Lscott

How did you qualify for a business frequency? Is your travel group a registered business, or one of the other special categories mentioned by the FCC? I occasionally read mention of people using business frequencies for "personal use" but I never see how one can qualify under the FCC rules to get one.

That's a REALLY cheap price. I wonder just how good is the internal construction and battery protection board that should be inside.

These people are good to deal with for LFP batteries. They have batteries up to 300 amp-hours. https://www.bioennopower.com/collections/all I have one of these I keep sitting around for emergency backup power with the optional charger. It's good enough to keep things like cellphones and some HT's, or mobile radios, and LED light strips going for a while. https://www.bioennopower.com/products/12v-40ah-lfp-battery-pvc-blf-1240a I use this one for portable use with HT's. https://www.bioennopower.com/products/12v-4-5ah-lfp-battery-pvc-pack?_pos=1&_fid=49921c351&_ss=c For charge controllers I've used these. I purchased a few of the 4.5/5 amp GV5's, one for lead acid, and a couple for LFP types. I have mostly 5 to 50 watts PV panels so that about right for that power level. https://sunforgellc.com/genasun/#gen_product_row I've purchased some new PV panels, 10 watt, 30 watt and 50 watt size for these guys. I also got some use panels at flea markets too. https://www.renogy.com/solar-panels/

Here is a nice article on emergency solar power backup for the home. Emergency Backup Solar Power System.pdf

And as luck would have it something better will come along too. Back To The Future and Mr. Fusion. https://www.backtothefuture.store/products/back-to-the-future-mr-fusion-scaled-prop-replica?srsltid=AfmBOoqH5KdIyFrYjZQwazZ6elK2rHomryWK5jx8rQ-RyXCgWU3NsWjQ

I found one at a Ham swap fairly cheap so I took it home. I set it up on a home made portable antenna mount with ground radials and did some frequency sweeps. You can judge the results for your self. It's stored in the basement. Never tried to use it mobile. Antenna Scan Results (UHV-4 2M).pdf Antenna Scan Results (UHV-4 6M).pdf Antenna Scan Results (UHV-4 10M).pdf Antenna Scan Results (UHV-4 70cm).pdf

Did you change the default volume limits in the programming software?

Might as well go for the Gold and try for an Extra too. If you pass the General they should let you take the Extra exam in the same session.

Congratulations. Now you get to spend even more money on radios and antennas.

Or selling some.

It's a huge download, about 1GB. I have the wide-band and password work around patch for CPS 16 build 828 if you go that route.

If one wanted a cheap DMR radio to start off with the D168 looks OK. Otherwise I would take any of my commercial grade DMR radios over the Anytones. Of course you'll pay way more than $200 for the commercial grade DMR radios new, and about that or a bit more used. For example I paid $400 for a new Kenwood NX-1300DUK5, which is the low tier radio in their NX-1xxxK, NX-3xxxK and NX-5xxxK series. For Ham, and GMRS, use it's perfect, just not Part 95 certified, but the FCC doesn't seem to be interested in people using Part 90 radios on GMRS, so far. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/290-nx-1300duk5/?context=new These are cool looking radios. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/255-tk-d200ed300e-fmdmr/ About the only feature I really like with the Anytone is the digital monitor feature. If you have DMR traffic on a frequency that feature will show you the slot number, talk-group and color code along with the ID of the person talking. Beats needing a laptop and SDR dongle to figure it out. None of my commercial DMR radios can do that.

