gman1971

Interference that is that narrowband in nature can also be dealt with the use of a passband cavity for single channel, of if the interference is that narrowband (like a NOAA weather station) then you might be able to use a cavity notch filter, or if you need a range of frequencies to pass then you can use a preselector filter. Another option is to step up to a radio with a better front end. G.

@gortex2 +1 @tweiss3the ION needs cloud to program. Can't use CPS 2.0

That sucks. I know DCS fixed random squelch opening back in the day with my TM-V71a... G.

I don't think so, right? You can preshare the "preudo-channel #" with your party, which won't be any different than saying, channel 22, CTCSS 161.2hz, now it will be channel 32563. While that is not 100% private, the chances of someone using that same number within the range are slim to none. And randomly scanning 65535 channels makes it a bit more difficult to intercept too, and be eavesdropped. Then, the repeaters that you can already access have their info publicly listed too, so it won't be any different that it is now punching a CTSS tone or DCS tone, on your radio, except that random people won't start randomly keying the repeater, or talking to your kids trying to pry information like where they live, etc... Then there is the fact that I never respond to anything on GMRS (except repeater traffic, when on the channel) because I run DCS/CTSS, so I don't hear a thing. G.

Yep, that happened to me plenty of times... You need DCS to get around that, at least it did in my situation. G.

Can't add more reactions today... so can't like your post... LOL. Yep, ideally... but it would seem the FCC is so far down the tubes, that it will take a rocket just to get to the basement... Digital modes seem to play quite well with each other, I must say. Specially DMR with other digital modes, since its TDMA so its not a continuous RF signal, so for P25 it will be a small hit in the BER... but for FM analogue, its probably the worst offender since it really sounds like a machine gun on full auto... G.

As for emergency use: any band/frequency of choice is good so long you know what you are doing. You don't use 900Mhz to talk across the globe, and you don't use 20 meters to talk to a portable 1 1/2 miles down the road. A radio is only as capable/useful as the person who is listening on the other side. If there is nobody listening, then a radio its as useless as bringing an "accordion to war"... G.

Forbidding FRS will probably not do any good at this point, really. There is no way to enforce it, and then the cat is really out of the bag, been like that for the past 15 years or so now.... and it only takes something to be forbidden for everyone to want to do it even more... UHF GMRS/FRS should move towards a better spectrum utilization mechanism at this point, implement something along the lines of DSSS or FHSS which will allow those 22 channels to be used by thousands of people at once and any given user will never know someone else is talking. Motorola DTR radios in the 900mhz band work this way. I think its the way forward. CB has recently been granted the use of FM, which is nice (would've been nice 20+ years ago tho, like Europe does), and you can probably add tone squelch, or digital code squelch, etc, to remove 99.99 of the unwanted skip. We had a couple of Titan Handhelds (RSPY-201 IIRC) around the year 2000, which are an all-mode, 10-11-12 meter portable, and FM sounded really good back then. Now, AM in the CB band, just listening in sometimes can be super daunting to understand. You'll pick skip from all over the place if you are listening in a location with low noise floor, and that skip makes it impossible to really use for local comms, forcing you to crank that squelch so high that become almost impossible for the radio 1 mile down the road to be heard, since the skip will be so strong it overpowers that walkie radio 1 mile down the road. Also, keep in mind your 4W signal might be heard across the globe too... Back in the 90s with just a 4W Midland 75-820, mated to a base CB antenna (like 20 feet tall) placed a top a hill we were able to talk to different countries on the other side of the globe. So that is nice if you are looking to do HF on the cheap, but at the same time its a curse because there is no way to control how far your radio signal spills, and/or know who you are stomping with your 4W signal anywhere around the planet. And this is just using the 4W "legal" limit, cranking that power to some absurd levels, then you'll certainly be heard anywhere on the planet. G.

