DeoVindice
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Posts posted by DeoVindice
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On 6/11/2022 at 4:28 AM, hfd376 said:
They use many of the same accessories as the XTS series, batteries included. I had a 900 MHz version, and it was pretty hard on batteries. I seem to hear it was private labeled for E F Johnson by Moto for a government contract. Of course, that may have been an urban radio myth....
As with many myths, there is a shred of truth in there. The original (V1) 5100s used XTS3000 RF decks. The V4 ("X-platform") and V6 ("ES-platform") 5100s introduced an all-new EFJ RF deck.
I strongly advise against buying a non-ES/V6 5100 as they are infamous for a variety of hardware and software problems. The 5100ES is a very good radio and I prefer them to the XTS5000 in many ways.
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4 hours ago, gman1971 said:
Understood, but those issues could happen in any radio as well, inadvertently change the volume/channels that is... (2.10 and newer firmware has channel knob lock BTW) as for the shutdowns, I've never had any radio in my entire fleet shutdown on its own unless it was due to running out of battery. Also, there is an option to disable power-off, so the only way to shutdown the radio is by removing the battery.
Again, I think both radios are good choices, but for me the weight/size was a deal breaker.
G.
The in-house radio shop that maintains the TRBO equipment concluded that channel selector lock was not possible; there was a long and frustrating email chain on the subject. I believe the radio in question is running 2.10.2 but I don't have it on me right now so don't take that as gospel!
The shutdown issue is caused by the volume knob getting snagged when the radio is carried on a belt clip. On my personal radios (EFJ 5100ES and VP600), I use soft power down and volume lock to solve this issue and it has worked perfectly. One of those had its volume knob bumped into the off position this past weekend but these settings kept it functioning normally. I'm inclined to think that this issue is only common in industrial and public safety applications.
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If the size and weight don't bother you, the 5000 is an excellent radio. Personally, I deeply dislike the XPR7550 having used one extensively for work. I had a lot of issues with inadvertent channel/volume changes and uncommanded shutdowns from bumping the radio against process machinery in cramped areas. The zone/menu structure is also illogical to me.
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19 hours ago, WRQK522 said:
I have been interested into setting up a simplex repeater similar to what you are mentioning. I was planning on using the Surecom SR-112 . I have a plan on how to power the repeater. The only thing is I live in southeast Ohio lots of trees and hills . I can set the repeater high up in the trees etc. I just don’t think using a 5watt hand held with even a good antenna will be enough to cover the area I want it to cover.
My question is with the ADS-1 are you able to use a mobile radio such as a MXT115, or a Retevis RA25 radio?
If so what cables .
Sent from my iPhone using TapatalkI have not used either of those mobiles, but I can attest to the fact that the AD-SR1 works nicely with mobile radios. I connected one to an EFJ 5300ES with a shop-built cable fabricated from an Ethernet cable and a DB15 solder connector.
The programmable CWID function is very nice to have. I have the various DTMF commands programmed into all of my portables for remote control of the repeater, which is mounted in my truck and can be readily powered off solar and a separate battery.
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2 hours ago, Sshannon said:
I probably shouldn’t have said IP is okay, since that’s just the protocol.
I think the FCC (or their lawyers) would argue that if it’s on a cellular system it violates the spirit of the regulations that prohibit placing digital GMRS signals (which aren’t supposed to be a digital mode anyway) onto PSTN. It certainly occupies a certain amount of bandwidth which someone might otherwise wish to use to place a cell phone call.
In any case I wouldn’t try it. But I am risk averse.The PSTN as legally defined doesn't really exist anymore.
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37 minutes ago, MichaelLAX said:
And whenever programming software comes up there are invariably those radios that can be programmed ONLY with Windows in a world that includes Macs, linux and other non-Windows platforms.
Virtual machine. Learn it, love it, program radios with it. FTDI converters work perfectly with VMs. I ditched Windows over privacy concerns and now use Linux as my primary operating system, with Windows XP running as a VM for programming.
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There's an issue in this region with a commercial Capacity Plus DMR system splattering onto GMRS frequencies. The DMR system operator and FCC have been made aware of it but seem to have no interest in correcting the matter. You could be seeing something similar.
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56 minutes ago, MichaelLAX said:
You're confusing XP with Vista!
XP is a dream to use: like a hot knife through butter!
No need to upgrade until I come across a CPS that requires me to use the free copy of Windows 10 that I installed in Parallels on Mac some time ago, but sits dormant!
I still do all my programming in an XP virtual machine running in Ubuntu!
