Lscott

This is what the FCC has to say about it when the rules were last changed: § 95.1767 GMRS transmitting power limits. This section contains transmitting power limits for GMRS stations. The maximum transmitting power depends on which channels are being used and the type of station. (a) 462/467 MHz main channels. The limits in this paragraph apply to stations transmitting on any of the 462 MHz main channels or any of the 467 MHz main channels. Each GMRS transmitter type must be capable of operating within the allowable power range. GMRS licensees are responsible for ensuring that their GMRS stations operate in compliance with these limits. (1) The transmitter output power of mobile, repeater and base stations must not exceed 50 Watts. (2) The transmitter output power of fixed stations must not exceed 15 Watts. ( 462 MHz interstitial channels. The effective radiated power (ERP) of mobile, hand-held portable and base stations transmitting on the 462 MHz interstitial channels must not exceed 5 Watts. © 467 MHz interstitial channels. The effective radiated power (ERP) of handheld portable units transmitting on the 467 MHz interstitial channels must not exceed 0.5 Watt. Each GMRS transmitter type capable of transmitting on these channels must be designed such that the ERP does not exceed 0.5 Watt.

Sort of a silly question but did you check to see if the repeater requires a PL tone to access? If it does and you don't have one set, or the correct one, the repeater won't do anything.

I have 4 of the TK-370G-1’s and 2 of the TK-370-1’s. The later are just 32 channel regular FM only. Both are Part 95 certified I believe. The TK-3170-1 are nice, Part 95 certified, if you can find any at a reasonable price. The antennas are either the ones they came with, eBay or local Ham swap, the rest are from a cheap 5 pack I purchased from an eBay seller. I did do an SWR scan of the cheap 5 pack ones and was surprised the SWR was comfortably below 2:1. I was hoping I didn’t get a “50 ohm resister in a rubber stick”. Yea there are a few like that around. When mobile I use a high gain dual band antenna. It has low enough SWR across the Ham bands and the GMRS frequencies. The antenna is almost 60 inches tall. Comet no longer makes this model. I wish they did. I’ve had two for nearly 20 years. One is on the Jeep’s roof rack the other is used inside when I lived in an apartment. That one has never been out doors. Still looks new. CA-2x4MB, 4.5 dBi on VHF, and 7.4 dBi on UHF

Thanks for the info. I was fairly sure there wasn't a problem. I was interested in tweiss's opinion since he seems to think it's an issue based on a rather broad comment in his post. I used myself as an example where I was sure it wasn't doing exactly what he said likely was. Maybe there is something that he's seen, read or whatever where it could be. The FCC's rules are not always that clear cut about what's permitted and prohibited. No harm in trying to find out.

Were would the problem be for example in my case out of curiosity since I’m doing exactly the above? I’m licensed for both services and use a Kenwood TK-370G-1 which is Part 95 certified, unmodified and has a full front panel keypad. The radio is not enabled, through hardware and software, for front panel programming. However it is programed for both GMRS simplex channels, a couple of GMRS repeaters and various local UHF Ham repeaters.

