WSEN940

I thought the same thing. Why do a random wiring. It just did not make sense to me. Even if the person designing this was not even familiar with network wiring, why the odd crossover? Who knows!? Maybe so they can sell a cable to the masses that are not willing/capable to make one for themselves perhaps?

You do you…there is no requirement to use standard phonetics, but, that said. If your ever in a position where you ‘really’ need to be understood, the phonetic alphabet was designed to be clear under difficult reception conditions. The words are designed to be distinct from each other so that you can grasp the words even if you only hear a portion of it. For the average GMRS operator. No one’s going to care I guess. My stepdad was a royal navy signals officer way back in the day and a HAM operator. He was a stickler for correct phonetics and would complain all the time about the lack of consistency around the world. Especially here in the US. And when signal strength was poor, he’d complain more. We were also in a rare location (it’s a HAM thing to get contacts with rare stations) and if people did not use proper phonetics, he’d ignore them.

A bit of a thread revival here, but anyway. I picked up the UV908P this week and put it to good use. I have an ICOM 2730 that was in my office that I was using as a base station for the local HAM repeaters, but I wanted to free that up for using when I help out with local events. I have an RT95 that lives in the truck, but I wanted something I could pick up and move about freely, so I have reserved the 2730 for that use and have a lifepo4 battery and solar MPPT to keep it all running during the day. As for the UV980P, so far, I'm impressed. It's a lot of radio. As mentioned, you 'can' set it for GMRS by adjusting the TX frequencies in CHIRP for the 440 band and it seems happy with doing that. For my use though, I was interested in using it as a temporary GMRS repeater along with my KG100G Plus. And for occasional cross band repeating on the HAM frequencies. The two antennas I have are the full length of the house from each other and seem to have sufficient separation from each other as to not interfere too much as a GMRS repeater. And honestly, I will only need it infrequently. As a GMRS repeater, I can use the UV980P as the Receiver part of the pair on my HAM dual band antenna and the KG1000 as the transmitter on it's GMRS antenna. On the flip side, if I want to use it for HAM radio cross band repeat, or more accurately as a one way cross band repeat for transmission only. The KG1000G radio works as the receiver in the pair and the UV980P is the transmitter. This works amazingly well if I want to wander around the house and access a repeater that's just a little too far from the house for my HT. So, if you wandered if you can link the KG1000G and the UV980P...yep you can. I made a custom network cable to link them so I don't have a mass of cat6 running around the radio's. It was easy to buzz out of the factory supplied cable.

As you have two radios. You mentioned one having the comet antenna. Do you have an antenna for the second? If not, just set them to the same simplex channel and transmit from from the one with the comet and see if the one without an antenna picks it up. If they are close enough, the lack of an antenna may be in your favor as it won't overload the input. I don't have that radio, so no idea if it will work. If you do have a second antenna, get the radio's away from each other and see if they can talk to each other....you will need to be a bit down the street probably or they may overload the input. If they can chat simplex, then the repeater setup will be the next thing to address.

It's a great radio. I have one in my truck and it seems to work really well. It got a work out a few weeks ago when I helped out supporting an all day running event and it never skipped a beat.

This should get the job done. This is an extract from the csv version, but it gives you an idea of what you need

Excellent. Good luck.

I agree with @wdrj205 start over. check what I put in the thread below to test your radio(s). This should make sure that you’ve done what you think you’ve done. https://forums.mygmrs.com/topic/10407-repeater-connection-problem/page/2/#comment-111315

And for follow up. I created two .csv files for anyone who wants to do the radio check I laid out. I have both the UV 5G plus and a TD-H3 so I built a test code plug that you can load into chirp to use. Obviously as they are the CSV files, you can use them for any radio as I note you have the TDH8. Set the UV5G to have channel 1 on the top line and channel 2 on the bottom line. Transmit on the TD and you should see the top line receive work. A/B the UV5G to the bottom line and transmit. The TD should then light up. If this works...the radio is fine. As noted elsewhere. You do not need the tone squelch on receive for a repeater, you just need it's input or TONE frequency. I did this test with the Tone Squelch enabled. repeater check td.csv repeater check uv.csv

I posted on another thread about how to test your radio for this exact scenario. link below. As you have two radio's you can do a very simple test to make sure that you are able to transmit/receive correctly. This is a good way to get to know the radios and the software and have a controlled test bed to work from. In effect, you are independently checking the two halves of the repeater equation. Now, if this test passes, then you can bet your bottom dollar that the tone for the repeater is wrong, or, you are just not reaching it. Although the latter, in your case is not the issue if your sitting so close you can feel the radio waves (joking of course) Radio Check for Repeaters

My lady was not exactly an enthusiastic radio user, until, I gave her kids and their partners a radio for the other car when we had to use two vehicles last year. I couldn't get the HT out of her hands after that. Now I have a semi permanent solution for her Subaru so we can pop a cheap DB20G in there when needed. A few years back, a group of us used to convoy in three to five different vehicles up to Whistler to go ski. We always had a few blister pack radios for inter-vehichle comms. We played road trip games for 'many' hours. It actually felt like a pretty short trip because of it. And if anyone is interested, I can share how I both, routed the antenna wire and how I made a temp mount for the radio without drilling holes or using the loom grommet on a 2020 Outback. (Like you see on all the youtube videos) Message me as I don't want to derail this thread.