Yep, UV5R is just the bottom of the barrel, I think the BF-888s is a better radio b/c its cheaper. Those UV5R radios drop a whopping -27 dBm in RX desense when exposed to strong RF interference... I owned a Wouxun KG-UV6D back in the day, which also was one of my first radios, BTW, along with a bunch of GT-3, a Puxing with crossband, an UV-82. Around the same time I also purchased my first Kenwood TM-V71a as base. Range wasn't that great from base to portables, well, until I got my first TH-F6a, and somehow range improved quite a bit, I was able to reach a lot further in congested Detroit outer suburbs vs. any of the other radios I had at the time (10 miles, although spotty coverage, vs less than 2), that was including the Wouxun, and the Puxing, which both were some of the better CCRs at the time, in fact, I think the Wouxun still is but anyhow, the GT-3 (an UV5R clone) range was literally measured in tenths of a mile. At the time I had no idea about what dynamic sensitivity was, nor what receiver desense meant, selectivity, etc, all I remember reading in the forums was a call for more sensitivity, buy the latest and greatest CCRs, I remember the disparage and hatred towards Motorola, to avoid them b/c they'll send black SUVs to my door if I tried to use their equipment without license, and to top it off was that I'll get a mega fine if the FCC found out I didn't have a license.... and so I did: I followed the "experts" advice to the letter: Radios had to have the highest sensitivity in the brochure, I avoided Motorola like the plague, got my GMRS license to avoid those hefty fines and doubled down in CCRs... Unfortunately following the "experts" advice didn't get me very far. B/c most "experts" weren't concerned about explaining what a radio system required to have long reach, or to be reliable, nobody ever explained to me you how you can compare receiver performance, taking opinions out of the equation... As a noob I kept hearing the same talking points: the feedline is very important, antenna is the most important component on the system... but nobody gives you a clue as to how the heck do you evaluate antennas, how you measure the quality of a feedline?... or what the heck is desense, or this or that? So you are left with trusting the most vocal and the best bro-science members in the forum. Anyhow... need to work on my existence outside of this forum now... G.

And... would you care to enlighten all of us about my existence? Have we met in another life? G.

Fair points. There are several people I know around here (where I live) that work in construction related jobs, some are crane operators, some do siding work, glass, etc, but they all use inexpensive Midland FRS/GMRS bubblepack radios from Walmart. We usually get together on a weekly basis, and they've shown unusual interest in the Motorola stuff I carry, but then I am the first person to tell them its just not worth the hassle, nor the cost. I keep telling them that if the Midland gives up the "smokey ghost", just go get another one, and there will be a lot of "giving up the ghost" before you can break even with one XPR7550e (especially now given the pricing of things) But then again, these guys don't need 50+ miles range, they aren't building digital interconnect systems, have no interest in a GMRS license, nor a HAM, and let alone acquire a membership in this forum, nor any of the other radio sites either; which clearly shows that they are not interested in the radio hobby at all, not even a hint. They use cellphones and don't think for a moment about using a radio to communicate with their family, friends, or their cat. Now, it is probably safe to assume that the people who come to this forum, and become members after getting the GMRS license, are present or future/potential radioaficionados (people who like radios and/or have shown interest in them), well, provided they can endure the rigors of figuring things out in the beginning, and dealing with not so great ranges like the "movies" promise you'll have, etc... and for that I feel its just best to not sugarcoat the reality of things: If you want performance, you'll have to pay to play at some point: be it with higher grade equipment, or paying up for a rental space on a tower, a better antenna, filters, etc. Sometimes it just feels (to me) that the more experienced members only push for the cheap stuff, all the time, (which might be okay for some, fair point) but perhaps should also convey the other points you've mentioned as well: the points about the higher tier brand radios; maybe even hinting the new GMRS operators that if they really want to go all in, they'll probably have to go the extra mile, or invest in higher tier equipment, learn a few things, etc. That is all. G.

Holy cow, "some people" are now here, the perfect thread. -If you buy a CCR, Santa will leave you some coal for X-mas... @marcspaz100% agree with your statement... once you leave the internet and talk to people, directly, most people are actually real nice... I know, shocker... G.

Well, at the end of the day its just a low bit-rate voice codec, so its never going to sound as good as analog signal in a high SNR scenario. The strong point for digital is error correction, which usually can translate into increased useful range... although a case for WFM can be made as well, or SSB... but that requires a lot of ear training to pick the nuances of weak signals... etc. That is part of the reason why digital would be appealing to implement, so you can avoid getting hammered by interference, regardless of the source. I think the biggest issue doesn't come from "freebanders" these days, like it did in the 70s/80s. It now comes from a new enemy: the myriad of cheap electronics that spew RFI like its going out of style... the reason why the VHF band noise floor is high (and range is low) is not b/c some freebander dude running 1kW DMR while ragchewing, or a couple of CCRs pumping 50W, etc (I know, letting some of that vitriol out here... LOL), or someone running a 2kW VHF pirate station, etc, its b/c every darn LED fixture nearby pollutes the RF spectrum a tiny bit, then things like traffic light intersections emit RF noise through the roof, or every solar panel installation pollutes the RF spectrum 10-20 dB at a time as well... So, when you add all that noise to your TX signal then you get a super-duper salad of IM (intermodulation) which further screws everything up. And the issue is only getting worse for all bands, too, including the UHF band as well. Soon the noise floor with be so high that you might not be able to use a radio at all. That is one of the reason why a lot of users have migrated from VHF to 900Mhz, to move away from the substantial increase in noise floor. Now, you can still make it work, but you need very high quality equipment, lots of filtering and potentially some sort of active noise phasing to get around the noise floor issue. Its just a matter of $$$$. At this point, like I've discussed with some people, there is no way to put the genie back in the bottle, not unless the FCC starts strictly enforcing all aspects of RF, which starts by strictly enforcing cheap electronics RFI levels, things like LED fixtures and the like, which pollute the RF spectrum like crazy. Ideally, GMRS should've been implemented like the DTR radios in the 900mhz spectrum, as a frequency hopping service so there would've been a lot more "room" in the limited UHF spectrum. But then again, even a FHSS scheme would've caused issues for the FM purists... In the end, there is no way to please everybody, somewhere, somehow, someone will not agree with what they see, and will be very vocal about it. G.

