are spoken for.. And you don’t want to just have an arms race of repeaters just trying to squash out the next…
-
19 minutes ago, WRKC935 said:
I do believe that I went on to say that I have no issue with being direct. I understand that there are people out there that will not use linked repeaters. I understand that there are folks that even disagree with the fact that linked repeaters systems exist. And that's fine. We all get to have an opinion.
But it still goes back to the ownership of the equipment at the end of the day. There are those of us that do support the idea, and have linked machines. Now I am not gonna tie up 4 pairs with repeaters that completely overlap coverage by linking them together. I will be the first to say I disagree with that thought process. But some having some level of overlap is gonna happen with a system that has better than average coverage. Some overlap means there are no holes in the coverage of the system. Could it be simulcast and all on one frequency, yes. There is no technical reason that it couldn't be. But there is the additional equipment that's required like a GPS reference. Those are a grand or so a piece. And whatever unit is used should be used at every site to eliminate issues. Then there is the receive voter that's required. Again, JPS voters aren't exactly cheap. And GMRS repeaters are paid for by their owners. Lastly, the repeaters have the repeaters have to match as well. No mixing of MTR, Quantar, with a Kenwood and a Tait stuck in there. If you are running Quantars, they have to be used at every site, the firmware needs to be the same in all the units as well. Lastly, you need to know how to do it. There are some of us out here that have that knowledge and have worked on these types of systems at a professional level. But ther is no requirement for a repeater owner to be a commercial radio tech. And hiring a commercial radio tech to build something like what I am talking about here is gonna be 100 to 150 bucks an hour. SO more out of pocket costs. So while it's certainly possible from a technical standpoint, the practicality of it isn't really there. Oh, I forgot the thousands of dollars per site that is required for the channel banks and microwave links between the sites. Simulcast links can't be run on the Internet. The latency variance is too great.
But my point was this. It's the other guys gear he's talking about. Nothing stops him from putting up his own repeater. And again, I understand that some folks don't like linked repeaters. And that's fine. But griping about it in an open forum, when they don't have anything on the air isn't really the way to garner support for his stance.
I’m not on a crusade to garner support for a stance. I only asked who already shared the same point of view, and I’m not sure if you’re keeping score but so far it’s looking like I’m not in a small boat all by myself over here.
Thanks for clarifying the whole “which things I own and which things I don’t” thing. That really needed to be laid out plainly..
But thanks for sharing. I’ve got you down for 1 “I disagree”.
-
I'm really trying to figure out how to articulate this in a way so as not to come across as a jackass. Let me preface this by saying that I appreciate what the custodians of some of these high mounted and well maintained repeaters do. I'm fortunate to live in an area that is well covered by such repeaters.
But,.. It's getting a bit tired when I tune into 3 different repeater frequencies and am hearing the same conversation being had by a handful of guys in metro Indy. Nothing against them. They sound like swell guys.
I'm personally not super interested in "making contacts" on ham radio, and to extrapolate that sentiment, I'm especially not interested in "making contacts" over VOIP. It's already a bit of a concession from my sort of "radio hobby mission statement" that I'm using a local repeater to begin with. But,.. They're there and they boom the signal out nicely across the Chicago metro area. But that's KINDA where I wish it would end. If we're going as far as to route radio voice comms through the internet, my GMRS radio just became a cordless phone handset. To me that's just sort of antithetical to the entire thing that interests me in this realm. Having a resilient mode of comms that's peer to peer, achieved by my equipment to yours, with radio,.. Now I already know that some will be quick to point out that the repeater in and of itself is already a 3rd party backbone that I can't have control over. I recognize the slight degree of hypocrisy. But it's a tolerable concession to make knowing that these systems are often on managed towers with backup power and often times set along side public safety radio systems and would likely enjoy the same resilience and backup measures that are likely in place to keep those systems online on a bad day.
I think like, perhaps there could be chunks of hours during the day that these links go active? But then the remaining time we're working within standalone repeater range only...?
I dunno.. Where do you guys stand with this? I just kind of think it only serves to "clog up" the repeaters.
-
It’s for sale now..
https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/alo-dj-g46t
Honestly, I don’t see anything super special about it. A pretty plain 5w handheld. No mention of superhet circuitry or anything.
-
The more succinct answer is that repeater antennas are up high. If your friend with his handheld was dangling from the same tower, he'd hear you fine on his Baofeng too. It's about line of sight. But at that same distance if he were standing down on the ground, probably not.. So yes, they increase YOUR capability of reaching them because they're up high and listening with relatively clear line of sight..
It's why we all try to put our VHF/UHF antennas up as high as we can. When you get up on your roof, how far can you see on a clear day? And how far can you see from the sidewalk? It's basically that simple.
- AdmiralCochrane, Adamdaj and WRWE456
-
3
-
52 minutes ago, intermod said:
You may be one of the few. What does your SDR show for noise floor at 16 kHz bandwidth?
How about 10Mhz wide? SNR is outstanding.
I’m properly antenna’d outdoors
. Not listening to my refrigerator indoors with a ducky…
-
2 hours ago, intermod said:
High noise floor, particularly in the metro and suburban areas, can be the controlling factor. This is primarily caused by microprocessors, associated clocks and switching power supplies in electronic products (including many LED light sources). This effectively deafens VHF receivers so that they are no longer as sensitive as they used to be. If you ever get a chance to use 700, 800 or 900 MHz, or even 1200 MHz, it will become immediately obvious. As was said above, while VHF propagates really well outdoors, in some cases the 700-1200 MHz bands can actually do better, except when the signal hits dirt (hill or mountain) or a dense foliage.
Another factor to consider in VHF is portable antenna efficiency. Most portable radios are equipped with the 10" flexible helical antenna, versus something that more approximates a 1/4 wave length (18"). The 10" has an effective gain of -11 dBd. That takes a 2-watt MURS radio and degrades it to less than 0.2 watts. And it does the same to reception of signals......so VHF is really being hammered.
UHF has become degraded but not as bad. But the antennas (for a given length) are more efficient.
Noise floor? not on my SDR. The biggest curse are the pagers. I get a low ambient noise floor here in a major city. 2 watt murs here gets out.
-
I came to this idea because I really didnt want to screw anything into my house. Didn't want to compromise my newly done roof or siding despite all of the reports of it being "fine to do". Just needed a stout structure to bolt onto that I didn't care much about, and a 4x4 from the big box home improvement store concrete set into the ground seemed like the perfect stout base to use.
As I said, this has been up for years now in the further southwest suburbs of Chicago. We get severe storms in the warmer months. a bit of sway but it's very stout. no guy lines. I actually have a second version of this a bit moved back on my property to support the high side of an HF sloper. That one is with an all PVC mast. Again, all good.
I'm actually considering adding another section of mast pole, because this amount has been so problem free. I could probably peek up another 10 feet. The only thing holding me back is that I'll need to sort of finesse all of the coax feed line to accommodate it.
FCC PART 95 (G) SUBPART (C) PARAGRAPH 2
in Family Radio Service (FRS)
Posted
Let’s be honest.. Nobody knows who’s your brother or sister or cousin on the air. If you’re on a ski trip with your “group” for a day and you handed out walkie talkies with your call on a label maker sticker on them, it’s not going to matter. I’m not confirming or denying if I do that or not, but there’s no use in getting that far into the weeds on that issue IMO..