marcspaz

Worldwide when the SFI is up and as we move into solar maximum. In a couple of years, you will be able to talk around the globe with a wet noodle and a watt.

I guess you're not going to buy a new Cobra / Uniden FM CB for $500, either? LoL

Thanks @DanW! And yeah, kinda strange to have limits on likes. I forgot about that.

I'm voting for 19 instead of 20 because (this is really not going to influence the nation, but on the off chance I'm wrong) road traffic on 20 simplex, will be competing with repeaters on 20, especially with the travel tone enabled. In heavily populated areas with many repeaters and overlapping coverage on all pairs, it will get ugly. As it stands now, we're so congested here, that on some pairs, if you are running the travel tone you are bringing up 3 repeaters and being heard for 180-200 miles in every direction. I can't imagine the harmful interference that could potentially be added around here by using 20 simplex with the 4a tone.

@DanW... what if we are happy hams? Can we still vote? LoL

A little history on CB, the reason truckers picked 19 as their channel is 100% technology driven. CB radios go from channel 1 on 26.965 MHz, to channel 40 on 27.405 MHz. CB radio's and antennas are covering 440 KHz, which is actually a very large swath of spectrum. Because the frequency range is so large, its not affordable to make a CB perform equally on all frequencies. So, the radio and antenna is tuned for maximum performance in the frequency range center, which is 27.185 MHz... aka channel 19. A common issue with the CB is, you can get close to full legal power limit (4 watts am, 12.5 watts SSB) on the center frequency, but on channel 1 and channel 40, your power will be low and SWR will tend to be higher, causing more losses. Also, over the many decades of servicing CB's, I have seen as little as 1.5 watts on AM and 2.5 watts on SSB with a 2.5:1 SWR. Well, no such thing as repeaters for CB and if you wanted to get the maximum mobile to mobile range, you would pick the center frequency for the full 4w/12.5w and 1:1 SWR. That is literally the only reason why 19 became so popular for truckers.

@mbrun I agree that many inexpensive radios don't have an accurate S-meter. I did put a caveat in there, but only a single line. Thanks for emphasizing that point. Side note.... I love to hear some people report "a real 59", not a contest 59. LoL

I wouldn't be too worried about leaving the meter inline. I leave meters inline on all my gear so I can monitor SWR and power while I am operating. Any loss is almost non-existent, basically has no impact on system performance and knowing if my radio or antenna is starting to fail real-time is way more important to me. A quick explanation as to why... lets say you are hearing a weak station and you only have 3 bars (or S-units) on the radio's receive strength meter. Assuming the radio's meter is configured correctly, you would have to decrease the receive signal to 1/4 of what you normally hear to have the meter drop to 2 bars. That would be a dB loss of 6dB. The same is true for your transmit power. If you are transmitting and the person on the other end receives your signal at 3 bars, you have to quadruple your output power to make that person's meter go up to 4 bars... or a 6dB gain in power. Now, lets say you are running 50 watts from the radio and you have a 6dB loss to the antenna, that gives you 12.5 watts into the antenna. It seems like a lot, but your signal only dropped one bar (1 S-unit). If you have a 3dB loss, you would have a reduction in communications so small, that your radio can't measure and neither you are the other station will be able to detect by ear (assuming all else is equal). So, if your meter has 0.anything insertion loss, who cares? It's not impacting your communications.

If you all don't mind me sharing an opinion... I didn't discuss this before my break for obvious reasons, but now that the KG-1000G is in production, I wanted to share some details. I was invited to be a tester of the KG-1000G prototype when there was only the single unit (the prototype) in existence. I spent a little more than a week running that rig very, very hard. It was a fantastic radio and I was really happy with it. If it wasn't the only one in existence I the time, I would have cut them a check instead of sending it back. Though I have never touched the final product, based on the prototype, I feel like you can't go wrong with the KG-1000G. Now that I have an MXT500 inbound, it should be interesting to see how it measures up to the KG-1000G. While I think the 500 will turn out to be a good radio, I doubt it will be as nice as the KG-1000G.