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1 hour ago, MichaelLAX said:
And to actually be able to communicate with your “correspondent” if, for example, the repeater is not functioning or you do not know the proper tone to access the repeater
That is the purpose of talkaround.
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On 12/10/2021 at 3:18 AM, gman1971 said:
Yes, the 6550 has an RSSI meter (button left left left, button right right right). Most of them are very well calibrated, and out of all the XPR radios I've purchased in the past 2 years only one was wrong...
Well, if you value weak signal work, and are not blessed with a great site to place your base antenna, then I think the XPR 7550e havaing a 4 dB improvement in digital receiver performance (-0.14uV 5% BER, with amazing selectivity to boot, and better FM sens too, 0.16 12SINAD IIRC) is the radio to chose. Also, the e model has a battery life of 30+ hours, along with WiFi and BT4.0 and some other improvements which I don't remember at the top of my head. Like I said, I went with e b/c the additional sensitivity.
The RSSI meter has been an invaluable tool in my quest to go from <1 mile range to 20+ miles range, before that it was all a guess game, no more. Now I have many spreadsheets with precise data of what does what, and how different components affect range, the ultimate goal in radio... .... so, yes having reliable RSSI measurements of the noise floor is so very important. Noise floor measurements tells you if your radio is actually reached its max receiver potential, or if the noise floor is preventing you from listening to the signals. For example I know that around here, in Madison WI, there are traffic intersections that are absolutely atrocious in terms of RFI noise, with a whopping RSSI of 80s dBm noise floor! Its basically a dead spot, no VHF gets through, at all, you drive 5 yards out of the intersection and noise floor drops back to -118 dBm... Noise floor also tells you if a radio has poor dynamic sensitivity, as those can be used to sort of pseudo ISO-tee with other radios... etc.
G.
I've been quite impressed with with RF performance of the 7550e I carry for work. It maintains control channel reception even several floors underground. Motorola's engineers did good work with the Rodinia receiver.
I personally haven't seen 30-hour battery life. On an LCP system with midlife batteries, we get 9-15 hours per charge.
My personal "weapon of choice" is an EFJ 5100ES. I've always liked P25 audio a bit more than DMR, and the controls are very glove-friendly (especially with 51FIRE blade knobs). Specified sensitivity is only 0.25uV and I haven't hooked one up to a monitor to see how actual performance compares to the spec. I guess I give up some performance to get PS-grade controls at that price, but with proper end user training and employment it's not been noticeable.
I use two antennas, a Smiley Super Stick and an RCBI stubby. The stubby is for MMDVM hotspot use and underground work where a whip would get snagged. When handheld or worn on a chest rig/harness, that Smiley gets out better than anything I've ever used. It's surprisingly close to mobile performance.
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On 12/7/2021 at 5:29 PM, MichaelLAX said:
Which VHF HTs did you use on what frequency?
On my end, a Kenwood TK-290 and NX-200, as well as an EFJ 5100ES, all on 146.52 with Kenwood and Motorola wideband antennas. Not sure what my buddy was using; it's possible that his equipment was the problem. He has some quality LMR equipment and some CCRs.
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2 hours ago, MichaelLAX said:
Ah, OK: I found this informative:
Further anecdotal evidence that VHF travels better than UHF on a watt-per-watt basis.
With adequate antenna and ground plane, as well as acceptable noise floor and minimal structures between stations. Anecdotally, our VHF simplex testing in a suburban area was laughably bad even using multiple different radios and antennas on each end. VHF portables just don't work very well in that setting. UHF was full quieting on 1W where VHF was noisy and hard to copy with 5W.
In a mobile application or with external antennas, it's a different story.
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I'm enjoying this thread!
Personally I have a small solar/battery system (and my fiancee just bought her own). We field-tested it for a week this summer and were able to comfortably power a base station, several portables, and several cell phones. That's in addition to a decent amount of stored food, propane, water, individual equipment, and the means to protect all of it.
We went the P25 route for our private communications. AES is standardized across manufacturers so it's not a problem for subgroups to choose different equipment. Our gear is all EF Johnson and Motorola but integrating Kenwood, Tait, Harris, or BK gear is trivial. Subgroups get their own keyset that isn't shared beyond that group, along with a shared keyset for interoperability. A nice side benefit of this is that it forces you to get organized before needing to use the equipment for real.
Rather than relying on fixed repeaters, I have a simplex repeater that can operate off any of my portables. It will pass encrypted traffic and is small and light enough to carry and drop off anywhere. I need to set up a second unit and work on an extended battery.
