kidphc

Speaking of that, when I was in high school we use to run down to the power lines. There is a substation not to far from the house. We use to grab fluorescent tube lights and walk under the power line to light them up. Until, we thought about how if there was enough stray electricity floating in the air to light the bulbs up, it probably wasn't a good idea to be walking around there for any amount of time. Google map of lines, the long open green path.

Our neighborhood has most of the electrical underground. Except, for the transformer pedestal 50 feet from my front door. Not much in the way with interference on GMRS, 2m and 70cm bands. Although, I mostly just listen. So I couldn't tell you how it affects transmit purity. One of my neighbors a couple of blocks over has his long wire slung in the trees. He doesn't have any complaints on any of the bands. Well I take it back, he was complaining about all the vegetation interfering with his satellite play time. http://k3rrr.com/ Now the plethora of Plasma screen T.V.s in my neighborhood make trying to listen to HF with the SDR is another story. Should mention I have neighbors up real close to all sides of my house. Close enough my kids watch his living room T.V. from our living room.

Flew RC Heli for many years, I found the dean connectors a pita to solder. Often depending on the angle and length of wire there was excessive strain on the solder joints for the deans. They were a real pain to disconnect if you were even a bit sweaty. I switched to the Anderson Power poles when my setups for the helis started venturing into high voltage systems. I found that wicking the lead, then crimping then running a bit of solder worked the best. Plus you can slide them together to form a "T", use roll pins to lock them side by side or buy a plastic connector to lock the ends together. I've actually hot glued some to parts to secure them. The only real negative I found was the length of the connectors when connected.

Always learning something new. Now I need to do some more reading. **** update Figured it out, I was just fat finger the columns in CHIRP.and missing the column on every click. It was just an ID10T error.

If you are trying to do split tones the Btech radios don't seem to be able to do it. While requesting access to repeaters, I have only come across two that have had split tones, so not common at all. One of them, didn't have a tone on the input, it did have a tone on output, which I thought was weird. Not really sure what the site owner was thinking about, or is trying to hide actual tone input. As far as making the off the shelf radios useless it isn't entirely true. If you have a dual monitor capable radio (Btech GMRS-v1, you could set the input with the tone to channel A and set Channel B to the output using carrier squelch.

Pretty standard for multiple companies in the same industry to be owned by actually only and handful of parent companies. Food in grocery stores, electronics, software etc... In the US car industry there are only really two manufacturers of battery cores, same with gas only a handful of refineries and the distribution network is becoming a monopoly at this point. The gas you buy at Shell, BP, Costco really only differ in additive packages, added at truck loading and where in the storage unit the fuel came from. The cheaper the gas the more likely the containments. Since, it is most likely coming from the bottom of that gigantic storage unit when it is almost empty. I wonder if the price mark up is the distribution markup combined with FCC certification and Midland's own markup. Esentially, I wonder how much of that $130 or so price difference is markup vs added cost from FCC cert.

Just had a power outage and lost all my long winded response. Here is the short. Thank you Corey for taking the time to answer the questions for me.

Corey I am still a bit new to the radio world. Those attic mounted antenna attract lightning? If it does how does the lightning grounding work?

I agree so far they have been pretty good with their support at least with my couple of experiences with them.

Hopefully, you can PM me a e-mail address. So I can send you an e-mail when I head up into the Ocean City area.

You could just send the information to me. I can put the information into chirp and send back the saved file. Just keep in mind anything past memory slot 30 is receive only. Then you can at least have a file to look at how it was set. Also seems some locals are willing to come by. Then you can watch the process in person. It's pretty easy to do. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk

APRS is essentially automated packet radio system. Think of a TNC as a modem for your radio. You still need access to a 20 or 70cm repeater that has a connection to the internet to send a package out. There are commercially available aprs units with GPS that are really small and used by hikers. some are even connected to the satellites. Others can text and send emails as well as some limited functions with a subscription. check into the earlier congestion of spot. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk

I would say that the receive tone is wrong, or improperly set on his hand set. Haven't gotten to play with repeaters with my radios yet.

I had mentioned both before to him. I believe, well in my case it would be cost prohibited. I only say this because he mentioned 6 radios before. I do agree with your post though, from see where he generally lives. Even an APRS system with messaging may not cut it.

