RCM

May be a letdown, but it's still a great find! Thanks, Hans.

I think it's a case of you can't get there from here. I'm pretty sure I understand what you are wanting from a mobile repeater, and it would be simple on the ham bands: a cross-band mobile with an HT talking to the mobile on one band, and the mobile repeating on the other band. But if your people won't get a ham license, I guess that's out. It's just a step beyond what GMRS is designed to do, at least currently. Someone (Hans?) mentioned in another thread a wish for one or two VHF frequencies for crossbanding to GMRS. Perhaps one or two of the MURS freqs. I would like to see something like that too, specifically for this use. I think 900 MHz might be a better choice than VHF, though.

Ok, this is not a review per se. I can review some Alinco ham radios if you like, since I currently have them in VHF/UHF mobile, VHF handheld, and HF/6M mobile form. Suffice to say that Alinco makes some great radios. They really don't get the respect they deserve. Having said that, the point of this thread is to let you guys know about some radios you might not be aware of. They are Part 90; AFAIK they don't carry Part 95. What you do with that is up to you; I think that subject has been pretty well hashed and thrashed. Also, with either of these two rigs you will have to buy the programming cable and software. That will cost you an additional $45 or so. HRO (Ham Radio Outlet) has both of these. Probably some other sellers do as well. The DJ-A40T is a 5 watt, 128 channel handheld. It is currently about $90. The DR-438 is a 45 watt, 200 channel mobile rig. Its price is about $250. If you check them out at the Alinco USA website, you can download pdf brochures, owner's manuals and even (in the case of some of the amateur radios) service manuals, free of charge! Note that the DR-438 is about the same price as the MXT400, and it absolutely blows it out of the water. Of course, like I said you do have to buy the programming cable and software, and there's the whole Part 90 thing. Note that I'm not recommending that you use Part 90 radios on GMRS. Refer to the sticky notification at the top of this section, if you have any questions about that. Btw, no I don't work for Alinco. I used to be in the radio business, but no longer.

I've heard but don't know for certain, that some of the Chinese mobiles are clones of a Yaesu radio.

You have to remove and discharge the battery, and place it in a different bag. j/k!

This looks good too: https://www.nhrc.net/nhrc-2.1/index.php

Sounds like a great, practical test! Thanks for sharing your results.

I would probably start by listening to your local repeaters to find one that has activity. There appear to be a handful in your area, and you might even be able to reach some of the Dallas repeaters. The Carrollton 550 is listed as an open repeater, if it's still in operation. I would also look on the map (here on MyGMRS) and contact your nearby repeater owners. Repeaters aren't the only way to operate on GMRS, of course. But they are the best way to find other operators. Another thing you can do is just announce your presence when you're out and about. Either on a repeater that you have gained permission to use, or one that is listed as open, or just on 675 simplex with a transmitted 141.3 PL tone. Just announce your callsign, perhaps along with "monitoring" or "listening." Eventually you will get a reply. You might even get one immediately, depending on how much activity is in your area. Another thing you might do is find a local ham radio club and go to a meeting. Lots of GMRS operators are also hams, so you will probably meet some there. Of course they will try to talk you into getting your ham radio license too, and that's not a bad thing. You might try this one: https://k5prk.net/

20+ years ago, a friend and I made a 2M SSB contact between our respective homes that were about 15 miles apart. Each station was running a single moderate Yagi: Brian was running a Cushcraft 13B2 at about 50 feet, and I was running an old Cushcraft 10 element at 20 feet. I was running 3 watts with a modified (for lower power) TS-700A, which is not known to have a super receiver. Brian was running an FT-736. I don't remember how much power he started out at, but he had a set of switched, calibrated attenuators that he switched in incrementally until I lost the signal. I could still hear him down to 50 microwatts. That is 0.00005 watt, or 1/20,000 watt! QRP-ARCI has a "1000 mile per watt" award. This was 300,000 miles per watt! FM doesn't work as well for that, but I did once work another friend with 50 milliwatts (1/20 watt), standing in my backyard with an Icom HT and a quarter wave antenna, on 446.100 FM simplex. Range for that one was a bit farther; about 20 miles. To be fair, he was running stacked Yagis at a pretty good height. The same ham told me he had worked a ham on the Texas coastline 3 or 4 times over the years on 432 MHz CW. The Texas ham was running less than 5 watts! People who haven't tried it, would be amazed what can be done on VHF and UHF. And microwaves, too. I've never tried 5 GHz, but I've read some wild stuff about an experiment between mountaintops in California and Mexico.

