Lscott

Just as a side note I read why it's a reverse phase. The old equipment used a vibrating reed as a filter to open the squelch. This was a mechanical filter basically. The reed was "tuned" to the desired PL frequency. When the transmission stopped it took a bit of time for the reed to stop vibrating and the squelch to close. The reverse phase, same PL frequency, was sent at the end of the transmission which bucked the reed's vibration which quickly cased it to damp out and stop. Thus the squelch would close faster mostly eliminating the squelch tail.

A GMRS radio is "certified", the new term, under Part 95E. There are some older commercial radios that have Part 95 certification and are legal to use so long as they are programmed with the correct frequencies, bandwidth and power. One such example is attached. The radio is both analog FM and digital enabled for P25 Phase 1, however digital is not allowed under current FCC GMRS rules so that part can't be used. Other than that the analog section is just fine, and as you can see in the brochure it does MDC1200. You can verify the certification by looking at the bottom of the brochure for they type one UHF radio and referencing the FCC ID. Then compare it to the one in the FCC grant. Part 95A was the GMRS rules section before the FCC reorganized Part 95 in 2017. The radio still retains it's certification. I personally have a few of these radios in my collection. TK-5220_5320 Brochure - 1.pdf TK-5320 FCC Grant - 1.pdf

The narrow band won't help with spectrum efficiency unless the FCC was going to add more channels to GMRS, which likely won't happen. The channel interference part is beneficial. There are some interstitial channels that can cause interference to the adjacent main channels. If all of the channels were made narrow band the guard band between them would be greater. The down side to narrow band is the range reduction. Many Part 90 users found that out quickly when the FCC mandated narrow band for that service group. Be careful what you wish for.

Is that really a bad thing?

Or it could simply be a Ham who setup his own GMRS repeater, just like a bunch of other people ask to do. It seems to be a common topic on this forum.

I traveled with a buddy and his family to see the last one a few years ago. It was an awesome experience. Had some good QSO's with a few Hams on the air during the trip who also happened to be looking for a good place to view the eclipse. All-in-all it was about a 20 hour round trip. On the way back the traffic was very heavy on the expressways. Stopped for a bite to eat at a Tocco Bell. They were closed. Ran out of food was the note in the door! Really?!

I’m checking with some buddies to see who is interested in traveling to the Toledo/Lima Ohio area on April 8 to watch the total lunar eclipse. https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/in/usa/toledo?iso=20240408 Anybody around that area planing on going to watch?

https://www.wnd.com/2024/02/thieves-steal-200-foot-radio-tower-without-anyone-noticing/

Are both radios the same hardware revision's? If you used the wrong firmware for the hardware version that can bugger up the radio.

Same, and the license term and cost finally got reasonable too.

Don't forget there is usually a minimum charge even if it doesn't get fixed. The Kenwood repair depot I've used a few times charges about $120 minimum for repairs for bench time. They do go through the radio and check out the performance and perform an alignment if necessary in addition to whatever the original issue was to fix. The turn around time including shipping is about two to two and a half weeks.

Until you have a dozen or so stations doing it on your channel. Then even a short data burst at frequent intervals is going to be irritating.

More like the "Super Bowl" on channel 6.

The warning message you are seeing basically means you have selected some features in the programming software that work ONLY with the version 2 radio. Most likely you'll need to go through all the options in the programming software and look at the help file entry for it. In my experience there might be a note warning the feature isn't support in the earlier hardware version so you'll have to deselect it.

Sounds like your firmware is really old. I've attached the latest firmware I have archived for a version 1 radio only. You can try updating your radio with the firmware if you have a version 1 radio. DO NOT try using it if it's not a version 1. If you do then you need to run the "Fpro,exe" utility in the folder where you installed the radio programming software. Firmware E4B3 TK-280_380_780_880_980_981 V1.zip

Not really on a linked system using separate repeater frequency pairs. Since several repeaters are "linked" when a station accesses one you hear the audio broadcast on the other linked repeaters. So instead of hearing the audio on the output of the one repeater its now on the output frequency side of the repeater pair frequency of the linked repeaters, effectively using those channels, even though the station is not directly accessing them. Remember the linked repeaters will ALL be transmitting at the same time the exact same audio stream. If they were all on the same repeater pair frequency the linked repeaters would be transmitting at the same time on the same frequency effectively jamming each other if they were too close to the receiving station. Using a separate PL tone on the output for each repeater would be useless.