Something else we've implemented is TMS. A quarter-second data burst can convey complex information while being nearly impossible to DF, and it seems to get out a bit better than voice. Between encryption, data, low power, transmitting while mobile, and terrain masking, it's not too hard to be miles ahead of 99% of potential adversaries.
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55 minutes ago, MichaelLAX said:
Can’t get that link to work
Please double check it
Omit the "." from the end of the link.
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20 minutes ago, MichaelLAX said:
Where?
I'm aware of one that previously served as a repeater RF link in New Mexico but was decommissioned once internet connectivity was established at the remote site. It was approximately an 80-mile shot using a yagi on at least one end but was very susceptible to noise and presumably tropo ducting.
I'd be very supportive of adding high-power operation on the MURS frequencies to GMRS, in the same way that GMRS shares frequencies with FRS.
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1 hour ago, wayoverthere said:
Start here for the context. Findings are linked later in the thread.
https://forums.mygmrs.com/topic/2421-side-by-side-range-comparison-wouxun-kg-805g-vs-part-90/
These results are about what I'd expect. That's not an especially hostile/dense RF environment. Given that only about a half-mile of reliable coverage was achieved, I believe there was an LoS issue, probably caused by terrain. There's no cheating the laws of physics - barring a serious sensitivity issue with the Chinese radio, it will perform about the same as the Motorola in a low-noise-floor environment. Put it in an environment with a high noise floor and it will struggle.
Another interesting point - 0.5 square miles of full quieting coverage was achieved compared to 1.13 square miles of copyable but noisy coverage. A digital mode such as DMR, P25, or NXDN would 'clean up' the audio in that 0.4-0.6 mile band, more than doubling the area in which noiseless communications are possible. Beyond that, it will also be spotty - P25 doesn't defy the laws of physics either. Just something to consider, as digital modes are normal and accepted in the amateur service. (I also know of a couple digital repeaters in GMRS, operating under FCC experimental authorizations).
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VoLTE on FirstNet is unusual. Not to say nonexistent (BeOn), but unusual. FirstNet is primarily a data service. My experience with LTE has been very poor - consumer-grade junk that sacrifices coverage for data speeds and falls down even in populated areas. For essential communications, we use encrypted LMR, and the SWCRS system when longer range is required. WQVS960 has done an outstanding job building that system.
I understand the desire to record traffic, but forcing repeater operation without provision for contingencies is negligence no matter what the justification. Radio inhibit commands keep the unit from working at all, not just on the system.
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8 hours ago, pcradio said:
$10 per month! This is not what GMRS should become. Thanks for sharing the link so we can expose predatory behavior. They'll claim "but we spent $100k to build it". No one asked you to spend that! Can I use channel 16 simplex without causing interference? Do they own the air down there? GMRS does not have enough channels to not step on others.
Look at their list of rules. Tyrant much? Way to make people hate GMRS. $10 per month but feel guilty about using it to much. $10 per month and don't use your native language, because this is America. Wow. $10 per month for the privilege of new tyranny.
Another quote (from their main website). Looks like they want to be momma bear. They will eventually become what they claim to hate. Off to a good start.
Private company charges for use of its equipment! News at 11!
You're not entitled to use somebody else's repeater, and it's quite reasonable to ask for money to offset construction and maintenance expenses. Sites aren't free, you know.
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19 hours ago, WyoJoe said:
I suspect this was just a ploy to add drama. I'm sure those guys have old-school 2D GPS (paper maps) available to them, as well as direct connection (simplex) via radio. But, how would the show be able to drum up suspense if they simply used their back-up systems without incident?
If they do not, that illustrates serious negligence on the part of that agency. No reason to not have their own simplex freqs as well as the various 7TAC interop freqs programmed.
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That's definitely worse performance than I would expect. From inside a second-floor apartment to another portable outdoors, two miles simplex is easy with a good antenna (I use a Smiley Super Stick IV). I'm sure we could go further if desired as RSSI is excellent when using the Smiley. The path is across a mixture of urban and suburbs, with a couple farm fields thrown in for good measure.
I'll grant that we're both using public-safety-grade radios with double-conversion superhet receivers. I'm not familiar with the architecture of the KG-905G so you could have a receiver overload situation if it's a direct-conversion/SoC deal. Have you repeated the test with the stock antennas? Better antennas have been known to cause overload when used on radios with poor selectivity.
As stated before, excessive objects between the two stations will also impact range.
