Lscott

Not my problem.

I run Firefox. One of the ad-ons is AdBlocker for YouTube.

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.

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.

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

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.

I'm not on YouTube.

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.

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.

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.

Somebody once said " I might not be right, but I'm never wrong." Hang in there.

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

Does your state sell lottery tickets?

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.

Way too many. I have so many I keep an inventory sheet to see which ones I have and the unit count.

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.

This might help. https://www.afb.org/blindness-and-low-vision/using-technology/assistive-technology-products/braille-printers

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.

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.

I have the TDMA capable version of that amp. If you look at the FCC ID in the photo and check it out, the amp is only certified for Part 90! Oops. https://apps.fcc.gov/oetcf/tcb/reports/Tcb731GrantForm.cfm?mode=COPY&RequestTimeout=500&tcb_code=&application_id=6kbS5AHSSJk92fpjsS8zBw%3D%3D&fcc_id=2AGND-AMP-U

You would be surprised how much I have to struggle to digest some of the stuff too. Those standard documents I don't think were written for humans to read.

Knowing some of the stuff you have your pockets are deeper than mine.