Lscott

As a side note some people have commented the CA-2x4SR will match well on the Ham 1.25M band. I just ran an SWR sweep to see for myself. Added the graph results to what I had posted before. The results for 2M/MURS/Ham 1.25M/Ham 70cm/GMRS is here. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/615-ca-2x4srjpg/?context=new I have to try this out, the 1.25M band sweep, on the nearly identical Diamond NR240CA antenna. I already have it for 2M/MURS/Ham 70cm/GMRS. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/613-nr240ca-roof-rack-mount-swr-and-photojpg/?context=new

If you have a smart phone the mapping software likely has a GPS feature allowing you to get your current coordinates.

Easy way to test is stick a thick sheet of plastic under the antenna magnetic base while the vehicle is stationary. If the match still looks OK then the glue won't make much of a difference.

Depends on how much you use. The magnet mount depends on the capacitive coupling from the base to the sheet metal for the ground plane connection. Adding in a layer of glue increases the thickness and thus reducing the coupling. This could mess up the match.

Yeah, same with the bug zapper. They end up in the collection tray on the bottom sooner or later, but they seem they just can't help themselves. After a while of spending money on CCR's many people end up buying a much higher price radio. I like to tell people looking at the CCR's, cheap Chinese radios, you get what you pay for, and often not even that.

If you want "CHEAP" but a good quality radio look at this one. It's a "Type-2" UHF radio with a band split of 400-470 MHz. The seller privately sent me a photo of the Kenwood tags without the other ones stuck on top of them, like you see in the AD, so I verified the FCC ID of K44475500. Covers all of the Ham band and you can use it in FM mode on GMRS too. https://www.ebay.com/itm/267383407451?_skw=kenwood+dmr+radios&itmmeta=01K4DNYSK8VG0D44XQ4VBAKFQ7&hash=item3e414b035b:g:cQMAAeSwTDpoercB&itmprp=enc%3AAQAKAAAA8FkggFvd1GGDu0w3yXCmi1cjUvNiekyv67x3Pun95fxmvfQaGHlVZBC5MpGFZBOOrwa25XAEL2ZcbEvb%2BwGjTRgJBsaTqPa0fqAKfM6lXLrl2czT7iF3%2FxpqmSYRH8GTl7XnCJQFzr2z%2BjaYmlgJF6s5DohBVA8hAPSKODzBFKr1l9Ijbp0Y%2FgU43W1fFHDrY1Ooug1UHejG6jqwEly5qneA%2ByyjGxiD6BFvvDgJ91WUEASOVqdkoJwuDTv8Y6w69CQfPSw4OYHF4uBxY6tqs%2FdFT596uuYUzCMG3IcCfNMeZNiygMsW5cOBb%2F6LXoFh1Q%3D%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR-iZ-7WjZg&pfm=0 It's a Kenwood radio. For the price you can experiment with it. You'll likely have to get a KSC-35S charger base, typically used about $20 to $25, I have several in my collection. The Boafeng programming cable and speaker mic's that use the two-pin plug will work. I use a cheap Boafeng programming cable on my Kenwood radios all the time. Two main con's are no front panel programming and no display. But for DMR you're likely going to do all your programming on a computer anyway. I have the software and a sample code plug if you're interested. TK-D240V_D340U Brochure 1.pdf TK-D340K2_GMRS_Analog_DMR_Example.dat KPG-166D_v2.33.rar

My experience with Wine is it works sort of OK so long as the app isn't doing really weird stuff behind Window's back, like undocumented functions, or depending on bugs in various Window's functions always doing the same thing etc. BTW that's one of the biggest headaches with Wine, and the ReactOS Project, is duplicating all the bugs in various parts of Windows so existing apps work as expected. It's another reason why later versions of Windows breaks old app's, Microsoft just didn't bother duplicating the older version's bugs in some cases.

Remember DMR uses TDMA when working through a repeater in digital mode, Time Division Multiple Access, in other words the output is pulsing on and off approximately every 30 milliseconds. Your typical average responding power meter will likely read about 40 percent of a true FM radio output. So, a reading of 2.5 watts wouldn't be unusual. The 0.5 watt reading the meter might have caught the radio part way through a transmit pulse, which wouldn't surprise me with one of those electronic SWR/watt-meters types.

