WRVR263

What Deo is asking is similar to my concerns. Here's the situation. Evac scenario. Teams have GMRS licenses and radios (mostly handhelds) however with the terrain they won't always reach the CP via either a fixed or portable repeater. Mission critical issues include their ability to communicate with each other whether or not they can hit the repeater but also communicate with the CP, typically at a sheltering facility or at the Staging Area. If the field units are operating simplex in a general area, they should be able to communicate with each other. If we could rig a kind of relay repeater (simplex tactical frequency on one side - link frequency to CP on the other side) the units could communicate directly with one another, the CP could monitor and also receive calls or give assignments or safety warnings back to the field units. Additionally, if for any reason field units couldn't copy each other but were in range of the relay repeater, the CP could forward the message back over the repeater. This concept is similar to what we use in the fire service for remote radio sites, with a radio uplink to the site from dispatch, but transmitting and receiving on a simplex channel on the "field" side of the system. Store-forward can get pretty crazy if multiple units in the field are generating "real time" traffic with critical details such as access / egress instructions, critical exchanges of safety details, etc. (Can you imagine the chaos if forward units were exchanging critical messages rapid-fire with the store-forward repeater walking on top of them?) Open to creative ideas (if any are legal) and thanks in advance.

I've ridden this train. Chirp works unless it doesn't. Fastest fix for me was to (a) bookmark the pages in the manual that describe how to program channels and displays, (b) factory reset the radio, and (c) enter the PL codes and display indications manually. A little kludgy at first try but it works.