gman1971

I really think Michael still has something he wants to tells us...

It would be huge if the NEXT can be programmed via CPS... hoping they do the ION as well... Thanks @gortex2

The statement from @MichaelLAX"Whole political class" pretty much sums it all up. ? And truth is nobody knows what the "whole political class" really does, and why; and that is one more problem in the long list of problems we face...

You must always report income to the IRS, not two ways about that: it is the law. With that said, it is my opinion that lowering the threshold for a 1099 sent to the IRS down to a meager 600 a year puts everybody, including "little guy", "grandma" etc into the business category... with additional paperwork that most folks have never filled, and the very real possibility of getting audited for no reason other than potentially being in the wrong side of the political spectrum for selling your sofa for 601 bucks, or some other thing like that. While I am not directly affected by this, as I don't sell anything anymore on eBay... since the last thing I sold a year or so back ago, a TM-v71a, eBay took a huge chunk of money, and so did PayPal... I made the decision to not sell anything there anymore. Now, adding onto those hefty fees there is now the potential risk of being audited for any reason, thus putting the burden on you to prove that you indeed sold items at a loss. I think this explains part of the reason why I am seeing less radios being sold on eBay... but I am pretty sure a lot of people are going to be caught with their pants down next year, when they get a 1099 for a large amount of money. Cash and local clubs, indeed, but don't forget to report that money you earn... it is the law. G.

I've purchased most of the 7550e radio fleet I have in the 2nd hand market, and its hard to find NX5300 for <300 bucks... whereas I was able to find plenty of used XPR7550e, most of them with minor cosmetic flaws for around 300 bucks a pop (or less). Replacement parts for the XPR radios are readily available, things like microphones, antennas, accessories and IMPRES batteries... a feature to which there is no equivalent in the Kenwood lineup. Well, the NX1200 audio is good until you get inside a noisy cockpit, or inside a noisy location, mall, etc, then the XPR7550e simply wipes the floor with the NX1200. I've also heard the APX8000 noise suppressor wipes the floor with the XPR7550e... so there is that... Agreed, I am not thrilled with the whole direction they are taking with the XPR lineup, but there isn't much I can do to change that and it looks like the XPR7550e/5550e radios will be the last radios I purchase for a very long time, which is about the time it will take for APX8000 to go for 300 dollars in the used market... a long time. G.

In the NX lineup just the NX-1200, no screen, VHF. The equivalent of the XPR7350e G.

I think you might be able to use the VERTEX VXD-720 housing for the XPR6550 radio... G.

I know that some Kenwood diehards will disagree with me, that is fine, but I tried the NX stuff and they have measurably worse receivers, inferior audio and features that I didn't deem critical for our application. I reached the same conclusion as the other guys who chose APX over the NXDN stuff. Unfortunately, my budget didn't have an extra zero at the end of the check, otherwise I would've certainly chosen APX radios over the XPR as well... XPR radios provide 100% crystal clear audio pretty much all the way to the end coverage, even in noisy environments, inside a car, inside a store... etc. People who have the gain on ther mics +20dB, forcing me to lower the volume... etc... is a thing of the past.... And the APX radios are even better from what people who own both keep telling me... and like I said before, unfortunately the budget isn't that rich to own and operate a fleet of APX8000 and APX8500... G.

Yeah, given the shortage of radios, I would've taken a couple as well ... G.

Very nice products is the understatement of the year... hahaha... mewantstwenty!! I agree with the audio suffering in DMR if CCRs are used... on my system, everything is SL/XPR so the audio quality is pretty good. Isn't the older XTS radios use the IMBE vocoder vs the AMBE2 on the DMR and P25 Phase2 stuff? G.

The COVID 19, 1.9 trillion dollar package that passed last year made a change to the tax code to "pay for it" (LOL) That change went into effect at the beginning of this year, Jan 1-2022, and that change is that anyone who uses Paypal, eBay, etc, will have a 1099 created and sent to the IRS automatically if they sell over $600.00 in a year (regardless of how many transactions). Prior amount was $20,000.00 in a year and 200 transactions. Anyhow, those sites, Paypal, eBay, etc, will be asking for your social security number and other potentially sensitive information... so if you are worried about privacy and your SSN leaking out, etc, this might be a serious concern. I think things like Paypal "Friends and Family" etc, are supposed to be excluded, but who knows... DISCLAIMER: You have to declare to the IRS every dollar you earn as income... and all I am doing here is reminding people of what happened, for their consideration. Anyhow, I've already noticed a sharp drop in 2nd hand radio equipment on eBay, in just this two past weeks..... so if you had plans on starting that XPR7550e collection from eBay... you might be too late... Cheers. G.

@WRAX515Agreed, XPR7550e FTW.... @PACNWComms Dodged a bullet with the Harris!! Now you are a true Motorolian empire warlord...

APX8000 and APX8500... not bad at all!!

