[GMRS HT Round Up]

58 minutes ago, Lscott said:

Good practice suggests using no more power than necessary to establish good communications.

If you can get in to the repeater with only a watt or two I would do that. It keeps the hand held radio cooler and the battery pack will of course last longer.

That is exactly what I was told when I got into Ham radio back in 1995. There was not a whole lot of the computer aspect going on back then, it was mostly soldering irons, making PC boards from scratch, and linking equipment together. Back in 2000 I had a fist full of Microsoft certifications, but I was absolutely awful with programming which is probably why I was having a bit of a time with this one.

[GMRS HT Round Up]

1 minute ago, MichaelLAX said:

Nicely done!

You probably want to keep the Power Setting on LOW for Channels 8-14.

I will put the power settings on those back to low for close communication. I just wanted to see if they would work, and apparently they do.

I managed to raise two repeaters with only the 2 watts.

[GMRS HT Round Up]

Now this is more like it. A big THANK YOU to MichaelLAX, Lscott, Backformore70, and KAF6045 for all your help and input!

Screen shot is attached where I could change the TX / RX frequencies for the GMRS split independently, along with the power settings functions.

I am still looking for the thread where somebody was getting 4.82 watts output, still no luck.

[GMRS HT Round Up]

1 hour ago, MichaelLAX said:

Wrong file.  That is probably the CPS software for your BF-T11.

You want to look at a code plug (XML); maybe you have not downloaded it from your HT yet.

Try this one:

 

BF-T11 09092250 Mod.xml 6.39 kB · 0 downloads

Aha, that's the problem. Don't you just love getting brain farts?

[GMRS HT Round Up]

12 minutes ago, Lscott said:

If you look at the screen shot he provided, copied here, you'll see three pairs of frequencies, for three different channels in the editor. He boxed one of the two frequencies, in red, for a pair which he determined was the TX frequency for that particular memory channel. Since initially both RX and TX were set the same that's why they look like a duplicate of  single frequency, but in reality they are the discrete RX and TX settings.

This radio does not use a firmware that assumes a single frequency with an offset model, typical for some Ham Radio gear. It REQUIRES two distinct frequencies, one RX, and one TX, for each memory channel. This is common for many many radios, particularly for commercial models and their derivatives. Having hack a number of Kenwood radio specific codes plugs myself I've seen the same thing using a hex editor.

Mine does not display like that at all, maybe I am doing something wrong. If you look at my screenshot, on the right side there are the 22 frequencies, and this is the one and only time I see a set of frequencies like that at all in the entire program - both in the FRS and EU programming software. Am I opening up the wrong file maybe? I am looking at the EXE file in the T-11 folder.

[GMRS HT Round Up]

9 hours ago, Lscott said:

Yeah, if you look closely at his screen shot of the editor you will see several pairs of frequencies, one pair for each programmed channel. All he did was pick the second of the two in a pair, the one he wanted to alter, and changed it from 462.xxxxx to 467.xxxxx to get the repeater input frequency.

Evidently the frequency pair only shows in the software he has, just opening it in a Hex editor only shows a single frequency per channel - it has no separation for TX and RX. I am able to edit the frequencies without a problem as both the software and the radio will accept the new values and will TX / RX without issue.

Since that is the case, I doubt the effort to do a split on these radios is even worth it for the time and effort involved since there are tons of other options out there that program much more easily in CHIRP. Actually, I am a bit surprised that CHIRP has not included these radios in their software as of yet.

On the upside the T-11's would make good cheap radios on the UHF business bands or any other situation where simplex is all that's needed.

[GMRS HT Round Up]

4 hours ago, MichaelLAX said:

Yes, @KAF6045's comment to me was in response to my comment to @wrtq652's comment about the Radioddity DB-20G (a palm sized mini-mobile), which does cover both VHF and UHF.

I somehow confused that post, probably low on coffee at that moment.

You managed to get the TX separated from the RX but there is no way that I can see to do it in the hex editor since there is only one set of frequencies that I can find. Maybe there is an offset that is set to Zero you inadvertently bypassed? Looking at both the FRS and EU versions only turns up one frequency for all 22 channels that automatically occupy the TX and RX fields with no way to edit independently. Any ideas?

[GMRS HT Round Up]

26 minutes ago, MichaelLAX said:

Please post a link if you find it!

I could have sworn I bookmarked the discussion where they were putting this radio through tests and pushing it's limits, but I may have to go through my never ending sea of bookmarks to find it.

There is the possibility I bookmarked it on my other computer which I will have to look at today. My Linux machine might be a better option if I dissect the programming software and mess with it in there since I have a Windows shell installed on it.

[GMRS HT Round Up]

8 hours ago, KAF6045 said:

Though low power exceeds the regulations 2W for MURS.

These T-11 radios are not capable of transmitting on the VHF MURS frequencies, they are designed for UHF.

