marcspaz

That radio is a clone of a Yaesu FT-8900r. It does 2m/70cm/6m/10m. Diamond made an antenna especially for the FT-8900r, call the CR8900A. I had the setup and the antenna worked great on all 4 bands. Th only thing I didn't like was that if you wanted to use the radio on the top end of 10m, you had to shorten the whip, and if you wanted to use the bottom end of 10m, you had to lengthen it. There was no such thing as putting the adjustment in the middle and getting a good match across the 2MHz range. Also, the whip wasn't long enough to cover 26MHz. So, even though it was a good radio/antenna combo, you either need to be flexible about tuning it manually or spend a few hundred $$$ on a 12v automatic tuner.

Hmm... no output tone. Interesting. That could cause an issue for TSQL users, for sure.

Yes, that is correct. That is a distinct possibility that is what is happening. It happens on some repeaters here fairly often. Many of our gmrs repeaters are set up with 141.3 as the secondary tone for emergencies and then another tone that's used for local daily communications. The repeater owners around here coordinated that on purpose because there's so much overlap with multiple repeaters on the same frequency. This way in an emergency everybody can go to 141.3, but for day to day use neighboring repeaters on the same frequency are not interfering with each other. Sometimes that causes confusion with the users. Especially new folks that don't quite understand how tone works compared to tone squelch.

Something that is commonly overlooked is many repeaters can use several different tones to open the repeater, and can transmit different tones based on what tone was received. For example, on one of my repeaters, there are two tones that can open the receive. Either 141.3 or 156.7. If 141.3 is heard on the input, the transmitter will encode the 141.3 tone. If 156.7 is heard on the input, the transmitter will encode the 156.7 tone. The 141.3 tone is for everybody to use, but if I want to chat with someone and not hear 141.3 traffic, me and the person I am chatting with will switch to the 156.7 tone (which isn't advertised for use). Some GMRS radios don't have the ability to only transmit a tone. So they are limited to a tone squelch that is both transmitting a tone AND requiring a tone to be heard before it opens the audio for the receiver. Still other people will program their radios with a tone squelch. What is likely happening is, if the GMRS repeater you are trying to use is setup the same way as my repeater, the one person who could hear you was probably operating in monitor mode (only transmitting a tone) and can hear everything, while everyone else was using tone squelch on a different tone. So, that one person hear everyone, but is the only person that can hear you.

That is what we do with our Ham club repeaters. You unkey and after 1 seconds, there is a beep transmitted to show that the timeout time has been reset. The repeater stays transmitting for 5 additional seconds to give someone a chance to start talking again, without the repeater going down and up over and over again. Of course, you are going to want a commercial grade repeater to tolerate the potential 100% duty cycle.

Obviously this doesn't speak to everyone's use case... but my experience is based on Jeeps and ATV/UTV use. So, my results could be anecdotal. While offroad most Jeeps have non-coductive tops or no top at all, windows rolled down or no doors at all, some ATVs/UTVs don't have windows, etc. So there is no interference to an HT inside the vehicle. Again, science aside, im just looking at my real-world experience and the use cases my family and friends have, to draw an opinion, if that make sense.

I understand what the science says, but real-world, yes. I spend a tremendous amount of time out in the woods while 4-wheeling, and FRS HTs have always out performed stock CB radios... like 100% of the time. GMRS radios running 20w+ usually outperform modded/peaked CBs around the same power. Again, we are talking about an overwhelming number of CB users with poor-bad installation, poor antenna selection, etc. There was one CBer I wheeled with who was the tail vehicle on a 12 vehicle group, who's radio was so bad that I could see him in my rear-view, but couldn't hear him on the radio. I don't have any experience out in the woods with people who had good radios.

With the frequency coverage, there is a lot of amateur radio, commercial radio and PRS that are all covered. If you unlock it, you could use all those memory for MURS, Amateur repeaters, GMRS repeaters, your favorite simplex frequencies, etc. If you travel a lot and want to save a bunch of GMRS or amateur repeater for where you travel to, that can be handy, too. Just some thoughts.

Agreed.

I'm going to close my post out with something that will piss some people off, and others will say I don't know what I am talking about... so if you don't want to read all of the post, you may want to skip to the END. The reason CB went to the wayside isn't known for sure, but I have a few ideas. Modulation type isn't one of them. I think there is zero chance of CB replacing FRS. I don't think it could even take a significant part of the market, and I will explain why. First, people get extremely frustrated because their mobile CB radio performs so poorly, with regard to range. As mentioned above, that is almost always due to the antenna. The primary problem is, the average DIY person doesn't poses the tools or skills to properly install a CB and antenna, nor verify if it is working correctly. This wasn't always the case, but somewhere in time, this common knowledge kind of vanished, leading people to think they can just bolt on the antenna and life is good. Then, there is the size of the antenna. The shortest proper length for a CB antenna is 104 inches. That's not a type-o... that is over eight and a half feet. Not everyone is willing to put an antenna that big on their vehicle. So, you see everyone using a compromised antenna... like the 4' and even 3' firestik antennas. I own a 4 footer and a 1 footer, but I know they are only going to work for a mile or less. FRS is at a frequency that only requires a 6" antenna, and the installation is way, way more forgiving. Just by it's nature, its not common to incorrectly install an FRS antenna. And when manufacturers put even shorter antennas on them, say a 3", it's no where near the compromise made in CB with a 3' antenna. So, you take a radio and antenna that doesn't install correctly easily and complicate that install with an antenna that more resembles a dummy load than an antenna, and yeah, the performance is gonna suck. Creating an even smaller, overpriced version in a handheld doesn't sound like a good time, either. Now, there is also another issue to deal with. While there are FM CB radios available, FM quality on CB is no where near the audio quality of FRS. FRS radio uses a lot more bandwidth, which means the signal can carry more data, aka higher fidelity audio. Many people will prefer FRS just because it sounds better. END Now to upset some people... I believe that a properly installed mobile CB and antenna or a quality CB handheld will outperform an FRS radio 100% of the time. I also believe that a properly installed mobile CB and antenna AND a quality CB handheld will outperform their counterpart in GMRS radio a vast majority of the time, when it comes to P2P comms. The two top reasons why GMRS has made it to the top of the pile is due to repeaters and the frequency used is ideal for heavily wooded and dense urban areas. While generally, I believe CB is superior in many cases, it seems that US radio use in dense woods and cities are the most common use cases... hence GMRS (and FRS) win over mobile and handheld CB.

Thank you for the kind words. Its very much appreciated!

It's there... but imaginary, just like the lines.

And humble, too!

A great example of the loss you are talking about with bending... for those who have longer steel whip antennas on their vehicle, if you are outside the edge of 100% coverage of a repeater (or a friend you are talking simplex to) listen to how broken and scratchy the receive sounds, and then pullover an see just how much the signal improves. Some of it is because varying obstacles between the radios is no longer occurring, but most of it is because the antenna is no longer moving around in the wind.

Thank you for the kind words! I'm glad it helped. Im considering doing two dedicated videos for repeaters and tones. For the time being, feel free to search the existing threads and ask questions. There are many knowledgeable people who loved to help.