gman1971

LOL, it only took a decade to fix the obvious... not sure how it even got an FCC license in the first place... and sorry if I am skeptical, but its yet to be seen it that radio the guy tested wasn't cherry picked just for the tests.... but if the spurious crap is indeed, fixed, maybe in another decade or so they'll improve the RX section so it doesn't score the worst dynamic sensitivity ever recorded among the 200+ radios I've ISO-tee to date... can't argue with cheap tho.... G.

+1 stay away from ALL CCRs... If you want to keep it to a single band radio you could try using a transverter, which would allow you to operate in a different band... G.

Yep, I believe it... I use a dummy load for the primary reflector, so the range is only about 1/5th of a mile, enough to cover all the offices/rooms, but useless for anyone else trying to bootleg it, unless of course, they are inside the premises... G.

nah... I doubt these CCRs will be much better range than blister pack FRS radios, they are about as crap as they come. CCR are radios where better antennas mean shorter range... why? b/c they desense and intermod like the good pieces of crap the are... Personally?, If you have to have MURS, I would've purchased a pair of used Motorola CP100 VHF but IMO, if all you want is solid 2way comms, and while not MURS, I would've consider a pair of used Motorola DTR650 over the CCR garbage (if you have the cash, splurge for a pair of DTR700!!): These DTRs are 900MHz 1W FHSS radios, which offer real privacy and scannerproof and have far more "channels", along with performance that will roast the best Wouxun trash hast to offer... with DTR expect range measured in actual miles, as opposed to tenths of a mile with those CCR garbage bags. G.

Probably 40-50 dB attenuation. On a 6550 you can find out, via RSSI meter... I just don't remember at the top of my head, but on the 7550e the attenuation is quite low, since its not an SMA port..

Yep, pretty much anything that is tested using a good quality repeater is doomed to succeed; in fact, I would venture to say that you can probably hit a local repeater with a dummy load on the SMA antenna port... G.

I concur. The 7550e receiver is pretty darn nice... I've seen 30 hours on 3000 mAh packs when mostly in standby. If you start using the radio it drops to the very high 20 hours of use on 3000 packs. G.

RSSI meter usually corroborates the tester results, difference can be greater than 10 dB sometimes, sometimes is not that obvious but the radio tends to perform worse at long range, etc.... IMO, the rubber duck antenna is already a compromise, so why would anyone save a few bucks (if that) on a knocoff, which could potentially have even less performance... well, I guess CCRs are being bought left and right, so performance is not a priority, ... moot point. Oh well... G.

HT1000 is a pretty decent radio. Don't be fooled by the specs in the receiver sensitivity, as the HT1000 VHF model has a pretty darn hot receiver... which also has selectivity to boot too... the claimed specs are -118 dBm (0.28 uV @ 50ohm) Personally I would go with the HT1250/HT1550... with the full keypad... but... that's just me. G.

There are no 800 mhz free services for non-ham operators. If you want a license free 900MHz radio get a Motorola DTR, its a 1W FHSS radio that will destroy every CCR in the market for short range reliable, and secure comms. G.

Those in a pack are not real Motorola antennas. IMO, buy directly from MOL, I buy all my XPR antennas from MOL directly, as giving money to the counterfeiters only makes the problem worse. Those counterfeit SMA antennas are much worse than the genuine Motorola antennas I've purchased directly from MOL, as measured with multiple antenna analyzers. Also, to be clear, most "official Motorola dealers" on eBay price gouge the heck out of you, and most are lazy that take a week to ship stuff out.... My experience with MOL has been pretty much great, I know, some people have had some horror stories, but not my case... and most antennas I've purchased directly from MOL took <48 hours to show up at my doorstep, at a lower price tag. G.

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.

Well, testing MURS vs FRS range with CCRs is like testing how accurate an AR-15 would be by using an airsoft replica... All those radios have nearly equal, or equally poor dynamic sensitivity, measured around -90 dBm, in both V/U bands. The Gen1 XPR 6550 has about -110 dBm dynamic sensitivity, so if you want to test MURS vs FRS, get a pair of 6550, one U, one V, and run the test with genuine Motorola VHF/UHF antennas, and while at it measure the RSSI too. Gives you real data, rather than "can you hear me now", which is so "reliable" and reminds me of an old TV commercial for cell phone coverage, when coverage used to be poor at best... just like CCR range. G.

By "In the open", you mean, mountain top to mountain top?, even then, the 9.5 dB difference is a massive difference, several hundreds of miles in the open kind of difference if you do the math. So, no contest in VHF vs UHF in terms of range. I yet have to find my UHF XPR7550e beating my VHF XPR7550e both on 1W. So, if you use quality gear, as in: XPR7550e radios, the range in VHF will always be greater than in UHF, under ALL conditions, given the noise floor remains low and close in RSSI value. You might ask why is the noise floor important? Well, the noise floor determines the weakest signal you can hear, which is part of the receiver dynamic sensitivity when doing ISO-tee. In VHF the noise floor can be much higher than UHF sometimes, as much as 20dBm higher or more... wow... how so? well, thanks to all the RF harmonics spewed by all these made in CCR land garbage LED fixtures, PV (solar) installations, and all the other smart-CCR-land garbage made that are pumping into the RF spectrum without caring the least about the FCC Part 15 "shall not cause harmful interference", etc etc... that is why those things are so cheap, no filtering, but who cares... right? its cheap, so why should anyone care what it pollutes if the RF spectrum so long it measures how many steps have walked today... (dang I sound like a tree-huger for RF pollution... along being a Motosnob... guilty as charged.... okay, time to end this post then... <signal fades under the noise floor> G.

