gman1971

Batwings, Batwings everywhere... nice!

You got my vote. One thing I've found to be a real eye opener was the numeric RSSI display on the Motorola XPR radios... You get to see the actual reading of the RSSI of your signals, not just a little segment bar, an actual figure. So you can evaluate how much your antenna affects, feedline, location, etc.... and you can measure desense too... etc. So, having something to measure goes a long way in making the right decisions. I guess it goes without saying: its like trying to build a house without taking any measurements, eyeballing it, or going by feel, etc, might not yield a favorable outcome. G.

I wish I had the tact you have, Michael...

I agree with your comments, IronArcher. I am in agreement about a thread about radio spec comparison, with real world examples. But I still think it won't matter much, if anything, at all. People have to make the mistakes on their own to learn. There is one thing I want to clarify, tho: I am far from a snob, all I own is used XPR/SL radios... keyword: USED, all 2nd hand. Now, I would've been a real snob if I had 20+ brand new APX8000 radios and was calling everything else garbage.... With he cost of those used XPR radios being around the same than what most CCR radios go for, new, then I don't think there is any snob bull on it. A 100 dollar XPR6550 is a phenomenal bargain, that beats, hands down, all CCR radios I've ran an ISO-tee on them. Yes, you need the cable and the legacy CPS... I know... so, we are back to the other statement: Being cheap. I was cheap, I own more than a dozen of BF-888s, thinking I could build a floor intercom with those... haha.. the ultimate CCR intercom... they are all collecting dust on the basement now... Anyhow, the point is that anyone here, who has measuring equipment can run the tests I've run and make data comparisons, but instead, all we (I) get in those threads is people turning them into a "gman is too rude" "gman is a snob, he can't be trusted" "gman has no heart" etc. I get it, it sucks to be told your decision wasn't as sound as you originally were led to believe it was... and yes, perhaps people skills aren't my thing, and written form doesn't help the cause either.. but the truth is that I would love for others not to make the same mistakes I've made... but... it is what it is. Now, if you need a ham radio, then we might have a discussion about LMR gear being worthwhile (or not) on ham bands, etc... but for GMRS?, given the fact that its a fixed 22 channel radio service?, (not a whole band) things like VFO, or the ability to TX out of band, etc.. I find those absolutely unnecessary, (and unlawful) for a GMRS radio. None of my XPR radios have VFO, and while the gen2 XPR/SL radios have a limited FPP on them (can change color codes, PLs... etc, just not Frequency, only the Asian version of the XPR radios has full FPP, where you can change freqs too... etc) I've yet have to use the FPP option. My radios have all frequencies programmed on them already. I have about 600 channels with all kinds of itinerant freqs, EMS, fire, hospitals, NOAA, ham, GMRS, Marine...etc... Yes, it took several days of work to make those Codeplugs, but like buying those radios, buy once, cry once. In the decade or so I've been into radios, I've recently come to the realization that data without understanding doesn't make a lick of a difference. Why? b/c most people, generally newcomers to the hobby (but not always), don't always know how to read the data, and they don't know how to put it perspective. Its like trying to explain the math involved in PID control theory to someone who is just learning how to add. But the fact remains, that If you need/want to control something, successfully, you still need to not just know, but understand control theory... Now, there is, however, one data point that anyone can read and understand: Pricetag. I get it, there is lure on these BF-888s, the UV-5R, the Wouxus... et. all... but then, when you see all the TX spurious stuff, on a RIGOL spectrum analyzer, that should be a revelation, send chills through your spine, (just like unknowingly buying a car that burns oil, but when you're told it burns oil, really bad, your answer instead of being: "oh dang it, this sucks, I got conned and I didn't know, what car do you recommend?" its a resounding "meh, my car just pollutes more, its fine, who cares, it was cheap..." and then go on the offensive, stating others should also own one of these too... ) G.

