Ian
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Posts posted by Ian
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Not yet. Enjoying my MXT-275 in spite of that, though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDBrXb44fBc
Trying for an install like this.
Edit: Already bought the parts, just holding out for an antenna I like. The original plan for a fender-mounted Sti-Co covert antenna is on hold pending saving up about $400, and an RF safety evaluation because being in the same plane with 50 watts and a high-gain antenna gives me pause. Yes, the 275 only does 15 watts, but I'm not willing to limit myself to 15 watts in the long term. Now I'm looking at a Meso Customs brake light with NMO mount. Better visibility, AND no new holes in the hullmetal!
Downside is it costs $290. Upside is that it frees me from spending $317 for the covert antenna, or that I could save that for a CB mount at some point in the future.Edit: Hm. A $290 mount and antenna cost about the same as the $317 Sti-Co antenna, come to think of it.
- marcspaz and rdunajewski
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Dunno, but if not it should. The technology exists.
I was sort of imagining a civilianized version of the military radios that share a common backplane a while ago -- something that'd fit in a double-DIN stereo slot, with separate radios, and a shared screen and mic. Seems like it has potential to work really well with an auto-voting mic like you're imagining.
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The UV-5R, containing controls to operate the transceiver, is intended to be held. It's not protected under Nevada's hands-free laws. Whoever initiates the traffic stop might use their discretion to not issue a ticket for a radio on the hip or in a center console as the radio isn't readily accessible, but if you get caught it's probably for taking your eyes off the road to change channel or something.
Most commercial and CB radios (designed for road use) meet those legal requirements, while most ham and Part 95 GMRS radios (designed for operator convenience) do not.
I wonder if you bolted the Baofeng to the dash, while using a battery eliminator…. Or better, bolted the battery eliminator to the dash.
Also, it looks like every Midland except the 105 has channel buttons on the mic. That means every current-production meant-for-GMRS radio that's repeater capable falls afoul of this law.
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Since siting is so important to performance, this is the most exciting newbie repeater project I've seen so far.
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https://handsfreeinfo.com/index-cell-phone-laws-legislation-by-state/
Nevada:
The term does not include a device used for two-way radio communications if:
(1) The person using the device has a license to operate the device, if required; and
(2) All the controls for operating the device, other than the microphone and a control to speak into the microphone, are located on a unit which is used to transmit and receive communications and which is separate from the microphone and is not intended to be held.
So much for my MXT275.
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Well, I can't say I agree on your first point (see below), but, I do agree whole-heartedly with your conclusion.
Agreed. In open space, VHF will travel further, have lower path loss and better building penetration than UHF (See this paper for more information). On the other hand, UHF may actually work better inside a building because of signal splatter and reflection.
Super cool, thanks!
Well, I am sorry if I call BS to the 5 miles on narrowband, portable to portable using GD-77s. I am lucky if I get more than 1 mile using my GD-77 on UHF, and going inside a store, or any building for that matter, the range halves. Even with my base antenna on a Vertex Standard EVX-5300 running just 10W, the GD-77 is deaf hearing the base beyond 2-3 miles while the EVX-5300 can ANY 5W portable at over 11 miles away... that tells you the receiver on those is just garbage. In contrast, the Alinco DJ-MD5 can hear the base at 3 miles pretty much full quiet, the GD77 cannot.
Motorola, even their FRS stuff is hardly a CCR, and I also have a few old bubblepack radios that destroy the GD77 in every aspect (except price)... the first one that comes to my mind is the Midland G11 with removable antenna, which was a pretty nice radio, I still have a few of those lying around, got pretty decent range out of those, the antennas were very well tuned too...
I understand as I've recently lost my Alinco DJ-MD5, it wasn't a Motorola pricetag kind of loss, but it still sucked. I will get another one at some point b/c I like those MD5 radios b/c they are small and have dual band so I can listen to all DMR traffic around town.
My experience with MURS has been the opposite, VHF reaches WAY further than UHF for the same amount of power.
