Lscott

Really that much RG-58 coax! Depending on which table I consult the losses at 450 MHz, just a bit below the GMRS frequencies, for 100 feet of coax is 11db. That translates into a 98 percent power loss! That coax run is about the next best thing to dummy load. I'll also bet the match is darn near 1:1 too since almost all of the reflected power is wasted in the coax. You could disconnect the antenna end of the cable and still see a near perfect match. I've had people tell me they have used a spool of RG-58 coax with nothing on the end as an effective dummy load on UHF for testing transmitter power, power meter on radio output and the coax spool on the load side of the power meter.

If you wait a week or two after XMAS most of those toy FRS radios go silent. The kids loose interest and or the batteries go dead.

Check the link below for a better eliminator. http://store.batteriesamerica.com/cbe-26batteryeliminatorforkenwoodtk-2160217031603170radiosetc.aspx

Yes. There are 12 year old kids that take and pass the exam.

You could also look at a somewhat older Kenwood radio model. I have used the TK-370G-1. You can find these radios with a full numeric keypad fairly often. Following the instructions in the service manual, removing a diode I believe, and selecting the self programming option in the software the radio can be field programmed through the front panel. http://www.dannel.co.za/vertel/TK-270G-370G_5-Tone.pdf

What gets old is when the kids in the nearby local neighborhood take up residence on your favorite repeater’s output frequency causing interference just when you want to use it. While FRS radios can’t access repeater input frequencies they all have the output frequencies in them.

I also have both. I use a cheap Baofeng USB programming cable on this radio and a bunch of other Kenwood radios that have the two-pin port on the side. I got my programing cable at the link below. I’ve used both the software and cable with Windows 10. http://www.randl.com/shop/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=71426

Looks like I can't paste the FCC search results link with the search results. 8-( One would need to go to the link below, FCC's "License Search" page. https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/UlsSearch/searchLicense.jsp Then do a search by FRN number, click on the button to the left of the edit window and select "By FRN". The FRN number to use is this one. 0002748242 This shows all current and past licenses held by the mall.

You might be right about that! Many of the shop fronts are closed up and the space is cleaned out. The foot traffic in the mall during the week is almost nonexistent. I think half the people you see are called "Mall Walkers" who are there just for the exorcise. Its is a large mall. It beats freezing your nuts off outside and slipping on the snow and ice.

I've run down the source of traffic on an unidentified repeater, at the time, on the same frequency pair used by a local GMRS repeater, with currently 54 confirmed users. It seems to be used by the housekeeping staff at a local mall which is operating a repeater but with a different PL tone. I verified this by catching a member of the mall's security staff talking on their licensed frequency, WQOX482, then talking on the GMRS unidentified repeater a few seconds later to the mall's housekeeping staff about the same topic. The housekeeping repeater never ID's nor does anybody else I've monitored using it. From what I can find the repeater appears to be operating illegally since 10/12/2015. https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/UlsSearch/results.jsp The license has long since expired, KAB1523, and was not renewed thus their is no "grandfather" exception to consider. The following link clearly shows the repeater frequencies used under the "Special Conditions" section of the now expired license. https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/UlsSearch/licenseAdminSum.jsp?licKey=194751 Our repeater administrator has decided not to make an issue of it since the "illegal business repeater" is seldom used. It's his choice and machine so the following question is just for general information. Has anybody else run across a known verifiable illegal use of GMRS frequencies, this does NOT include legal use of FRS radios, by a business and what if anything was done about it? Does the FCC really care to get involved?

I know of people who won't turn on their CB radio if the kids are in the car because of what goes on there. Nice to hear people are behaving themselves on GMRS and hope it stays that way.

That one you linked to looks good. I purchased a couple of these for solar power applications. Monitor panel output and the charge going in/out of a battery bank, usually a 12 VDC to 13.3 VDC. https://powerwerx.com/watt-meter-analyzer-inline-dc-powerpole I tried to use one for battery capacity testing unfortunately when the battery voltage drops a bit the meter quits working. The typical HT pack I use is 7.4VDC and they didn't work well at that low voltage. There is a separate port for external power but it still leaves me with making up a load for the battery pack and for a check against the pack's name plate rating the test needs to duplicate the manufacture's test conditions. That's hard to do without the specialized test gear.