Yep, hear plenty of DMR/P25 and other unknown modulations on GMRS/FRS, and MURS too. @Lscott, agreed. However, I don't think its just the "don't give a sh*t about" attitude, really. I think its a matter of digital being better overall, and that it can withstand interference way better too. If you try side by side an XPR radio in digital vs FM modulation it becomes apparent that while FM sounds better when the other radio is close, once the other radio goes beyond a certain distance, or its in difficult terrain, or in RF congested areas, etc, the audio coming from the XPR in digital its pretty much crystal clear until the signal is completely gone. G.

@OffroadX transmit and receive are different things. Everyone? I think you meant to say a handful of cheep and resentful guys around here who can't take someone who strongly disagrees with them. I've never given a flying foxtrot about what others, including you, thought of me; and certainly not going to start caring now because of you either. @Sshannon, well, worry no more, figured it was a good post to let all that vitriol out, because I missed the kind and warm responses from the "other people" too... so there you have it!! G.

@Sshannon As opposed to having shitty receivers on that Wouxun trash of yours, with simplex ranges measured in tenths of a mile... got it.

Nice... I believe the XPR65x0 radio is a great radio if you can live without a color screen and the arguably ugly looks... it has a mini-coax on the antenna connector like the APX radios... and SMA for the antenna. Receiver is not as good as the XPR Gen2.5 but the 6550 has equal performance in terms of RF receiver to most brand new non Motorola gear... G.

6580 can be had for <100 bucks easily too. JMO.

Wish they didn't look like fisher-price toys... but I am sure they perform much better than most CCRs out there... G.

Like you said, for GMRS there are a lot of LMR alternatives out there, and some Vertex radios might even be Part 95 too. Still have a few leftover EVX-539s and I think they are indeed very nice radios, for the cost... and only when aligned properly (the ones purchased from eBay all came with the default tuning which was utter crap). Every time you hit that "Recover" option on the EVX53x CPS, the tuning partition gets wiped... and you lose A LOT of performance. I've never used the Vertex VX-231, but I am more inclined to recommend that radio over the EVX-53x series due to cost and the alignment situation. JMO. But, if you are going to go/use digital, then you might as well save some cash and get something decent that has audio enhancements and noise suppression built in, which makes a huge difference. G.

MotoTRBO fw 2.10+ definitively has the option to lock the channel knob from the CPS. CPS 2.0, however. If you don't have/want 2.10 and the CPS 2 abomination, then there is a knob guard that you can 3d print, or buy from eBay... well, if it bothers you that much, that is. Accidental channel changing hasn't been a problem for me after I got a good belt holster. CPS16 has a way to set the min volume on the volume knob, and a way to disable the On/Off switch as well... but I've been EDC my XPR7550e for ~2 years on my tactical belt, every day, and never had my radio shutdown on me. Ever. If I was to pick an issue with the XPR7550e ergonomics it would be the large PTT button, which sometimes I tend to accidentally press when picking the radio up, especially if its dark. G.

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.

If you must have P25 then the XTS5000 is probably the best price/performance radio you can get, but be are aware that they are EOL as stated by others, and they are heavy and really BIG. I am sure being EOL the CPS might be possible to get for super cheap. However, if you don't really need to have P25, and DMR would suffice, I would've recommend the XPR7550e over the XTS5000 if prices weren't so outrageously inflated... but given how things are, I think the XTS5000 is probably gonna be fine. G.

Nice review. Thanks. I have one too, very nice indeed. G.

Thanks for the heads up. G.