WRAK968

I am not sure whats going on but when I click on your link it takes me to www.https.com and shows a bunch of ads.

So, I didn't exactly use a mobile hotspot however both repeaters I had set up used wifi for connection. The pros: 1: We didn't have to run wiring for internet connection. Just connected to the already running wifi modem. 2: Assuming you used a mobile hotspot and a portable repeater, and had reliable service, you could take a linked node almost anywhere. The cons: 1: Running via wifi takes a little longer to set up. This is because you not only have to configure your router for port forwarding and such, you'll also have to configure the pi for wifi, which can be a pain sometimes when it doesn't want to locate the wifi signal you wish to use. I think it took Rich and I about an hour and a half trying to connect to the wifi here. 2: The wifi chip tends to fail after a while. This may have been a fluke, but I had one pi give me issues with remaining connected to the Wifi, and now it seems the other may have the same issues. Long term wifi data connection for repeater linking doesn't seem to be a strong point for the pi's wifi chip. Due to the failure of the chipset I ran a cat6E cable to the repeater and haven't had nearly as much trouble as I had before. Again, this is my own experience and could be result from many factors including my own errors. 3: Wifi data is a bit slower than wire-line which doesn't seem to affect the pi much when there are 2 or 3 connections, however during the weekly nets you can tell there's a slight delay as it bogs down. At times this can cause some odd issues much like when a youtube video gets lagged and makes an irritating repeating noise for a second or two. Upgrading the router seemed to help with this. 4: Wire-line is instant, wifi is not, when it comes to booting the pi and downloading the active node list. Your pi will download a list of active nodes during boot-up and then hourly (If memory serves me right) after that to keep the list up-to-date. If using wifi, it will miss this first download attempt as during boot-up the pi will still be trying to establish a connection. Rich was able to write a bit of code which allowed the pi's on my system to download a few minutes after booting up, then hourly after that which took care of the problem for me. I cannot say if he has since included that code into the program yet. Your best bet, my recommendation, and for ease of use, would be to run a wire-line for internet connection for the time being. If there's no other option Wifi will work, but is a bit more of a pain to set up and there is a concern about reliability at least in my perspective. I don't believe it would use too much data however I never metered the connection to be able to say for sure.

is it "Connection Denied" or "Connection Failed" Connection Failed means that for whatever reason the nodes could not connect. This could be that the node is unavailable, or perhaps too many nodes are connected to that one node and it is unable to allow further connections without causing issues, or that their node is experiencing degraded internet access. Connection Denied is just that, The owners of the hub have chosen to not allow outside connections to access their hub/node. This is usually done if outside nodes or hubs connect and cause issues, or if the node/hub is owned by a club that requires dues for access.

In all honesty I am at a loss as to what else can be done without having the computer, repeater, and pi directly in front of me. These systems do take a fair amount of computer tech understanding to get working properly.

hhmmm, the GMS should attach to the D-sub port on the back, the switch shouldnt have anything to do with that (I mean why would you want employees to have the option to turn off the GPS which would mess with the MDC) I guess I've seen crazier though so who knows. Keep us posted

Was the switch connected at all? It may have been used to disconnect from the battery to prevent phantom draw, however it seems a bit small for that purpose. The only other thing I can think of is encryption, however the 8180 can have a button on the front programmed for that so offhand without the radio or more info, I cant really say much. The 8180 does have solder pads on the main board which allows different options. When you open the radio again, follow any wires that come off the switch, if you can, take a few good non-blurry pics. This will help us see what its connected to and perhaps what it does.

I mean, I could show the radio, it looks brand new. A repair friend of mine told me quite a few of the 7550's had an issue where the ribbon cable became damaged and cut out audio from the body's mic, and the speaker. Using a speaker mic the radio works great, take the speaker mic off and goes back to no audio. not even the radios power up tones come over. The radio worked fine, got a call, reached to take it off my belt and the antenna caught my shirt and twisted the radio out of my hand and down to the ground maybe 3 feet away. I'm not knocking the quality of motorola radios, however with all the testing you would want to think this wouldn't happen yet it has.

I have one downside of the 7550E. Turns out that if the radio is dropped from around waist high, the audio goes out completely. From what I've learned, the ribbon cable between the case and main board can get pinched and cracked in a drop. If this happens the only way to repair the radio is to buy a new case as the ribbon cable, speaker, mic, and buttons are all molded into one. Outside of that flaw, I love it. I used it for hame radio, work, and GMRS. When I have the time and funds, I'll order a replacement case, till then, stuck with the speaker mic.