Welcome, and congrats on getting your license! What gear do you have coming?

I just got two of these Kenwood commercial mobiles, from two separate sellers on fleabay. I had made an offer on one, bought another via "buy it now," and then my offer on the first one was accepted. Both showed up today. What attracted me to the 805s is that they are front-panel field programmable; no software required (although they can be programmed that way as well). Both of these rigs came with a mount bracket, mic and mic hanger. The one I made an offer on did not have GMRS channels programmed in; it had two 461 MHz frequencies. It's a little beat up but not bad, and I think the mic is a new replacement. I had to remove the top panel and move the jumper to enable front panel programming. Once I did that, programming it was a snap. I put the 8 repeater pairs in it and set up the aux button to enable "talk around" (simplex). I also put one ham radio repeater pair in it; a nearby repeater that a member here owns. The other one looks like brand new. I paid a little more for it, but still got it for well under $100 including shipping. It came from an actual radio store, and they offered free programming. I took them up on it. These are 16 channel radios. The seller emailed a Word form for channel information and I had them program the 8 repeater pairs, Talk Around for simplex, and the 9 interstitial channels for a total of 15. These are billed as 25 watt radios, but according to my cheap VHF/UHF meter, both are putting out right around 40 watts. I'll probably turn them down to 20-25 watts to conserve the finals. I've seen a couple of comments online to the effect that after programming, you have to return the jumper to the "user" pins before they will receive and transmit. Not true. The only reason for that jumper is to prevent the appliance operator from inadvertently (or otherwise) messing with the programming. It works just fine with the jumper in the programming position, and the great thing is that you can pull over and modify a channel in just a minute or two. Bottom line: I like these radios!

I agree about the nature of GMRS. And yes, amateur radio is far more suited to experimentation. I brought up this subject to highlight something that I didn't realize is legal. Obviously I'm not the only one who was unaware of that. Would I try it if I had a Part 95 classified radio that included those modes? Absolutely. But I'm not holding my breath. I won't get into the discussion of the reliability of AM and SSB, although suffice it to say that airlines use HF SSB every day on transoceanic flights.

Thanks for the links!

Yeah, I saw that. I'm north of there though, and on the other side of a mountain. I do make it down that way on occasion though, and plan to try it next time I'm in range. Thanks for the heads-up!

Thanks for the tips, Hans. There is little enough activity here that I don't think an IDer would be strictly necessary. But I've seen projects for building Arduino based IDers, so I will probably do something like that. Or maybe just buy one from MFJ. I think they make an inexpensive IDer.

I disagree. No, it wouldn't be practical for mobile use, but it would between base stations. I'm talking primarily about SSB btw, not AM. As for hard feelings with neighbors, lots of hams run high power (500+ up to 1500 watts) even in suburban environments with no such problems. The fact that GMRS is limited to 50 watts makes it even less likely. I've never had a complaint from a neighbor, even when I was running 1200 watts in a suburban neighborhood. On ham radio, of course. The main thing about SSB is that you can hear a much weaker signal than you can on FM. The other advantage is that it transmits more efficiently with a given power level. Of course you need a clear frequency. Whether or not those are available depends on where you live, time of day etc. I don't think it would be out of the question for manufacturers to provide multi-mode radios if they saw a demand. CBs are type classified too, and there are SSB CBs despite the fact that it is a limited market. And the radios already exist. All it takes is a programming change and type classification. The Yaesu FT-817 for example could easily be programmed for channelized operation on UHF and receive-only everywhere else. Not saying it's going to happen; just that it legally could. ETA: Let me give an example, since I mentioned the FT-817. We have 5 channels on 60 Meters. That is the only channelized ham band, and it's fairly new. Allowable specs are at least as tight as on GMRS as far as frequency stability, etc. The only approved mode of voice operation on 60M is USB (upper sideband). The FT-817 did not include the 60M channels when it was introduced (because 60M wasn't yet available to hams). Mine doesn't, because it is a very early one. The first one in Huntsville, as a matter of fact. But when we gained 60 Meters, Yaesu was quick to add those channels to new FT-817s via a programming change.

That would be sporadic E, not meteor scatter. The meteor showers always bring out the 144 and 432 enthusiasts because they can make some quick DX contacts, even with low powered stations.

