Ian
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Posts posted by Ian
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On 8/20/2022 at 1:50 PM, KAF6045 said:
Mounting an antenna next to another is not recommended (besides the potential of overloading the AM/FM receiver front-end) the parallel antennas will interact and may cause SWR detuning or an inadvertent directionality of the signal. I'd suggest at least a foot of distance, more would be better. On my rust-bucket Liberty, the mag-mount that came with my MXT115 is near the front of the roof (about where the headrests of the seats, centered), a mag-mount CB antenna is about 18" behind that, and two-three feet in front of the AM/FM antenna. The 2m/70cm antenna is a glass-mount on the left (to get it away from curb-side trees when parking) rear side window (best I could do, even though they say not to mount on tinted glass -- have you seen any car that doesn't have rear&side windows tinted in the last decades?).
Relevant to this, Sti-Co makes combined entertainment/2-way radios that hook into the car stereo and the UHF radio by way of a diplexer; this would prevent that exact problem.
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On 1/22/2022 at 9:48 PM, lawenforcement said:
I recently purchased a Retevis RT97S Portable Repeater through the Mygmrs.com website. After viewing products on the Retevis website I noted that they sell this repeater in a package that includes an external RF power amplifier that's installed between the repeater's output and the antenna feedline in order to increase the repeater's output wattage. Does anyone know how this configuration could possibly work? It seems to me that once the RF power amp is keyed up, it would cut off the input to the repeater / duplexer. The power amp can't possibly be passing the incoming frequency to the repeater / duplexer's antenna input while the external power amp is keyed up so the repeater's receiver would effectively be without an antenna connected during transmission. Retevis responded to me by saying they have customers who are successfully using this product combination BUT they did not say they have tested it themselves.
I was wondering about that scenario a couple days ago. It says on the Baofeng 40-watt amp description that the analog models pass RF passively when the amp is off, and I was wondering if I could get away with a cheater repeater like this.
Short answer? Not without replacing the duplexer with a fifty-watt model, sounds like. That's another hundred bucks on Amazon…
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On 8/25/2022 at 9:37 AM, Lscott said:
The match is better than I expected.
Looking at the photo the BNC to Banana Jack adapter is a terrible idea. You would have been better off looking for a short coax with a BNC connector on the ends, then cut one off and attach the free end to your Yagi.
It's already reading 1.04, I wouldn't change a single thing! … But yeah, that would have been more elegant looking.
Still, it's hard to beat free.
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Mine was an early unit. It was a series of disappointments. If you're going to buy one, make sure you get a late-production unit; the early ones had crippling firmware bugs.
Firmware fixes for the early units enable front-panel programming, but break programming via CHIRP or the Retevis programming software.
WRQK522, you seem to be having the problem I had. Do a firmware update.
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I use it pretty frequently, although recently I've enjoyed using my "unicorn" radios more often since my Motorola ni-cad batteries are shitting the bed.
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Motorola Spirit VHF with 2 watts on "green dot" and "blue dot", selected via toggle switch
Motorola Radius with two watts on one channel of the latter two
Motorola Radius with two channels selected by a rotary switch, and support for CTCSS unlike the two-channel Spirit units
Dakota Alert handhelds, which feel a lot jankier than the Motos, but take AA batteries. I feed them Eneloop 2000 mAh NiMH LSD cells. They also interoperate with Dakoda Alert's proprietary signaling and perimeter sensors, which I haven't had opportunity to fuck with yet.
Anytone TERMN-8R
And I listen to wal-mart on ham radios whenever I'm bored and in the vicinity.
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God, ATAK plus a MURS HT would make a damn fine mobile "dispatch" terminal for the Group Ride Radio.
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On 7/27/2021 at 8:42 AM, tweiss3 said:
Garmin already has something like this, its Tread ($800) plus Group Ride Radio ($350)
https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/702373#specs
https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/705043
It's based on MURS, where this is already allowed. You wouldn't be able to get the antenna to work in its current location with UHF and additional power if without exceeding RF exposure limits or making problems with the electronics.