I have the D878UV HT. The radio itself seems to be mostly OK and not a bad value for an analog - DMR HT. The main issue I have is with the darn programming software. One version they fix a number of outright bugs. It's good for a version or so then they bugger it up again. It's really frustrating. It's like there is no quality control and no version control. You would figure once they fix a bug it would stay that way, nope. I reamed their tech support out over this issue several times by email. Of course it's all in China so how much do you think they are going to care. I haven't even bothered to load the latest firmware release. I did try the radio programming software. Some stuff they fixed the other things that I noticed they didn't bother with fixing. 8-/ Normally when they do an update they issue both a new firmware file for the radio and a new version of the programming software. They likely need to do this because the memory layout changes from one version to the next for the code plug. The notes say to save the code plug using the old version then reload it using the new one. The last update was so bad they had to issue an update just for the radio programming software. Right now the radio sits around and I'm not actively using it. I'm waiting to see if they finally get their act together. I'm just about done with the bugfest. Now about the 220 band. The activity seems to be hit or miss depending on the area. Where I'm at, Detroit metro location, I haven't noticed much use. Other places I hear it's popular. If you can get a radio that includes it without a significant cost premium I would say go for it. The reason why it's not more common is the band is not a world wide armature allocation like 2 meters or 70cm bands. Most manufactures don't want to include it because it is pretty specific to ITU region 2 which is where the US is located. That leaves out about 2/3'rd of the world wide market. One other thing. You can find amplifiers easy enough for 2 meters and 70cm. Good 220 amps are hard to find. I've looked for used ones at Hamfests and haven't had much luck. The ones I have seen are beat to crap and or the seller thinks it made of gold with a price to match. The only cheap FM one I have seen is from Btech. I've read some mixed reviews on them. Basically it's just to boost the power from an HT. I've thought about getting one for my Kenwood tri-bander, TH-D74A, the price is cheap enough considering. https://baofengtech.com/amp-v25 Dual band antennas for 2 meters and 70cm are also easy to find. The two bands are harmonically related, 70cm frequencies are approximately 3 times 2 meter frequencies. That makes designing dual band antennas reasonably easy to do. However 220 is not. So finding a tri-band antenna for 2 meters - 220 and 70cm are not that common. One example is the SBB-224/SBB-224NMO. http://www.cometantenna.com/amateur-radio/mobile-antennas/ma-tri-band/ Most likely you will get a good dual band 2 meter and 70cm antenna and a separate one for 220. Then you use triplexers and patch cables to split out the 220, or just use a coax switch to flip between the antennas. https://mfjenterprises.com/products/mfj-4936s?_pos=2&_sid=060a07025&_ss=r

If you want something smaller and likely cheaper look at this one. This one is a bit over 6 inches tall. https://www.pctel.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Product-Datasheet-25.pdf Check out the model PCTCN4347. This is pre-cut, tuned, so you don't need to do anything. A generic one where you have to cut the whip to tune it is here. https://www.theantennafarm.com/catalog/pctel-maxrad-pctcnmft-5913

I'm not sure about the exact model radio you installed. Many of the Kenwood's will program down into the Ham Band even if the software pops up a warning about the frequency being out of range. Most of the simplex and repeater operations on the 70cm Ham band are between 440 MHz and 450 MHz. I have a collection of HT's, 4 watt radios TK-370G-1's, that work down to a bit above 440 MHz I use for both Ham and GMRS. With a 1/4 wave antenna the bandwidth can be rather large. I built a small one out of some stiff bus wire and a BNC connector. The SWR was below 2:1 from 430 MHz to 470 MHz covering the usable section of the Ham 70cm band and all of the GMRS frequencies. If you can do that with the antenna you installed, and the radio will program down low enough, you can have access to both services on UHF with just one antenna and radio. Most radios work fine as long as the SWR is 2:1 or less. Not a bad deal if it tunes right. You can do a frequency sweep and see where you're at. If the low SWR point is a bit too high you can get a replacement whip and cut it a bit longer to try to cover the GMRS frequencies and as much of the Ham 70cm band as practical. Good luck on trying to get your Ham Tech Class license. The test is pretty easy. I went to a Ham swap once many years ago with my brother, who was already a Ham, just to look at some test gear, and he offered to pay the fee if I sat for the Tech Class test. I had no idea he was going to ask me try try it. I said OK it's your money. Surprised, I passed with no studying!

That does look like a neat install. How easy is it to get up on top to remove the antenna when necessary? I assume you have a cap to screw on the mounting base when the antenna is removed to keep out the elements.

