Lscott

Yeah, the manufacture says the same thing when your radio thing breaks.

Think about the warranty issues.

No, but you would be surprised by how many old computers I've picked up in past years sitting by dumpsters in the apartment complex I used to live in. Grabbed a few parts out of one and stick in another, a cheap hard disk from the computer store down the street and I was all set. Loaded up a Linux system and put them on my network. Ran them for years until the power supplies died. Then took out the drives and dumped the dead carcasses in the trash bin.

On a side note been checking the vendor lists for the Hamvention in Xenia Ohio next month. https://www.make-it.ca/hamvention/ The inside booths are all sold out, or reserved. The notable thing is several of the big names are not going to be there. Alinco and Yeasu for two examples. Kenwood will be there but has a small foot print. So will Icom, and they look like they will have their usual huge display. The flea market looks like it's also mostly sold out too. This should be interesting given the crazy crap going on with traiffs right now. Hams buy a lot of imported gear of all types. Have to look and see what is going on price wise, and what kind of deals are being offered.

Reminds me of an eBay ad once. The guy was selling a used Kenwood TK-2170 VHF radio for about $10. Normally they go for $50 to over a $100. The ad copy said the radio beeps, shuts off, the boots back up when trying to transmit. Seller thought it was defective. I had a few an knew exactly what the issue was. So I purchased it. Yup, it was a nearly dead battery pack. Radio worked perfect with a fully charged one. That was a supper good deal I just couldn't pass up.

Gives me something else to look for when out at night trash picking.

I've never used it on any of my radios. As mentioned previously on a repeater you can experience hearing the tone when the transmitting party's carrier drops, but the repeater's hang time keeps the repeater in transmit mode, thus blocking you when the BCL is active. Then you get another station jumps in and you still can't get on the repeater. If someone times out the repeater, you'll know quick enough. They get cut off in mid transmission. The other parties will let the guy that got cut off know soon enough. Experienced repeater users, randomly between themselves, will occasionally let the repeater's carrier drop, thus resetting the timer. I have even heard a user specifically mention they will wait for the repeater's carrier to drop for that purpose. I rarely hear a repeater getting timed out. On simplex, yeah one might use it. But if the simplex channel is busy the other stations likely will just switch to a currently unused channel anyway. Any interference would be temporary.

That's also why I typically see P25 radios selling for ridiculously high prices. The seller seems to think everyone is going to get a piece of the government money pie to offset the higher cost. Even used P25 radios seem to be priced at a premium.

The issue of harmonics isn't as simple as it seems. Harmonics at the wrong frequency can mix with a wanted signal to generate a signal frequency which will appear in the radio's IF stage. This unwanted signal generation can even take place in the radio's front end amplifier stages before the mixer. That's why better radios have tunable front end filters before the RF amplifier stages. They can be adjusted on the fly to limit the bandwidth of the signal to just the range the radio is designed to receive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_response I've attached a section of a schematic for a very basic Kenwood TK-3360 16 channel analog only commercial radio. The signal path from the antenna to the first IF amp is the heavy black line. The electronically tuned band pass filter is in the red box. Many cheaper radios don't have this, particularly the CCR's. This is why many people prefer to use the more expensive commercial radios.

I don’t see why not. The NOAA stations TX 24/7 using wide band FM so any radio that can receive the frequency should work. Also you really don’t need a squelch setting if you’re close enough. Plus you shouldn’t be using any kind of tone either.

So is the tariff levy on the wholesale or retail value? If it’s the wholesale value for sure then the price for just about all imported consumer goods might not go up nowhere near where the fear peddling media wants the public to believe.

If he's that worried then consult this site for the status of various NOAA weather stations. https://www.weather.gov/nwr/outages

Why? If they are using narrow band FM they’re OK. The government recommends P25 for communications across agencies etc. However I’ve seen more smaller departments going with NXDN since it was cheaper than P25. Plus they has little to no need to communicate with outside agencies.

Just about every electronic device that is not specifically covered by some other part of the FCC rules is licensed under Part 15, which has extensive requirements for interference levels etc. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-A/part-15 Here is an interesting thread on the issue of interference to Part 15 devices. Just about every consumer is ignorant of this particular part. It's hard to convince somebody where their expensive flat screen TV malfunctioning, when you key up your radio, isn't your fault. The notice of Part 15 is either on the device some place and or mentioned in the included documentation, of course nobody reads that fine print. https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/35189/fcc-part-15-must-accept-interference-from-other-sources-what-does-this-mean

How many "undocumented" features will be in it?

