LeoG

An employee of the FCC in an unofficial capacity gave the guy a heads up. The two talked to each other, don't know if it was on a regular basis or not but he gave him a heads up. Same thing as a cop friend of yours telling you they see your car speeding down Main st and you might want to take care of that. Just an unofficial notice by a friend. But again, all hearsay.

Essentially we have nothing confirmed. We have an interview with a club member who said he had 2nd hand information about what happened. It's all speculation on some slim facts. All I know is the 3 repeaters went down and were also taken out of the Map section here. Made it look pretty official that they went offline. Until I get back up to NY in that area I can't say for sure the repeater I was using is gone. It was the Alliance Repeater with a 71.9Hz input tone. It was an open repeater. I was in the shadow of some rather large hills so I never had good coverage even though I was fairly close.

That's how mine is setup now also. But in the beginning I was using the RPT channels. Once you learn the basics you can move onto something a bit more complicated.

An employee spoke to them. Not an official FCC notification.

Unconstitutionally of course. 4th amendment to be secure in your papers and home, Patriot Act took care of that. We do not live in a republic.

Program the tones manually. You can't program the names without an outside program. I use OD master using Bluetooth.

It's a legal out. But... If you don't pay club dues, or donations or whatever they call it, you don't get to use the repeater. Legally you probably aren't paying to use the repeater. But you are.

The one I use isn't a club and you are only a "member" because they gave you a number and put you on the list of all the people that also have numbers. Says on their facebook page that anyone is free to use the repeater and if you think you'll use it on a regular basis they'd like you to have a number so others can contact you more easily. Nothing says you have to answer anyone trying to contact you either. Being forced sound silly.

One of the repeaters I use has a numbered system. They say it's easier to contact someone specific and it sort of is. No one says you have to use the number to ID yourself you can use your govt ID. Which by regulation you need to anyway. It's something you get use to if you want to go that way. They aren't forcing you to use it, just for convenience. I haven't found many duplicate names of the normies on the repeater to make it necessary. There aren't 6 Mikes and 14 Bob's surprisingly. I start off with my call sign and say my # and my wifes # when I want to contact her. It's actually more noticeable than your name. And the repeater owners don't force you to join use. Again, more for the convenience.

Which goes to show you how badly the regulations are written. If they were written precisely then there could only be one interpretation. And that is how they are suppose to be written, very narrow meanings so you can say yes or no if they were adhered to. I think the bureaucracies love to write these so they can be interpreted differently for their friends and hammer people they don't care for.

And yet they have names for the separate sides. What do I know. I was asking what I thought was a simple question. And now there's a video gonna be made because of it. LOL

Thought I was asking a simple question, Which way does it suppose to go in, is what I asked tech support at Buy Two Way Radios. I got back an answer of it doesn't matter which way. Then I sent him their own specs on the buy page and it said this: This prompted him to ask others about this and as it turns out there is a specific direction that the lightning arrester is suppose to go. On this particular one, and likely others the longer threaded side with the nut goes towards the antenna and is called the protected side. The surge side goes towards the radio and has the shorter threaded section. No where in the specs does it say which way it goes and I really haven't found anything online that states the direction either. I found something in a picture that showed the long side going towards the antenna but it called both sides the protected side. The said they will be making a video on lightning arresters and their installation. I am such a trouble maker... Protected side towards antenna Surge side towards radio

If you don't join the club by paying dues you can't use the repeater. AKA you pay to use the repeater.

That's what I thought.

That's a lot of repeaters tied together.

Didn't know it went over state lines. I thought there were 3 simulcast repeaters all in NY.

Everyone else saw the question.

Go to channel RPT5 for 462.600/467.600Mhz Press the blue button on the upper left, normally it will be on number 0 - bandwidth mode. Either type in 11 or use the up arrows to get to #11, Rx CTCSS Press the blue button again and the green caret should go down to the word OFF Use the up arrow to advance to 141.3Hz and press the blue button again. This sets BOTH the RX and TX CTCSS to 141.3Hz. You will only hear the repeater this way. If you only wish to activate the repeater and listen to all then you need to set the Rx CTCSS back to OFF Alternately if you only wish to set the tone to activate the repeater instead of going to #11, go to #13 and set the Tx CTCSS to 141.3Hz in the same manner as before. This way the Tx will be set and the Rx will be left OFF.

There was no FCC action. There was a friend in the FCC that gave a heads up to a friend as far as I can see. There was no legal action taken that I know of. The repeaters were taken down before anything could happen as a precaution from friendly advice from someone on the inside.

Are there any other radio licenses that allow you to port it to other family members?

Pretty deep in the menu system. Probably would have never found it. Thanks.

First time I've ever heard of someone using Audacity. I use it on occasion, great program. Never knew it had a VOX mode. I was running 2.3.3 and updated just now to 3.5.1. I don't see where this VOX mode is.

The only linked repeater I had contact with was the NY Alliance. I hadn't heard of it before the couple days before I went up to visit my grandkids. I looked it up because I was going to be in the area. I noticed it said simulcast but really didn't know what that meant because I didn't even know repeaters could be linked. It was only when I noticed people talking on the repeater that couldn't possibly reach it that I looked into it and then it became clear that 3 of them were connected.

Well for one it's suppose to be a family radio service and it not always being treated as that. If I had a choice of having large linked systems vs just single repeaters I'd probably chose just a single repeater. Mainly because the frequencies are very limited in the repeater system and having a large linked system means it's going to be busy when you really need it. Even one of the non linked repeaters I listen to have some really chatty people on it and they don't leave any space between keying each other so breaking in usually means you have to key over them which they'll say is rude but in reality it's not their airwaves to monopolize.

I bought the missus one too. So now I have two of them. One for my truck and one for a base unit. Been buying stuff to set up the base station. Right now I have my mobile Nagoya UT72G on a metal sheet stuck out a window so I can use it. Bought a small Pyramid power supply. Said it was 7 amps, turned out to be surge amps and it's really 4.5 amps. Transmitter puts out full power and lights on the radio don't dim at all so must be enough. Got a mast to put on top of another mast, M&P Hyperflex13 coax, lighting arrestor, wire, ground rod that all came in over the week. Just went through the hell of running cable by myself from the 2nd floor closet into the basement and up to the 1st floor to the radio. It really only goes into the basement through a wall and then turns around and goes through the floor. To hard for it to come out of the wall when all it takes is another 16" of cable to make the loop. Next run is into the attic and out the vent same as the cell phone booster cable. That's where the lightning arrester will be and then another run of cable up the mast. I ordered PL259 connectors on all ends but they ended up not having a SO239 arrester. So I got an "N" type and had those ends put on the coax for the arrester. Theoretically the "N" connector is better than the UHF connector for these frequencies so I guess that's a forced plus.