marcspaz

Okay, im just going to put it out there. If you speak louder into the microphone, we are not going to hear you better. Just stop. Thats not how this works. In fact, the louder you are, the worse the quality is. Again, it doesn't matter what radio you have nor what microphone you have, if we are having trouble hearing you due to a poor signal or some technical issue, yelling at the mic doesn't help. There are exactly 2 times when yelling at the mic is appropriate. One is when the ambient noise level is high and you are trying to make your voice more distinguishable from the background. The other is when you DON'T key up, but you are yelling at the dummy on the other end. In both cases, I recommend you put the mic down and come back to the radio when the issue subsides. I hear this everyday I'm on the radio (and no, it's not because I am the one yelling at the radio). That is why I mention it.

I used to do this for federal law enforcement. Feel free to reach out if you want to know what was being done when I left about 2 years ago.

Man... in my neighborhood, snitches get got! Quick.

The answer to all 3 questions are "just the FCC rules." The long and short of it... the FCC is less worried about the hardware compliance for performance sake and more worried about the end user. Restricting the hardware to help prevent users who are not knowledgeable from getting on emergency frequencies and causing harmful interference is the end goal. There are some other license holders that they are trying to prevent interference with, too... but emergency services is the top priority. There are a bunch of radios that are capable of covering all of the desired frequencies and typically outperform the technical requirements for GMRS and other services, but due to the risk of harmful interference, they can't get certified for legal use.

Give this a watch. It's about an hour, but many people have found it helpful. https://youtu.be/1rZ_oWdls-E?si=Kjnqac1q3oqPvj0i

I'm Marc Spaz, and I approve this message. In compliance with the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002.

A wise man once said a product or service is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it.

I mean... I think you asked a good question. But, I'm a radio dork. So my opinion may be a little skewed. LOL

I honestly can't tell is you are serious. LOL Yeah, I giggle to myself when I hear this. Unless I am with other radio dork friends. Then we get a good laugh together. Especially when I hear a guy and his wife doing tests while she is home and he is driving around, and no matter how bad he would sound into the repeater, she would keep saying "the gauge is full, but I can barely hear you. I think the radio is broken." Yeah, that is typically the way I help people. I'll tell the stuff like Loud and Clear, A little 'pan fry' static, about 50/50 SNR, but still 100% understandable, I'm missing words, negative copy. I figure that type of stuff is the most helpful. And of course, that only helps if I hear the repeater Q5 myself. If not, sometimes I just say, I'm too far from the repeater to tell for sure, but it sounds ok."

Yeah, I saw that. Always fun you get a nice strong path. Im considering putting my 2m repeater up at my house permanently. I few people helped me with testing and I got about 7.5 mi with 100% reliability and about 20 mi at the fringe (less than 50%).

Same here. I always felt like 'dork' is a term of endearment for when someone who cares about you wants to tease you a little be for being unusually good at or into something.

That is a pretty neat report! Did you have a full-quiet signal at -85 dBm? I attached a chart to do a quick conversion. If you have a manual for your radio where they tell you how many uv the 12 dB SINAD is, you can simply track up the chart 18 dB and that should give you the uv value for the expected q5/full-quiet. dBm-to-Microvolts.pdf

In the FM radio world, a full quieting signal typically refers to a signal strength level where the background noise is minimized to the point of providing clear, noise-free audio reception. From a human's perspective, any noise from the RF environment (like static) is eliminated. Full quiet is often referred to as Q5. Frankly, its subjective and many people will dispute the answer. There are also opinions of what the technical values would be. While opinions on the specific signal level varies, generally accepted technical values are 60 dBμV or higher. This typically translates to 20-30 dB SINAD ratio. Again... indicating good audio quality with low noise. To try to translate to something a little easier to understand... 20 dB or 30 dB SINAD means the audio is 20 dB or 30 dB over the receiver's noise floor (no detectable audio). This is a cool table provided by an AI search. Per the AI results...

If you are asking, its already too late.

True... true.

