WRAK968
-
Posts
527 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
38
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Gallery
Classifieds
Posts posted by WRAK968
-
-
So the 712EFC was beneficial and you would recommend? If I go that route, I'll also upgrade my feedline to 1/2 Heliax. Just want to make sure it's going to make enough difference to help.
As far as terrain is concerned, I'm in the high desert at about 5000 feet. There are very few trees and I have a direct line of sight to the repeater, according to https://www.scadacore.com/tools/rf-path/rf-line-of-sight/ .
Yes, height of the antenna refers to how high it is mounted, not the length of the antenna itself.
The antenna seemed to help a lot, however if you are upgrading your feedline I would stick to LMR400 if your less than 100' long. Its less expensive and easier to run. I get mine from https://mpddigital.us/ . Their cables are all US made, have great customer service, and custom build your cable to length and install whatever connectors you wish to use. They also have a guarantee. I had a 2' jumper fail on me almost 2 years after I bought it and they replaced it no questions asked, even paid for the shipping to, so I cant say enough about them.
-
I am using the 712EFC antenna with Timesmicrowave LMR400 for my household repeater. Now my range isnt too great because of the height, (17' above ground, thanks to not owning my property and the landlord being afraid of the insurance costs of a tower on his land) but upgrading the feedline and antenna nearly doubled the range I had. (Originally I was running RG8X and a Diamond 200U)
Still there are other factors in play. What is the terrain between your house and the repeater you are trying to hit? If there is a mountain or very large hill between you and the repeater, chances are you'll need a taller antenna structure, not just a higher gain antenna. If you have a ton of pine trees, you may find the new setup (Higher power and better antenna) works well for you as it punches through the trees. You may also benefit from a lower loss feedline meaning less dB loss for the radios receiver, and more power getting into the antenna from the transmitter. -
Actually, I was more curious about the radios specs. All I could find was that it was thin, output 3W, and transmits F3E (FM). I am thinking its a GMRS radio, though the ad doesn't say, so it could also be 900MHZ, though if thats the case I think the radio would be locked in at .5W. Given the other falsehoods (Digital transmissions, 8W power output) on the site I wouldn't purchase the radio myself. But as a radio geek (otherwise known as a ham) it still makes me curious about how the radio works lol.
-
So, checking out facebook when an ad poped up for the PowerTalkieX as a family emergency communications device. Heres the link to it : https://preparedhero.com/products/powertalkiex?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=powertalkiex&fbclid=IwAR3nSv3JEPDBSZxQcoKo1s2gwKoiMBEeNnlrRGFduSrkhv6sTRTcfA63Mlc
Now, I have a couple of issues with this product and I haven't even bought it yet. First is that the company is taking advantage of the pandemic as in the ad it mentions that many utility workers are now sick and soon the infrastructure will fail. Causing fear to sell your product doesn't sit well with me. My second issue is that the ad's and even their page is somewhat deceitful. For instance, in the facebook ad, they claim the radios are packed with the latest digital tech and that using digital signals reduces interference over long distances. In the specs it says they are standard FM. Another thing it said was that it transmitted a full 8 watts of power, but in the specs they say 3 watts. Nowhere does it discuss what frequencies they are using, but they are willing to sell it for a whooping $129 after they give you a 35% pandemic discount.
I am a little curious about the radios, but not that curious, and I wouldn't want to buy from a company who is clearly taking advantage of people. Moral of the story, research research research before you buy so you can avoid things like this. -
Ok, I tried to throw my radio out of whack using the test software (I took notes of how it was originally set up as to not damage anything) and I couldn't get it to go that far out, I really do believe youll need a repair desk or a friend who has the equipment and know how to figure out what is wrong.
-
Ya know what, Let me do some testing here with one of my radios. Im now curious if I can cheat something to work for you
-
UPDATE: Just for grins and giggles, I setup the "Non-repeater" channel 17 with the same 141.3 code on the TK-880 and did the same thing to my MXT400 and got the same results. The Midland never "heard" the Kenwood. So then I changed over the codes on both radios to the other end of list (250.3) and boom! both radios were talking to each other.
Could this be something along the lines of the Kenwood being "out of adjustment" on the 141.3 setting? Is this something that could be fixed? Adjusted through the KPG-49D software?
It can be, at least I know there is a fine adjustment thing, but youll want a shop to do this to make sure the radio is in full alignment. Also of important note, its odd that you could reach other repeaters while using codes. Odd, very odd, My concern would be you adjust so the 141.3 tone opens up the other radio, but then your other tones are thrown off and nolonger work. I would go to a dealer/service dept. Shouldn't be too expensive (maybe $100-150), but youll know that everything will be set properly using the proper test equipment.
-
That is odd to have 3 kenwood units having the same issue. I am certainly curious as well. I am now going through the 49D to see if I can find any settings that would cause such an issue.