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22 hours ago, Lscott said:
Yeah, simplex around here is sort of dead too. I very infrequently hear any CQ calls on 146.52, even when mobile, my primary operations. I try to respond to the 52 calls when mobile due to the low activity I observe.
I have radios for D-Star, DMR, P25 and NXDN so far. I'm was wondering what to use for simplex operations. Seems like just about everyone uses repeaters since they are typically linked. I wanted to include some simplex channels in the various radios I have to supplement the repeater channels.
That leads back to the thread's topic, pros and cons.
Talk groups and networks. I know on DMR that TG-99 is the talk group used for simplex operation, but what about the other modes?
This gets into the area where I've found separate networks, even for the same digital modes, where the talk groups are not entirely the same, however there has been progress in that area. Then there are the bridging issues. This all seems to be a very unnecessary complication. Here are some examples.
https://w8cmn.net/mi5-sites-talkgroups/
Then the last point is usually you get just one digital mode per radio model or manufacture. I did hear about a couple of people that hacked the MD380 hardware where there is the possibility of getting a multi-mode digital radio without the astronomical cost from manufactures like Kenwood and their NX-5000 series multi mode radios along with the licensing crap that goes with it. I read somewhere the programming software for them is a POS.
That's another problem area. Some manufactures CPS, customer programming software, is rather easy to use and or well organized with a good help system. One of the very popular Chinese DMR radios their CPS sucks. It's buggy and the built in help is almost worthless since there is basically "maybe" a line or two describing a feature. The other choice is looking at a bunch of YouTube videos hoping the area one has an interest in gets covered. Other's like Kenwood keep their training materials locked up behind a "dealer" login portal. I suppose that's done to support their dealer network, they want to discourage customers from programming their own radios. and funnel business to the dealers.
A personal observation it seems most digital voice modes are mostly used on UHF. I'm assuming it's because you can find good commercial gear for UHF far easier, and cheaper, that on VHF. Second there is just simply more spectrum where people can spread out.
I've been looking for some select Kenwood VHF analog/digital radios for a while. The few I see on the major auction site usually are much more expensive than the UHF model, if you can find one at all. I'm looking at an NX-200-K2 at the moment if I can win the auction without paying a fortune for the radio to add to my "collection."
Around the Detroit area, where I'm at, there is little P25 activity and there is only one NXDN repeater listed for the whole state, and I don't think it's even linked into a network either.
Personally, I wouldn't stress too much about simplex frequency selection. 446-447 MHz is generally accepted for UHF simplex so I'd program in some frequencies in that range. In the exceedingly unlikely case you encounter analog activity on one, just move to another.
We use TG1, NAC 293, and Digital Squelch (EFJ's term for it...), on P25 simplex. It's functionally identical to CSQ.
Unfortunately, KPG-D1NK has an awful reputation for being clunky and slow. It's not like the older spreadsheet-based Kenwood software.
I have an NX-200K and like it pretty well. It's not something I'd use for mission-critical (antenna orientation and lack of channel selector lockout) but for business, amateur, and scanning, it's a good unit. I particularly like the depth of options permitted by the menu system, including on-the-fly audio setting changes. They're now cheaper than TK-2180s despite being far more full-featured radios.
If you purchase an NX-200, shoot me a PM. I have some manuals that will help you get the unit set up and performing at its best.
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30 minutes ago, Lscott said:
I know some operators get very annoyed when monitoring their favorite FM simplex frequencies when a digital station pops on on one. That's lead to digital voice operators to use "suggested" frequencies reserved just for digital voice modes.
What are the typical frequencies used for digital voice modes when using simplex? I found several recommendations for 2m and 70cm. It seems like there are only a few suggested frequencies. Since there are several digital voice modes used, (D-Star)(DMR)(Fusion)(P25)(NXDN) and some others, are separate simplex channels used for each or all lumped together?
To be entirely honest, I just use 446.000 for P25 simplex. I have never heard anyone on 446.000 aside from a few friends (and a simplex repeater I stumbled across in southwestern Colorado). 146.52 either, for that matter. FM simplex is dead here.
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Assuming this is a previously good radio that stopped working without a programming change being made, take it to your radio shop for alignment.
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I'm not aware of any direct 3.5mm audio accessories. I use a speaker mic and a cord between the mic and headsets; it works well enough.
XTS5000 wont hold repeater...
in Technical Discussion
Posted
Have you hooked it up to a power meter? Could be anything from a blown PA to SMA damage to internal antenna damage to needing alignment...