Lscott

Yeah, programming a DMR radio is a PIA. Then again NXDN and P25 isn’t much different. I’ve done all three of the above.

I've done some technical writing for the company I work at, Power Point slide shows for training/sales, test procedures and manuals, but it's not my primary job. People think it's easy. Nope! It's boring mind numbing work and requires a lot of attention to details. People who do it full time professionally really earn their money. Doing design calculations, simulations and circuit design is much more fun, and it keeps the mind sharp too. 🙂

I’ve been working with the gentleman at delta com on this, he is also actively working to identify the signals, his transmitters are 25w and the nearest is in Southfield. 
 
ill look some more, still waiting to hear back from the general manager of the water tower who is responsible for its operations. The only licenses I found were for ATT on that water tower. 

I've done some technical writing for the company I work at, Power Point slide shows for training/sales, test procedures and manuals, but it's not my primary job. People think it's easy. Nope! It's boring mind numbing work and requires a lot of attention to details. People who do it full time professionally really earn their money. Doing design calculations, simulations and circuit design is much more fun, and it keeps the mind sharp too. 🙂

My parents are both in their 70's. They dont go on jeep events but wanted a radio to talk on my repeaters. The Midland is perfect for that. Why would I buy a crazy complicated CCR to put in there vehicels that they would totally baffled about. I mean I still can't get my father to swtich from his flip phone and holy crap when someone sends him a text and the "darn thing beeps at me".
You also dont realize the amount of farmers that use midland. I've installed a dozen repeaters (LMR) for farms that are using Midlands in all the tractors and equipment on the farm. They are simple and last. 
If your using GMRS as HAM lite then your right there are better choices. But for simple communications they serve a purpose and will sell more than all the other vendors combined this year and next year. 

While I was not initially impressed with the radio, after spending time using it, it became 1 of 2 radios I recommend for an OTC purpose built radio.  I recommend the KG-1000G for those who want the bells and whistles and like to play with tech, and I recommend the MXT500 or MXT575 for people who just want it to work out of the box and simple operation. 
 
Everyone has their opinions. There are plenty of good radios on the market for varying prices, but the Midland radios are definitely a good brand with quality options.

My wife and I wrote a script for a training video on how to program and use DMR radios. Yep, our marriage was strained for a while. 😮

Yeah, programming a DMR radio is a PIA. Then again NXDN and P25 isn’t much different. I’ve done all three of the above.

There is.  I’m still helping my blind friend with his DMR radio (as well as my own) and I wish I could get the ear of the firmware programmers for these Anytone and Alinco DMR radios. There’s absolutely no reason it has to be as difficult as it is. With simple changes in firmware a person could easily just create two channels for each repeater (one per timeslot) and then just input or select the talk group. DMR radios would only be slightly more complicated than analog. 

In my experience it's also somewhat buggy too. Maybe by now they have more of the crappy bugs fixed. Also the firmware in the radio had some annoying quirks too.
The feature I find most useful is the DMR monitoring mode in the radio. I wish my commercial radios had this, but that wasn't necessary since the market for them ends up with the radios pretty much programmed up once and that's the end of it.   

Even though this scenario can actually happen, I encourage you to get your ham license and get on the air. You will increase your circle of trusted friends which can be a real asset during such an event.
Also, I think it was @Lscott that pointed out once that in a stressful situation you want a radio that is very simple to operate. It sounds like good advice to me.

In my experience it's also somewhat buggy too. Maybe by now they have more of the crappy bugs fixed. Also the firmware in the radio had some annoying quirks too.
The feature I find most useful is the DMR monitoring mode in the radio. I wish my commercial radios had this, but that wasn't necessary since the market for them ends up with the radios pretty much programmed up once and that's the end of it.   

Cool. Like to know what you find.

My employer has a "Spectrum Management" organization, while I fall under the "hardware" side of the equation. I have had to specify this 2017 aspect to them so many times it has led me to send them to some of your videos for layman's term version of FCC legalese. 
We use everything from Motorola TalkAbout series GMRS, to APX8000/8500 radios.....and where the specific model meets the needs and legality of the area they will be used (nationwide). 
So many people do not understand that things changed in 2017.
 

Cool. Like to know what you find.

Cool. Like to know what you find.

Cool. Like to know what you find.

Yup, it's a multi-multi-band radio. 🤣 You can transmit on a half dozen VHF and UHF frequencies all at the same time. 🤐
I had a buddy at work who got one of those super cheap BF-888's UHF radios to experiment with it. There is a hack to program in some VHF frequencies. He tried it. It worked all right. Then I tuned my radio for the third harmonic. Oh-oh... I could hear him even better on the third harmonic spur! Well that ended that experiment. Never used that radio again.

What if they don't drive? 😳

You can try removing the antenna on the radio. That's a cheap kind of signal attenuater. Do that when the signal gets real strong with the antenna connected. When you get close enough to the source the radio should respond even without the antenna connected.
One other trick is flip the radio over so the antenna is horizontal. The source antenna is likely vertical and the cross polarization results in may cases another 20db attenuation. Then rotate in a circle. When the signal is minimum either the end of the antenna is point nearly towards the source or directly away from it. Try that in several locations and that can help pin down the area.

Awesome - gonna do this now. 

You can try removing the antenna on the radio. That's a cheap kind of signal attenuater. Do that when the signal gets real strong with the antenna connected. When you get close enough to the source the radio should respond even without the antenna connected.
One other trick is flip the radio over so the antenna is horizontal. The source antenna is likely vertical and the cross polarization results in may cases another 20db attenuation. Then rotate in a circle. When the signal is minimum either the end of the antenna is point nearly towards the source or directly away from it. Try that in several locations and that can help pin down the area.

You can try removing the antenna on the radio. That's a cheap kind of signal attenuater. Do that when the signal gets real strong with the antenna connected. When you get close enough to the source the radio should respond even without the antenna connected.
One other trick is flip the radio over so the antenna is horizontal. The source antenna is likely vertical and the cross polarization results in may cases another 20db attenuation. Then rotate in a circle. When the signal is minimum either the end of the antenna is point nearly towards the source or directly away from it. Try that in several locations and that can help pin down the area.

You can try removing the antenna on the radio. That's a cheap kind of signal attenuater. Do that when the signal gets real strong with the antenna connected. When you get close enough to the source the radio should respond even without the antenna connected.
One other trick is flip the radio over so the antenna is horizontal. The source antenna is likely vertical and the cross polarization results in may cases another 20db attenuation. Then rotate in a circle. When the signal is minimum either the end of the antenna is point nearly towards the source or directly away from it. Try that in several locations and that can help pin down the area.

Flex-N-Gate is licensed for 462.5125MHz per FCC database. Emission is narrow band FM.
Plant location in database is BATTLE CREEK, MI CALHOUN County.
https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/UlsSearch/licenseFreqSum.jsp?licKey=3494581
I wonder if somebody was miss programming radios for DMR and they ended up at the R.O. location.