I guess none of mine have that technology. It sounds like a very good feature to have. I just purchased two new NiMH 1800mAh packs because the two I thought were good tested at greatly reduced capacity. Sort of surprised me.

I would recommend keeping it about 12 inches away from large metal objects. The top part of the antenna, about 75 percent of it, is where the RF mainly radiates from. If you don’t need to use the antenna often you can try hanging it from an eye-hook screwed into the ceiling.

I’ve got a couple of DMR radios. I haven’t really did much with them to date. The D878UV has another firmware release out and been too lazy to do the update. The other radio is a TK-D340, a 32 channel (2 zones of 16 channels each) commercial radio. The small amount of monitoring I’ve done I ran into a VERY ANNOYING problem where people don’t get their audio levels adjusted right. One station comes in at a low level, crank up the volume to hear them, then the next station’s audio blows me out of the chair. That gets old after a few minutes.

I’ve got a couple of DMR radios. I haven’t really did much with them to date. The D878UV has another firmware release out and been too lazy to do the update. The other radio is a TK-D340, a 32 channel (2 zones of 16 channels each) commercial radio. The small amount of monitoring I’ve done I ran into a VERY ANNOYING problem where people don’t get their audio levels adjusted right. One station comes in at a low level, crank up the volume to hear them, then the next station’s audio blows me out of the chair. That gets old after a few minutes.

Oh, I advised a buddy at work to buy a new battery pack for a used radio he just got. I recommended he let me test the used pack that came with the radio. He mentioned it lasted all day scanning so he wasn’t that interested in having it tested. It’s very easy to get fooled by a crappy pack if you judge it by how long the radio stays alive scanning. When the radio is scanning with no audio the power drain on the pack is at the minimum. Even a pack with 20 to 30 percent capacity may work that way for hours. One of my NiMH packs I thought was good, because I can let the radio scan nearly all day, tested at only 732 mAh on a 1800 mAh rated pack! I ordered 2 new 1800 mAh packs since I have 4 UHF radios and 5 VHF radios that use them. They don’t sell Lithium Ion packs for these radios and the OEM chargers only handle NiCAD or NiMH types. All my other radios can use the Lithium Ion packs and the OEM chargers work with them.

Oh, I advised a buddy at work to buy a new battery pack for a used radio he just got. I recommended he let me test the used pack that came with the radio. He mentioned it lasted all day scanning so he wasn’t that interested in having it tested. It’s very easy to get fooled by a crappy pack if you judge it by how long the radio stays alive scanning. When the radio is scanning with no audio the power drain on the pack is at the minimum. Even a pack with 20 to 30 percent capacity may work that way for hours. One of my NiMH packs I thought was good, because I can let the radio scan nearly all day, tested at only 732 mAh on a 1800 mAh rated pack! I ordered 2 new 1800 mAh packs since I have 4 UHF radios and 5 VHF radios that use them. They don’t sell Lithium Ion packs for these radios and the OEM chargers only handle NiCAD or NiMH types. All my other radios can use the Lithium Ion packs and the OEM chargers work with them.

How did you evaluate the cells? I started off cheap using a bunch of paralleled power resistors with a 3-1/2 digit multimeter to measure the voltage on the pack. I timed how long it took to run the pack down to my lower voltage limit with a stopwatch. Since the pack’s voltage drops during the test I just used the average pack voltage and resistor value to calculate the average discharge current. It wasn’t very accurate but it told me if a pack was worth keeping or headed for the trash bin.