I seem to have the "magic touch" with software. Give me a software package, and it it won't take me very long before I'll find something f'ed up with it. The biggest problem I had with the Anytone CPS is editing issues. I would file a bug report. Then MAYBE in the next or so release they fix it. Unfortunately soon there after they booger it all up again. Now they've recently added satellite tracking to the D878's radio's firmware and CPS. Several bug fixes had to be issued just for that mess. You should check out this group. https://groups.io/g/ANYTONE-878/topics

I have two of the D878UV’s, the original models. They work mostly OK. The programming software is a mess. It has a lot of features jumbled together on some of the screens. The worse part is that the editing isn’t consistent. Some table entries you can cut and paste between cells, other tables you can’t. They seem to have a habit of fixing some editing bugs in the next release, and then f-up something else. Just for fun I installed the programming software for the D168 when it first came out. It took me only a few minutes before stumbling across various bugs. Strange the exact same screens and features are in the D878 software, but don’t exhibit the same bugs. I guess the programmers for the two radios don’t talk to each other. Typical poor Chinese quality control. They would be far better off concentrating on fixing firmware and radio programming software bugs over adding more features. Features that don’t work are no features at all.

How did you determine you have 5db of loss?

One problem with extreme temperature swings is frequency drift. I noticed this many years ago with my Icom IC-706MKIIG on SSB. I had to mess with the RIT control for a while until the radio warmed up during the winter. I had to swap out the reference frequency oscillator for a TCXO one to reduce the frequency drifting all over the place in cold weather until the cabin warmed up. Learned my lesson. If the radio has an option for a TCXO buy it and don't cry over the cost. Some of the higher quality VHF, and particularly UHF, repeaters have an option for an OCXO reference oscillator. This is even more critical on the dual mode analog/digital models. You won't see an OCXO option for a mobile radio that I've seen. They suck a lot of power and can take a significant amount of time to heat up and stabilize. Not really practical for a mobile radio that might get switched on/off multiple times a day.

You sure it doesn't need a ground plane?

>Your favorite GMRS radio/HAM< Sort of hard to choose. I get bored with one I start playing with another model. Lately I've been more interested in the digital radios. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/249-my-radio-collection/?context=new The one I usually carry around for GMRS is the Kenwood TK-3170, analog only. It's small enough to fit in a shirt pocket and has enough channels to cover the service including local repeaters. While the official lower frequency limit is 450MHz it will work very well down into the repeater section of the Ham 70cm band so I can cover both services with that. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/263-tk-3170jpg/?context=new There is a VHF version of the radio. Those make really nice 2M radios. Frequency range of those are 136-174MHz. Good for the full Ham 2M band, MURS, VHF marine, analog railroad communications and the NOAA weather service broadcasts. Those disappear really quick at swaps for obvious reasons. When I'm out walking around for exorcise at a local mall, and not at the gym, I use one of the digital radios since the mall security uses that mode. I monitor their communications to have something to do while walking. Every once in a while you hear something going on of interest. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/290-nx-1300duk5/?context=new

I remember parking my van at a 7/11 to go inside for some stuff right after the attack on the World Trade Center. I had a bunch of rather weird looking antennas on the top. I had a lot of people staring at me and the van. Maybe if I had been wearing a black suit and sun glasses it would have been even better.

I’ve been across the border in the Detroit are a few times. I’ve mostly been questioned by the US customs than anyone on the Canadian side. One thing I wouldn’t think about doing is crossing the border with Mexico with a two way radio. The Mexican customs might think you’re cartel and the cartel might think you’re undercover police. Either way you might get shot.

In the end you use the service in a way that best fits your needs.

Who cares? I don't.

Oh, I also save ALL my prior code plug versions for a particular radio series by model type and date. Example: NX-1300DUK5_BAS15_ARC4__20241118.dat If I totally bugger up the code plug I at least have the prior one saved I can use to recover from. Normally there are only minor changes from the previous version.

That's when one learns their lesson to save their work every 5 minutes. It sucks when you spend hours building a big code plug just to have it go POOF in the blink of an eye.

Here is some additional info on those VHF LADD frequencies I have book marked. There is a specific protocol, and the roads they are used on, when traveling on the "radio resource controlled roads" in some of the provinces. https://radiofreeq.wordpress.com/2018/08/30/canada-vhf-ladd-channel-list/ If you scroll down you'll see a list of frequencies. The very first one has the name "LGRANT1". The frequency listed is "143.4150" MHz which of course is just below the Ham 2M band. Humm...