hahahahaha... Too funny. The comments on the video are ridiculous. Just my own opinion. It sounds like people are confusing the Open Repeater Initiative (OPI) and the "Travel Tone" with a "travel channel". The Open Repeater Initiative, which is long gone, was not the same thing as a "travel channel". There was a nationwide group of repeater owners who participated with the Open Repeater Initiative to set their ch20 pair (462.675/467.675) to use tone 141.3 (known as 4a). The idea was, to make the repeater open to the traveling public through common knowledge. If you found a repeater on the rCH 20 pair with a 4a PL, the assumption was to be that you don't need special permission to use that repeater. That is not the same as simplex channel 20 or simplex channel 19, etc., for just cruising around the country. Whatever most people agree on, who cares. Just talk. Again, just my opinion.

Thankfully the rule makers were smart enough to say (paraphrasing) "in an emergency, forget everything you just read." LOL

@wrci350 Great find!

Thank you for the welcome and the kind words. Life has been very busy for me at work and at home. I dropped out of GMRS and amateur radio for some time. I am just now getting some relief at work and at home, so I am getting back into it!

Yes, yes I think I did. LOL

Well, part of the reason why I think it may be allowed (would still seek clarification from FCC) is because the rules say that one-way communications is prohibited except for limited exceptions, and then they list exceptions of which this case type is not listed. That would mean its prohibited. The loophole could be, its not one-way communications. It's two-way communications. That said, the enforcement division of FCC may not agree that two-way communications across services is legally considered two-way communications.

@PartsMan BoxCar and tweiss3 bring up some good points. It may be worth sending an email to the FCC requesting clarification. The division called Wireless Telecommunications has a customer support email addresses and phone numbers. https://www.fcc.gov/wireless-telecommunications

I've never done it with GMRS, but if we use the example I noted, could we not do it that way since we are identifying who we are talking to and what frequencies are in use? I genuinely don't know. I haven't really looked into it.

We do that all the time in the Ham world when we speak to people is some other countries. US amateurs may not be licensed to transmit on frequencies other nations can, and vice versa. So, we transmit on a frequency we can legally use, announce what nation we are calling and what frequency we are listening to (a frequency they are licensed to transmit on). I would do the same thing on GMRS. For example "This is WRBY328 calling N1BED, listening on 446 MHz."

I just ordered mine today through an early access program. It comes with a mic and it was $360. EDIT: Also comes with free programing software and uses a traditional USB cable. No special cable needed. What's in the Box? MXT500 MicroMobile 2-Way Radio Mount with Hardware Microphone 12V Power Cord Antenna with Mount Owner's Manual Quick Start Guide

I have been gone from the forum for sometime... came back today to see what the chatter was about this. I ordered the 500 and it's expected to be here is a few days. I was glad to read that some of you got the programing tools for the 400. I'm sure that makes life a lot better for those who need the advanced features. I'll probably start my own thread to discuss 500, once its here and setup. I'm going to bench test it before it goes in the Jeep. Glad you all kept this thread going. It's a good read.

ok.

I'd have to find the time to go looking for them. I know Corey is one owner. I don't remember the names of the other folks, but I recall 2 or three people said they had the same experience as Corey. As far as if the site or the radio is in compliance... that seems like an awfully silly question to me. Why would the FCC not include the repeater equipment in the site inspection or deem the repeater site to be in compliance and pass inspection if there was illegal equipment being used? That is a major component that the FCC would issue a deficiency on if the transceivers were not correct.

We have had this conversation several times in the past year or so. We have repeater owners on this very forum using part 90 equipment that have had several site inspections done by the FCC and found in full compliance. Part 90 LMR radios are allowed.

Like I mentioned, I have not found any new certifications in the database. Pending, approved or otherwise. I guess someone is going to have to call them.

I highly doubt they would make a big deal about it. Mostly because I think most people who buy their gear have no idea what they would even be talking about. If I were to guess, I would suspect that it will be quietly released as either V3 or MXT400a (etc.) and just update the bulleted feature list. Of course... just a WAG.