So, moral of the story, don't waste your money in Garbage bag CCRs, and get yourself a used Motorola. Thank you. G.

Whatever you say, Alex... and just like I said on my previous post, sometimes not even sleep can fix the problem... G.

Wrong, measured data proves that adding 6dB inside a forest did NOT yield double the range, adding 10dB on a more favorable frequency with a 5/8 wave antenna (vs a rubber duck) increased range only by about 2.7 times, at best, so a 6dB increase will NOT double the range inside a forest as you claim. Now, the data did prove that adding 120 feet of antenna elevation showed at least a four-fold increase in range, from <4 miles to at least 16 miles. Do you have any data collected? or you just guess stuff up with some formulas? Back at a previous job I used to joke that everything done in simulation is doomed to succeed... And where did you say that you ask? What about you just told Marc that going from .8W to 42W will likely experience a 2000% percent increase in distance.... , so adding x52 times the power yields a 2000% range increase too... do you really guess this stuff? I guess sometimes not even sleep can fix the problem, darling... G.

Here is another place where you claim this nonsense: "Where did I say that? Care to quote me? In space it will. On earth it won't. In the forest, on UHF, quadrupling 5W to 20W will double the distance from 0.5 mile to 1 mile. It it clear now?" Goalpost again, now we are back in free-space... not inside a forest anymore? And you are wrong, 5W to 20W does NOT achieve double the range,that is some serious BS you've been told. Max UHF/VHF radio range in the real world is determined by antenna height above ground, not by power. Bumping power to 200 Watt doesn't allow my mobile radios to reach 40 miles. Period. A 6dB loss, while a waste, it will only affect my max range by about 5 miles at worst, not cut the range in half as you claim it would. Now, if my antenna was placed 150 feet, 6 dB loss will be insignificant, as stated by Marc. G.

My remote nodes are 50W mobiles installed on delivery vehicles. 50W gets me 20 miles at best, or around an average of -120 dBm as measured that far out. Nearly 100% reliable coverage is up to 15 miles out, or in the -105-115 dBm range. Given where the base is located, the antenna elevation I have, which I cannot change, and the extreme difficulty of the surrounding terrain around base, along with the high noise floor, reaching 20 miles out is already a miracle. To achieve that on 50W the system needed preamps and a crapton of filtering to be able to hear signals that far out. And no, 200W doesn't yield 40 miles as you claim it would. And before you go claiming that a 20dB preamp is like adding 20 dB of power... no, let me stop you right there.... those super low noise LNA +20dBm Preamps only improved the overall sensitivity of the base radio by about 2 dBm. The two thing that made the biggest difference in range were raising the mast to 45 feet and adding the 2-bay dipole, and the reliability across the entire coverage area was noticeably improved when the preamp was added along with all the extra filtering to prevent IMD. G.

Wrong: I can reach 60 miles on 1 w, I've done it easily with an UV8000E on crossband strapped to a drone. All you need is elevation, not power. 1 W on VHF will reach 3000 miles in free space. If you need more range you increase height in UHF and VHF. 1.5 meters off the ground, in UHF will reach about 2, 2 1/2 miles at best to another 1.5 meter located portable radio in suburban terrain. No amount power is not going to give you 100 miles at 1.5 meter elevation. You are welcome to try. Well, it seems to me that it doesn't make much sense to you, because you seem to be defending that four times the power = double the range... which is wrong, and then you keep changing the goalposts while at it too... so now we are inside a dense forest.... which BTW, I've already taken the time to thoroughly test with RSSI meters, spectrum analyzers and even performed iso-tee on the radios too and all that as well. You see, I don't leave shit to chance anymore, I measure everything so there is zero voodoo magic, zero broscience and any other magical formula like four times the power is double the range involved... haha... As measured, my best UHF portable radios, two XPR7550e on 5W ground to ground inside a Wisconsin forest, can barely reach a mile before you can't hear anything. Two 5550e (albeit VHF), both on a backpack with a 5/8 wave antennas, on 50W are lucky to reach more than 4 miles inside the same dense forest, that is on VHF!!, which has a 10dB advantage over UHF in free space... 4 miles at best. Now, here is the kicker, I can talk from inside this particular forest to the base 5550e radio located about 16 miles out... why? because the base antenna (2bay dipole) happens to be about 120 feet above the 5550e radio inside the forest. Is that simple. 25W reaches base at 16 miles too, ... but that radio on 50W can't reach another radio 4 miles inside the forest, but my base repeater, which has a 120 feet advantage can talk to any radio inside the forest. Elevation is king. As for radiation pattern, this feat of 16 miles to a backpack inside a forest couldn't be achieved with anything else but a 2-bay dipole... so, whatever radiation pattern the 2bay dipole has it made a huge difference in reaching this far, reliably. So yeah, radiation pattern and altitude are pretty much what determines how far you reach, and a receiver that can actually hear things too... Quadrupling the power on the base won't reach 40 miles (double the range ) as you claim it will, not even close! At 20 miles, current measured RSSI levels are already in the -118-124 dBm range... so adding 6 more dB to the signal (4x power) won't make it to 40 miles, not even close. But according to your bro-science magical formula, if I added 5kW I should be able to reach all the way to Iowa from Madison, WI... LOL... If I ever needed to reach 40 miles, reliably, I will need to increase the mast height probably by about 150 feet. If I would've followed your advice of quad power equals double the range, then I would still be fumbling around like a moron wondering why my CCRs don't work beyond half a mile... wait a minute... I did.... I followed this kind of advice before and where did it get me? to a thousand dollar hole in my wallet caused by moer powerful CCRs and garbage equipment... I really don't care if you make fun of me, or my golden antenna (its aluminum, really) I currently own and operate my own infrastructure that boasts reliable range that was absolutely unthinkable 2 1/2 years ago, especially given all the limitations I had to face, a range that was only achieved by listening to what people who do this for a living had to say. G.