From a repeater standpoint, I have a built in back up battery which can run the repeater for about 24 hours. This was tested this year after a hurricane came through and knocked out power for a while. Luckily damage was limited to downed trees and some shingles blown off the roof. Many repeaters come with a battery revert/charger system just for this. Most times batteries are only meant to hold over the system until the genset is up and running (about 5 minutes.) I put two RV deep cycle batteries in, and for a system that runs low power it can run for quite some time. Motorola makes a separate module for some of their older repeater systems (GR1225 for example) which could work for any radio. https://www.batterydistributors.com/motorola-hln9455a.html This is the unit I have in my own repeater build. There is no downtime at all and it even runs the fan to keep the repeater cool. Checking amazon they also have revert kits selling for about $65. https://www.amazon.com/Samlex-BBM-1225-Converts-External-interrupted/dp/B0073HTV76 They do the same thing the HLN9455A does. Do make sure you purchase a good power supply that is rated for the load draw and charger draw at the same time. And like any other battery set up, be sure to fuse at the battery, and at the power supply for safety and circuit protection.

If your max amp draw is 8A then you should likely use a 10A fuse. The rule of thumb we used at the shop was the next highest fuse rating at 125% of the load. This rule was made this way to provide the quickest protection to both the battery and the device being run off it. And the fuse can be on either + or - (In fact Kenwood and most other radio manufacturers fuse BOTH + and -) The chief reason most people fuse the + lead is that a majority of vehicles are - ground. This means that a break anywhere in the + cable has a chance of contacting ground anywhere in the vehicle and causing a short. In your case, the fuse will act as over-current protection for the radio. Likewise, (But don't test this without researching) if you plug the radio in backwards it should blow the fuse to save the radio, however not all radios do this.

perhaps, though thats a bit of work, only time will tell.

I think that would be a great idea. I also believe that with MyGMRS selling node controllers that perhaps there could be a tutorial on the main site explaining some of the set-up steps and reminders of some of the codes and files that can be customized. I was thinking about contacting Rich and seeing if we could get that all going.

I try to be honest with people. This gentleman has come to us saying he has no radio background and so I gave him an honest answer that would work for his business, as well as some of the pros and cons of using GMRS for business operations. If you read my comment over you will see that I say "If your ok with some interference, GMRS could work,...GMRS would allow family to talk through a repeater" I'm sorry if it frustrates people (Including you) to tell them the truth of things which could save them a headache in the long run.

Both are meant as one thing, an access code to open up the squelch on the radio to hear traffic. No code means you will hear everything on that channel, with a code you will only hear traffic with a matching code. Not all repeaters use CTCSS, The WRAK968 repeaters are set up with DCS codes instead. To my knowledge it is user preference as to which code group they wish to use with no real advantage to ether side.

This varies by radio. Some radios will only cover 450-480, others cover 440-520 and more cover 400-520 and even the VHF band. As long as a dept uses a frequency your radio can pick up, you could add it to your radio. PLEASE IF YOU DO THIS, ENSURE TRANSMIT IS DISABLED FOR THOSE CHANNELS AS CONVICTION FOR INTERFERING ON PUBLIC SAFETY FREQUENCIES CAN RESULT IN MASSIVE FINES AND EVEN JAIL TIME!!!!!! Other than that, if your curious, look at your area on Radioreference.com. This will tell you most of the frequencies that are used by your local depts. Also, TA=Talkaround. It by-passes repeaters to allow two mobile and/or portable stations to talk directly rather than through a repeater.

Ham radio would not work for you. First Ham radio is not permitted for commercial use, and second you would have to get everyone licensed to use the ham bands, and then on top of all of that, anyone can use your ham repeater since the ham frequencies are open to all licensed operators. GMRS could work, its now $65 for 10 years if I recall, and yes with GMRS you can run a repeater, however you may run into some of the same issues above. What I would try first is MURS on the VHF side. VHF signals seem to travel across terrain much easier than UHF. We use VHF where I work and I can easily talk across the 2 mile stretch of beach and boardwalk with few black out areas. If your ok with some interference, GMRS could work, otherwise you may need to look into a commercial radio license. GMRS would allow family to talk through a repeater, the commercial license would allow friends and family as well as any employees you may have for the farm. The commercial license is a bit more expensive though.

Zones are for, as you have done, sorting channels into groups. I have set Zone 1 as local repeaters, Zone 2 as all repeater channels, Zone 3 for conventional GMRS channels and Zone 4 I added local FD/EMS. as for ID number, many kenwood radios have two ID modes. Fleetsync and MDC1200. If configured the ID number will be send on each transmit, and if you configure your radio correctly, it will display a name when the code is received. These modes will also allow you to page particular users, and even send messages.

yeah, I missed the "Saturday net" portion of the title, see, need my own advice, listen more, talk less LOL

