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Everything posted by Lscott
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Digital in GMRS - which mode is most appropriate?
Lscott replied to intermod's topic in General Discussion
Yes, the CPS can import and export different parts of the radio’s setup. In fact that’s how you would keep the HT and the mobile version D578 in sync. When the firmware is updated for one it looks like they do the same for the other. If you’re interested in DMR these are two radios worth looking at. While some might protest they are CCR’s they aren’t that bad. I have the D878UV early model however I don’t use it much at the moment. -
Digital in GMRS - which mode is most appropriate?
Lscott replied to intermod's topic in General Discussion
That’s a very good way to do it on those radios. You have 4000 memory slots on the D878UV for example so why not use them. -
Things on 11m started really going to crap when the FCC dropped the license requirements and effectively quit policing the band.
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I had an XPR6580 I wanted to experiment with on the Ham 33cm band and it had the trunking firmware on it. Somebody had used V2.0 to program it too. I managed to get it back on the old firmware usable with CPS 16, but in the process the “tune” date, the internal hardware calibration, got mucked up. I saved it before doing the down grade but found out there are differences between the two so the original “tune” data file won’t load. Using the tune data utility I can see the values but not all of them can be adjusted manually. A few of the receiver gain settings can only be adjusted on Motorola’s “auto tune” test station, which I don’t have or access to one. I could send it out for this but I’m not spending $80 to $100+ on a bench fee to adjust the radio. I only paid $45 for it. In the mean time I loaded the tune data from another radio in the one that got mucked up and reset the parameters I could manually adjust to match to original ones where possible. Not perfect but better than nothing.
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I have CPS 16 build 828 for the XPR6550's I have a couple of the VHF and UHF models. The software has the mod's for the wide band FM and radio/code plug password work around. The later is almost necessary when buying used radios since some might be password locked. I just got a Kenwood TK-3180 yesterday I purchased on eBay last weekend. The radio is the rather rare type-2 which has an official band split of 400 MHz to 470 MHz, perfect for Ham Radio and GMRS. It was $30 including shipping. Normally these sell for $80 to over $100 each. https://kenwoodsub.dealerarena.com/ProductPDFs/10/TK-2180&3180Brochure.pdf The radio had the special "passport" trunking firmware loaded and not the normal conventional/trunking one, LTR, so the usual Kenwood radio programming software wouldn't work on it. The radio displayed a message showing the special one that had to be used, which of course I didn't have. I flashed the normal firmware to the radio since I had it. Once that was done I found it was password locked for writing. Fortunately the radio programming software I had is modified to enable all sorts of features even the dealers likely don't have access to. One was removing passwords. All I had to do was enter the radio's serial number and do a write. That cleared all the passwords in the radio and I was able to write my code plug to it and now it's working. I guess the reason why the price was so cheap was the seller couldn't program the radio either.
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The antennas are not super expensive, but making the connector non standard is just another way for Motorola to capture more of the accessory market. It might cost you $9.95 and they have them made in China for $1 each most likely.
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oops. float VHF, UHF, 10db_gain; if (VHF != UHF) { UHF *= 10db_gain; }
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They're nice radios. Myself I don't like the funky antenna connector. I use my radios at times with external antennas. Having a standard SMA connector is a perk in my book. The weird antenna connector is just a move by Motorola to capture more money from customers since that's one item that gets frequently broken by careless users. You look on eBay and you can find packs of antennas for Kenwood radios for sale cheap. No so much if at all for Motorola's proprietary ones. I bet Motorola makes a good profit on them.
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No. I requested an account but never got the notification. I just found it last night in my junk email folder. Now it's expired.
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This is why I'll NEVER purchase one of the new Kenwood radios, new or used. They changed their business model to extract more money out of business customers. For private hobby use it makes no sense at all. With a license key tied to a specific PC, effectively turning it in to a hardware dongle, if your hard disk dies so does your license. I forget if it was either Kenwood or Motorola, but they told people when your hardware dies or the license file gets screwed up you get to buy a new one. What might make more sense is installing the software and license on a virtual machine. That way you can keep backup copies of the VM in case of a real hardware failure. Second you can load the VM on any PC that can host the VM environment effectively allowing you to run the software on multiple computers without the necessity of buying multiple licenses. So, for example, you can have the VM on your desktop computer and a laptop for when you travel and need to make last minute changes. I had several computers running the exact same VM with Microsoft Windows a few years ago. Windows would start, update etc. with zero complaints about multiple copies running or pirated versions. If Microsoft isn't detecting the multiple versions running I doubt Kenwood's software will either.
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Digital in GMRS - which mode is most appropriate?
