Logan5

Please feel free to pressure the FCC to revise the rules to allow digital voice transmissions on GMRS. Emphasis on voice, not data. The rules are just out of date with the state of technology, so it'd be nice to bring GMRS up to the Ham standard, so to speak.

Review 47CFR95.631 sub (e)  -  "(e) No GMRS or CB transmitter shall employ a digital modulation or emission."

good news! it was the software setting.... i configured the output "com2" for PTT in the advanced settings tab of the programming software.  a friend on facebook also mentioned it might be a software config when i posted this link on the GMRS group. 
 
so now it will TX correctly!  but i have the audio in wrong because it wont pass audio, and no repeater beep so i'm sure its the wrong pin between controller and TX radio.
 
it might be a week before i will have time to work on this again, but i will post as i make progress!

I am happy to live in a voluntary HOA, We still employed an attorney for out 55' tower install. Turns out federal law protects any one that lives in an HOA,  Access to effective communications is protected by the FCC. You can not be forced to buy cable if you wish to access satellite TV signals or use an old timer TV antenna. A reasonable accommodation must be made.  Federal law protects standard TV antennas, Radio FM antennas, HAM radio and 2way radio antennas. as well as satellite antennas. As I read the law, some HOA's have offered your choice over per-existing coax to prevent members from installing said antennas. The last condo I lived in, offered, MAST TV, direct and dish as well as ATT u-verse. I still installed my UHF yagi on a cinder-block on my balcony for my radio. Many property managers are not aware of these laws and even when they are, they lie and tell home owners that it does not apply to them because they signed the contract. That is totally false.

i'm back on this project... i started building the custom cables to go between the two TK880 radios and the controller.  Its slow going, i have everything on the bench and testing tonight.  I'm taking photos and will post an update when i have something to share.   

Speaking of the unlicensed, I'd like to expand that term to the "Don't Know, Don't Care Group"  (DKDCG)! I spoke to one of these on Saturday while I was in a small town of about 30,000 people near me.
 
I had the radio on scan when I heard that annoying warbling sound produced by somebody hitting the "Call Button" on a walkie talkie. If that wasn't annoying enough, the scanner was following him up through the channels, one, two, three, four, etc. After listening to him move through all the channels twice, I thought maybe someone was actually in trouble and trying to find help on any possible channel. I identified myself and asked if someone needed assistance. The response was "No, I'm just trying to see if this radio works". 
 
To make a long story short we talked for maybe 3 or 4 minutes while I explained to him (obviously an adult male) about licensing and the power and channel restrictions. I encouraged him to stay on the FRS only channels if he wasn't going to get a license and to especially avoid the Repeater channels, explaining that he could be interfering with legitimate communications. He responded with short, unintelligent answers. I finally signed off and went back to scanning mode, only to hear him back on the repeater channels warbling through every frequency, just as if nothing happened!

 
 
​The famous turn of the century evangelist Billy Sunday once said, "Anybody can get born again, but stupid is forever"!

Yeah.. Allow users to easily mark a repeater as out of service.  
AntiSquid Disclaimer: All posted content is personal opinion only and may not imply fact or accusation.

The uv5r series is hit or miss. Some earlier versions had poor audio. Being designed around a commercial model, the microphone circuit isn't very hot, to prevent picking up background noise. 
AntiSquid Disclaimer: All posted content is personal opinion only and may not imply fact or accusation.

I have been running a BridgeCom BC-40DU repeater for nearly a full year now 24/7 since first power on. Unfortunately my antenna system isn't adequate to really allow the repeater to perform as well as it could, but that's certainly not the repeater's fault!

Ironically, this post gave me an interesting (dangerous) idea. Simplex repeater, P25 receive, analog transmit. Subs are programmed to receive analog and transmit P25.
 
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Besides being illegal for use in GMRS, I think you'd find the simplex repeater (store and forward) really annoying in very, very short time.
 
By "BF" I am guessing you mean Baofeng? Your abbreviations are not necessarily anyone else's. Better to use the full word. Yes, you can use a Baofeng for the receive part of a repeater, but you won't be happy. It will be desensed by the transmit side, and isn't a particularly sensitive radio for this purpose.
 
If you're serious about building a repeater, get a pair of decent mobile radios. Interconnect them properly and use a decent duplexer and antenna. If it was me, I'd use Motorola CDM's, but I already have the software, cables, and experience with them.

The license question has already been answered for you several times. No need to keep posting the same question in different threads.
 
For the rules: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2009-title47-vol5/pdf/CFR-2009-title47-vol5-part95.pdf
 
Read back through some of the threads here. Part 95 has been extensively discussed on this forum. and those threads should answer most any question you might have about iterpreting the rules.