Now I am kinda curious about what happened. Normally I connect the WRAK968 system to the regional net only as there are a lot of users now participating in the national net. I know the regional nets sometimes have issues however they are also run by volunteers who haven't really done this too much. It takes time to develope the skills needed to run a net. One thing I will note as I hear this in the regional nets all the time, is that users need to LISTEN more and TALK less. This means listening to and understanding the instructions being given by net control. If net control is asking for users who have previously checked into the net, don't key up and announce you are a new user. If you live in NJ, don't key up when net control asks for a station in FL. If users were to listen more and talk less the net would flow smoothly. That being said, I know the national net does rotate controllers. (There is a sign-up sheet for net control) I don't know what exactly you are upset about or what happened, however you could sign up as net control and you would use VoIP to operate the net.

also sorry for the delay, for some reason Mygmrs did not notify me of your post

Ok, in the screens you showed me with port forwarding, make sure the port forward circle is selected then click "Add Custom Service" This will give you a new screen. Fill in the following info: Service name: GMRS Link Service type: UDP External Starting Port: 4569 External Ending Port: 4569 Check "Use same port range for internal port" Internal starting port (Leave Blank) Internal ending port (leave blank) Internal IP address (Enter the IP address of the raspberry pi) Click on "Apply" This should add the UDP port for the pi. As for rebooting the Pi, there are two ways. The first is to log into the pi (whatever username/password you set, if you did not set a password, it is likely repeater, 123456) then type Sudo Reboot. It should reboot the pi. The second is to just unplug the pi, not the best way, however if you do not have a screen and keyboard set up for the pi, this is usually the easiest way.

What exactly is the problem with your 890? The 890 should use KPG-44D software, and the KPG-43U cable if I recall. Connect the cable to your PC, open up the 49D software, click "Setup>Com Port" this will open a little window. Select the comport the programming cable is using (Usually it will be the only com port available) and click OK. Now, with the radio turned on and the cable connected to the radios mic port, do a read from the radio. If you get an error, please share it here. There is a reason for having you do these steps. First, some radio's require matching S/N's in the programing dat file. Having a mismatched file wont allow you to upload to the radio. Second, by uploading a random dat file you may not fix whatever issue you are having. And third, if your new to the software, this is a great chance to learn about the software and features that others may not include in the system.

Why do we have a linked GMRS network? What is the need it intends to create and/or satisfy? The linking network serves a few purposes. First it allows repeaters to link nation wide for nets. Users can also use the network to communicate during travel back to their "home" repeater. Second, there are users like myself who have family far enough away that they use their own repeater. By permanently linking the two we are able to always call one another by radio. This would be difficult to do without the network. How and when is it intended to be used? See the above answer for examples What is the appeal to some new GMRS users that seemly causes them to immediately think they need to get their new repeater on the network? I can't speak about other users, only myself. I knew I was going to set up 2 repeaters in 2 locations for my family to use so that was my reasoning. If I were to speculate about others, I would imagine members who have multiple repeaters would integrate the network so that all repeaters would communicate with one another. Many people also want to join the regional/national net on Sunday so there's another reason to be on the network. If I owned a repeater that did a good for me, my family and my local community, why would/should I want to connect it to a national network? It would seem it would make it seem it would make it less accessible to me and the locals. Just being on the network does not mean you are connected to other "nodes." My system, 23407 and 23409 are connected to each other always. Sometimes we link to other nodes, usually on Sunday when we connect to node 172. We have little to no interference from the Mygmrs network. As an owner, you will also have access to commands that will let you disconnect any nodes who are causing issues with your system. How would a linked network, from a practical standpoint, help the collective “us”, in the event of an national emergency? There is a yes and a no here. As a ham operator who has done EDS comms, I would NOT rely on ANY VoIP/RoIP communications modes for emergency's. This is because there are too many modes of failure including power outages, cable lines going down, control stations going down, and most ISP's do not have back up contingency's as the internet was not designed for life saving communications use. However, the linked GMRS network CAN be used for relay messaging from areas that were not affected by the emergency. By doing this, you cut out any middle men and thus reduce the telephone effect that happens when groups relay from point A to point B. In that respect, it can be an asset for long distance comms. How does retransmitting my voice over all linked repeaters in the US benefit me and others throughout the country? Well, Imagine your traveling from NJ to FL. When you get to FL you find your in an area that has little cell coverage, however a linked repeater is in the area. you can dial into your node and contact your family and tell them that you arrived at your destination safely. Other users can do this as well. Is there anything more too it than “because we can.” All of the above LOL, seems to be a lot of repeat questions. I have now listened to many official net sessions on GMRS repeaters (and over the internet) as well as amateur radio and have yet to be able to conclude anything more practical or meaningful than “because we can”. That may be because you do not own a system of repeaters which you want linked together and don't realize the capability of the network. Is it because we can, I'm sure to many that yes that is the case. For me, I don't believe I would have been able to link the two repeaters without the network.

Hey, so. I'm not 100% when it comes to baofengs but I'm gonna do my best. First, are you face programing or computer programing. Computer programing is easier however it requires access to a computer, software, and cable.

True, I have the 8180 which can do both MDC and Fleetsync, was just noting kenwood had fleetsync.