G.
Actually, only one GD-77s. The other is either a Midland MXT275, or an Anytone TERMN-8R. Perhaps they're covering up for the weakness of the GD-77s' front-end filtering with clean output into a low-noise area? I know I don't have any repeaters nearby, the only thing I can hear from here is, occasionally from a hilltop, a Jacksonville repeater automatically ID'ing, so I suspect I'm in an unexpectedly favorable RF environment. Terrain is Florida, so flat as a pancake. I have a few repeaters handy when I go to the beach, but the middle of the state is a dead zone. Also, I'm the only one who ever uses those repeaters in Cocoa Beach, as far as I can tell; I like to monitor them and SARnet when I'm beaching it up.
This place is just a dead zone, for the most part. Every third time I drive by a park, I hear DMR on channel 16. Occasionally a kid with a walkie-talkie after Christmases. But for all I scan, I don't hear much at all.
Edit: Nah, you were right. I just checked the maps, and it's closer to 1.7 miles to the grocery store.
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I hear DTMF tones all over Nebraska on MURS. I looked into it a year ago, and found out that several farms in the area use MURS for a remote monitoring and telemetry system for their crop irrigation systems and water wells. There is also at least one company making MURS remote alarm systems for farm buildings and gates.
MURS is legal for all of those kinds of things, so that's likely what you're hearing.
Most people using MURS for these types of operations do not even know what frequency or band they are using. All they know is that they purchased this wireless thing that lets them know back home when someone opens the pasture gate, and they have another wireless thing that tells them how many gallons per minute the pump is flowing.
Are you thinking of the Dakota Alert gear? I’ve got four of the handies, three bases, and two antennas for them, and I can’t say anything unkind about them other than there should be screwhead-mounting-keyholes on the base for wall mount, and the handies don’t feel super sturdy. They take AA batteries, rechargeable, and are clearly designed for low lifetime cost of operation (you can use Eneloops, and only replace the one bad cell at a time). Proprietary antennas, sadly, but they’re replaceable. No scan function. No big deal. They’re serviceable workaday radios that don’t break the bank designed for rural living, not industrial abuse. I’m tempted to buy a few of their sensors, and build a perimeter around my house, but I know that’s silly and excessive, and it’s an expensive project that’s just for fun.
It’ll wait until I have more hobby budget, though.On that topic, I’m pretty sure my mystery MURS message (there’s a Morse ID somewhere in those recordings...) is farm telemetry. Smack in the middle of Wedgefield Florida, with three big radio towers in view, is some kind of automated telemetry. Either a farmer’s, related to that tower, or maybe beamed down the high-voltage powerlines I’m about to drive under, it really seems like some kind of low-bandwidth M2M machine-to-machine telemetry.
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I’m in the market for another MXT275 in the next several months. Glad I can support the forum while I’m at it.
- Downs, rdunajewski and kipandlee
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Look, I know it’s an objectively bad radio, but it sat at the intersection of a Venn diagram that makes it uniquely compelling to me. Grocery store’s about five miles, and all I’ve known up to this point is bubblepack junk, a couple very nice Radio Shack FRS units, sadly underused, and now with PTT keys gone crunchy and disintegrated disabling otherwise sweet hardware, and Motorola Spirit SV-22 MURS units. Those are my favorite, but they’re heavy and can barely make it to the gas station, because VHF.
I’m not saying that they’re good at receive desnsing, but if you want bad bad, you should look at the Retevis RT-22 and its clones. I’ve never gotten the GD-77 to desense, but those do it at the drop of a hat.
I’m not hugely demanding of simplex comms. If I could find decent FRS, I’d be happy with that… except I have, in the form of the Motorola Sport 7. At this age, only about half of the ones on eBay work, and I’ve bought every one available, and I have two. They’re fantastic. Those Radio Shack ones are smaller, but they use AAAs (though they’ll charge them if you have a 9v adapter) and lack CTCSS, but can be set to any one of 22 channels with the DIP switches, whereas the Motorolas can only do seven channels, (1, 4, 8, 11…) and seven codes chosen more or less at random (set with a dial designed to be wrenched on with a quarter behind the battery compartment).
