Lscott

Ah, one of the golf cart drivers! I'll have to keep my eye out for you then.

I was surprised that commercial grade radios were being used. If CCR's are being used I guess it could be worse.

How many are planing on going to the Dayton Hamvention this year? Could setup a frequency and location where people on the forums here could arrange to met up for a quick chat in person.

Wrong. As others have pointed out it’s allowed in the rules. You should really go and read them. If you didn’t understand them the first time through go and read them again. The confusing part is communications between FRS and GMRS radios. Each operates under their respective rules parts. If you’re using a GMRS compliant radio, talking to an FRS radio, then you must follow ALL the GMRS rules including ID’ing yourself. The FRS radio user does not. FRS radios by design, FCC requirements for certification, can’t access the repeater input channel frequencies so the issue there is moot. The FCC created this mess by allowing the sale of combination FRS/GMRS radios in the first place. The box contained information stating the channels above 14 can’t be used unless one had a valid GMRS license. Almost nobody read that, or if they did just ignored it. Finally the FCC changed the rules which became effective in 2018 making the wide spread practice legal so they didn’t have to deal with the enforcement issue. So we have the weird situation where two radio services share the exact same frequencies AND are allowed to cross communicate. Sooner or later newbies start asking about cross communications between Ham 70cm and GMRS. Technically it’s possible with certain radios using no modifications for out of band operations. Forget it. It’s not legal due to some rules mainly on the Ham side. That’s the conclusions I reached after looking at it myself years back. This topic has been covered on these forums before as well.

I look at what I've paid at Ham swaps verses what people charge on eBay, which IMHO is way TOO much. Every once in a while somebody sells a radio at a supper good deal. I'm still kicking myself for missing a new NX-200 for $135. It was up for maybe 15 to 30 minutes and was gone before I could hit the buy it now button. I just recently snagged a Kenwood TK-2180 with battery pack, charger base, antenna and speaker microphone for $40 at a local Ham swap a few weeks ago. And yes it works. On eBay you're looking at $100 to $200 for just the radio! At another swap I found a Kenwood TH-79A with accessories in good condition for $35. You get the idea.

That might be a good illustration of free space “path loss”, due to the capture area of the antenna at 900 being less that at 460. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-space_path_loss

I’m planing going to the Dayton Hamvention this year with a couple of buddies. I thought about looking for a good deal on a 7550e. I’m not fond of the funky antenna connector but I’ll consider getting it just to try out. At $500 plus, that’s way too much for something I’ll just be experimenting with. The 6550’s I got for less than a $100 each. The 6580 I got was in like new condition with battery pack, charger and programmed for a number of Ham 33cm repeaters for $85 at a Ham swap.

What kind of range were you getting with the TK-3170 at 4 watts?

I'm mainly a big Kenwood guy but I do own several Motorola XPR-6550's, VHF and low split UHF, models. They were fairly cheap compared to the XPR7550e's I've seen. I have the cables and software to program them. I've even got a XPR-6580 800/900 MHz radio. Then with a little bit of in memory hex editing on the CPS you can get those on the Ham 33cm band easy.

Yeah!!! I don't want this thread to be about any politics. I'm just interested in the radio technology being used. Sort of surprising that regular commercial radios are being used. I would have thought highly encrypted digital radios designed specifically for military use would be the norm.

MURS is limited to 2 watts max. You can use a portable with a speaker mic with an external antenna. There are some commercial radios that likely can be programed to use MURS as long as the channel bandwidth and power limitations are observed. Those radios aren't that expensive used if you shop around. See an old thread on the topic. https://forums.mygmrs.com/topic/1239-old-part-90-radios-predating-murs-service-legal-use/

I wonder if anybody in the US has heard the short wave communications? At least any that are identifiable as such.

I was doing some searching for some digital radio info and stumbled across this. Perhaps this is why the Russians are having trouble, using crappy CCR radios? https://defence-blog.com/russian-soldiers-uses-chinese-portable-radios-during-kremlins-invasion-of-ukraine/ I guess the Ukrainian military are using Motorola radios. https://k0lwc.com/what-radios-are-ukrainian-military-using/

You might have room to put a metal plate under the fiberglass. Also some aluminum tape, used on furnace duct work would likely work just as good on the roof too. Just a couple of suggestions to think about.