That's about right. It gets more complex if you want to start jumping between linked reperaters by "dialing" into them, A.K.A. Reflectors. https://www.vkdmr.com/using-dmr-reflectors/ https://pnwdigital.net/c-bridge-network/ Getting confused yet?

The problem I have mostly is discovering what talk groups are supported. There is no central database for DMR repeaters that has this info. Usual you need to search on line for a web site for the repeater, if one even exists. Then, what info you do find is likely outdated, talk groups no longer supported, new ones added and which of the bunch of DMR networks it connects too for linking etc. For some repeaters the setup is fairly simple, others it's a huge PIA. See attached file for an example. The best practice I found, if your radio supports it, is grouping everything by repeater in a zone for just that repeater. Then one channel memory is programmed for the particular parameters required for one talk group. You can have a few to dozens of entries for just one repeater. See attached photos. This is for my NX-1300DUK5 radio. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/290-nx-1300duk5/?context=new N8NOE DMR Repeater.pdf

Some types of radios are nearly impossible to find. I don't blame you for keeping it.

See attached file. Copy over the "cpservices xx.dll" in the zip file with the one for the region you want. For example for North America copy the "cpservices NA.dll" file over to the "****\Motorola\MOTOTRBO CPS" folder as "cpservices.dll" overwriting the original file. I would recommend you just change the name of the original file in case of a mistake. Password-Regionpatch CPS 16 Build 828.zip

This goes a long way to explain why you don't see more in the way of TETRA systems here. https://www.powertrunk.com/pressroom/tetra-in-north-america/

This the most current version of the CPS I could find on-line in the attached photo and have installed. I think I saw a reference to a V3.09.13.406 in the link below. So far I can't find a place to grab a downloadable copy. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/267314153152

Depends on the price. I'm cheap.

Thanks for correcting my miss understanding.

That's true. However a number of people on this forum also hold Part 90 licenses where it is legal. Unfortunately I'm not one of the lucky ones who qualify under the FCC rules to get one. Not exactly a topic for Ham or GMRS, but legitimate for the proper service. Don't forget that a fair number of commercial grade radios already have encryption built in. Just can't use it on Ham and GMRS. Of course when the SHTF, and government reg's are out the window, encryption might be the one thing that will save your butt from those that want you and or your stuff.

That makes it easy. One other forum member has some Kenwood NX5000's and he needs an external hardware key loader. The keys are store in a computer file, I believe, in an encrypted format for security. That's all handled by the key loader software. Many of my older Kenwood digital radios have an option board access port on the back side for plunging voice scramblers and digital encryption options. I've also found some info on the add on encryption used my some of the Kenwood radios in case anyone has an interest. I also have the hardware manual for a third party Voice Inversion Scrambler with Midian’s Kryptic Signaling with the schematic. Kenwood Secure Cryptographic Module.pdf Midian-TVS-2-KW2-VPU-15-KW2-Manual.pdf Kenwood-Plug-In-Products-Brochure.pdf

DES256, AES256/128, RC4? Do you need to use a special “key loader” for the keys?

I haven’t noticed much of a change in Kenwood equipment availability. If nothing else I think used radio prices have dropped a bit. There a a lot of analog radios available. About Hytera radios, I’m on the lookout for a PT850 in the 405-475 band split. This is a digital radio for TETRA. https://hytera-europe.com/media/Hytera_PT580P_EN_004T_110117_v3-min.pdf Yeah, it sort of looks like an Anytone D878 with a hard-on. Oh well, many of their other HT’s have the same antenna placement. Designer I’ll bet got a bone-ous for the idea. I’ve seen a few for other band spilts. The radios are usually from the EU or China. TETRA is basically not used in North America. With the tariff on most imports it makes these expensive, or just unobtainable.

You're lucky because you can use encryption too. Keeps the scanner kiddies away.

First before investing in any kind of radio for P25 monitoring, particularly for public safety, you want to make sure it's not encrypted. If it is you're hosed. You won't find any way to break the encryption normally used. Second it's not a trunked system. Some radios will NOT scan trunking systems unless they are registered/affiliated. That's can't happen without the system administrator of the system authorizing your radio on it, which likely 99.999% of the time won't happen. There are some ways to do what is called a "non affiliated" scan. It usually means some way to spoof the radio to think it's really on the trunking system. I have a buddy who managed to do that with some XTS2500's on 700/800 MHz to monitor his local PD. He's lucky they don't encrypt. It's usually the first item above that spoils the idea of monitoring.