I disgress with the budget argument, b/c I was in the same boat as the $500... which is how I ended up racking a large CCR collection... only to realize I wasted my budget in useless equipment. 500 dollars could get you several XPR Gen1 radios... and in the past you could've gotten x2 XPR7550 (non e) variants too for 500. So you wait until next budget is available, you get another two for 500... etc.... and so on so forth. Its called time budget too, given more time the budget can be increased. Its a tradeoff how soon you want it, how much you can spend and how far do you want your light to shine. In regards to scrounging for parts, or your friend who just put up an UHF repeater: Most of the people who have walked the path know very well the costs of scrounging for parts, forking every $$$ out your own pocket, etc... but then, because I want my money to count, I think its wise not to waste it in substandard equipment... Things do get expensive quick when they are worth it... this applies to pretty much everything in this life worth doing. It seems like we (myself included) are eager to underpay other people's hard work but we are always eager to ask more for our own work/job, and that is the weak point in the armor that the CCRs are targeting...

LMAO, hardline with a 60 dollar antenna... oh well... I think this pretty much sums it all up. 60 dollar antenna might work well for the first 3 months of use, as I've tried over a dozen of various grade antennas on my tower.... most of the ham radio stuff tends to fall apart after the first winter with heavy snow, solders go dull, break, water ingestion sends the SWR through the roof... in fact, most of the CCR made antennas are just that... a problem waiting to happen. You might get lucky if you live in a nice dry part of the Earth, but here in WI? the only antennas that have lasted were not cheap, and not made in CCR land. Its easy to understand not everyone has the budget for an APX8000, heck I can't afford to operate a fleet of those, but there are plenty of good radios around that aren't cheap pieces of substandard equipment that will work way better than CCRs when things get rough. G.

LOL, Radioditty, TYT, Anyone... its like going to war with an airsoft... hahaha.... amateur stuff lasting in SHTF depends entirely on usage and price, I can definitively see HF amateur gear lasting a long time as a base radio (the expensive stuff, mainly), but the cheap stuff? for EDC by boots-on-the-ground, etc?, nope, it won't last very long. Battery quality control is also like non-existent on those CCRs, while you might get lucky with a radio that lasts the advertised figure, chances are the next one will not... G.

Totally agree with your last statement, about being miles ahead of 99% of potential adversaries.

All cities are a target, the bigger the larger the X on it. Honestly, I don't think bombing a city into oblivion will bring any benefit, except, well, maybe make the enemy more determined to end you. London 1940? Radios in a movie? The shittiest and cheapest possible radios they can get away with... heck, I see modern movies where the SEALs or SpecOps teams use Baofengs... so that kinda puts things into perspective as to how cheap they are nowadays... Now, In a real world SHTF? I think we'll see a lot of small coordinated groups with ham radios and CCRs in the beginning of a large SHTF, but most of the ham radios and the CCRs will stop working soon after they are abused for a few weeks/months in the field, water, cold, and batteries will probably die too... antennas will be damaged quickly since those are just a glued metal rod inside plastic casing in most cases, the microphones will stop working the moment some water ingestion happens (seen that)... etc... so after some time, if things don't go back to normal, we will see most everyone fending off for themselves with very little comms, if any. Then after a while, the few groups left with comms will be the groups using military/LEO grade gear, like APX, XPR, Harris, PRC military radios, etc, and those will becoming prominent players, capable of projecting force via coordinated attacks with impunity. Those who have comms + pack heat will have a massive edge over the ones who only pack heat in a SHTF. G.

Well, truth is nobody really knows for sure what will happen if an EMP strikes... but we can say that some bad shiatz will go down... Like WRKC935 said (thank you, btw), just have several spare radios stored inside ammo boxes should be good, also water is highly effective at dealing with EMP type of affects. And I'll reiterate this once more: "WATER" IS the most important element in survival, without water we cease to function rather quickly... Good point on threats, WRKC935, I was afraid to bring that up since it could derail this into a gun thread... and we all know this is not ar15.com... but yes, I totally agree, and my belief on that is that you need to have enough deterrent to deal with small threats for a very, very long time. G.

This explains the feature in detail: https://cwh050.blogspot.com/2016/05/new-in-r26-authenticated-radio-disable.html

Correct, but the authenticated means that only certain radios can actually stun the radio, so, even if you send the command from another radio it will be ignored. Basically, the radio that you want to stun also has a list of approved radios that can stun it, which prevents unauthorized stun/kill cmds from other radios. Yes, each radio on my fleet has its own unique ID, that way I can just dial anybody who is within ~20 miles of base, like a cellphone. G.

Well, the authenticated stun makes it so only authorized radios can stun the radio, so if someone sends you a stun command the radio will ignore it. G.

Hmm... I order almost once a month from motorolasolutions.com, the site is not slow for me, but again, in computers it really depends... if you run the site with a Pentium III I am sure it will be a bit slower than if you run it with a Ryzen 9... Absolutely solid advice here: Get a NOS, or a slightly used XPR 7550e. I have an entire fleet of those and I've never had a problem. G.

@tweiss3 Glad you got your MOL stuff... bye bye CCRs G.