The higher up you can mount the antenna the better. The ideal location in somewhere in the center of the camper's roof. I'm guessing the roof is aluminum so you will likely need to drill a hole for an NMO type mount and buy a matching antenna. https://theantennafarm.com/shop-by-categories/shop-all/mobile-antennas/vhf-uhf-dual-band/451-commercial-dual-band/219-high-gain-dual-band-antennas/5582-laird-connectivity-c150-450cs-detail It's a dual band antenna so you can use it for both a license free MURS VHF radio and for GMRS on UHF. It has a spring base so if it hits a tree limb it won't break or get ripped off the roof easily. You can try one of these too. It has an optional spring base, have to buy separately. It has a claimed wide band performance so if you ever get you Ham license yo can use the same antenna on the Ham bands. https://theantennafarm.com/shop-by-categories/shop-all/mobile-antennas/vhf-uhf-dual-band/451-commercial-dual-band/219-high-gain-dual-band-antennas/8128-comet-ca-2x4srnmo-detail https://cometantenna.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/CA-2x4SR.pdf https://cometantenna.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/CA-SPR-instructions-x-1.pdf As long as the measured SWR at the radio end of the coax cable is 2:1 or less the radio should be OK. I have a work buddy that mounted one, the Comet antenna, on the fender of his pickup truck with the spring base installed. The measure SWR was under 2:1 and he used it for a while with a hand held radio while out doing sales calls around the Midwest area. If you locate the antenna in a different spot the SWR will likely be different.

You can find some good info at this site for wind and solar power. https://www.nrel.gov/research/data-tools.html

Isn't that a good reason to use CTCSS or digital tone squelch? Particularly the digital tone squelch since there are a lot of them to choose from so the likely hood of one being used by another group isn't that high. As far as channel congestion goes. Well, you only have 22 simplex channels to pick from, you're sort of stuck with the problem. Your other choice is all get your Ham Technician Class license then you have a whole lot more spectrum to use.

If you can't afford the $70 license fee you likely can't afford to buy a radio either. That solves both problems. At $70 that's just $7 a year or $0.134615 per week. You likely have spent more than that buying something at the local Golden Arches food emporium.

The radios I do own I would be interested in any test results would be the following: HT and QRP radio Collection: Tri Band: TH-D74A VHF/UHF tri-band analog/D-Star Digital (MARS/CAP mod) UV-5X3 VHF/UHF tri-band TH-350 VHF/UHF tri-band 128 channel Dual Band: TH-G71A VHF/UHF 200 channel (MARS/CAP mod) TH-G71A VHF/UHF 200 channel (No mod's) TH-79A VHF/UHF 80 channels xband repeat built in UV-5R VHF/UHF 128 channel D878UV VHF/UHF 4000 channel analog/DMR Digital KG-UVD1P VHF/UHF 128 channel Multi Band: FT817 HF/VHF/UHF (MARS/CAP mod) VHF: TK-270G-1 VHF 128 channel TK-2000 VHF 16 channel (International Version) TK-2170-K VHF 128 channel TK-2140-1 250 channel (European Version) TK-2140 US version 250 channel TK-2160 VHF 16 channel TK-2360 VHF 16 channel TK-2180 VHF 512 channel NX-200 VHF 512 channel analog/NXDN Digital XPR6550 VHF 1000 Channel analog/DMR Digital TK-5220-K VHF 512 channel analog/P25 Digital UHF: TK-370-1 UHF 32 channel TK-370G-1 UHF 128 channel BF-888S UHF 16 channel TK-3170-E UHF 128 channel (European Version) TK-3170-K UHF 128 channel TK-3212L UHF 128 channel TK-3212 UHF 128 channel TK-3173-K UHF 128 channel TK-3160-1 UHF 16 channel TK-3360-1 UHF 16 channel TK-3140 UHF 250 channel TK-3180-1 UHF 512 channel TK-3180-2 UHF 512 channel NX-340U-K2 UHF 32 Channel analog/NXDN Digital NX-300-K2 UHF 512 channel analog/NXDN Digital NX-300G-K UHF 512 channel analog/NXDN Digital NX-320-K2 UHF 260 channel analog/NXDN Digital TK-D340U-K UHF 32 Channel analog/DMR Digital TK-D340U-K2 UHF 32 Channel analog/DMR Digital TK-5320-K2 UHF 512 channel analog/P25 Digital XPR6550 UHF1 1000 channel analog/DMR Digital XPR6580 UHF 1000 channel analog/DMR Digital T5720 (Motorola FRS Radio)