As for the GD-77, I’ve bowed to interoperability and run it narrowbanded, since most of my fleet is narrowband-only, and only the Talkabout Distances do wideband.
Ultimately, the project for which it was bought was to figure out who the heck was running DMR on channel 16 at the local park. Sadly, either the traffic’s encrypted, or setting up DMR is simply beyond me (for now…).
Still, if I’m carrying only one radio, there’s a good chance that’s the one. After I lost one of my Anytones to a drop, I’m leery about carrying irreplaceable hardware into the field (even if it’s just Home Depot) without careful consideration. Commercial-grade Motos (into which I place even the Sport 7) are reassuring, as is “not irreplaceable”. I have a wealth of good radios to pick from as my needs evolve, and I thank you for your advice on them.
CCRs have their place… which is “close to whoever you need to talk to.”
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But it's important to realize when it's not practical to pay for more selectivity. Good commercial handhelds have enough selectivity to allow full-duplex operation by one operator, with a few feet of antenna separation. Good mobiles do better than that. If that's not enough desense protection, there's other issues at play. There's no improvement to be made if there isn't an issue, so it's just wasted money and/or lost functionality.
CCRs work just fine as transceivers for 99% of the population. Yes, they don't work in the busy RF environments found at an enthusiast's base station, a command post, or when working near other operators on different in-band channels. They're cheap, show people what the hobby can offer, and include a lot of features (like FPP and ridiculous channel capacity) that new operators need to find their niche within the hobby and understand what parameters need to be configured to operate cleanly on someone else's system. And when they break (probably due to a novice operator blowing out the finals or dropping it), it's not a big investment being lost. They exist in the market for a reason: because they do work, unlike what the topic's title implies. They wouldn't sell if they didn't. It's important to understand their limitations, but they're not as severe as you're making it out to be.
Believe it or not, the GD-77S is my favorite radio at the moment. It solves practical problems by slinging squiggles, and it's even type-accepted as a business radio (No FPP). As such, it qualifies as the "surplus commercial equipment" that the 2017 memorandum stated was never intended to be banished from the GMRS, and I believe it's legal under the latest regulations.
And at five watts, it's my most powerful cheap squiggle-slinger. Used with Motorola gear (2W) on both high and low (1W), it's absolutely comprehensible in two directions when cell phones aren't getting enough signal to send a text message.
Is it "good"? Apparently not. Is it good enough? For me and those like me, yeah it is. (And if it gets dropped, I didn't just break irreplaceable hardware!)
Edited to add: And at 5w back and forth, it'll reach from handie to handie all the way to our grocery store, and inside too. As far as I'm concerned, that performance is mind-blowing.
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Did you look at the first thread I linked above where, in response to a comment from you, n4gix wrote:
And then, all the way at the end, where bpendleton wrote:
I missed that somehow!
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There is a RT 97 portable repeater offered for 300$ an change. 10 watt output ??.
Any body know this radio?
It's split is backwards for GMRS, and frankly even ham conventions.
Otherwise, I'd be rocking one with a balloon-lofted discone antenna for fairground communications.
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https://www.retevis.com/handheld-gmrs-two-way-radio-rt76
New repeater-capable handheld, currenly in production, $31.19.
Any experience with this, or am I going to be the one to write the first review?
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That's a really cool setup -- keep us posted on what you come up with!
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Hey guys and gals! I've got a big pile of 90s vintage Spirits and Talkabout Distances. The antennas have all gone brittle, and are exceeding the point of effective duct tape repairs. There's a mixture of Spirits, model SV-22, running on MURS in blue and green dot, and Talkabout Distance and Distance DPS units. The antennas are all going, and the decay is accelerating. I like handing these out to nontechnical family members, because there's not anything they can screw up other than changing the channel unintentionally. But RF burns are a bad thing, so ...