I apologize if I came too strong Michael. I am sorry. If you think there was a better way to word what I said, please let me know. And this is why Berkinet was so right about the pro/con radio thread. We would need a whole forum section dedicated just to radio comparisons, or tables, etc. Ideally a fixed table with specific important parameters, like effective sensitivity, battery life, weight, size... and managed by a small group of people. With that said, several members here have great measuring equipment, and potentially those people, if willing, could offer to do it. I am thinking the following parameters to start. Radio Brand/Name, Type, Size, Battery life (portable), Connector Type, Remote mount Kit, Channels, FPP?, RF Band 1, Effective Sensitivity Band 1, RF Band 2, Effective Sens Band 2, etc... CPS price, Cable Price, Radio Cost. Then a short personal comments section afterwards. G.

With what you have, then I would definitively get an LMR license. Even if the LMR license costs more than your antenna repeater combo. Also, I strongly advise against starting a pissing match with another GMRS operator, to see who stomps the other one, b/c nothing good ever comes out of pissing matches. Its not worth the hassle, or the time. I much rather pay for a LMR license, run all my gear on AES256 w/ RAS, than having to deal with angry GMRS repeater owners/users over open FM. G.

Michael, I think when this thread was created was meant for radios that are not CCRs, I understand that people think Wouxun radios are awesome... but simply put, they are not very good compared to XPR LMR grade radios. G.

Oh, its D-Star, I thought it was NXDN, my fault. (since its Kenwood) The NX-5xxxx series has the option to purchase up to two digital modulations, DMR or P25, on top of NXDN I think. However, I am not sure how good those are in terms of scanning performance... the Motorolas are worthless in terms of scanning, you're limited to 16 channels per scan list... I think the VXD-720 portable (the Vertex version of the XPR6550, has unlimited channels per zone from what I've heard... but I didn't corroborate this myself as I don't have an VXD-720 to verify) Yeah, the TH-D74a is the successor of the TH-F6a, which I still have a couple, also tri-band and have HF to 1.2 ghz in all modulations,... not a bad little radio. G.

@IronArcher No, it cannot be done, b/c it doesn't really matter. I've been sharing some ISO-tee tests figures here, and all I get is people arguing personal opinions, swirling personal attacks and sowing doubt, deflecting from the problem at hand, while painting me as someone who is trying mislead people, etc. So, I've decided its just better to silently laugh watching people fumble around with garbage equipment, always wondering why their ranges are only a tenth of a mile, than me getting all worked up, writing long posts trying to explain things that noone cares. And why it doesn't matter to have any spec chart, of any sort? Well, its very simple: Because we are cheap. Lets just say we had a chart with a bunch of radios, so, you see that fancy XPR7550e, and everything looks great, a +18dBm better effective sens, tight selectivity, and better everything... so you quickly realize this is the radio you want, but then, finally, when you look a the last column, the pricetag... you have a heart attack.... so in your mind you quickly disqualify the XPR7550e, b/c none of things can be that much better than the 59 dollar garbage CCR special... so without having any sense of what a 18dBm difference truly means, or any of the other spec chart parameters mean, all of the sudden, that 59 dollar CCR garbage special becomes the best radio, the same radio Jesus used to call Home before ascending back to Heaven... Seriously, it doesn't matter. Only way to guarantee learning is making mistakes over time, and if it has to be an expensive mistake over a long period of time, so be it. The more expensive the mistake, and the longer you've made it, the better you learn the lesson, and I can certainly attest to heart to that... until then I'll be laughing... yeah, I am a cruel person, I am gMan the heartless, the troublemaker, the troll... etc etc. G.

Well, you could start a family business, like a food delivery service, or a mowing/landscaping company, etc. And for such business you need a radio link between the trucks and the base... etc. There are ways to make it happen. How far does your current repeater setup reach in simplex, base to portable, and base to mobile? G.

Well, on NXDN with 6.25 narrowband you'll be able to fit 4 channels on a single 25 khz GMRS channel. With 2.5 you can still do it, but you need to park 6.25kHz away from the center channel frequency, that way you don't spill over into the interstitial FRS channels. But again, I also don't recommend doing it, just get an LMR frequency and be done with it, then you can run encryption, DMR, P25, GSM... whatever floats your boat... G.

Yep, the TH-D74a is a nice radio, indeed. But you're limited to NXDN only AFAIK, much the same as Motorola XPR radios are limtied to DMR and analog. I think that if you're interested in snooping around, then buying a scanner is a more viable choice... but again, the good ones aren't cheap either... which comes as no surprise, anything that is worth owning is not cheap, nor easy. G.

