Lscott
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Posts posted by Lscott
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On 2/3/2024 at 12:58 AM, Sshannon said:
Radioddity is not a vendor that I would suspect of that.
A vendor wouldn't have to do it deliberately. The battery packs are likely sourced from an outside vendor and they just slap their label on it. Unless they do some in-house quality control check they might notice notice until the complaints roll in.
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My radios are used mostly for scanning the local Ham, GMRS and business frequencies. Occasionally I'll get motivated and talk to somebody. When I'm not at the gym working out I head for the local mall to go walking for some low intensity exorcise. In the later case I take my UHF HT with a D-Ring ear hanger for something to monitor. You would be surprised what some store employees talk about over an open channel. Shame on them, R-Rate material.
I keep the radio under the coat, or when it's warm outside under an oversized shirt on the belt so it doesn't show. Route the ear piece wire up through the shirt. I don't need people staring at me thinking I'm some kind of under cover cop or mall security dude. Yes, I've had that happen when leaving the men's restroom at the mall one Christmas season. I had the radio pulled out of the coat to make some setting adjustment. Some guy saw me and the look I got was pure surprise from him. I also don't need some paranoid person thinking I'm a terrorist and get mall security involved, maybe even asked to leave.
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1 hour ago, WSAN780 said:
It's called "retail therapy"... Or at least that's what I tell my wife when she happens to snag a package before I do...
I get it.
The wife goes shopping. Sees an item that costs $2 but it's on sale for $1. So she buys it.
You go shopping. See the same item on sale. But you decide you don't need it.
Later you both can legitimately claim you "saved" a $1. The difference is you still have yours.
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9 minutes ago, wrci350 said:
I do not believe that's the case. I've never seen anything in Part 95 that suggests GMRS has priority over FRS.
I'm curious how you even knew they were on the frequency. Did the repeater not have a transmit tone?
The FCC generally gives preference to the licensed service. After all they paid money to use the spectrum.
I generally never use RX tones. I want to hear all the traffic on the frequency.
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1 hour ago, wrci350 said:
Do you yell at them to stay off your lawn, too?
Why would I do that?
When I need to use the repeater, or another station, it’s not like the repeater can just flip a knob and change channels. At the time it was the ONLY operational repeater in the area. The kids just had to move.
GMRS is a licensed service, FRS isn’t, and that’s what the kids were using, no call signs were ever used. My understanding is the licensed service has priority.
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14 hours ago, WRYS709 said:
What do you use specifically to turn off ads?
I run Firefox. One of the ad-ons is AdBlocker for YouTube.
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3 hours ago, WRXP381 said:
The reality is as long as it is the proper 7.4 volts it really doesn’t matter how many amp hours it is.
But it does! It’s call FRAUD. I had a buddy tell me he had opened up some cheap suspect Chinese battery backs. He found a chunk of steel in them to add weight to cover up the lower weight from the smaller low capacity cells that were used.
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3 hours ago, PACNWComms said:
Have been fighting some sites buying these batteries, to include the Motorola APX/XPR knockoff through Grainger......and wondering why the chargers (Motorola IMPRES) and Cadex condition charging profiles do not work with them. either the batteries get very hot and charging stops, or they all have the same chip/serial number and fail the IMPRES charge/condition charge cycles.
Have forced many to do what they should have in the first place, buy from reputable vendors (one's who at least refund you if they sold fakes, or ones that do not meet sales specs). mAh capacities seem to vary a lot, and you can feel it in weight in many cases.
I purchased two new Chinese clones of a Kenwood Lithium Ion battery back. They absolutely refused to charge in the official charger base. I even tried some of my spares I had of the exact same model, no good.
Turns out the packs were missing an internal connection to a resistor that identifies the type of pack to the charger base. The charger base can do multiple battery chemistries so it has to know which one.
I had the charger base service manual with the various battery pack internals documented. I discovered a missing connection between an external charger connection and one side of the resistor. Making the connection externally using some fine gage wire the battery pack then charged up just fine.
I contacted the eBay seller to get a refund on the two packs. They said the problem was my charger base. Well I sent them the documentation to prove otherwise. They still argued so I got eBay involved and got my refund. I also left some very negative feedback about the seller too. They later begged me to change the negative comments. I told them NO.