Proves your point? Sorry, but I disagree; range problems are NOT solved with "more power", which is what marc tried to explain. Why not? well, b/c 1 W @ VHF will already reach like 3000 miles in free space, given a -124 dBm receiver sensitivity... but most obstructions will dampen the signal well beyond what you can achieve with a troglodyte approach of "more power". You need height and radiation pattern to reduce that attenuation factor, along with a Fresnel zone initial clearing so the signal behaves closer to free-space... etc... all that well before you even consider adding a single watt of power. (well, unless you need more than 3000 miles range and you are only using 1W) Otherwise, there is no amount of power that will allow a radio signal go through a mountain (or the curvature of the Earth)... but instead, if you place a small 1W repeater atop that mountain, boom, your range is now 100+ miles... on just 1W. Also, there are times where a radio will just not work, no matter what, and just because you have a hammer, not all problems are a nail. I've learned this the hard and very expensive way: managing to extract 20+ miles out of a site that originally was lucky to reach <1 mile... with power output kept constant at 50W. So, how did I do it? Elementary, by increasing the antenna elevation from 30 feet to 45 feet, then ditched all the hammy grade garbage, including but not limited to garbage CCR radios, garbage cables, garbage connectors, and garbage antennas, and installed a 2-bay dipole, heliax, trimetal/silver/gold/ N/TNC connectors with double shielded coax patches, plus added a crap-ton of filtering, plus isolator and a preamp. None of those things even remotely resemble adding more power to the system, yet range improved by 20-fold. If you think you need more power then chances are you are doing something wrong, and that is not the advice I want to spread around, misleading others. Also, you still haven't defined "fringe"... is a "fringe" because you use piece of garbage bag radios? or because the signal is truly under the site noise floor threshold? Do you know? Because this is kinda important to know. Have you done a site noise evaluation? have you iso-teed the receiver? Have you measured the RSSI at the different places where there is a so-called "fringe"? I solved all my "fringe" problems by fixing the real underlying problems, none required adding "muh powah"... G.

Showoff!! hahahahaha LOLOL...I am saving to get me one of those... but in the meantime, the RSSI meter on all my 7550e/5550e radios has been found accurate to <1 dB with various signal generators... so, while its not an Aeroflex service monitor, its certainly a huge step up from an s-meter, and when used in combination a spectrum analyzer/SG will give you a pretty good picture of what is going on. G.

6dB loss is a waste, regardless of frequency. You are picking an argument with the wrong guy here. 1. At a very high level, on paper, more power would translate into more range on FREE SPACE, but that should be taken more like the exception than the rule. I know for a fact that TX IMD will trash your TX range no matter how much power you run as well, to the point of damaging stuff if you keep adding more power. "More power equals more range" was the kind of really bad advice that people gave me when I got back into radio, along with buying garbage CCR radios with more power... and piss poor dynamic receiver sensitivity... 2. First off, using s-meters to diagnose radio problems is like using chainsaws to do eye surgery... please, use a calibrated RSSI meter and a spectrum analyzer. Being in the fringe zone of your "s-meter" can mean a host of different things. Is the reading because your receiver is garbage? or is it because you are already operating at noise-floor? or is the other station radiation pattern pointed to the clouds? If you want more range, add more filtering. That was what the best advice ever given to me (thanks Marc) G.

I've never done HF beyond some 4W CB in the late 80s/early 90s, so I don't have first hand experience with it. However, for VHF hi/UHF, the most important factor that determines RX range is receiver dynamic sensitivity and noise floor. For TX range, antenna radiation pattern and height are far more important than some power loss in the coax, followed quite closely by transmitter intermodulation distortion caused by other nearby high power TX... that is critical too... I personally think wasting 6dB is a waste, regardless of how good the rest of the system is. I can understand losing power to things one can't control, like planet alignment, sun flares, etc etc., but its under the radio operator control to make sure that the TX line is not burning 6dB through it... G.

Marc is BACK!!

IMPOSSIBLE!!