I have the gear also. What are you trying to program the NOAA stations?

Ht. Handheld transmitter Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk

What radio?

It is quite fine to ramble on. He just sounds like an jerk. For all he knows you have a mother in law there, that you go to visit 2x a month. Asking permission was just a courtesy. Brush it off. There are plenty of awesome repeater operators and folks out there. A lot of the ones i contact just tell me the repeater no longer exist or etc. Their money their equipment. In your terrain you may be quite frustrated with the range of a HT or even a mobile unit. I have you thought of a sat phone or an aprs unit with text capabilities? Although the aprs units (ie. Spot etc) have their own limitations. Personally, I am still working on my bugout gear (three tiered). Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk

First off, sorry for any intrusion of privacy you may feel. I looked at your ID on the FCC database to get an idea of what the topography looks like in your area. For short distance coms I believe you will be fine, although having your home nestled in a wooded valley isn't going to help with the distance. I would contact the owner of the CP650 GMRS repeater and see if you can get permission to use it. H*** the owner may come out to see if he reach that far and give you some insight locally as what to expect. Then you can see if you can further your range. You do seem to have some serious mountains between you and the town north of you. The town I keep referring to is the big one north east of you. A handheld may not be able to reach out very far. Which may hamper you ability to contact the wife in town. Also check with the local HAM club, you have some a couple 2 meter repeaters in town. Tech license seems pretty easy (studying for mine). Then any one with a Technician license can legally walk around with the UV82. No one is going to slap you with fines if you have a family member bleeding out on a trail and calling for help on a HAM band. In fact may HAMs have facilitated in saving someone's life. Just keep in mind that the FCC's definition of an emergency is probably not the same as yours. In my area (Rockville/Potomac MD) the terrain, rolling piedmont, with tons of trees. "Keep Maryland Beautiful" really translates to don't you dare touch that tree and if you do contact us and plant another one. In have some spots around my house I get awesome coverage, drive to Walgreens 3/4 miles away and even using the upper channels on the GMRSV1 it will break up quite a bit. Have toyed with a local personal repeater. The local HAM repeater 4 miles from my house, on top of a government building, I have heard as far as 16 miles away. I will have a better idea once I join the club and get my license,

Contact repeater owner. Ask for permission. Get tones if they use any. Program tones with frequencies. Do you know if it is simplex or duplex?

"You are not authorized to access this page." when click on the link. I kinda wish it had a detachable face like the BTech UV-50X3. Gonna have to go through the whole manual to see if has a detachable face like some of the Yaesu mobile units.

You'll receive fine. But any memory slot you add will not transmit. I was trying to add repeaters and could not keep duplex setting to stick, close chirp and reopen it. For now I use the memory slots as a phone book of tones for repeaters i may run into, with a custom friendly name. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk

Chirp programs it fine. It however can't do a lot due to the firmware lock down on memory spots past 30. Instead of a frequency lock it is locked by the memory slots. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk

I made the mistake in hoping that the radio could be programmed with the repeaters and their tones. It was a mistake on my part, realizing now that yes you can program the repeaters but can't have presets on the other memory slots. Bit hard to program while driving, nor would I want to. Kinda a moot point. With the power levels, I was hoping that the information was actually listed in the manuals that came with the radios. However, My manual (radio is less then a week old) didn't mention anything about the ability to change the power levels. Not that makes much difference since I will be messing with it.

New Update. -My Manuals does not have the power rating info in the manual. --I can receive and send through GMRS channel 8 (467.562) which should be restricted, since max power rating should be 0.5w on GMRS and FRS. Even after the revisions by the FCC. -Talking to Btech support the radio is crippled after the "hard-loaded" channels 1-30. So you can not create a custom memory slot and preconfigure a duplex repeater to it. Since there is no way to set the offset. You are going to have to manual (on the fly) add any tones to the "hard-loaded" memory slot. "Transmitting channels are hard-loaded (1-30); tones can be adjusted on the fly - but any additional channels added (0, 31-128) would be for receive only" Net essence a big "F" you if you have a repeater on a non-standard deviated pair of frequencies. Not like that happens often. Slight difference from earlier version which were locked to channels 0-23. Firmware Version USG2418 Serial Last 4# 2483