-
That was very helpful
PL is ham for QT/DQT, or another words, the 141.3 tone.
You seem to have everything set properly. You said you can talk to the armored repeater ok. Im wondering if the Oconomowoc675 repeater went down for maintenance or some other issue. Try using the midland radio to access the Oconomowoc675 repeater. If it works then we know for sure it has to be something with the kenwood. If that's the case, there isn't much more you can do until you purchase a meter and dummy load, or take it to a radio shop to be looked at. -
My bad, I thought it was an issue going the other way around. I looked up the Oconomowoc675 repeater and you are right, they are showing 141.3 so that is an odd one. Lets do a default check. First, check that the channel is in WIDE mode. Sometimes this causes an issue when distance is involved.
When you confirmed that, we can use the Midland radio to test the Kenwoods PL tone encoder which could have gone out of whack. You only need one antenna for this as the midland doesn't need to transmit, only receive, though a dummy load would be a better option. Power up both radios on the same simplex channel and PL codes. Key the kenwood and see if you can hear it on the midland. If you can, it means the PL encoder is working as it should. We can reverse this to test the kenwoods tone decoder. Simply switch the antenna to the midland radio and key the midland radio, listening on the kenwood.
The last thing I can come up with would be that the radio is off frequency or low power when transmitting on 467 which you would need a meter and equipment to test. -
Since I couldn't get a direct answer, I downloaded and installed chirp. I am assuming you used Chirp's default FRS/GMRS lineup. If that is the case, you should have FRS 1-14, and GMRS 1-8 All channels are simplex. GMRS 1-8 are actually channels 15-22 on the bubble pack radios. If both radios have the same FRS/GMRS chart installed then they should both work if they are on the same channel.
Now, you keep talking about GMRS channels 9 and 10 which is NOT in the factory chirp file which surely you now understand my confusion and why I asked about how you have programed the radio. GMRS 9 and 10 could be FRS 9 and 10, they could be repeater channels, they could be a goofed up channel you put in. Without seeing data and instead being given info on power output means I cant help you figure out where the mistake is. It could be a programming error, a bad code plug, could be one of the radios was defective, could be human error. Without the info I asked about I cant even begin to figure out what is going on. -
Well I ask because there are only 22 channels in total between GMRS and FRS, plus 8 additional repeater inputs. (which use channels 15-22 as outputs) So if you are able to connect on the 22 FRS channels, that only leaves the 8 GMRS repeater channels.
-
Check to see if you can still hit the repeater with your midland radio. If your able to hit repeaters that are further away from you than the repeater in question, it leaves only three thoughts in mind. A) the repeater is down, B ) closer higher power traffic is getting in, cutting you out of the loop, and C) there is an issue with the PL tone encoder on the kenwood that is not allowing you into the system.
Looking up the listing for Armored 1 you are using the wrong codes to get into that repeater. Rich, if it is ok with you I can post the correct tones, or the direct link to the system and that should correct his issue I think.
-
Check to see if you can still hit the repeater with your midland radio. If your able to hit repeaters that are further away from you than the repeater in question, it leaves only three thoughts in mind. A) the repeater is down, B ) closer higher power traffic is getting in, cutting you out of the loop, and C) there is an issue with the PL tone encoder on the kenwood that is not allowing you into the system.
-
And last, MAKE SURE THE ANTENNA IS CONNECTED!! >.< I drove myself nuts for three weeks trying to figure out why my radio wouldn't TX more than a few houses, turned out when I reprogrammed the radio I forgot to plug he antenna back into the radio. DOH!
Just saw your reply, does not seem to be an antenna disconnect issue. -
HHmmm, It sounds like your talking about the GMRS repeater channels which will not allow you to talk direct from one radio to another radio. Since you programed the radios, could you tell me the frequencies you used for TX and RX, as that will confirm if you are trying to use the repeater channels vs normal simplex channels.
-
Welcome Pappaw, I'd like to add onto what Boxcar already said, One thing with GMRS is that you should make sure any radio you use is part 90/95 certified. The midland radios are part 95, however not many baofengs are. In-fact, a year or two ago the FCC pulled baofengs certification because they were not meeting the requirements of part 95. This is important as other radio users, such as fire, police, and EMS, use frequencies around the GMRS lineup and having a radio that transmits off frequency, or too wide a bandwidth, can cause interference to those operations.
I've always recommended Kenwood 880's as a starting radio. The software for them is easy to get, and you can usually get the high power version (40W) for around $75-80. The down side is that they are used, but the fact that they are emergency service radios means they will last a lot longer than any Chinese radio. The kenwoods are also part 90/95 rated which makes them legal on GMRS, and to my knowledge, if you have your GMRS license you can have a removable antenna on your radio as long as the power output is not amplified however I could be wrong.
