Lscott

For some it could be a good radio. While $200 isn't cheap the radio has features that are useful, and it does DMR as well, which is a favorite digital voice mode at the moment. Some of the favorite GMRS specific locked down radios, which are of Chinese manufacture too, are pushing the price point close to the D168. https://www.wimo.com/media/akeneo_connector/media_files/D/1/D168UV_brochure_240827_13fd.pdf?srsltid=AfmBOoqv_ogmUf-Zccf4ya9l5vfGJnja8FYzUWz1MLKvLYIhxGyJ3hLr

You get a big round table going it's not unusual to time out the repeater if somebody doesn't let it drop out periodically. Also when running a net too.

I use my radios a lot for scanning. Having multiple zones organizes the memory channels neatly. The radios I have allow me to activate each zone, and select which memory channel in the zone for scanning. When operating DMR you really use up memory channels like crazy. The usual practice I use is one zone per DMR repeater, and one memory channel per talkgroup and slot number. If you travel around to different areas you end up with a huge collection of zones for each repeater loaded up with memory channels for the supported talkgroups. Other digital modes, like P25 and NXDN, end up being programmed in a similar fashion. Most of my radios are commercial types with no front panel programming, or VCO. So, to simulate a VCO I use one zone and enter sequential memory channels like 446.000, 446.025, 446.050 etc. for the simplex section of the band. The memory name mirrors the programmed frequency. Thus when turning the channel selector knob you see a sequence of memory names which looks like you're just adjusting the VCO with a 25KHz step size. You need a lot of memory channels to do this since the UHF simplex band sections might require around 80 channels each, and there are multiple sections. Doing the above on VHF isn't so easy due to various states use either a 20KHz or 15KHz channel spacing. In that case I did a spread sheet starting at the simplex section band edge and calculated a sequences of frequencies using both channel step sizes, then eliminated the duplicate frequencies. Still ended up with a lot of memory channels to program.

A coworker in my department is seriously considering getting his Ham license this spring or summer. He's Canadian so that's where he needs to get licensed. He lives in Windsor, across the river from Detroit, and crosses back and forth everyday. He asked for my opinion on what a good radio to get for hiking and camping. I recommended the D168UV. His budget limit was $200. This should work fine for him, and he can use it for Ham when he gets licensed later. For his wife and kids I suggested the cheapo Baofengs. If one gets trashed or lost he won't cry over the cost. Plus if they aren't used frequently he won't have a lot of money tied up in them sitting on a closet shelf. I have a couple of the original D878UV's myself. One I got at a swap in like new condition with battery pack, charger base and antenna for $35. The radios are OK. The $300 plus for the new D878 models I don't think are worth it. I suspect the new D168's will replace the older D878's at some point. The best feature on the radio is the digital monitor mode. Lets one zero in on the exact DMR settings without needing a computer and an SDR dongle.

I really hate people who fast key up on the repeater without leaving at least a few seconds for somebody to break in and ask to use it, or join in the conversation.

The little I've used the D74A I'm not real impressed with the battery life, and that's just mostly doing scan monitoring. Most Hams that have the radio hold a similar opinion. A favorite topic among D74A owners is looking for a larger capacity battery pack. You'll notice in the photos, from the project site, the radio is using an external 12VDC power adapter. That's about the only way to power the radio for more than maybe 5 to 6 hours at light duty without having to swap battery packs. The guy who designed the desktop stand included a section on the back specifically as a spare battery pack storage area. One flaw with the D74A is if you have the wall wart charger plugged into the radio and key it up it tends to blow out a chip in the charging circuit. That sucks. People report using the high power 12VDC power cord that doesn't happen. I don't know if this was fixed on the D75A version. I have to get it out and charge the battery pack up on mine and start playing with it. It's been on a shelf for a long while. It's a complex radio to learn to use in the beginning, lots of menu layers to work through. If you're going to use it frequently likely not so bad. For somebody like me who might touch it every few months it's easy to forget where to go for various settings. Its not a radio for occasional use. I have a document library I have loaded on my cell phone with all of the brochures, FCC grants, service manuals and user guides, in PDF format, for my radio collection. That way if I need to consult the manual(s) they are readily available.

Can't take the money with me so might as well spend it on something fun. I might splurge and get the new TH-D75A and take the D74A to work and use it on the desktop as a scanner. It has the MARS/CAP mod. I have to see how much the price drops and look for a deal at the Hamvention this May in Ohio. HRO sells them and will do the mod for about $60 and will still warranty the radio. I'm not a big fan of D-Star but I do like the fact it's a full power, 5 watts, tri-band radio, like the older D74A is. https://www.kenwood.com/usa/com/support/pdf/TH-D75A_US_Catalog.pdf If Kenwood offered this radio in a DMR version I'll bet they couldn't keep the thing in stock. The Kenwood sales rep I spoke to there, when the radio was announced, said he had a lot of Hams say, including me, they would rather have a DMR version of the radio.