What likely happened is the Chinese battery pack manufacturer had a quality problem where the packs got built without that one wire connection. So, instead of scraping them out sold them to a reseller, likely for a really good discount. They in turn figured they would turn a quick buck by selling them to unsuspecting customers who don’t know any better. Well, I was one who did. Anybody who complained got the charge base excuse. I’m very sure they knew the packs were no good. They had a healthy supply of them and I can’t be the only one who complained.
- PACNWComms and WRXB215
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16 minutes ago, WRKX686 said:
The UV-5G Plus are all shipping with the 3500mAh battery.
Would be interesting to test one and see if the rating comes anywhere close to the real capacity. The Chinese are known for wildly inflating specifications on radios and other stuff.
https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/248-2117323252_batterypacktestingjpg/?context=new
https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/258-104331801_testedbaterypacksjpg/?context=new
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Just now, WRYS709 said:
You are not required to have a YouTube account to watch them
I know. I do use an ad blocker. YouTube for a while now is hiding the yellow dots in the time progress bar showing where all the ad's are in the video. I see too many dots I just don't watch it. Now you can't tell, thus the ad blocker. It's so nice not to get ambushed by stupid ad's every few minutes.
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1 hour ago, WSAN780 said:
Hello Everybody, hope everyone is well this morning.
I just received my GMRS license yesterday at 3:59am
I have 2 Baofeng GM-15 Pros (also a UV-5R coming in the mail) for my wife and I. I'd like to explore others as well but these were fairly cheap to get us started. So... The other day I was scanning channels and my radio landed on 16 and there was plenty of conversation going on. I was amazed that one gentleman said he was transmitting from Ontario, not sure where but Kingston is the closest to me at 150 miles. I switched to frequency mode and come to find out after checking myGMRS that 16 is a local repeater for me. So I guess my question is, should I avoid using 16 with my wife? I wouldn't want to upset anybody or break any rules. I also enjoy reading and was wondering if you had some suggestions on books related to radio, GMRS, etc? Is there a "For Dummies" book? Haha. Anyhow, I'm pumped that I finally got around to getting some radios and excited to learn all about this stuff.
Take care,
Matt
I would avoid using the repeater channels as "simplex", transmitting on the repeater output frequency directly to another radio, if possible. It's not illegal to use them as such but it can cause problems.
Transmitting on the repeater output frequency may result in you jamming another station that's trying to listen to the repeater's output. Also very likely the station transmitting to the repeater can't hear you and will simply jam your communications. I've gotten rid of a few kids using FRS radios on the local GMRS repeater's output frequency a few times. When the 50 watt repeater got used, only about 4 to 5 miles away, the kids got the message and disappeared real quick.
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30 minutes ago, Sshannon said:
Other than encryption I don’t understand what you can not do in ham radio.
You can conduct commercial activity on GMRS. On Ham it's strictly verboten except for very narrow exception like a talk in for a swap or announcing equipment for sale during a net.
Oh, encryption is allowed on Ham under very limited conditions, such as a ground control station for a satellite.
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10 hours ago, WRKC935 said:
While your numbers of repeater owners might be a bit off, repeaters being expensive is 100% true.
Now there seems to be inference by the question, why would someone want to put up a repeater, much less multiple repeaters and not be able to 'charge' for their use.
The short version is because we are in a situation that we can afford to do it. Some of us do it because we travel in the states and area's we cover so we always have access to the system. Others have a line on free or reduced cost gear and use that gear as we see fit to build systems. Most of the repeater owners have a standing invitation for GMRS license holders that have access to towers of significant height, to provide equipment to place on those towers with some stipulations pertaining to any rent, or other reoccurring costs to be paid for by the person or persons in the operating range of that repeater. We have the means and the knowledge to get it done, so we do it.
And be assured that most owners are always looking for a deal on used gear that fits the needs of the system. None of the major players are running mobile radios and a repeater controller as a repeater. Everyone is using some sort of public safety / carrier grade equipment so it will stand up to the abuse of being keyed for hours on end during a net or a busy time. Repeaters that are NOT 100% duty cycle rated will not hold up in these applications.