The problem with a virtual machine is only the Pro versions of Windows 7 has the necessary features. Same with Windows 10. If you have the Home versions then you need to install a 3’rd party virtual machine manager. There is an excellent open source, free, you can down load called VirtualBox. I’ve run Windows 3.11 on DOS, Win98SE, Win NT4, Win2000, WinXP, Win7 Pro and Win10 Pro in it. I’ve also ran several versions of Linux too and one of the last releases of IBM’s Warp4 OS. All worked. https://www.virtualbox.org/

Here is another post. "The last release of 1225 for conventional and 1225LS for trunking available on MOL both work with Windows XP but will NOT work with XP 64bit or any flavor of Windows 7 (and probably Vista if anyone is foolish enough to own that OS). You can, and I do, run every legacy version of Motorola software except DOS versions in an XP virtual machine on Windows 7 and they work just fine. You need the last release of both LS and regular, earlier versions won't do it. I do this for a living where time is money and radios have to work every time. Trust me. If you need to retain DOS compatibility there are literally hundreds of very nice laptops, including Toughbooks on broken-stolen-radios.com (ebay) that will do what you need for under $100. Dedicate a laptop, format it for DOS 6.22 and be done with it. This is why when local hams need their Syntor X9000s programmed they know where to come, I have the correct gear, and it works."

I found the following posts elsewhere that might help you. "f this is still of interest to anyone, I just used a full day in trying to program one of these. Finally, W7 or its XP mode did not work in any guise or compatibility mode. The only way I got this Ver. 3 program to work was to install a virtual Windows 95. Even then, only the serial port -based Chinese RIB worked, my RIBless USB-to-RJ45 did not work even if Win95 recognized it. This took a day to learn on my own cost. Microsoft changed their understanding of RS232 communication in DOS 4.1 and again in abandoning the DOS kernel in XP, this is how I try to comfort myself. My lament is that when my Dell 5100 laptop wears out, programming of many 'legacy' telephone exchanges and radios etc. that only accept DOS operating system -based programming software becomes challenging." "Get version 4.0. Although I havent tried it with Windows 7, it works just fine on Windows 98 and XP."

Think carefully about drilling a hole for an antenna mount. Most recent manufactured vehicles the sheet metal is rather thin. A through hole mount such as an NMO has a small diameter hole to support it. If the antenna gets whacked by a tree limb or from a low overhanging obstruction etc., the torque from the antenna exerted on the base and thus the surrounding sheet metal can be huge. There are stories where the mount ripped through the sheet metal or severely warped it. There has been damage reported just from the torque due to wind resistance driving at highway speeds when large really stiff antennas were used. If you do drill a hole I would first research for a good way to reinforce the area around the mount location to eliminate damage to mount and or vehicle sheet metal from driving and minor antenna strikes.

That's likely very true. I'm in the Detroit area and there is a wide coverage area linked repeater, UHF - VHF, on top of the tallest building around, the GM head quarters building. The antennas are up at 728 feet. You might get into the repeater at 40 miles more or less. That should give you some idea. http://www.gmarc.org/wp/ This is the estimated UHF coverage zone map. http://www.gmarc.org/wp/uhf-repeater-coverage/ And this is the estimated VHF coverage zone map. http://www.gmarc.org/wp/vhf-repeater-coverage/

Just a guess but the QYT is likely restricted to only transmit on the Ham bands. If that’s the case radio may generate an error tone or flash some kind of visual signal, screen message etc., the frequency is out of range.

You can go to this site and experiment with putting in different heights for the antennas. http://www.hamuniverse.com/lineofsightcalculator.html The resulting range is just an "estimate" of what you're likely to get. There are a number of hard to define factors that also figure into range calculations. So take what you see with a grain of salt.