HT’s are fun since you just pick them up, turn them on and you’re ready to go. They fit in a pocket or briefcase easily too. With mobile radios you need to install them somewhere and require external power and antenna to use. I stumbled on the files for a 3D printed desktop stand for a Kenwood TH-D74A. My sister has a 3D printer and made one for me using the project files. She said according to Slicer it only cost $1.24 to make. Now I have to drive across town to pick it up soon. This is the link for the project files in case someone wants them. https://forums.mygmrs.com/discover/unread/?&stream_date_type=relative&stream_read=all&stream_date_relative_days[val]=365&stream_date_relative_days[unit]=d&view=condensed

I’m working on it. I would like to find another IC-F3162DT with the dPMR firmware and a few reasonably priced NX-1200DV’s with display and limited keypad.

What do you think? https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/249-my-radio-collection/?context=new

I'll keep an eye out for one, and if it's cheap enough I might go for it. I'm primarily a Kenwood guy. I do have a few Chinese radios, a few Motorola's and Icom's. I just dropped $120 on a used Kenwood NX-320 off eBay. Got it yesterday. This one had the 400-470 band split. I have one already but it's the higher split range and won't run below about 443MHz. I wanted a version of that model that covers the Ham band. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/418-nx-320jpeg/?context=new I have a bunch of DMR radios as it is now. In fact I have WAY too many radios. The ones I have cover D-Star, dPMR, DMR, NXDN and P25 Phase 1 so far. Nothing for System Fusion yet.

Looks like a nice radio. What did you pay for it? Hytera HP602-682.pdf

It helps a lot when the GMRS radios are small enough to fit in your pocket. The huge silver telescope antenna on a hand held CB looks like some kind of exotic taser weapon to non technical people. Just holding on to the end of the antenna and swinging it around makes for a reasonably useful club too.

That's basically why I usually don't set RX tones. I want to monitor all traffic on the frequency. If somebody is close by on the repeater output frequency using simplex it could muck up the signal from the repeater depending on the relative strength of the two. It helps to figure out if the garbled reception is due to a repeater issue or someone else on the frequency. If I have the tone set and not watching the channel busy light I might miss what the cause might be since there would be no audio produced from the simplex traffic.

More people should take a few minutes out to help somebody in need. The world would be a more pleasant place to live in. I spent half of my weekends for about a year or so along with my two sisters taking a shift to look after my Mom before she passed away. She had advance dementia and needed at home 24/7 care. The insurance only covered half of the cost of at home hospice care while the rest came out of their retirement savings and our volunteered help.

That really sounds like a MUCH better way to program DMR. Cuts out a lot of stupid duplicate programming.

I've done the same. It's even more fun doing a digital radio. In that case I've spent a day, or more, just building the "prototype" code plug for a few hundred channels. Then tying to get all of the options configured is even more work. The worst ones are the Anytone DMR ones. The number of options, many I don't need or use, to configure is just mind blowing.

FRS-GMRS Channels Layout.pdf

Except for the ridiculously huge antennas to get any kind of reasonable range out of a portable radio. Somehow a 102 inch quarter wave whip antenna on a hand held radio doesn't sound very convenient. Not to mention the size of the required ground plane to go with it. At FRS/GMRS frequencies a quarter wave antenna is about 6 inches long. The metal chassis of your hand held radio is about that size making for a reasonable ground plane.

Well when they get saturated with baby monitors, wireless intercoms etc. those radios you spent a good chunk of money on you’ll regret the purchase.

You would be surprised just how well it works. The match is far better than the screw-on antennas you can buy. Look at the simulated SWR match and the measured results. This shows a simple 1/4 wave ground plane has enough bandwidth to cover the typical usable range on the Ham 70cm band through the full GMRS range. That was the goal of the project. I’ve used this on a couple of trips to the Dayton Hamvention the past few years. Running my NX-1300DUK5 DMR radio at the 1 watt setting, on simplex, results in solid communications while keeping the RF exposure to about 0.5 watts average due to the TDMA nature of DMR.

The higher up you can get the antenna the better, even on a hand held radio. Just have to get a bit creative about how to do it. It’s a 1/4 wave ground plane zip tied to a baseball type hat. The antenna is only a touch more than 6 inches tall for the top element. It’s made using nothing more than a cheap female PCB type BNC connector and 1/16 inch diameter buss wire. Then I used about a 3 foot adapter cable, BNC male to SMA male, with real skinny coax for flexibility and a 90 degree BNC male to female adapter.

The FCC can just dispense with the license like they did years ago for CB 11M and just let people do whatever they want. The FCC screwed up when they allowed the sale of combo FRS/GMRS radios while requiring people to get a license to use the then at the time GMRS only channels. Almost everyone ignored that requirement so the FCC just changed the rules and gave FRS access to the GMRS channels with out the license requirement. As a reference point Australia has a UHF 80 channel license free CB radio service WITH repeater access. So it can be done. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UHF_CB

Nope. Otherwise why bother with getting a license, much less having to pay a fee for it too.

Thank GOD for that. The gym is way too crowded right now. It should thin out in a month or two.