Lscott replied to intermod's topic in General Discussion
DMR isn’t that complex to setup. It’s just messy. For a single repeater which supports multiple talk groups the easiest solution is use one memory for each full time talk group using the appropriate color code and time slot. The repeater frequencies, and just about everything else, stays the same. I myself have used 6 or more memory slots in a radio for just one repeater due to all the supported talk groups. -
Each radio model series has its own specific software package. To recommend where to find it we first need to know what model radio. The installation key typically has the form of xxK44… or xxxK44… where the “X’s” are the version of the software. For example the TK-3170 radios use KPG-101D and the install license key starts with 101K44…. with a string of numbers after the “101K44”. If you’re very lucky you might have the so-called “engineers key” which looks like “101K45….” for the above example. The engineers key allows you to remove passwords on a radio. If the radio has a write data password set you’ll never be able to reprogram the radio unless you have it or can remove it. I’ve had a few radios purchased used like this. Fortunately I had the means to remove them.
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Petitioning to get a few VHF frequencies added to GMRS
Lscott replied to Hans's topic in FCC Rules Discussion
There are plenty of Kenwood commercial HT’s that cover MURS. Most of the VHF ones work from 136 MHz to 174 MHz. That covers the complete Ham 2M band, MURS, NOAA weather channels, VHF marine and railroad analog. In my collection of HT’s that cover the range are the TK-2000, TK-2160, TK-2360, TK-2140, TK-2170, NX-200. These are all 5W/1W with wide and narrow band FM. The TK-270G officially goes from 150 MHz to 174 MHz but can be pushed down into the Ham band. None are certified for MURS. Some “might” be legally used since they were certified before MURS was created. This is a very gray area. In any case one has to watch the bandwidth and power levels. There are not many MURS specific radios available. -
Petitioning to get a few VHF frequencies added to GMRS
Lscott replied to Hans's topic in FCC Rules Discussion
There are already illegal cross band repeaters operating between MURS and GMRS for exactly the reason above. I think it would be a better bet going digital, DMR. There are SFR, single frequency repeaters that take advantage of the dual time slot nature of DMR. The repeaters don’t need expensive tuned cavity filters. No new frequencies are necessary either. Being narrow band, 12.5KHz wide channels, it might be possible to spilt one or two of the existing wide band repeater frequency pairs into two channels. One or two SFR’s could operate on one of the existing analog input frequencies and the same with the output frequencies. Thus one old analog repeater frequency pairs could accommodate up to four digital SFR systems. One could “sell” this to the FCC as making better use of the current spectrum while simplifying the the system hardware making it more accessible to the general public. -
Fun topic - SHTF communications plans and equipment?
Lscott replied to Lscott's topic in Miscellaneous Topics
You can have all the "Op Sec" you want but if a hostile party DF's your location because they figure you got radios, and so might have other valuable goodies, then show up. Getting found on the air is an invitation to come and check you out. Heck, they might just want your radios! -
Fun topic - SHTF communications plans and equipment?
Lscott replied to Lscott's topic in Miscellaneous Topics
Besides the encryption topic the second is keeping the radios operating. If you can't power up the radios they're useless. A good SHTF plan requires some thought about emergency power. In my case I have a number of LFP, Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4), battery packs, solar panels and charge controllers. I prefer the LFP battery packs since you can charge these up and let them sit around for months, in some cases a year or more, without them self discharging to a large degree. Lead acid batteries you can't do that, you will ruin them very quickly. Also the LFP battery packs the output voltage holds up over most of the capacity range, at the start around 13.3-13.4 VDC, and when you get down to about 10 percent state of charge it's around 12.8 VDC whereas a lead acid type might be around 10 VDC. Most mobile equipment is spec'd at 13.8 VDC +/- 15 percent so the lower limit is 11.7 VDC. I would recommend an MPPT charge controller setup for the LFP battery packs. Don't try using the lead acid types, the battery packs won't charge correctly. https://www.bioennopower.com/collections/12v-series-lifepo4-batteries https://www.renogy.com/ https://sunforgellc.com/genasun/ I have a number of 50 watt, 30 watt, 20 watt and a number of small 10 watt panels. Some of the panels I picked up at Ham Radio flea market sales. I use the GV-5 MPPT charge controller for LFP batteries. The battery packs are 6 amp-hour for portable use and one main 40 amp-hour for stationary use. To connect everything together I built a number of extension cables and adapters using Anderson Power Pole connectors. https://powerwerx.com/ -
Fun topic - SHTF communications plans and equipment?