Look at the Kenwood TK-3170, but only 128 channels and 128 zones. It also has Part 95 certification. I carry one of these around for UHF Ham and GMRS. It uses the typical K1 type plug, like most or the Chinese radios use, for programming and speaker mic accessories. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/263-tk-3170jpg/?context=new

I have one of these 40Ah battery packs myself for emergency use. I also purchased the matching charger for it. https://www.bioennopower.com/products/12v-40ah-lfp-battery-pvc-blf-1240a The attached photo shows mine and the charger. The battery pack in the fanny pouch is a smaller LiFePO4 one and the matching charger to use when walking around. Remember with a LiFePO4 battery you might not really need a 100Ah battery pack. The typical Lead-Acid battery exhibits a "Peukert Effect", which is where the Lead Acid battery has lower usable capacity when discharged at high rates. https://battlebornbatteries.com/peukert-effect/?srsltid=AfmBOoqoAjoBFTa9CHSm0C6i9hwZ_TdVi0DgazQTAiQ5bTzVMyMOrxyX Further the voltage drops to 11.5 to 12 volts around 50 percent or so of remaining capacity. Most mobile radios are spec'd at 13.8 VDC +/- 15%, so the lower voltage limit is at 11.75 VDC. Look at the attached datasheet for a typical 12Ah sealed Lead Acid battery pack and check out the "Battery discharge characteristics" curves. With a LiFePO4 battery, which doesn't suffer from the "Peukert Effect", you can use anywhere from 80 to 90 percent of the capacity and still be at 12.8 volts, well above the lower limit for portable mobile type radios. That means you can expect to get nearly the same usable operating time out of a LiFePO4 battery that you would expect to get out of a Lead Acid type with nearly double the capacity rating. BP12-12.pdf

Looks like the prices for those $25 CCR's might go up a lot more than 20% if ordered directly by mail. I just read the following on a news site today. Also the delay going through customs will likely be MUCH longer too. Get out your check book, or credit/debit card. ======================================================================================================== Trump even has gone to the point of making sure those who have been gaming the system now will be playing in a fair field, by eliminating the so-called 'de minimus' exceptions that allowed overseas companies, from China and the like, to ship directly to American consumers and avoid tariffs. Those rules had allowed shipments under $800 in value to avoid any payment, and billions of those shipments were routinely sent and delivered. Trump had given the Commerce Department time to develop a plan to collect those payments, and he said that now is in place. Starting May 2, shipments under $800 will be subject to an ad valorem duty of 30% of the value of the postal item or $25 per postal item. On June 1, the per-postal-item tariff will increase to $50, reports confirmed. Billions in revenue for America are predicted.

Has anyone used a Diamond NR240CA wide band mobile antenna? This is NOT the NR240C you commonly find for sale. I only found one place you can buy it from. You can buy one, its special order, from here. https://www2.randl.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=76310&srsltid=AfmBOoqYWGg_EvP4vp3PXD_OF0Py6YOJvRI0bT0PbjiUY4ZphNIIOmKc Diamond spec’s. https://diamondantenna.net/static/pdfdocs/NR240CA.pdf This looks like a reasonable alternative to the Comet CA-2x4SR antenna, which seems to be cheaper. https://www.cometantenna.com/product/comet-ca-2x4sr/

The attached paper, from my personal electronic technical library, goes into some detail on the various failure conditions for Lithium cells. Worth the read. Safety of lithium-ion batteries.pdf

All the Lithium battery packs I have, at least for Kenwood radios, have a protection circuit in them. I don't know if they protect against over charge, fairly sure they do, but they do work to prevent over discharge. When the terminal voltage drops to a bit under 6VDC the output voltage will suddenly drop to zero. I've run into this while testing my packs for usable remaining capacity with an electronic load. Also the radios seem to alarm out and shut down at the 6VDC mark too. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/248-2117323252_batterypacktestingjpg/?context=new I found a while back a web site where a guy did a tear down of a K2 Energy 7Ah LiFePO4 battery pack. You can see the Chinese protection module inside. K2 Energy K2B12V7EB LiFePO4 Internals.pdf

How stable the battery is depends on the Lithium chemistry used. The worse are Lithium Ion types, followed by Lithium Polymer. The most stable is the Lithium Iron Phosphate type.

You can look at some of these. https://www.bioennopower.com/collections/battery-chargers

The price on the new D878UV HT's are now ridiculously priced at over $300. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/270-d878uv-model-1/?context=new When my buddy and I got ours a number of years back they were a bit over $200. We though that was a tad high at the time.

You'll find affordable models used. New will likely exceed your budget. I would look for Kenwood radios. Personally I've had far better luck finding programming software and support for many Kenwood models. I've hard much harder time finding stuff for Motorola. Some here might have have better luck with Motorola than I've had, might know where to get the software etc. If you're looking for a Motorola radio I do own a few of these. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/261-motorola-xpr6550jpeg/?context=new A number of the older Kenwood radios had FCC Part 95 certification so they are legal on GMRS, so long as they are properly programmed. The one I usually carry around is the TK-3170. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/417-tk-2180jpg/?context=new https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/263-tk-3170jpg/?context=new If you don't care about FCC certification this one is a nice radio. It's currently manufactured and available new, but it's going to cost you a lot more than the other ones. Even used they're not exactly cheap. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/290-nx-1300duk5/?context=new