Hey, folks, I am thinking strongly about using an Argent simplex repeater in our off grid hunting cabin to maintain contact over an area of about 10 square miles.  The Argent has the ability to record messages for broadcasting to a specific frequency at a specific time.  I don't know if that is what the FCC calls a page or not.  As a matter of fact I can't make heads or tails of most the FCC part 95.  However, if the simplex repeater has paging ability would it be illegal to use the repeater but not that feature?  While we are at that subject, is it OK to use a BF radio in a 2 radio duplex repeater if the BF is the RX part?
 
Sincerely,
Bill
WQYR910
KG5RGI

Thanks, guys, for the good input.  Being a newbie to GMRS would be even more difficult without such forums as this one.  I appreciate every single input to my questions.
 
Sincerely,
 
Bill Dempsey
WQTR910
KG5ERGI

Newbie here, first post actually!
 
I picked up one of these radios recently and have noticed a couple things.
 
1)  The GMRS-V1 starts with channel 0 instead of 1 so if you are using this radio with your more typical GMRS radios like Cobra, Motorola etc. your channel numbers are all off by 1 channel, i.e Ch. 1 on a Motorola is actually Ch. 0 on the V1.  I'm hoping this can be reprogrammed with CHIRP but haven't tried it yet.
 
2)  The scanning function for CTCSS tones doesn't work very well, or I'm doing it wrong.  I suggest having a printout of the CTCSS tones of whatever other radio you are trying to communicate with as there isn't a standard it appears across the many consumer GMRS units.
 
Obviously if you are using the V1 with another V1, neither of these issues matter, nor are they deal breakers when using with units for other manufacturers, just something to be aware of should you purchase a V1.

I and others on here are of the opinion that any Part 90 gear that meets the technical requirements in Part 95 (which virtually all do today) is okay to use on GMRS when operated within the appropriate limits. I know you mentioned Part 95 specifically, and there is still a legal gray area on what I just said above. The issue is that there isn't a lot of equipment available that is certified for GMRS to the extent that the Part 95 rules are a major hinderance to the service.
 
Following the letter of the law, then you should only use Part 95 equipment. However the rules exist to set minimum technical requirements and modern Part 90 radios are compliant and worthy substitutes (in many cases also exceed the specifications of Part 95).
 
From an enforcement standpoint, it's really a non-issue. I've seen no reports of the FCC taking issue with a Part 90 radio, being operated correctly (i.e. within proper power limits), on GMRS. There is no way to tell aside from a station inspection that the radio is not Part 95 compliant.
 
I'll stress once again that this is opinion, but it is a prevailing opinion in the community it seems.

You could also read up on repeater building here: http://www.repeater-builder.com/rbtip/

Motorola R1225.
 
 
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The important part is finding the proper PL or DPL needed to access the repeaters you are trying to use. You can check the listings on the main site and if needed contact the users to get the access info. Some scanners will decode this for you but it will only work if the input and output is the same. My first contact on a repeater was done that way, and once I was able to access it I made contact with the owners and still use that machine today.

Hello,
 
1. Type of radio would be the first thing we need to know.
 
2. Do you have the proper PL or DPL to access the repeater you are trying to connect to?
 
3. Just because you can hear people does not mean you can talk to them, if they are on a repeater and using PL or DPL nobody is going to hear you if your radio is not set up properly.
 
I will try to explain it as simple as I can and I will use the GMRS channel 462.675 with a PL of 141.3.
 
You need to transmit (TX) on frequency 467.675 using the PL 141.3 and receive (RX) on the frequency 462.675 using the PL 141.3
 
The repeater is listening on the 5 MHz + offset and almost all require a PL or DPL to bring up the repeater. If you don't bring up the repeater nobody is going to hear you because you are transmitting on a repeater input channel.
 
If you want to try and communicate with them simplex (without a repeater) you would need to use your talk around feature or set a channel up so your RX and TX info is the same but you would still need to know the PL or DPL in use by the other party.

It doesn't really matter, since the DR-735T cannot tune GMRS TX frequencies anyway!
 
TX: USA
VHF 144-147.995 MHz
UHF 430-449.995 MHz

I have not yet tested this radio, However I have tested many Baofeng and Pofung radios and they are strong rugged units.

Does technology exist that will operate there, yes. However, there is a statement which only allows analog voice communication in Part 95.
 
 
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Myself and JohnE are the two big techies for the NYC area with wide coverage repeaters if you have any questions... Welcome to GMRS!

I had a few kids fooling around for a hour or so on Christmas Eve. They started on 15, jumped to 18 for a few seconds and that was it.
 
My base in the house scans GMRS plus some 70cm ham frequencies. It's mostly silence up here.