Help me pick out some antennae, please! Ideally, they'll be visually distinctive; Motorola's latest ones are stamped with UHF and VHF, which is nice, but I'm open to third-party ones and have a mild preference for silicone jacketing.
Thanks!
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https://forums.mygmrs.com/topic/1448-seeking-logical-rationale-for-type-95/?p=13112
I believe that using the UV-82C for GMRS would be legal, per the two-year-old FCC guidance linked here. Then again, the left hand seems unsure of what the right hand is doing, and there's a distressing lack of new-production GMRS radios capable of operating to the limits of permitted emissions. This'll be a good time to get the popcorn out... But I'm no longer afraid to transmit with my Radioddity GD-77s (which I've long used for scanning repeaters).
https://transition.fcc.gov/oet/ea/presentations/files/nov17/54-Part-95-Misc-Eqpt-Filing-r1-TH.pdf -
That FCC publication strongly implies that part 90 radios may be used on part 95 without specific certification; it also implies that 90/95 dual service certification will continue to be available.
The way I see it, the golden radio is something like the GD-77s -- part 90 certified ham radios. They'll tune the whole 70cm band, and the 90 cert implies it may be used on GMRS, per that publication.
- ratkin and DeoVindice
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FRS and GMRS use the same frequencies, though.
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Why there's a prohibition of having amateur and GMRS channels together on the same Part 90-certified and 'otherwise compliant' radio, I don't know. I would expect it to be a prohibition of marketing dual-service radios, given the difference in intended use and operational procedures between the two services.
https://transition.fcc.gov/oet/ea/presentations/files/nov17/54-Part-95-Misc-Eqpt-Filing-r1-TH.pdf
Page 13, second bullet. Emphasis mine:
n149 Several commenters are concerned that the proposal to prohibit combination radios would prevent GMRS licensees from using surplus Part 90 equipment in GMRS. ... This is not our intent. We will continue to certify equipment that meets the respective technical standards for Part 90 (land mobile) and Part 95 (GMRS) in both services, if requested. However, we are amending the language in new section 95.1761© to clarify the requirement in old section 95.655(a) that Part 95 GMRS radios will not be certified if they are equipped with the capabilities to operate in services that do not require equipment certification, such as the Amateur Radio Service. -
https://www.amazon.com/DEWALT-DXFRS800-Talkies-Business-Two-Way/dp/B07J2DGCLT
DeWalt and others are selling FRS as "license-free business radios" now...
Edit: Cobra too.
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I'd also add the Radioddity GD-77s; it's a display-free version of the GD-77, and was in fact the first DMR radio without display or keypad, if I remember correctly. It has quickly become my favorite handheld, especially for handing to other people. When programmed for MURS, there's really not a lot of trouble they can get into -- channels 1-5 are carrier squelched, 6-10 are 67 Hz, and 11-15 are 141.3, with 16 scanning weather. (Obviously, TX locked!)
In addition, it's not intimidating. You just tell them a channel number, they turn the dial...
Basically the same UI that made me pine for 1990s Motorola.
How popular is GMRS (in subjective terms)?
in General Discussion
Posted
My personal use-case is mostly caravanning, much like what CB would be used for in decades past. Just this last weekend, I had an hour-long conversation while driving on 22-22 (channel 22, 141.3)
I also plug radios into my hearing protection when doing something loud ever since a couple hurricanes ago (chainsaws are loud!).
But generally, lately, I favor FRS radios for the occasional around-the-house or around-the-store thing now, because they're smaller and easier to carry than GMRS or MURS radios I own.
One of these days, I'm putting up a Ventenna and setting up a home base radio doing 40-50 watts and/or a garage repeater, but that's pretty niche utility for me; scanning on handhelds produces basically no traffic around here, and I'm not super hopeful of reaching my neighbors.