cwheeler

Are you talking about ID'ing on your regular station or something like a repeater? You have to identify at the end of each communication or series of communications. That means the end of a contact/conversation, but it does not mean you have to ID every time you are unkeying the mic. During longer contacts you have to ID at least every 15 minutes and at the end of the contact. How you ID, whether in English or Morse code, doesn't change the interval. In the GMRS, a repeater does not have to ID as long as the stations using the repeater ID themselves properly. You are not required to use PL(CTCSS) when identifying. It is not uncommon for stations like repeaters to ID without buzz so that mobile stations don't have to hear it. See §95.119.

I have "oops'd" a couple of times. Since I got my GMRS license (actually my second one as I never used my old one) I have turned on a couple of other radios that I have dug out of storage. I hadn't been on the amateur bands in about 1 dozen years until about a week and a half ago. I have ID'd with my ham call on GMRS, doing the, "...KD6ELA... doh! wrong call! I mean WQTI277!..." I am guessing that happens a lot for guys that regularly use more than one call sign. Your call sign identifies your station (in the case of GMRS it can be a "system"). Your amateur station is supposed to be identified with its assigned call sign, and you GMRS system needs to be ID'd with its assigned call. There are a couple of services that can cross calls signs, but not amateur and GMRS. You have to turn that ham call sign baseball cap around when you are on GMRS.

There is another thread around here about keeping your cool, discussing how to deal with heat. You are talking about putting a shed up in snow country. May I suggest you might need to worry about cold. I don’t know how cold it really gets where you are, but you mentioned that once the snow comes you won’t be able to access the site. You may want to consider if operating a repeater in an inaccessible location is a good idea. There is an FCC rule stating that the operator must have access to his station. What if it malfunctions and starts causing harmful interference? Will you have reliable remote control? It’s not like you’d have to be Johhny on the spot, but if you have problem on Christmas Eve, the FCC is not going accept that you won’t be able to resolve a problem until Easter J. You got snowshoes? Since you said the snow makes the site inaccessible, can I assume it gets really cold? You should consider that you might have to heat the shed. I can tell you a story about freezing a brand new radio the first night it was installed on one of our mountaintops in the Sierra just a few months ago. Also keep falling ice in mind. You might not want your tower right next to your solar panels, or your shed if it doesn’t have a pretty sturdy roof. If you get icicles on your house, assume they will be on your tower and will fall . . . on your panels. Ice also adds weight. I don’t design our tower installations but I have been told that we can’t add anything to a couple of our towers because they don’t meet current ASNI requirements. The rules we work under now require us to consider ½ inch of radial ice on the tower in addition to wind speed at elevations as low as 2000’ where we are in CA when we want to add any equipment. I have seen frozen batteries burst. Well, I have never watched them burst, but I have come into rooms with broken cells and electrolyte all over everything. Most sites don’t use flooded cells anymore so it is not as big a hazard, and there are several very well made AGM batteries that seem to hold up in extreme environments. There are plenty of examples where radios survive subzero weather in flimsy cabinets is drafty buildings on 9000’ mountains. I got one of those - and it made realize just how tough GE Mastr III base stations are. J But I get just as concerned about my gear when it’s below freezing as I do when over 100.

I have never worked on an LTR system. I understand they don't use a full time control channel. I used to do some work on a Motorola system years back... a Type I system. The company I work for these days is getting away from a vhf conventional system, and we have rolled out a MPT system on 450/460. Like many trunked systems, MPT has a dedicated control channel at every repeater. That dedicated channel can carry voice if the system gets busy, but it slow the service down for users when that happens. So yes indeed you are looking at a different flavor of trunking than me.

OK... I get it ... it did start with "hypothetical." But as for the legalities of PL and DPL. In GMRS we are only authorized voice communication. DPL and PL are specifically allowed to be continually transmitted under your voice communication because it's "sub-audible." Audible signalling is only allowed for call alert and paging, and is not allowed to go for more than 15 seconds. I assume that includes DTMF repeater controls. In trunking the control channel is doing just that, controlling. It controls remotes radios on a repeater output. Control stations in GMRS cannot transmit on repeater output freqs. And how would a GMRS trunked system share the channels with non-trunked users? I know it was all hypothetical.... but I think just calling it a fancier coding system wouldn't fly. They have us screwed down pretty tight in GMRS. Pretty much limited to simple voice communication. Heck - even if you do one-way paging, it has to be voice paging. Ya know... we should always remind ourselves that all these cool hypothetical ideas are why the amateur service exists. I think there have been some trunking experiments there - don't know if anyone is still doing it anywhere.

