WRTC928

I've had a hip joint replaced, but recovery from that wasn't actually too bad. Hopefully, I'll never need a knee replacement.

Yeah, I'd like to get back to lifting weights, but I don't want anything like that to happen. I'm going to be careful with it for quite some time.

Where I live is entirely different. I'm within range of 4 GMRS repeaters and I can go all day and hear nothing. One of them is mine and it's kind of a "stealth" repeater, but the other 3 are public.

I recently trolled a ham Facebook page with that very fact. In reality, I think it has to do with the fact that hams almost exclusively use repeaters while GMRS users use simplex a lot. If the repeater has a courtesy tone, roger beeps just create chaos. I was challenging the people on the page to justify hatred of the roger beep, but nobody came up with anything beyond, "they suck and so do people who use them".

It's for the 5RM series.

Thanks! I'm only 5 weeks postop and it seems to be coming along well. My house is in a favorable location for radio. I can reliably hit my club's repeater with 2 watts from my yard and 5 watts from inside the house, so I don't need crossband repeat at home, and if I go south, I can't reliably reach the radio at my house far enough away to make any difference. When I have an antenna on a mast, I expect that with crossband repeat, I could extend my reach to the repeater quite a few more miles south.

Rent free!

Everyone arranges these things according to how their brain is organized, so you may not do the same thing I would do. If this were me, I'd save this configuration in CHIRP, open a new window, and load GMRS/FRS frequencies from <File> <Open stock config> and copy/paste the frequency list into a clean CHIRP page as a point to start. 23-52 in that chart are the GMRS channels and they already have the bandwidth, power, and tuning step programmed. That gives you a clean place to start. Then open the file with your current configuration and from it copy/paste the channels you want to add. You can do that as a block, for example Fam1 through Caravan, and the four repeaters as another block. I think you'll be happier if you get the GMRS/FRS channels together in order. Then, if you want some channels with "privacy" (they aren't) tones on them, copy/paste a block of frequencies to another set of memory slots and add your tones to them. I used GMRS 15-22 for this because that's plenty for family use and I can use up to 50 watts if I happen to be in a vehicle. Remember to change the names on this block; Fam1, Fam2, whatever. The way my brain works, it's easier for me to remember if I start each block on a number like 50 or 75. This is just a suggestion, though.

Logic dictates that there is some point at which lower voltage will result in decreased performance and possibly even damage the radio, but I'm not willing to potentially sacrifice a radio to find out where that point is. For a while, I was using an Anysecu WP9900 plugged into the "cigarette lighter" socket on a jump-start battery pack. It consistently showed 11.8-11.9 volts, but it didn't drop appreciably when transmitting. I didn't test its power output, but I was getting signals out to my favorite repeater with full quieting. I did test it when I had it hard-wired in my truck. It ran 13.8-14.8 volts, and max output was ~19-20 watts (25 watts nominal max power). I now have it attached to a 50 Ah LiFePO4 battery as a backup during storms. It shows 12.3-12.8 volts and tops out at ~18-19 watts. It does seem as if losing 2 volts cost me a watt. Neither I nor the person I'm talking to is likely to notice a difference in signal strength/distance.

Oh, yeah, I can get days on a 3,800 mAh battery if it's mostly on standby. With regular use, about 3 x 8 hr days. Or, I guess 24 hrs straight through, if you have enough stamina for that.

I don't know how the airwaves are where you live, but here it's unnecessary to have "privacy" (they aren't) codes engaged on all channels. There's not enough traffic to keep me from communicating with friends and family, and with a DCS tone engaged, you won't be able to hear anyone else on the channel. The UV-5r has plenty of memory slots. I have the GMRS/FRS channels "bare" and another set of just the GMRS channels with codes engaged. If I'm talking to family, they'll have gotten the radios from me, so we can communicate on the coded frequencies if we feel the need. FRS channels 8-14 are restricted to 0.5 watt. The UV-5r is nominally 1 watt on low power, although a lot of times it's less. I recommend you set the power on 8-14 on low and then try to avoid using them unless you really have to. Most likely, nobody will notice 1 watt vs 0.5 watt, but it's the polite thing to do.

I've been trying for months to get an antenna mast up outdoors, but it's one thing after another. Most recently I had shoulder surgery and won't be able to lift anything heavy for several months. Right now, I'm using a mag mount on a pizza plate, so crossbanding won't give me much more than I get from my HT. If I had a good antenna on a 40' mast, I might find a use for crossbanding.

I was responding to the points being made about repeaters being expensive and bulky. In some circumstances, you might get better distance even without the repeater. I've done that a couple of times on ham just to get the feel of it, but so far, I haven't had circumstances where I felt the need. I hadn't thought of that, but if there were lowband GMRS channels, I'm sure someone would start making radios capable of crossband repeat.

Repeaters are cool, but you don't need a repeater to get more farz from lowband than you currently can with GMRS UHF. For some settings like ranching/farming operations, you might be able to replace a repeater with a single base unit. The antennas might be too long to be practical for handhelds, but they'll be shorter than CB antennas, so mounting them on vehicles and equipment should be simple. It's possible the radios would sell well even if repeaters were slow to come online.

I have several of the 3,800 mAh batteries and they have enough juice for 24 hrs or so. That big battery should provide plenty of talk time. I have several radios that use the same battery. Maybe I'll buy one eventually.

So, FM CB should be able to "shoot skip" about as effectively as AM? That's a new thought to me.

So, FM CB should be able to "shoot skip" about as effectively as AM? That's a new thought to me.

It looks like GMRS is limited to 0.5 watts on some channels and 2 watts on others and they aren't allowed to use repeaters. GMRS shares some channels with FRS and it's limited to 0.5 watts on those channels. FRS has 6 channels shared with GMRS and 9 that are FRS only and FRS is limited to 0.5 watts. It makes me wonder why they have two separate services. It seems they could just lump them all together with designated power limits on each channel.

Do owners of these radios call themselves H8ers?

I've read that it was so the manufacturers could sell the same units in the US and Europe. That may be true because the CB I bought a few months ago has a way to set it to different regions.

I'm afraid I have to jump on the "only 8 repeater pairs" bandwagon. In my area, there aren't a whole of repeaters and mostly they don't get a lot of traffic, but when they do, they tie up their associated simplex channel. Amateur radio has exponentially more bandwidth to play with, so that's not a significant issue.

That's the only reason I have one anyway.

I suspect even when it supports a farming operation, it will be quiescent more than it's transmitting. There probably are business operations which could overwhelm it, but even the GMRS repeaters I consider pretty active near me spend a lot more time listening than transmitting.

If it's going to catch on, it will probably gradually grow from something like this -- using it to talk to other people who are part of your group. Eventually, if people hear activity on FM, they may start to use it.

I have AM/FM CB in my truck. My town is on I-35 south of Norman OK, and I do hear some traffic on CB, but none of it has ever been on FM. I suppose some might consider its hypothetically shorter range a detriment, but I think mostly nobody is on it because nobody is on it; i.e., why use FM when there's nobody to talk to? There are a couple of companies (sounds like maybe a gravel company and something else) near me that use CB and for that purpose FM would probably be superior.