I think you articulated the problem. By having several repeaters in an area linked each one requires it's own pair of frequencies. Sticking to the usual standard of a 5MHz offset that leaves just 8 pairs. So, by linking several repeaters together when any one of them goes active all are now on the air. This effectively ties up several valuable repeater pair frequencies whereas one might have been sufficient. The argument for this practice is now a much wider area is covered. However one forgets that another user may wish to setup their own repeater, and has NO desire to share it with anyone outside their family or group. The multiple linked repeaters now consumes the limited repeater frequency pairs, and possibility leaving none available for somebody to use on a limited basis. For example here in the metro Detroit area we have, I think, three linked repeaters, and one wide area standalone repeater. Since we are past the FCC's "Line A" two of the official repeater frequency pairs are not available. With four of the remaining pairs consumed by the linked system that leaves just 2 frequency pairs open for somebody else to use.

Many years ago people laughed when the Japanese were getting into the US auto market and GM had about 50 percent of the US market share. Now you see Asian auto's everywhere and GM's market share is down around 25 percent or so. I wouldn't laugh about the Chinese radios.

All depends on how it's done and presented to the FCC. For years they said no to FM on 11M CB. Then one day, POOF, they said OK. While there is a crowd who don't like the idea that may become moot. In some areas digital voice modes are already in use, very much in violation of FCC regulations. If it becomes further widely practiced, like the mess with combo FRS/GMRS radios and people ignoring the license requirements, they will just throw in the towel, again, and make it legal. Saves them time, man power and money so they don't have to deal with the enforcement issues. That's basically what they did with the FRS/GMRS rule revisions in 2017. Just made what people were doing legal, then ignored the service.

Would that also include a friendly door knock, unofficially, by an FCC field engineer letting you know they noticed what you're doing and giving you the opportunity to quit?

We discourage doing something like this in a public forum and using them out of band. It just confuses new comers giving them advise that might get them into trouble. What people do privately is their business, I'm not a radio cop. If somebody wants information along these lines the best advise is to go with a private message to the other party.

Really?

If you want to dispute an FCC fine you have to go before an "Administrative Law Judge". Lots of the bureaucratic government agencies have these.

There is nothing stopping, for example Walmart, from using GMRS EXCEPT users must each have their own license. The FCC will not issue GMRS licenses to business, only individual users. If a business was licensed before the rule changes in 2017, and maintained it active, they are grandfathered in and can continue to use GMRS for business operations. If they let it expire they're screwed. The FCC will NOT issue a GMRS license in the name of the business in that case. As an example the local mall by me was licensed to use GMRS for their house keeping staff. However they let the license expire, A LONG TIME AGO. They never renewed it. They continue to use their radios and the limited range repeater. So far it seems the FCC isn't interested in taking any action. I'm absolutely sure what is going on since I've been to the mall many times with my HT to walk around for exorcise. They are using channel 16. They are setup for a repeater because I have my radio programed that way, which means they must be operating under GMRS rules to access the repeater input frequencies. If people choose to hijack the repeater they have realistically no choice except to ignore it rather than complain, otherwise the FCC might be way more interested in their long unlicensed operation history. ULS_License_-_General_Mobile_Radio__GMRS__License_-_KAB1523_-_LA-job_178.pdf

Most of my Ham radios have the "MARS/CAP" mod done for out of band operation. Is it legal to operate like that, no, but as you said when it's your life, or somebody else, who cares about a FCC fine. I would rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it. Some Hams have a major problem with people modifying their radios for out of band operation, and will refuse to use one. They forget you don't have to use it out of band. In fact not too long ago most radios had analog VFO's and could very easily go out of band. It 's the operator's responsibility to know the band limits and stay within them. Hams have gotten lazy and depend on the radio's firmware to keep operations within the band limits now days. Now on the practical side of using modified Ham gear out of band. The radios will very likely have filters on the output designed for the "official" frequency range for Ham. That's to comply with the FCC's emission requirements. Once you try running outside of the filter range the power can drop off very rapidly. It all depends on how tight the filters are. In some cases it just isn't really worth it. For example the Icom IC706MKIIG the power output at 462MHz is already low. When you get to 467MHz it's basically useless, you get as much from an HT or more. Other radios models when modified might do better. IC-706MKIIG Freqequency Mod Power Output.pdf