This … this is the grail radio that I would have loved like five years ago. Never gonna be able to splash out for one at this rate, but…
Why did it have to be MURS? Why not make it work with the Rino series? Why not offer Rino radios in MURS, at the very least?
It's got five data pins on the back of the 5" model, which is good enough to attach the Group Ride Radio; the 8" unit has nineteen data pins -- can we get a Rino compatible GMRS we can connect via those pins? It would fulfill the FCC's requirements, and Mic-E would be perfectly adequate for communicating data bursts over GMRS. (I imagine encoding callsign into the opening chirp, and location data into the closing chirp…)
Bloody brilliant, and yet they're still trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory…
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I've never used a hotspot either. Right now I can't get my GD-77 to talk to my PC, so I'm in a bit of a pickle as updating it goes. Still, this bad boy has more than enough memory slots for all the weird stuff I could possibly need to scan!
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On 2/1/2022 at 10:33 AM, MichaelLAX said:
I've heard of a Prolific chip in USB cables, but not prolific mode.
Is that the same as Promiscuous Mode in DMR?
If so, for $69, hard to beat the Radioddity RD-5R DMR/analog HT, which is their GD-77 in a UV-5R style case and now there is the OpenGD77 Firmware project that supports this radio, too.
Thank you, that's the word I was looking for!
Mine just came in the mail.
Do they actually use the same software and codeplugs as the GD-77?
Oooh, I'll have to check that out, thanks!
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On 8/9/2021 at 11:37 PM, scubadude85 said:
Thank you for that. The only problem I have is it don't tell what level of ham ticket is needed. Like tech or gen or extra. I need a quote to prove the level needed. The other problem I have is learning the info needed in all my looking on the internet I can find practice tests witch I fail because I don't know the info needed. So how do I get the proper info to pass the testing that is needed?
The ISS is in the UHF/VHF bands which a mere Technician has privileges for. A tech with a BaoFeng can do it, but more fine-grained control to compensate for Doppler shift would be worlds away better. You'll also want a UHF/VHF directional antenna and a steady hand to keep the thing pointed right at the station.
(I honestly don't know which ISS radios are currently active; I read that they recently got a new Kenwood VHF rig a few years ago…)
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That'd be great, but I can't afford a Yaesu.
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https://cryptomuseum.com/burst/ma4230/index.htm
My holy grail of "learning Morse". Digital signaling is for machines.
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On 12/18/2021 at 11:49 AM, MichaelLAX said:
Well that's too bad that you feel that way because $27 radios can be a "gateway drug" into the wonders of radio transmission, and in my anecdotal experience here in Southern California, they are!
Then people see the advantages of a more quality and hence more expensive radio and by that time have the knowledge to know what to buy next!
No, but it is clear that YOU are dying to tell us what it means to YOU; so please end our suspense!
CCRs were in fact my gateway drug into advanced radioing.
- SteveShannon and MichaelLAX
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Ouch. Seriously, though, I collect "unicorns" -- things the FCC approved though they violate FCC rules. FRS radios with detachable antennas, MURS multiservice radios, type-certified DMR FRS radios, weird shit.
- DeoVindice, wayoverthere and WRYF747
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Only one I've dropped coin on so far is DMR, 'cause I could afford it. Also, some of it's cheap enough that I wouldn't cry if I broke my radio! I wouldn't be happy, but I wouldn't cry either.
Still, I really wish I could find a cheap radio with a really good prolific mode. I'm reminded of Motorola Talkabout DPS radios -- put them in scan, and once they pick up something, you can key up, and the radio will mimic the channel and code of the last incoming transmission.