[GMRS HT Round Up]

36 minutes ago, MichaelLAX said:

Try this:

Hex Fiend

It is still offering me an updated version.

I saw that page, but it is for MacOS. Since I'm using Windows 8.1 I had to download Bluestacks and then find the Windows version of Hexfiend, then open it through Bluestacks. The Mac version won't work

I did edit the only set of frequencies I found in the T11 software (using Hex-Works) which put the new frequencies in both the TX and RX

This may take some time.

[GMRS HT Round Up]

2 hours ago, MichaelLAX said:

Which Hex program are you currently using? 4.82 watts would surely make these HTs more usable especially to repeaters! 

I tried to find Hex Fiend and it seems it is no longer available   However, I will have a look at Hex-Works possibly over the weekend if I get time.

Trying to locate the power setting could be challenging but that will be after I get the frequency fields changed successfully.

[GMRS HT Round Up]

51 minutes ago, MichaelLAX said:

Do you think you can get more than 2 watts out of these handi-talkies?

I remember reading a post somewhere on another site that they measured about 4.82 watts output on high power. That was done on 2 radios that were taken apart to the point they could capture the TX power at the base of where the antenna would be. There were a couple other tests done such as frequency deviation, RX sensitivity, and battery life, and all were very good but I do not remember those specifics since I was mostly impressed by the almost 5 watt output. I tried for the last hour or so to find the site, but no luck yet.

Since they are capable of almost 5 watts, then the low power setting might be able to be removed on the FRS portion. I may even try to use these on the 70cm ham bands since I am licensed there as well. All I need to do is find a suitable editor, but the ones I have looked at so far do not have the same layout as the one you used so I will try Hex Fiend and see how far I can get with it.

[GMRS HT Round Up]

On 9/10/2022 at 5:16 PM, MichaelLAX said:

SUCCESS!!!

This software creates code plugs that are unencoded XML.

I used my HEX editor to change the TRANSMIT frequency on Channel 19 to the INPUT frequency for Repeater Channel 19R and used the BF-T11 software to enter the ENCODE CTCSS tone and now I have confirmed at home that these handy little units can transmit and receive on the 5 MHz split!

Now 2 watts is not enough for me to actually access my local repeater from inside my home, but later today when I go driving closer to this repeater, I will confirm that this will actually allow me access to this 650 Repeater:

 

Which HEX editor did you use for that?

I was trying to find a way to change the TX frequency for the split, but did not think of doing it that way.

Now I'm wondering if the TX power can be changed as well through the editor.

 

[GMRS HT Round Up]

On 5/26/2022 at 1:48 AM, back4more70 said:

If you're looking for cheap FRS, I got a pair of Pofung BF-T11's on sale for $20. Programming cable was extra but worth it to get rid of tones, change band to wide and higher power where applicable. I took them fishing and they outperformed my pair of Midland LXT600pa's.

Where did you find the software? I got a pair of these a while back but gave up looking for the software and now they just sit collecting dust.

[Mag Mount Scanner Antenna works on GMRS]

Have you actually tried transmitting on GMRS Frequencies with one of these antennas? If yes then what were your results, and what kind of coverage did you get? I am looking to install a mobile unit in my Jeep Patriot. Thanks.

 

Steve

I have been using this antenna with excellent results. I think the reason is that it has a broader bandwidth, and is a lot taller than the little GMRS I see on ebay.

The coverage is great as far as I am concerned, I would have to say that it works just as well (probably better) than any of the comparable GMRS specific antennas out there.

And I also use it for amateur radio.

 

Your results will vary because I have mine dead center on the roof of a 2015 Tundra, but your roof is the best location and should work just as well as my setup.

One note: I did cut my cable to leave only as much as I needed to get from the roof to the radio, which eliminated about half or more cable loss which can be critical in the UHF band.

[Mag Mount Scanner Antenna works on GMRS]

I had bought a pair of Hustler MRMBNC mag mount mobile scanner antennas months ago for my scanners, but since I was moving soon I never did anything with them. Well, I unpacked them the other day and decided to try hooking them up to my Antenna Analyzer today and see what turned up.

 

They actually did quite amazingly well on GMRS, especially on the repeater transmit frequencies. My SWR readings were in a tight range of 1.06:1 to 1.09:1 and this was without any tuning. The results were a very pleasant surprise because I thought they would have been in the barely acceptable range and would need some serious tuning, but evidently I don't need to do a thing.

 

For those who don't want a permanent install (like me) this may be a very viable and cost effective option. When I bought these, it was a pair in one auction which I won for around $18.00 +5.50 shipping. I see they are going for about $22 each on various sites around the internet, and the ones on ebay are sky-high at the moment. You will probably need an adapter from a BNC connector to whatever type connector is on your radio.

 

I have a Radio Shack scanner antenna around here somewhere and will have to check that one out next when I find it.