Unless your interested in transmitting on HAM frequencies, I'd say you can read the material and skip the licensing. Of course, GMRS does not need a test.

Welcome to the club. It’s a great radio, and performs well. I never knew that about the priority channel. I’ll keep that in mind if I turn weather alerts on as part of the scan as I also have the IC2730. Good info, thanks WRYZ926

I don't know if this helps anyone, but I decided that I can't be bothered to pay RT systems when the provided software works just fine. That said, entering data is a pain so I wrote two python scripts. Now, what I did is not very complicated. The first script enters the two frequencies, the name and sets the tx power to high. All of this data comes from a simple csv file You then save the .dat file The second script then loads the .dat file, searches for the entries and then amends it for the CTS and DCS codes. The .dat file uses a four digit hex value to determine the displayed value. If anyone wants the scripts, DCS/CTS lookup and my excel sheet that does the lookups. Let me know. it's rough and ready and needs a little prep to share. But as it is, it allows me to edit the spreadsheet, copy some formulas and then export the data for use. While this took me about as long to 'develop' as entering the values. And it took me longest to build the DCS/CTS to four digit lookup table. Of course this requires a 'little' knowledge of python (enough to have python installed and be able to run it) and excel.

I'd say that if it gets you connected to who you want to connect to...then it's a great setup. I've been using the same antenna with a metal sheet in my garage, works great for what I need it for. If I needed to get out much further, I'd do something more elaborate as well. My main antenna is an Ed Fong J-Pole that's also up in my attic. We have a 'lot' of wind and weather here and I put it there while I figure out an external, and permanent, solution.

Nice. I had to find a 'no drill' solution. The Subaru is the ladies car, and I'd be in trouble if I started making holes in it!!

What year Taco? I was looking around the rear of the cab on mine and have not seen anything of interest yet, but then, I've not pulled the internal trim either. I have a 2020 Model year Gen 3 and it's actually got pretty good access through the front bulkhead on the drivers side. While I was at it, I pulled a snake line through the passenger side for a later addition

Glad it was useful. yeah! That privacy code thing….yes, it really is just a tone. Worth noting that if you are chatting to someone with ‘privacy tones’ turned on…it’s not private. Anyone without the tones setup on their radio, but on the same frequency will hear you.

Just to note, the GXT3000 is repeater capable. Or so the website says. But without looking, I’d suspect that you’d be pretty lucky if they just happened to have the right codes for the local repeaters. The advantage of these types of radios is that they really are designed to be easy to operate. And TDM872, your usage is typically what most folks probably do with them. I keep a couple kicking around for this very purpose.

Just saw a video by one of our members (I'm talking about you, the Queen of all that is GMRS) and it reminded me to complete the attached document. It's something I started a few months ago and it covers the definition of a channel or Channel. It's absolutely where the problems lie in understanding more complex radios. I know it did for me initially, but hey, I'm a smart guy right!? OK, maybe it took me a lot of reading but I got there. As this is the internet, I will add that this is pretty much a first pass. I am not married to this, so if I got something wrong, or anyone can clarify something, please, please let me know. This is a community that wants to help others, which is what I am attempting here. I got a little more in depth than originally planned, but held back from going all engineering nerd on this. I wanted to keep this beginner friendly. So if you are a novice, read this and let me know if it made any sense. GMRS Channels.pdf

Mmm! Good point. The PMR frequencies certainly have that lower digit numbering, and it’s possible channel 50 got mixed up with PMR channel 7 on my radio. Interesting !

The simple answer, assuming you don’t care about repeaters, is no. Channels 15-22 are just more GMRS channels to use. Which, if your using a blister pack GXT like mine, is exactly how I view them. However, a big caveat! If you do care about repeaters, have more capable radios and want to chat over a wider area see below. Each of the channels 15-22 double as normal GMRS channels AND are your LISTENING frequencies for the 8 allocated repeater ‘channels’. Note that your TRANSMIT frequencies for the repeaters are each of the channels 15-22 with an added 5Mhz offset. I might draw a picture tomorrow.

Thanks TDM827. Appreciate the response. What really got me going was that all of the channels except 50 confirm to this list I got from an online PDF about the channels, below. Note that 50 is listed as having a DTC code and is 462.7250, which is different from your radio as well. With mine, it's only 0.0125 off, so still works....but yeah. Interestingly though, I bought a two pack...and they both exhibit the same issue...so whoever was coding them that day was having a few issues I suspect.

Yep, I'm aware. but thanks for the reminder.