Lscott

That’s the FCC being lazy. It was the easy way out to fix their F’up in the first place by allowing the sale of dual use radios, FRS/GRMRS. What was previously illegal is now just fine, no enforcement action need. Expecting people to read that slip of paper advising them not to use channels above 14 without a license mostly never happened considering the license cost at the time. For $29.95 for a pair of what looks like kids two-way radios all anyone cared about is how to turn it on and where you open it to stick the batteries in.

People likely hear even worse language on the air. That’s in addition to various topics being discussed too. Either people forget talking on the radio is like a huge party line or they just don’t care.

Is that running under an experimental license from the FCC? If not then you’re asking for the kind of attention from the FCC you don’t want.

Some radios the CTCSS gets spoofed by the pulsing nature of DMR and the squelch opens.

Could have said the same thing about CB. But as the popularity increased the FCC finally authorized additional channels, from the original 23 to the now 40. And the past year or so added FM mode to the current AM and SSB modes.

You would think so. Trouble is some cheap radios out there may not. I think that was done to eliminate having to worry about which time slot the other radio was using. The first model Baofeng DMR radios were notorious for spamming both times slots. That was OK on simplex but killed the DMR repeaters. On some of my newer Kenwood DMR radios there is an option to use either the existing DCDM standard, which will decode audio from either time slot, or the newer one where they have to match.

I’ll chime in here. What would likely be done is a mixed mode repeater. It auto detects the mode in use. That would still preserve the analog user’s ability to continue to use their equipment. I would DEFINITELY not recommend installing a digital only repeater. Of course the tiny sticking point is getting the FCC to change the rules to allow ANY digital voice mode on GMRS. And I do have some thoughts on that. GMRS Digital Voice - 20221011.pdf

That’s only true if the radios are able to “effectively” coordinate time slot synchronization between themselves. Usually the repeater does that task. On simplex that has to be done by the user’s radio. The feature is typically referred to as DCDM, dual capacity direct mode. Some radios will just transmit on both time slots in simplex mode.

Not necessarily. The key is how it’s done and what digital mode. While I like DMR I don’t think it’s a good candidate to use on GMRS. I believe there are a couple of better choices. As a few other posts have pointed out the principle issues are the existing base of analog radios and just where do you locate the digital channels where they would result in the least interference to analog operations.

In an emergency situation codes could be detrimental. This is a particular concern when trying to relay information between services. For example a person switching operation between let’s say a GMRS radio and a public service radio. Different services, and even on the same one, the codes could be dissimilar between departments. Getting the codes mixed up resulting in delayed or missed directed resources has very serious consequences. Plain language avoids the confusion.

I guess you can’t fix stupid.

One other point. Just how many people check to see if they can reliably communicate using simplex? If they can then they should stay off the repeater, use simplex, and let those who REALLY need it the access.

It looks like I will likely be making a business trip to the UK in the next few weeks or month. I was considering taking one or two of my HT’s with me on the trip. I’ve researched what I need to have for Ham operation. However their license free service, PMR446, appears to be very popular. The sticking point is there are two different digital modes used, DMR tier 1 and dPMR. That’s in addition to narrow band FM. Neither are compatible with the other. My dilemma is which of the two digital modes is used the most? If it’s DMR I can use my NX-1300. I’ve been doing some research and it seems to be DMR, but that’s based on the availability of the radios I see being sold. If it’s dPMR I’m out of luck, though it is similar to NXDN but uses a different protocol, in which case I would likely use FM. PMR446 White Paper.pdf D-PMR446.pdf

I downloaded the brochure for the radio. Looks very nice. There seems to be several variations of it, display and key pad types. Which one are you getting? APX-7000.pdf

I understand the CODEC differences. To make the radio a bit more “universal” Kenwood could have included dPMR which is used in the EU for both their license free and commercial services. It’s a close relative to NXDN. It’s not used in North America in a significant way currently. That could change. There is the option to use several different CODECS which is encoded in the OTA protocol. That would have allowed the use of the existing one for D-Star. Certified-Interoperability-Guidance-Paper-2019.pdf

It looks like just an incremental upgrade over the D74. If it did DMR that would get my attention or a multi mode digital. But it’s not. ?

That exceeded my budget for the weekend.

I picked up a Bird 43 wattmeter and some slugs.

I showed the rep their NX-1300DUK5 I was using to talk to my buddy, had his D878, using DMR. The rep said they were using the NX-5000’s themselves there.

When I spoke to the Kenwood rep I told him they should have made it DMR. If they did I bet they couldn’t make them fast enough to keep on the shelf. The guy just shrugged and said they told Japan the same thing but nobody there would listen.

I’ve seen them for $1000 plus on ebay. Stupid when I only paid $650 for mine new from HRO.

You just don’t know what you’ll see here.

Sample on display.

Live from Hamvention.