-
yes, unless something says "Inverted" always use the normal state
-
"do i put the input freq in my radio as the TX or the RX?"
Input (467) side should be on your radios TX, and the output (462) side should be on the radios RX.
"Also what is the difference in the programing between D123I and D123N?"
DCS tones have both Normal and Inverted states, thus you have a D123N for normal and D123I for inverted.
Glad you got the programming issue fixed, what was wrong?
-
First, Welcome to GMRS, its an interesting hobby and can be a bit of fun.
Now, most importantly (And not to dissuade you from getting into the hobby) you should never talk on a radio that you programmed without knowing what your doing. The reason is that GMRS is mixed in with business and public safety frequencies so a minor mistake could result in interference with those agencies. There is a bit to learn and know about your radio and its important to note that each radio is different.
So lets start off with these questions;
What is the make and model of your radio?
What do you plan to use it for? (Family, business, to chat with other users?)
Do you plan to use a local repeater or do you plan to only talk direct to other radios?
By answering these questions we may be better able to help you out
-
There are several ways of doing this and each has its advantages and drawbacks.
Personally I use a portable duplex (two frequency) repeater. This does require a tuned duplexer. The duplexer I have is commonly refereed to as a "Flatpack" duplexer. It does need to be tuned which most local radio shops do for $50-$100. Because of the nature of flatpack duplexers (Being cheap and not as good as BPBR duplexers) once they are tuned you should be able to use any of the 8 repeater channel pairs without needing to be retuned. The flatpack I use is a Celwave UHF duplexer, and I can run from .550-7250 with no issue. The drawback of this system is power output. The more TX power I put into the duplexer the less efficient it'll work causing de-sense of the signal into the RX radio. While the repeater will run 25W, I find I usually run it on low power using 10W of power instead. This system is also likely most expensive as it requires more equipment to operate. Still, my repeater build came to about $250 not including the antenna, feedline, or power source.
Simplex repeaters are the cheapest option as they use the least amount of equipment or parts or even run off existing installed radio hardware. The unit does not require a duplexer or second radio to operate. It operates by recording audio from the radio, then replaying the audio back into the radios mic port. The drawbacks; Simplex repeaters can only store so much audio, usually only 30 seconds worth, limiting messages to 30 seconds. The second drawback is that your forced to wait for your message to be retransmitted then the unit to store your friends reply before it gets back to you. This isnt too bad during regular chitchat, though it could be annoying, but in emergency situations, seconds can count and having to wait a while for a reply is sometimes not doable. Thus the invention if the RPT-2K.
The RPT-2K is similar to a duplex repeater, in fact thats what it is in a sense, however instead of using high power mobile radios, it uses two low power portable radios. Most times this set-up is used for cross-band repeating which is not allowed in GMRS, however you can use it on two radios withing the same band to make a duplex repeater. You should use a duplexer here as well, however at low power, (.5-1W) the desense is easily avoided and the system works ok. The downside is that your limited to low power, and most portable radios are rated at a 15% duty cycle which means long talk sessions could burn the amplifier out on the TX side of the repeater, especially if you plan to use Chinese radios.
In the end it comes down to how much money you wish to spend and what you plan to do with the system. For me, I plan to use the repeater for camping trips and special events for family and friends to keep in contact. Given the fact that we may go hiking or fishing on the boat I wanted to make sure that should an emergency arise that we could easily communicate without having to deal with dropped cell signals. The setup I have easily covers a few miles so we don't have to worry about signal and it is easily deploy within 5 minutes of getting to the campsite.- yupitsnuge and berkinet
-
2
-
QRZ is not letting me log in today
However if you PM me here I'll shoot an e-mail to you right away. For the most part its all plug and play, no radio mods or anything, just uses the mic port on the front of the radio and the speaker port on the back. -
I used a surecom SR-629 (https://www.amazon.com/Gam3Gear-Surecom-SR-629-Repeater-Controller/dp/B01M0KVOC2) with two K1 cables (http://www.409shop.com/409shop_product.php?id=122463)
Only thing I recommend is that your TX radio be reduced to low power only if you plan to have a bit of traffic on your repeater, I would also set the TOT to about 60 seconds. This will prolong the life of the transmitter and prevent burnout. I run the standard 880 (25W) and I set the low power out to about 10W which for portable use is perfect. Outside of those two things, you don't really need to do much to the radio, its all plug and play.
-
The KPG49D does have a frequency adjustment tool however Im not sure how much adjusting it is capable of. If your off by like .030 its no issue but Corey may have to do anything beyond 1.xxx deviation since, as he said, a few more tools are needed (And a bit more knowledge as well)
PowerTalkieX ?
in Equipment Reviews
Posted
I look forward to hearing about it if you do get them.