Lscott replied to Lscott's topic in Miscellaneous Topics
This is a bit more complicated. There are various types of encryption, digital and analog. Any radio(s) you get with the idea of using encryption during a SHTF emergency all radios need to be using the same type. The simple ones using voice inversion isn't exactly that simple either. Some radios use a fixed frequency for the voice inversion while others allow you to input your own custom inversion frequencies. The radios that use a single frequency will very likely NOT have that frequency documented thus making it far more difficult to get different manufactures radios to work together if at all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_inversion Digital encryption is even more of a mess. While there are standards, such as AES256, there are others that are proprietary to a given manufacture, and this isn't limited to the cheap radios. Some of the encryption methods are limited due to the US ITAR export restrictions, thus are hard to find, expensive to buy/license or simply not available. https://www.cise.ufl.edu/~mssz/Class-Crypto-I/Housekeeping/export-control.html While high end standards like AES256 likely isn't necessary for security it could be from an inter-operational standpoint. One form on another site a person was asking about if some of the DMR Chinese radios can communicate with Motorola's Mototrbo radios using digital encryption. At the basic level of Motorola's digital encryption the answer was no, however some were successful using the higher end AES256 since this is a standard. Then to make things even more of a mess you have the various digital voice formats. Another one is NXDN for example where the standard has provisions for 15 encryption keys included in the protocol, and optional AES and DES can be used. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NXDN With some of the commercial radios, where you find the most options for digital encryption, it's an extra cost feature and requires the installation of an encryption hardware module or "activation key" in software to enable the hardware. Then to use it requires a special cable and or "key loader" to input the encryption keys. https://kenwoodcommunications.co.uk/acc/modules/KWD-AE21 NEXEDGE AES/DES Encryption Module/ https://kenwoodcommunications.co.uk/acc/modules/KWD-AE31 AES/DES Encryption Module/ https://csrc.nist.gov/csrc/media/projects/cryptographic-module-validation-program/documents/security-policies/140sp2200.pdf https://www.radioandtrunking.com/midian-encryption.html Some of the Chinese radios don't make you go through this crap, example the D878UV HT's. -
if VHF != UHF { UHF *= 10db_gain; }
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I’ve also never had issues going to Canada with my Ham gear. At most the US customs were the ones asking questions. If the radio has Industry Canada certification you shouldn’t have a problem. One other thing, out on the western provinces they have radio resource roads where you need a VHF radio to safely drive on them. I’m not aware of anything like that in the US. https://radiofreeq.wordpress.com/2018/08/30/canada-vhf-ladd-channel-list/
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This is a good reference on passive repeaters. https://www.softwright.com/faq/engineering/Catolog 161A - Screen.pdf Might be a fun experiment to use a small Yagi directional antenna to bounce signals off a local water tower. While not flat it could spread the signals out enough to cover a wide area.
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From the quoted message it would seem like those radios are mine. They’re not. These are below. And this isn’t everything either. I have some base and mobile radios not in the photo. There are a few more HT’s I keep sitting around the home office too. The HT’s are mostly Kenwood, a few different Chinese and a few Motorola’s. Since a mention was made about digital I have radios for D-Star, DMR, P25 and NXDN so far. No System Fusion yet. What I can say about radios is you get what you pay for, and in the cheaper models maybe not even that. If you’re going to bet your safety or life on a radio don’t go cheap.
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Yeah, and they can have an FCC engineer there using calibrated equipment to measure the RF field strength and determine who the winner is to receive the top prize of a $10,000 plus fine.
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The very high gain antennas have a narrow “beam” in a radial direction perpendicular to the antenna. If you’re in a hilly or mountainous area likely this is not what you want. The better choice is a lower gain antenna with a much wider beam pattern in this case. In flat county side, yes a high gain antenna is good and up as high as you can get it. The curious thing with this setup is close in coverage is not so good. That’s due to the very narrow beam shoots over the top of the close in receiver’s antenna. Some guys buy a special antenna that has several degrees of “down tilt” in repeater applications to help negate the problem. https://www.pasternack.com/t-calculator-antenna-downtilt.aspx
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A 100 foot run of LMR 400 at 450MHz has a loss of 2.7db. That means only 53.7 percent of your power makes it to the antenna. If you run 100 feet of 1/2 inch LDF at the same frequency the loss is only 1.5 db, or 70.7 percent of your power makes it to the antenna. Whatever loss you have in the cable has to be made up by gain in the antenna at least.
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Most likely the modulation level. Some of my commercial radios have a similar setting. I turn up the gain on those since my voice is rather soft so I don't need to "eat" the radio's mic input to be heard. Now I can use the radio at a comfortable distance from my mouth and get good audio levels on the receiving radio.