Lscott

My real first GMRS radio was a Kenwood TK-370G. The current grab-n-go radio is the Kenwood TK-3170. It’s small, light weight, uses Lithium Ion battery packs. I just haven’t had the desire to drag my more expensive analog/digital radios out. Some have FCC Part 95 certification. Until some digital mode is officially blessed by the FCC they’re likely not going to see much of any use except on the Ham bands.

I picked up a TH-8600 mobile a few years back new for about $100 on sale. I was looking for something super cheap to use in my Jeep. This is the exact problem the radio has. The receiver sucks, I pick up a city fire dispatch station which is about 10 to 15 miles away on several UHF channels I have programmed for GMRS/FRS! The only good thing about it is the case is built like a tank, but that's not what I got it for. You get what you pay for, and maybe not even that in some cases with these CCR's. https://www.tyt888.com/?mod=product_show&id=39

If you’re open to buying used commercial radios there are some very goods ones to pick from. My favorite portable is the TK-3170. It will likely do everything you want and some that the cheaper Chinese radios can’t. You can buy them for reasonable prices if you shop around. https://pdfs.kenwoodproducts.com/9/TK-2170&3170Brochure.pdf

I've been trying to track down info on how to convert a Kenwood NX radio form NXDN to dPMR. I got a very brief message from Kenwood tech support the radio has to be sent in to have the "enhanced" feature function activated besides any firmware/protocol updates could be done. I would rather try it myself. There is a brochure for the NX-220E/320E which says it can be done. The "E" versions are for the European area. https://www.kenwood.it/files/catalog/it/Brochure-NX-220E_320E.pdf In the programming software there is a advanced "special" feature check box under the mode section, which I suspect is what Kenwood support was talking about, that doesn't appear unless you have a hacked version of the software or a special install key to unlock a lot of the engineering functions. Anything with that asterisk next to it is a special advanced engineering function. There are bunch of these through various menus with this version I have. I suspect their tech support would simply ignore any requests for help trying to use any of these advanced features since they are intended for dealer/depot use not end users. dPMR is primarily a European thing and is very closely related to NXDN, they use the same modulation type but the protocol is different. I haven't seen much if any mention of it being used here in the US.

Those radios need to "auto tune" feature of a Motorola test set? This is just for my info. The 6550's and 6580's I have need that so you can't manually set some of the RX parameters.

I’ll bet Motorola paid to have their radios “seen” on TV. No real difference than seeing a clear unobstructed view of band names on various products in movies. Just another form of paid advertising.

Oh, one thought did come to mind. If the the radio can be read then compare the code plug that was written to the one read out of the radio. If the chip is buggered up the two should be different. That will likely settle the issue.

If the chip is failing nothing is going to fix it except a replacement. I'm just suspecting that's the problem, a few failing bits, because he said he can program other channels with the same setup and they work.

You might be unlucky to have a memory chip in the radio that has partially failed, a few bad bits in some memory locations. If that's the case don't be surprised if you later notice some other things don't work right.

Protecting "trade secrets" is harder that defending a patent in court. For trade secrets the complainant has to show they followed strict security protocols in regards to who saw the information, how it was tracked and how access was controlled. Non disclosure and non compete agreements are another matter. At least for non compete agreements they have to be reasonably limited in scope, duration and geographic area, to have a chance in standing up to a court challenge. I would start to worry about this country when we start stealing wholesale technology from the Chinese. At the rate things are going I hope that never happens.

You didn’t specify what frequencies you programmed into the radio. There are two frequency spilt versions of this radio. Which one do you have?

I general I have several different sized LFP, Lithium Iron Phosphate, battery packs, solar panels and MPPT charge controllers. Then to connect everything up I have pre-made cables and adapters using Anderson Power poles all stored away. Most of my equipment are handhelds so I keep several battery packs charged up and on standby. The NiMH packs I have to rotate through the chargers somewhat frequently due to their higher self discharge rates. The Lithium Ion type packs can last for months without losing to much of their charge. I also have a few mobile power adapters for the handheld radios. For the higher power mobile type radios I can power them off a large 40AH LFP battery pack. That one using a large Anderson Power Pole adapter. That's wired to a terminal block where I can branch off using the smaller adapters. I keep several 12VDC LED strips, about 3 to 5 watts, around for emergency lights too. The solar panels are typically anywhere from 5 watts, 10 watts, 20 watts, 30 watts and 50 watts each. They're small enough to store easily and setup. The smaller panels are perfect for keeping the handheld radios going. Most of the Kenwood charger bases need 15VDC to work at about 1 amp. For those I have some DC to DC converters that will take 9.8VDC to 36VDC input and provide a regulated 15VDC output at up to 1 amp for the chargers. Perfect for battery operation.