When looking at an antenna system you need to consider at least two things, coax loss and your antenna gain. At UHF coax loss can be rather high for the typical type most people tend to use. It's a trade off between cost and cable loss. Less cable loss the bigger and more extensive the coax will be. I see many going for LMR-400. The loss at 450 MHz, GMRS is 462 MHz to 468 MHz approximately so we're close enough for this example, is 2.7 db per 100 feet. So if you have a 30 to 40 foot high tower or mast on the house you could easily use 75 feet of cable from the antenna to the radio. That works out to 2.03 db of loss so only 63 percent of your transmit power makes it to the antenna! What you would like to do is pick an antenna that has enough gain to make up, so to speak, for the cable losses at a minimum. A quick note here on gain, or loss, of every 3 db represents an increase by a factor of two, or a loss by 1/2. So a gain, or loss, of 6 db would be an increase by a factor 4, or a loss by a factor of 1/4. Now we have some things to look at very carefully with antennas. You will see antenna gains shown as some gain followed by "dbi" or "dbd". If it isn't shown or mentioned it's most likely in "dbi". The two gain spec's are NOT the same. The gain spec'd as "dbi" is the gain above a theoretical and impossible to build isotropic antenna. The gain spec'd as "dbd" is the gain above a dipole, really amounts to a 1/4 wave antenna on a ground plane. Think a cheap 1/4 wave magnet mount. The gain in "dbd" for a dipole is 0 while using "dbi" it's 2.15. Remember this is exactly the same antenna! Manufactures like to use the "dbi" spec because it inflates the gain by a couple of db. If you're not paying attention a cheap antenna rated in "dbi" may appear to be as good as a more expensive one rated in "dbd". Dishonest, no, but you need to be educated about what the spec's mean to make a good purchasing decision. So for example you might see a 1/4 wave antenna spec'd as 2.1 dbi. Hummm... Now getting back to the issue with cable loss you need a real gain of at least 2 dbd just to break even due to coax losses in the above example. Ideally you would like a lot more. Of course the antenna will be larger, longer, and more expensive. As the gain increases, it's usually at a spec'd center frequency, as you depart from that ideal point the gain tends to drop off. You want one designed and tuned close to center of the band of frequencies you want to operate on. In you case around 467 MHz to 468 MHz which are the repeater input frequencies for GMRS. I'm sure some members here have good recommendations. Also search past posts on the forums here for info.

Just for fun I looked for some info on the Kenwood TK-8180 or TK-8180H radio. It looks nice. What I noticed from the Kenwood brochure there are two band splits depending on model "type". Either one will work for GMRS, however if at some point you have a desire to get your Ham license, the Tech Class is very easy, then the "type 2" is what you want. It will work over the complete Ham 70cm band AND the GMRS frequencies. https://pdfs.kenwoodproducts.com/28/TK-7180&8180MPTBrochure.pdf From some notes elsewhere on the Internet you can program the "type 1" radio down into the upper part of the Ham Band, 430 MHz to 450 MHz, but the VCO has problems locking to those frequencies. Seems like the trouble starts around 441 MHz to 442 MHz. Below those frequencies the radio likely won't work. The "type 2" radio is spec'd from 400 MHz to 470 MHz. GMRS runs from about 462 MHz to just under 468 MHz. So this model could be used for both services when programmed correctly. That saves having two radios. If it was me I would get the "type 2" since I'm dual licensed, if you can find one. I'll guess most are the "type 1" radios. Looking at a few eBay listings the sellers don't make it explicitly clear what model they are selling. Sometimes the description is just plain wrong. Look very carefully at the FCC and nameplate stickers in the photos. The model number may show something like "TK-8180H-K" which doesn't appear in the manufacture's brochure so its a bit questionable which "type" it is. My guess would be a "type 1". Oh, you do want to make sure it has an FCC ID tag. First with the FCC tag, and the certification number on it, you can check to see what parts the radio is certified for. Additionally in the grant the frequency ranges the radio is certified for along with the bandwidth and power are listed. That's serves as a check on whatever the seller claims as the spec's for the radio. Second as an example I ended up getting a hand held radio a while back that was a European model, didn't notice it had no FCC ID tag. The radio needed a hard to find version of the programming software. The radio worked fine once programmed. Further the code plug for the European model and US model I have can't be swapped. There were some feature differences that made the code plugs incompatible so now I have two separate codes plugs instead of one for the two radios.