TTT, any new radios to add? G.

Hi Santos, So, can we do this over the linked GMRS network too? G.

All of what you've described is a lot of money. I know b/c I have acquired most of that, except the 200ft tower, and it wasn't cheap to acquire. The tower and location is probably the most expensive part of the equation. If you're willing to go with narrowband 12.5kHz channels, then you could do the following: park your GMRS channels at around +/- 6.25 kHz from the center of the GMRS repeater channel. If the other repeaters aren't too close <15 miles, and those repeaters aren't a pair of CCRs, there is a very high chance that their RX light won't even blink when yours keys up... I know this can be done with high end Motorola gear, but if you're looking at just two CCRs strapped together, then this will certainly not work. If you want a private repeater, then I would advice in favor of getting an LMR license for those private deals. G.

Digital over FM, on the same exact channel is going to cause problems, not two ways about that. The other way around it doesn't do much, since all it does is increase the Bit Error Rate (BER)... so you might hear a bit of degraded voice... but not much. However, interference is also caused by piss poor transmitters, like those found on CCRs. If you look on another thread you'll see the massive amount of noise those things put out on the harmonics, if you boost that to 50W, then you can see a pretty clear picture... again. You could probably build a coexisting FM/DMR channel setup with high end gear and be less affected than using 29.95 CCR special garbage... which is what most people are trying to use to implement their repeaters. And to reiterate, and before proceeding any further, DMR is not lawful to use on GMRS... So, while DMR 12.5kHz might not be the ideal bandwidth to do this with, the Kenwood NXDN on 6.25kHz might work a bit better, always depending on the quality of the radio reciver/transmitter. With that said, you could park your digital frequency the furthest away from the center, and within the channel. On NXDN you'll park 6.25 kHz from the channel's edge (not from the center), leaving plenty of room on the center channel for FM to work pretty much clear of issues. I do know for a fact (tested) that none of my XPR Gen2 radios even blink, while on FM, when there is another XPR portable is blasting @ 5W, 3 feet away, while parked on the edge of their wideband channel (Effectively making it two Narrowband channels out of a Wideband one) But..., of course, the big CAVEAT is that you can't make this work with the typical garbage CCRs et all currently flooding the market, b/c those things don't have the sufficient adjacent channel selectivity, filtering, front end, etc, to pull this off, as tested. That is not counting with the fact that the transmitters are dirty of spurious harmonics and spewing noise all over the bands too.... G.

Dreaming is always for free, however... I don't think anyone was planning on running a DMR repeater on GMRS on this thread... and certainly not me. I can see some people running low power simplex DMR, given the vast amount of CCR DMR radios flooding the market its impossible to say nobody will do it... I've already heard DMR on GMRS around here... does it make it right? certainly not. But instead of punitive approaches to the laws, we should perhaps look for incentive approaches to follow the laws... and incentive I don't mean a 5.56 on the other side... JMO. G.

Added two Alinco MD5 digital/analog dual band radios. These are pretty decent, they measured a couple dB better than the 878 on my ISO-tee tests. G.

Replied

Glad I could help. Much like I told another person to leave the "Americans think they are the world" comments out of their posts, I have to agree with Berkinet on his assestment. I think I speak for most people here when I say "nobody here has had a good time during this whole situation..." However, stating that something is over-hyped might not sit well with a random person who reads the post and has had a relative, or dear one die b/c of it. I am pretty certain the situation is not over-hyped for that person. Again, please forgive me if you feel I am trying to overstep on your 1st Amendment, I am not, and you're free to say whatever you want, however, always remember that whatever you say will always have consequences... and especially so in written form. (and I know that well) Cheers! G.

Sure thing, I think you'll like the radio. G.

Nice, you got the ebay auction? I saw it was "ended" Congrats. And If you need any help with those, let me know. G.

It looks like a Hytera knock-off... not sure how good it is tho... the Anytone 578 also has an SFR, which sort of works, if it wasn't that the radio hangs or freezes up while operating in SFR mode... G.

Fair points. G.

I like it... looks good... thanks for sharing! I have two more XPR7550e radios to get before I start replacing all my older Vertex Standard infrastructure... (repeaters, links, etc) So, its all yours! G.