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On 1/11/2022 at 10:13 PM, WRAX515 said:
Yes I own one. And honestly at 1W power I would save your money and buy another radio. Initially I was buying it to use on 900 MHz ham frequencies since it covers the whole spectrum without any modifications like Motorola 900 radios do. However with 1W of power and 900 MHz repeaters not common in my area it just wasn't making the distance I needed to. So for about the same price I got a Motorola XPR6580 and software-modified it to use on 900 MHz bands and with the 3W power for the Motorola it does the job quite well. Bottom line, the Retevis 900 MHz radio is junk if you need it for repeater-type access, but for local on-site comms it works just fine within reasonable distance. Hope this helps...
How would it work for cross-band repeater use? That's the killer app for these ISM radios for me -- connecting to a big chunky base station in one spot in the house from anywhere on the property with a little shirt-pocket handheld. Traditionally, this has been the realm of the garage repeater, but if I cross-band, I can transmit on repeater inputs from the big remote radio, which would be kind of a killer app for me.
I'd just use MURS, but that's specifically forbidden from operating cross-band.
Edit: They mention double time slots, AMBE, and color codes. Is this just a DMR radio?
Crap, I wish they'd support AES256 or AES512. Not that I need that kind of encryption, but it definiterly makes my inner cypherpunk happy.
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On 1/11/2022 at 11:31 PM, PACNWComms said:
I still have those eXRS radios, I will not even give them away to anyone, they are that bad.
Not even to someone who collects failed techology like that? :3
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For the love of Xenu, why isn't the 275 programmable like the 400? I should __not__ have to ditch handheld-control-head mounting convenience for the sake of PC programmability. For Midland, it would be easy to hide advanced features behind a PC programming cable, but for anyone __but__ midland, implementing them is simply __impossible.__
They're __so close__ to actually making a __really great__ radio, and not just "Eh, good enough" radios…
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On 1/20/2022 at 11:21 AM, marcspaz said:
Something I was thinking about with regard to Line A... 90% of the US population lives on the the US borders and coast lines. ~79,633,000 people live on the northern border. That means that Line A has the potential to impact communications for more than 24% of the people in the lower 48 states.
As much as I like the idea of picking a channel, a channel other than 20 to avoid conflict with potential ORI type repeaters, a solution that potentially excludes almost one quarter of the population doesn't seem like a solution at all, IMHO. In fact, I would be more prone to encourage people to use 20 over 19, since many repeaters have light traffic and operators are supposed to be mindful of not causing interference as part of their license agreement, anyway.
I don't know the right answer. Just thinking.
I thought the point of ORI stuff was to allow opportunistic use by people who are in the region briefly to contact anyone physically nearby?
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Since the consensus appears to be 19 simplex, I will be reprogramming my radios.
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On 1/8/2022 at 1:44 PM, DanW said:
And some of you folks going with channel 20 love it because you've got your little ctss code to keep the hoards and unwashed masses from joining the party.
This might surprise you: I 100% support you in doing exactly that.
I'll be on simplex channel 19 and I think we'll both be happy. Win/Win!
I'm certainly not doing it to be exclusionary, just to be able to toggle from opportunistic use of ORI repeaters to simplex without changing parameters on the radio. If I could get a MXT275 to scan just 20/22 and 19/xx, that's what I'd have as a priority scan list. I suspect this sort of thing is what dual-watch and dual-ptt was always intended for…
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When I'm driving, I set 20(22) -- channel 20, 141.3 Hz CTCSS.
2022 is the year of the travel channel, friends!
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47 minutes ago, Padre1357 said:
It wouldn't be legal to transmit and I'm not sure I'd spend the money on it to risk in the water but, look at the FT3D with a mars mod.
Honestly, if you're going to freeband, might as well save the money and get a cheap baofeng. It's not good enough for Safety Of Life At Sea purposes, but if you just want to screw around, you couldn't really do it much cheaper.
RT97S wideband operation
in Technical Discussion
Posted
Yeah, it's due to the much higher insertion losses when their tiny duplexer is tuned for a 5 MHz offset, I believe.
I'm amazed they didn't check to see if the VHF unit was operating in anything like a usable band configuration, to be honest…