I figured I would use Motorolas of some sort, probably Max Tracs. I saw some Standard GX1510s for a decent price recently, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of info out there on programming them. I'm still considering them, but only if they're not a huge hassle to program.

Where I live there are basically no usable GMRS repeaters, that I have been able to find. I intend to fix that when I find a decent site for my repeater. I'll follow my understanding of the Open Repeater Initiative, since I have not been able to find any published guidelines. Let me preach on it, brothers... *ahem* (cough, cough) I mean, here's what I have in mind: I'm near the US Hwy 72 corridor, about 20 miles east of Huntsville, AL. The nearest town is Gurley. There are repeaters in the Chattanooga, TN area, but they don't reach here. There don't seem to be any repeaters in Huntsville, nor in fact anywhere west along 72 until you reach the Memphis area. I can't do anything about that. But there are a couple of 1600'+ mountains just on the outskirts of Gurley, and if I can find a site on one of those mountains I think I can cover most of the area from Huntsville to the fringes of Chattanooga coverage. My repeater will be open to all licensed users who don't abuse the privilege. PL will be 141.3 and the frequency pair will tentatively be 675, although that is subject to change if I run into interference. I'm already putting the gear together and will test it at my very subpar home qth, and am looking for a better site. If anyone knows of a good site, I would like to hear about it. I don't necessarily require mains power since I plan to use batteries and solar.

Since there seems to be no currently posted guidelines, I would just click the box based on my own definition. Yours may be different, but I would just call it "open to all licensed users (who behave themselves), 141.8 PL." That PL is widely known as the travel PL, so shouldn't cause any licensed user any difficulty. The part about behaving themselves allows for the blood sport of hooligan chasing, of course.

I'm interested in this too. I'm not finding much, unfortunately. I did find this comment: "...there was an "open repeater" initiative a while back that sought to make repeaters "open" to licensed users. Those machines were typically on 675 with a PL of 141.8."* which is at this link: http://forums.radioreference.com/gmrs-frs/223478-question-about-gmrs-repeaters-being-used-farmers-print.html * Actually it's 141.3. I do know that 141.3 PL on 675 was a standard traveler's information / emergency channel pre-1999, so it stands to reason that the ORI would use that as a standard. Pure speculation on my part, though.

Meteor scatter, for instance?

There is no RF ground on a J pole. It is in reality an end-fed half wave antenna, fed with a quarter wave matching stub. And that being the case, you can't make a quarter wave J pole. You can however bend it at a 90 degree angle, at the end of the matching stub where the radiator begins. The reason a quarter wave antenna needs an "RF ground" is that it is only half of an antenna: the radials, RF ground lead or whatever you use forms the other half. A half wave antenna is a complete antenna, hence no grounding requirement.

Hello Hans; thanks! Cool ham call! "Innate VHF" sounds like you were born with a radio!

I just found something interesting in the GMRS rules. From 95.1771: a. Each GMRS transmitter type must have the capability to transmit F3E or G3E emissions. b. Only emission types A1D, F1D, G1D, H1D, J1D, R1D, A3E, F3E, G3E, H3E, J3E, R3E, F2D, and G2D are authorized for use in the GMRS. Ok. F3E is FM (frequency modulation) voice. G3E is phase modulation voice; essentially the same as FM. So basically a. states that a GMRS station must be able to transmit FM. Then, b. adds to that. In addition to being capable of transmitting FM, a GMRS transmitter (because the transmitter is really the regulated part) may also have the capability of transmitting the other listed emission types. 1 and 2 refer to digital content. 3 refers to analog content, including voice transmissions. The third character refers to type of content, with E being telephony: voice or music. Of course music is verboten, so E means voice in the case of GMRS. So looking at the first character, the analog voice modes that are listed are: A3E, F3E, G3E, H3E, J3E and R3E. As already stated, F3E and G3E are FM voice. Here's the interesting part: A3E is AM voice. J3E is SSB voice. H3E and R3E are modified forms of SSB. DSB (Double Sideband, suppressed carrier) also falls under the heading of A3E, so that would be allowed as well. Conclusion: as long as a transmitter meets the rest of the requirements (including the ability to transmit on FM), there is nothing prohibiting the use of SSB or AM on GMRS. If someone would just build a Part 95 type classified multimode transceiver... The thing is, on ham radio it is not uncommon to communicate over paths of hundreds of miles, simplex, using 432 MHz SSB. It would seem that availability of a proper radio is the only thing preventing us from doing the same on GMRS freqs.