You can do that. The two antennas need to be separated by around 5 to 10 wave lengths to keep the interaction to a minimum. That would be around 10 to 20 feet approximately. You can't connect the two antennas to the radio electrically at the same time. One the impedance match will be all wrong. Second with both antennas radiating the "pattern" will be all messed up. You will have strange max signals in some directions and very low in other directions. The Yagi is designed with the extra elements on the boom, and no others close by, positioned and cut to a specific length to generate the maximum signal strength in a direction along the length of the antenna. You can connect the two antennas, one at a time to the radio of course. The easiest way would be using a two position coax switch. You have one port that goes to the radio while the other two, one each, goes to the separate antennas. All you need to do is flip the switch to select one or the other thus no cable swapping required. If you do use a coax switch be sure to get one rated up to UHF. The cheap HF ones using the SO-239 solid filed connectors ones will cause elevated SWR. The best type are the ones using "N" type connectors. https://mfjenterprises.com/collections/switch/products/mfj-2702 You would be looking for the model "MFJ-2702N". https://store2.rlham.com/shop/catalog/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=MFJ-2702N&osCsid=mi2iq1vl96t07d35go4eai6e32&x=0&y=0&search_in_description=1 If possible all your antennas and cables should be using "N" type connectors where you can. The SO-239/PL-259 types can lead to higher SWR than expected. The "N" type will minimize this. Sometimes you can't help it if there are SO-239 types, typically on mobile or base radios. In those cases you will need to use adapters. Some will claim that adapters have high losses, power. Good quality ones don't. One or two in line and you'll hardly even notice the difference. If you mount everything in your attic you really don't have to worry about water ingress into the cables or adapters. A word about attic mount antennas. If you have foil back isolation and or asphalt shingles this could cause high SWR in the first case, metal in close proximity to the antenna, and lower radiated power and received signal strength in the second from absorption by the asphalt. A Yagi used for FM needs to be mounted so all the elements are vertical NOT horizontal. Almost all communication on the GMRS band uses antennas vertically mounted. If you mount the antenna the wrong way the signal at the receiving station can be significantly reduced. Also your received will be much lower as well. To mount the Yagi vertically you should use a nonmetallic mast. A metal one could seriously degrade any benefit you get from using a Yagi.

Generally I would go with good used commercial UHF radios for base, mobile and handheld use. Some maybe even Part 95 certified. From various comments even people using Part 90 radios have had no issues with the FCC when using them. In fact they are used for building GMRS repeater systems. Look over past posts for lots of good recommendations and reviews of what's out there. Personally I like Kenwood. The commercial UHF radios have far better receivers than the Chinese radios, and their derivatives, and that can make or break a communication setup. You may save some money in the short run but end up disappointed later with the performance. It pays to start off with good equipment. While a repeater may sound like a good idea I would get a basic system operational first to evaluate if you even need one. Building a repeater takes a bit of expertise and some expense to do it right. If it proves you really need one you can always work on procuring the necessary equipment later. As far as antennas again look through past posts. Lots of opinions and some good recommendations can be found there. Besides the antenna you also have to consider the cable run between the base radio, or repeater if that's what you need, and the antenna. A poor choice in cable will result in high losses, negating the higher power output from a base radio and lower signals levels on receive. Low loss coax cable isn't cheap. Also make sure you use "N" type connectors everywhere you can. The common PL-239/SO-259 type will cause you problems with higher reflected power, high SWR. In some cases you just can't get away from them like on the mobile radios so you just have to live with it. You'll also need to ensure the antenna is well grounded and use a high quality in-line lighting arrester to protect your equipment and house. A few people even disconnect the coax from the radio, placing the end in a glass jar, during bad thunder storms. Paranoid, yes, but its additional protection. The antenna should be a type that has a "DC ground". This means the antenna can be grounded for DC current. With a base antenna up in the air they can accumulate a substantial static electric charge just from wind. A few people have been knocked for a loop when they touched the end of the coax when it wasn't connected to anything on a clear day. You also don't need the static charge doing bad things to your radio either.