So there's part of the why. The other parts. It's a hobby. Take car collectors, big game hunters, motorsports competitors, coin and currency collectors, and a number of other hobby's. They spend just as much if not more on their hobby's that we do as repeater system owners. One owner has admitted he has over 100K invested in his repeater network. And knowing what he have, I have no reason to question that number and in truth I bet it's actually more. But these things are done over time.
Lastly, and here's my motivation. The tower I have access to and the equipment I have to do this most people don't have. Since I do have it I sort of feel obligated to provide the service since I can. It's a unique situation to be about to park an antenna at 180 feet on the highest point in a county and put up a repeater on that antenna. I want people to enjoy it. If I didn't I would just sell all the gear and operate on repeaters provided by others, except when I got started, there were no others. So I did it myself and others have since followed my lead. And we continue to look to expand.
A few do it because they like the prestige of being a repeater owner. Yeah, there are a few guys hung up on ego's out there.
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15 hours ago, Adamdaj said:
I have to admit that I was wrong about antenna requirements for GMRS. According to my knowledge, the BTECH GMRS PRO was supposed to have a permanent antenna, due its data capability. Maybe I'm still wrong and should get out the Hobby Amateur Radio and GMRS if I seem to be wrong all the time.
73 to All!
Adam K3JCP / WQAI363
Somebody once said
" I might not be right, but I'm never wrong."
Hang in there.
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12 hours ago, WRUE951 said:
OK,, Confession time.... How many radios do you really own.........
You can try counting them. It's like the old game guessing how many marbles are in the cookie jar.
https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/249-934916052_radiocollectionjpg/?context=new
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28 minutes ago, WRXB215 said:
A buddy of mine has about that many guns. Where do you guys get that much money?
Does your state sell lottery tickets?
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6 hours ago, tweiss3 said:
NX-5K allows you to program a single button to turn on OST (operator selectable tone), then holding that button brings up the OST list, scroll down and that's it. Now, that's not Part95, and it's a $980 option per deck, but many of the commercial manufacturers have it figure out, just not by using bluetooth.
Some of my radios have the OST feature programmed to a button on the radio. What sucks is the tone list is limited to 38. That’s enough for analog PL’s but sort of useless for digital squelch codes.
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6 minutes ago, WRUE951 said:
OK,, Confession time.... How many radios do you really own.........
Way too many. I have so many I keep an inventory sheet to see which ones I have and the unit count.
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I mentioned in a prior post I had a Kenwood TK-370 ratio with a stud type antenna port. The attached photos show the port and the adapter I found and modified to use on it.
If you look carefully you'll see the brass outer ring on the port, ground side, is insulated from the center screw stud. The adapter is made the same way. The cheap Chinese radio's port doesn't look like it can use anything like it.
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34 minutes ago, WRYS709 said:
Can you print out your cheat sheet in Braille?
This might help.
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2 hours ago, Sshannon said:
So, after that long explanation, how does this displayless DMR radio allow a user to select channels? How does a person know which channel they’re on?
Likely the same way I have to do it for my TK-D340U radios.
https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/291-tk-d340u-front-and-back-2jpg/?context=new
The radio has 32 channels total split 16 between two zones. I printed out a cheat-sheet I created in Excel. It does have voice announcements, but only for changing zones and channels. Not really much help.
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2 minutes ago, WRYS709 said:
Yes, the notes from the PNW group indicate that this is a groundless connector, too!
For inexpensive DMR, it is still hard to beat the Radioddity RD-5R a/k/a Baofeng DM-5R: uses all the same accessories, including batteries, of the UV-5R, 5 watts, analog too including GMRS, MURS, 2 meters and 70 cms; full Tier-2 and now works with the "OpenGD77" firmware project.
Some of those early Baofeng's were not Teir-2 compliant. They spammed both time slots on the repeater and were banned by DMR repeater owners to use on their machines.
Wouxun KG-UVD1P is just what I've been looking for.
in Equipment Reviews
Posted
I was at a local Ham swap a couple of years ago. One of those radios was on a table. I picked it up to look at it. The guy said I could have it. Didn't even want any money for it. Just take it away. I did have to spend a few bucks to get a charger base for it since the one in the box was missing.
I programmed it up. It seemed to work OK and that's about the end of my experience with it. It's packed away on a shelf along with a bunch of other radios.
I have the documentation for it, brochures, FCC Grant, user manual and service manual with schematics.
KG-UVD1P.zip