And this is the link for the study for switching to digital on the VHF marine band too. https://docdb.cept.org/download/3503?fbclid=IwAR1tGdhlzA5PkEWEi36JdbN1D5_sRmIQz_FSqLmv9YuR-Cpw_S_59DQc0Pk

Oops. This should have been the link for the TK-3701 radio in the last post. https://www.connect.fi/images/docs/TK-3701D_20192511_LR.pdf

Oh as a side note it seems the ITU is considering going digital for the VHF marine band. On another forum site some are guessing it could come down to a choice between NXDN or dPMR. Both are very closely related. https://csrc.nist.gov/csrc/media/projects/cryptographic-module-validation-program/documents/security-policies/140sp2200.pdf Myself I’ve been looking around for a relatively cheap dPMR radio to add to my collection. The one I would like to get is the TK-3701. It’s only 1/2 watt but would be fun to play with. Just one problem. They’re expensive. https://www.connect.fi/images/docs/TK-3701D_20192511_LR.pdf Supposedly there are cheap Chinese radios that do dPMR but from what I’ve read they use some weird version the AMBE vocoder chip which isn’t compatible with the one used by the standard for dPMR.

https://csrc.nist.gov/csrc/media/projects/cryptographic-module-validation-program/documents/security-policies/140sp2200.pdf

The Kenwood modules will do that. Plus you need a special “key loader” just to access the cryptographic module from what I’ve read.

I monitor MURS along with FRS channels when at home. I hear way more activity on FRS/GMRS than on MURS, in fact I hear almost nothing on MURS. It seems to be mostly neglected in my area.

So what really drives the high prices? One could say the engineering, testing certification and so on. Or the manufacture knows the customer will pay it simply because there isn't anything else out there that's competitive. As technology gets better one should be able to buy the same quality equipment at lower prices as time goes by. How many would continue to buy the older models because they know they work but can't due to the manufacture obsoleting them so they can sell an updated version at higher prices when maybe you don't care about those new features. When the manufacture knows a customer will pay $8K for a radio what stops them from introducing an updated one for $10K?

Sad part is government agencies and mega businesses are paying those prices. Then 10 to 20 years later you can buy them used for a small fraction of those prices, and most are perfectly usable.

Part of metric is how much performance do you get for the money spent. A lower spec'd radio might be a better deal if the price is right. Of course for some people price is not a consideration. But I did read a few posts where some comments were made about the cost of one or more models.

Can you add in the MSRP value for the base configuration of each?

I would be a bit more conservative on the solar insolation value used in your calculations. The charts I've seen from NREL, National Renewable Energy Labs, had a margin of error of about 10 percent. Also your eye may not notice it but small about of dust and haze in the air can result in a noticeable reduction in panel output. https://www.nrel.gov/gis/solar.html On the battery side the general recommendation is NOT to discharge a Lead Acid battery below 50 percent of capacity. Doing so can result is a large reduction in the number of charge/discharge cycles the battery can support before it become unusable. You also DON'T want to let a Lead Acid battery sit around for very long at anything less than full charge. In a partially charged state the Lead Sulfide is porous but then becomes less so over time. When the acid can no longer penetrate the Sulfide it can't be converted back to Lead and Lead Peroxide during the charge cycle resulting in a permanent reduction in battery capacity. Most people don't consider what happens when a Lead Acid Battery is charged too fast. Some of the water in the electrolyte is converted into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Even in a so-called "sealed" battery there are vents to release gas build up. Once that gas is released it can't be converted back to liquid water, yes there is a complicated chemical process in GEL and AGM batteries that can do this, but only if the gases generated is done slowly. If you look at a some of the smaller battery specification sheets this max charge rate is specified. Of course with liquid filled batteries this isn't a problem since you can always add more distilled water. https://datasheet.octopart.com/NP7-12FR-EnerSys-datasheet-32762402.pdf For the above example a 7 amp-hour battery the max recommended charge current is 1.75 amps. At a terminal voltage of 14.4 VDC the max power you can safely use for charging is 1.75 X 14.4 = 25.2 watts. I just cringe when I see guys selling so-called solar power generators at swaps with these small batteries and have a 50 to 100 watt PV panel connected to them. https://www.power-sonic.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Technical-Manual.pdf

"You ask what Morse Code is good for? I'll tell you. Morse Code is used exclusively by Electronics Based Life Forms to communicate amongst themselves using advanced Organic Digital Signal Processors, running state of the art Artificial Intelligence Software, to perform the highly complex transmit encryption, receive decryption and error correction functions."

https://www.ariss.org/contact-the-iss.html