Linking by IP, yes. But trunked GMRS? We do trunked radio with ROIP on a network of over 100 repeater sites, but we still have a control channel on every repeater that is keyed up all the time. Even if a control channel worked on-demand, I don't know it would legally work on GMRS.

I don't think trunking would be practical on GMRS considering you only have 8 channels available for the whole country, and you have operate in a manner that complies with the channel sharing requirements. Real trunking requires a full time (or near full time) control channel, which would make it illegal, wouldn't it?

Who- Thanks for the referrals. Though I don't know about the GMRS facilities at either, I am familiar with both Bullion and Oso from ham radio, and we have part 90 equipment at both mountaintops. I am looking for handheld coverage. Bullion might provide some in the Park, but probably not much on the valley floor. I'd have real doubts about Mt Oso since it's simply so far away - the other side of the SJV. Thanks again.

Good advice, Gary. I am signed up to be a "hiking parent," which means I will be out on trails everyday with different groups of a dozen or so kids. Chances are that FRS will work for the group almost everywhere The plan was to use my MS350Rs since they operate FRS and GMRS (they are repeater capable if needed). I haven't shunned blister pack radios yet - this is an application they will probably serve well. My wife will be part of the crew running things in the campground. I think I will leave her with one of my Kenwoods. Only slightly more tx power, but it will work from a higher performance external antenna on the car. I might put my old 4W Alinco in my Camelback as a back up - it can transmit on GMRS, but only if something bad happens. We will be with a couple of NPS contractor naturalists - they might have their own stuff - don't know. Thanks

I browsed the list of repeaters in CA on mygmrs and can't see anything that covers the Yosemite area. Does anyone know if there is an available (open or permissive) repeater covering any of the Park? We will be there next month with about 90 fourth graders for a week. The teachers/chaperons use FRS on these kinds of trips when the groups split up for different hikes and other activities, but my wife and I could use GMRS as an alternative if needed. Thanks Curtis WQTI277

I had one of those back in the day . . . the early 80s when I was on CB. The D104 "Silver Eagle" with its side bar PTT giving it the nickname "The D104 chicken choker." They sounded really cool on CB. I don't remember much any of the technical aspects, other than when you turned the gain people could gnats fart in your shack.

Blastco, and everyone else, thanks for the input. I’ve never touched a Baofeng radio and have had only limited exposure to Wouxon . It was over a year ago that someone in our organization showed me one. They loved all its “capability” but also noted that they came with compromises, such as, “yeah they are cheap wide band radios, and the receivers are where you notice it in noisy environments. The intermod can get pretty bad.” I have four of the Motorola FRS/GMRS radios. Two MT350R, and two MS350R. The MS series have the repeater capability but they are otherwise near identical in performance as far as I can tell. I have not taken them to some of my heavy RF environments yet to see how they hang with it. The “quality” of the radios is not really an issue. For what they are sold to do, they do it well. I am not a stranger to two-way radio, being a ham and having 25 years in the part 80, 87 and 90 worlds as a tech and a user. I am quite happy with how these little yellow boxes on simplex (which is how I have used them almost exclusively except for a couple of test contacts on a couple of repeaters). They actually exceeded my expectations for 1.5W radios. Some things I have noted… The MS units’ mics are not very sensitive. So much that I marked the mic location on the “grill” with a Sharpie so my wife and daughter know where to talk. They work fine as long as you talk directly into the hole. Probably a compromise of the unit being waterproof. Even with the best mic position, the deviation seems a bit low. I looked at it with a service monitor and couldn’t yell more than 3.4KHz dev with the CTCSS on, 3KHz with the buzz turned off. What is the typical deviation for GMRS gear? I like that I can split the tone on the repeater channels, allowing me to listen with carrier squelch. I thought I would be locked on transmit and receive. Was happy to see the ability in the instructions. I wish they had non-volatile config. If the battery dies during use, of if you don’t change the battery fast enough, all the settings to go back to factory config. Easy enough to redo, just a little nuisance. But I am realizing that the GMRS world is designed more like the part 90 world than part 97, and yes, some extra horsepower might help. I have a couple of Kenwood TK-3101s (not the Freetalk FRS models) and they are only 2 watt – but every dB counts. I also have a TK-3160 for 4W. I am trying to scrounge up another 3160. The problem at the moment is not being able to find my programming cable for these things, but I will get them on the air one way or another. Then I will ease into shopping for a mobile or two later. Thanks again to all. I am looking at the forums regularly since I discovered them. I like this entire site.