That is true to a degree. Im sure some radios have a busy indicator or busy lockout that could help. Though, the monitor button or temporarily disabling the TSQL may still be the best way to go. I have Yaesu and Motorola radios that don't show any activity at all if the tone squelch is on and not the correct tone to open the squelch. So I would have no idea if the channel is busy or not unless I go into monitor mode. Also, the busy indicator can't tell the difference between a conversation and random noise. It would stink if you're waiting to use the radio based on the meter or busy indicator because the RF noise floor is higher the the user squelch threshold.

Eh, tripping some GFCIs is no big deal. Call me when you key-up and 4 of the gas pumps you're sitting next to crash and go through a whole reboot cycle so no one can get gas for 10 minutes.

Yeah, man. We ha e a good group here. I'm happy to help where I can. I'm sure others will continue to help, too.

@meyer sorry to hear it didn't work out. Im not sure where you are, but im in the DC .metro area. If you're close enough and want to pursue it, I would be happy to help.

I have a Telewave TPRD, too. And a few other brands. What I am saying is that there are caveats to be aware of and action needed for optimization. There is a reason that the industry standard is to filter transmit and receive. The mere presence of one cavity impacts the other cavities. That is why the tuning instructions say to tune each cavity individually first, and then re-tune them collectively with all cavities connected. Needing to re-tune when changing the cavity configuration doesn't imply that it wasn't tuned correctly in the first place. That is the nature and expected response of stacking filters. I do agree that removing the transmitting side of the radio from the duplexer and adding a dummy load should not impact tuning, since that is how we tune them to begin with. Also, I'm sure you're setups are working fine. I would be willing to guess there are other factors at play, such as there is desense in your system, but the system performs well enough that the degree of impact isn't as critical. Or the transmit and receive antennas are significantly physically disperse. Somewhere between 400 and 600 feet of horizontal separation to accomplish an additional -67dB to -70dB of attenuation, or 20 to 30 feet of vertical separation to yield about -42dB to -44dB of attenuation, which isn't horrible if you have a filter on the receive side and you are running low power (<50w).

The Telewave is a Pass/Reject filter. The high-side set of cavities are considered one set of filters and the low-side is a second set of filters. Getting rid of the transmit pass filter and receive reject filter on the transmitter side will 100% impact receive sensitivity and cause other issues. Even though the repeater does not (intentionally) transmit on the receive frequency, the transmitter's output can still interfere with the receiver due to things like transmitter leakage (aka Broadband Noise), failure to isolate the transmit and receive paths leading to small amounts of transmitter power leaking into the receiver (even on separate, but close proximity antennas), and overloading the receiver’s front end with all the transmitted noise (spurs, harmonics, etc.) The receiver’s front end is designed to detect very weak signals. Any leakage from the transmitter (even if it’s not exactly on the receive frequency) can overload the receiver’s front end, causing distortion and reducing the ability to detect the intended signal. The notch filter and pass filter acts as a barrier, greatly attenuating any transmit signal that might overlap with the receiver’s frequency range. To try to overcome the lack of filtering on the transmit side, you can stack all 4 cavities in series on the receive side, but they will all need to be re-tuned and the end result would still not be anywhere near as good as if you had the transmit properly filtered.

You can use a transmit tone to unlock a repeater without using tone squelching on your mobile/handheld radio. That is a standard feature on every radio I have owned in the last 20 years.

So, there are a few answers. Some versions of Windows 11 don't have Com ports. You would have to install legacy hardware in the device manager. If they are already installed, look in the device manager under Ports (Com & LPT), plug the radio in and make a note of the new port number that pops up. Unplug it to confirm that you documented the correct number, and then plug it back in. From there, pick that port in the Midland programing software. If none of that makes sense or you don't know how to do this stuff, you're going to need a more nerdy friend.

What OS do.you have on your computer?

The answer is yes and no. Lots of people use two antennas and split duplexers. You can absolutely separate any/all of the cavities and arrange them in any order and use multiple antennas. The cavities are identical and all capable of being use separately or stacked in any pairing number. However, the cavities are all tuned to work together. There is an extreme likelihood that you will have to re-tune the duplexer. In my experience and opinion, the chances of splitting the cavities apart and not negatively impacting filtering without re-tuning is almost zero. So, if you can tune it or have someone who can tune it for you, go for it.