I have a buddy who got one like this, not your exact model because his had a PL-259 type base, to use on his Jeep. I ran an SWR scan test on it using a RigExpert AA-1000 antenna analyzer. https://pncengineering.com/rigexpert/328-aa-1000.html Looking back over the test results I got the following SWR measurements: VHF 144 MHz - 1.52:1 145.5 MHz - 2.10:1 UHF 430 MHz to 456 MHz - under 1.6:1 462 MHz - 2.3: 467 MHz - 1.8:1 The last two cover the GMRS band. As you can see the measurements are not that good. On VHF, well unless you're operating on a fixed frequency in the range above, forget it. The antenna he got was most likely some Chinese design he purchased from an Amazon source. So from a quality point who knows. Yours might work better. I would most definitely test it before running any significant power out of a connected radio.

The mess on the Ham Bands is due to Hams trying out every digital mode out there. At least there is enough spectrum to allow that. If somebody is running digital either switch to a different repeater or spin the VFO knob to find an open frequency for analog. On GMRS there is a VERY LIMITED number of channels available. Once you start mixing in analog and digital is where you'll see the real mess. People with an investment in analog radios are not going to trash them so the mix with be with us for a long time if digital is allowed. The solution is to change the rules to allow only digital on one or more channels where the balance is analog only. Adding in another one or more channels reserved for digital only wouldn't require existing users to reprogram their radios. However I doubt the FCC is going to add additional channels unless there is a huge demand and or the manufactures lobby for it. That's how we ended up with the FRS mess. Don't forget for digital you will likely need at least one channel for digital simplex and another "frequency pair" for digital repeaters. Without additional channels that has to come out of the exiting 22 simplex ones now, which 8 also being used as repeater output frequencies, and the 8 exclusive repeater input frequencies. That's a big bite out of the current spectrum. If a digital mode were to be selected DMR makes sense. Even one NB analog channel converted to digital can handle two digital voice channels. That would improve the spectrum efficiency so you may not need that many digital only channels. Allowing linked GMRS DMR repeaters? That's a whole other can of worms. You need a registration authority, a network of high level routers etc. Just look at the Ham Bands to see the work required to setup and maintain a digital network. With GMRS being primarily for personal and family communications you need to find some very dedicated people to do the work, know what they are doing and have the money. As it is now there don't seem to be even that many linked analog systems on GMRS. Now you want to add in digital? Last thing, somebody will get the "bright idea" to link a GMRS DMR repeater into other services or outside of the US. Remember GMRS is prohibited from communicating with stations outside of the US or other services. People have setup illegal cross-band analog repeaters between GMRS/FRS and typically MURS so the idea that won't happen with digital isn't realistic. If digital is ever allowed the FCC could simply prohibit any linking of digital repeaters to discourage people from doing it.

From what I can see checking the Canadian frequency allocation at least two of the excluded frequencies are not allocated to the Canadian FRS/GMRS service. Those would be for the US 467 MHz repeater inputs. Excluding those would make some sense. So I would assume that still applies. The other two are listed for the Canadian FRS/GMRS service. It would appear those two could be used and allowed by the FCC. I agree that something likely is messed up with the license restrictions. As you pointed out it might have gotten missed. It won't be the first time the FCC messed things up.

My license was issued on 8-3-2018 and it still has the frequency exclusions listed at the bottom. Until the FCC changes the rules we are stuck with it. Have a look here. These are the Canadian FRS/GMRS rules that I found. https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/smt-gst.nsf/eng/sf01320.html You need to scroll down to where it shows "Annex E" then click on the link to expand it. Then look for section "E.1.2 Channel Frequencies". You'll notice the allowed frequencies are not the same as for the US GMRS service. What's missing are the repeater 467 MHz input frequencies. Specifically 467.650 MHz and 467.700 MHz. The 462.650 MHz and 462.700 MHz are listed however. Now look at section "E.1.5 Transmitter output power and effective radiated power (e.r.p)". What you notice are the bandwidth and power are the same as the rules for the US FRS only radios but they also apply to the Canadian GMRS radios. So for all practical purposes the Canadian "FRS/GMRS" radios are the same as the new rules for the US "FRS" only radios. On a side note. The US has five frequencies listed for the license free VHF MURS service. Canada was looking at doing the same thing back around 2014 I think. It never happened. If you have any MURS radios don't use them there.

Oops that should have been 16 mile road, not 15 mile. The road name I got right at least.