This is a topic I haven't seen discussed very much. I've been testing a huge pile of used battery packs accumulated from purchasing used radios. Two main types I have are Lithium Ion and Nickel Metal Hydride. They range in capacity from 2000 mAh to 1480 mAh for the Lithium type and 1800 mAh to 1200 mAh for the Nickel type. I don't want to have anything to do with the old Nickel Cadmium types. All the sellers that include battery packs typically state the packs are in unknown condition, meaning they have no idea of the remaining usable capacity. Because of that I usually don't consider it of any extra value in evaluating the sellers price for a used radio. If I get a good one I consider myself lucky. The testing was done using an electronic load, which has a built-in battery test function. I found about 40 to 50 percent of the packs tested at 80 percent or better of the specified rating that appears on the battery case. The rest were at 60 percent to a low of 23 percent, basically good for a quick radio test or just junk status. Typically the accepted value of anything below 80 percent of new the pack is considered EOL, end of life, and should be replaced. While that's OK for business use it gets expensive for hobby uses. For me at least I have an idea of how much use I can expect to get out of a given pack. I marked the measured capacity in mAh's on the pack, the percent of the nameplate rating and the test date on each pack I have. So given a fair number of people use HT's how many really have evaluated their "fleet" of battery packs? I know some of the more advance chargers can "recondition" packs and test them for usable capacity. I see all sorts of sellers of OEM battery packs on eBay, typically very expensive, and far more economical battery packs sold as "unbranded" and direct replacements for the OEM ones. The better prices of course are from the Chinese sellers, or from US importers of Chinese battery packs. I have read stories where it's not uncommon to buy one of these cheap battery packs and discover later they "don't seem to have the capacity" claimed on the case. However without some quantitative testing it's just an opinion. So has anybody done their own testing and found a seller that has a good price and the battery packs really do meet the specified ratings and are reliable? You might have the best radio manufactured, but if the battery pack is crap, dies just when you need it, what good is the radio?

Were the testes performed using the OEM supplied antennas or did you use any aftermarket types?

Read the manual for the radio first.

Most likely they do. I have some Kenwood TK-3160's and the some what newer replacements for them the TK-3360's. They definitely will do repeaters along with wide and narrow band on a per channel basis. The programming is fairly easy but you do have to understand what all the options do in the radio. For that you can read through the help file for the programming software. For a simple to operate radio you can't beat these. http://www.longislandradio.com/Kenwood%20Product%20PDFs/Portable/TK-2160_3160.pdf https://www.kenwood.com/usa/Support/pdf/TK-2360_3360.pdf If you buy one be VERY CAREFUL which sub type you get. These radios come in several different frequency ranges on UHF. You want one that covers at least the 462 MHz to 467 MHz range. With only 16 channels this isn't a big limitation since channels 8 to 14 the power is limited to 0.5 watts and narrow band only. Not really that useful. That leaves 15 GMRS channels left. You can program those in the radio with one spare memory slot left over.

The TK-3173's are the same as the TK-3170's except they also do trunking, which for GMRS you don't care about anyway. Both use the same software to program them, KPG-101D Version 2.40. http://www.secomwireless.com/KWLIT/LIT_TK-3173.pdf I really never consider the inclusion of a battery pack that great of an extra value unless the seller states it's new. I have at least a dozen used Lithium Ion battery packs that fit the above radios, from past purchases, and several more Kenwood models. I'm in the process of testing them for capacity using an "electronic load" with a built-in battery test feature. So far the best pack tested at 79% of the spec's on the back of the pack while the worse so far is at 23%. The typical figure of 80% of new rating is generally considered the EOL, end of life, for a battery pack. This is the equipment I'm using for the pack testing. https://www.amazon.com/Siglent-Technologies-SDL1020X-Programmable-Electronic/dp/B07RS2B8VT The packs are tested at a "C/5" rate with the low cutoff voltage of 6.00 VDC. There isn't much variation in capacity if a lower discharge rate is used with Lithium batteries. The 6.00 VDC cutoff is where the Kenwood HT's will shut down so there is no point in testing to a lower voltage.

He got that deal about a week or so ago on the TK-3170 as an auction. I picked up 3 TK-3173’s, 2 at $40 each with shipping and one for $30 with shipping. The $30 one needed a volume knob, which I had. None had antennas or battery packs. I already had those. If you want a good deal on eBay you have to check several times a day. Then jump on a good deal when you see one.