For our PLMR use, we have used "range extenders" with the TK-790 and TK-890 mobiles. These are simply cross band repeater setups. The 25 pin interface on the back of the radios has everything needed (COS, PTT, audio in both directions.) to connect to another radio. For us, the extender was a 1 watt Pyramid that was powered by the Kenwood trough the interface cable. The only modification we had to do was add a surface mount fuse in the Kenwood to protect the power suppy output to the other radio. Don't see any reason why a couple of TK-890 rigs couldn't be tied back to back and each run to separate antennas or a duplexer. We have phased out nearly all the conventional VHF and UHF radios in our fleet since we have rolled out a 450MHz trunked system, so I have not done much work on these things lately. I can get the documention next week when I go back to work. I don't know that the TK-890 is part 95 certified. You'd have to use your own judgement here... As mentioned above I have seen many Motorola mobiles used as repeaters. Many of their old mobiles could be converted easily to full duplex repeater operation; only one radio required. I built a portable, low power repeater in a suit case once with a couple of Motorola Maxtracs. With the power down at 5 watts it was easy to a small duplexer package. I think it was a Sinclair, but it was 20 years ago so my memories of all the component brands we used is a little fuzzy. Hey does anyone know if the Motorola MSF-5000 is a part 95 certified repeater/base? A while back I had a couple offered to me. Man, I loved those. How about the Ericsson/GE Mastr III ? I know people that know people... that have surpluses of this stuff. Since I haven't been an active ham in a long time, I have turned down opportunities to get some of these things for really cheap if not free, but didn't want to add any more junk to my garage. Curtis

Jeremy/Gary: Thanks for the welcome. Your answers were the ones I kind of expected. Except for the part about odd/reverse repeater splits. Are those very common? I wouldn't expect to see much of that that with the way the ways the relatively small number of available frequencies between 462 and 467. I am down to having only three or four or radios in my ham collection, stored in the garage. 440 was my band of choice for local comm when I lived in the bay area. Somewhere in that garage or a closet I have a UHF Motorola Saber - - a total brick, but an awesome piece of PLMR hardware. I recently turned down a couple of MSF5000 repeaters because I didn't know what to do with them. Probably not suitable for GMRS, so not likely going to kick myself (wife would have killed me if I had brought them home). My ham activity dropped off when we moved to Sac with a new baby, new house, then a new car or two that never got radios installed... then my favorite band was essentially shut down by Beale AFB... i just slowly went off the air. Can't see myself collecting a bunch of GMRS gear. Maybe I'll want one better handheld and possibly something in my wife's car, otherwise I'll likely keep it simple. I'll never get permission to make it an expensive hobby. Though radio is nothing compared to airplanes and boats.... been there, done that! I have done some monitoring and I am not sure if I should be surprised at how little GRMS traffic I hear in the Sacramento area. I put "Sacramento" prominently in the subject line to see if any locals would reply. Trying to get a feel for the on-the-air culture, but so far I only heard one conversation between two guys that were just yaking about driving home from work and going to Home Depot. Same stuff I use to hear on 440 - only less of it. I hope I can get familiar soon and become a regular contributor here. I was a pretty active ham after getting my ticket in 1992, until about 2002 (getting married can do that to some hams from what I hear). I got my general radio telephone operator license for employment reasons in 1989. I have been a telecom tech for over 25 years. Worked in telecom for a major oil company for many years. Before that I had a job in cellular (in it's retail infancy of the late 1980s), and little time with a company that made RF tracking gear for wildlife. I did a five year stint in management, and now work as a tech for a major northern CA utility company. I am thinking GMRS might make me interested in working with radios after work again. Never really gave GMRS much thought until I got a hold of these blister pack radios and looked into licensing. Thanks again Curtis

Even though I am on my second GMRS license, I am a total newbie to this. I let my previous license expire because I never did anything with it. In fact I don’t think WQAB931 was ever uttered on the air. So we recently “upgraded” from a pair of FRS radios to now having four FRS/GMRS units, two of which have “repeater capability.” My wife actually took care of the online app for a new license when I mentioned that, “we ought to have one if we want to legally use these extra channels.” So after using them a bit, what I am wondering; is a one-watt handheld going to be enough to really be able to use any repeaters in the Sacramento area? I am not a very active ham anymore, but I remember that 1 watt on 2m and 70cm was enough to get you into a local repeater, or even good regional high elevation machines in northern CA (pre PAVE-PAWS) But at the same time, the trunked 450/460 system we operate for my employer is dismal for low power handhelds. All depends on the equipment and the engineering. Hams always seemed to be better at building boxes that can actually hear. My wife has no interest in the technical aspects of radio so I won’t be taking the family to the amateur service. She also is not going to go about town with an HT on her belt (like I used to do when I was . . . a radio nerd). But we used the FRS radios (and recently the GMRS side) near the house and on trips/activities, and she would use GMRS enough to stay practiced for emergencies, etc. But is it practical? Thanks for hosting this forum.