gman1971

First I would get the GMRS license, send the FCC a check, you get the license. No exams... Here is what I would do: A couple of UHF Motorola Maxtracs, a repeater controller cable, a mobile UHF duplexer, mated to a 1/4 wave UHF antenna placed @ 30 foot AGL via some Heliax FSJ4-50B feedline. Set to 25W... Done. With that kind of base you won't need much of a portable, as you'll have range to spare.... in fact, the base will be so good that even 8 dollar Baofeng BF-888S will feel like a mlllion bucks... G.

This site will create a radio coverage map for any location, of your choosing. No guesswork. Radio Mobile online. G.

Well, who would've thought it... but I still have this radio... They are now up to firmware 1.11. Radio still hangs randomly, tho, especially when in SFR mode. Lame. The DMR repeater won't allow radio checks, sms, etc... to go through, still, kinda lame. Private calls now work... The EVX-5300/5400s I have have a better receiver overall, so I can reach a lot further with those around congested RF areas... G.

@LScott, thanks for these curves! Good to know. I think most people should invest in radio infrastructure rather than in POS CCRs... Notch-plexers are good when used with a preselector, since the duplexer won't really shield the receivers from the other unwanted RF coming from the antenna. G.

Well, you can, a used XPR6550 UHF can be found for under 100 bucks on Ebay, 130 with charger, and those XPR6550 have amazing receivers. You can easily get 2 1/2 miles out of those talkies ground to ground (no repeater) under most circumstances with the PMAE4048A antenna. (Good for GMRS) G.

@Berkinet... ABSOLUTELY, I think that for less than 90 bucks you can actually buy used EVX-531 UHF on eBay, those EVX radios will draw rings around anything CCR. From the circuit schematics it appears the EVX line has a better front end than even the 578... so, a no-screen 531 will beat nearly all CCRs... And if you want screen you can find the EVX-534, or the EVX-S21 I think... which has one, those are dirt cheap too. The EVX-539s are nice, but the keypad is kinda useless unless you want to do DTMF stuff... its also missing a keypad speed dial through it... Out of all the radios I've tested the EVX line stacks very well even against the might 5550e... which is, for the lack of a better word, on a league of its own... G.

A preselector and "front end" are pretty much interchangeable terms for all practical purposes. Thanks for the filter link... I am sure some people will find that quite useful too. Given its 3 resonators, I have my reservations that it will actually do 50 dB... Why? b/c I have several RFS 4-cavity mobile preselectors and these are, at best 50 dB, with ~ 1.6 dBm insertion loss... With that said, anything you can add to the front end of those CCRs, including that filter, will help the receiver not drown under the RF noise mayhem. G.

Totally agree. In the end its always something that prevents reception.... be it physical objects, or noise, always caused by intermod in the presence of other RF strong signals, be it the Sun, the neighbor's LED fixture, the grrr NOAA less than 1 mile from my house...all of which reduces the S.N.R. of your receiver, so you end up with nothing. Physical objects reduce the S part, and Intermod due to poor filtering, poor cables, etc) increases the N part on the SNR. Most beginners believe that having a bigger S (more powah!!) is the way to go, I thought that way too.... seems the key is to actually making the N as small as possible. Which as a side benefit, you won't be risking a swarm of black SUVs surrounding your property and seizing all your radio assets... We are in agreement, forums are to trade information, and it has been an invaluable tool for me to learn.... so with that said, in my opinion, here is a pretty decent article about why filtering is needed if you hope to have any luck at the range game: http://www.ittc.ku.edu/~jstiles/622/handouts/The%20Preselector%20Filter.pdf Hope it helps other people like has helped me. G.

Not sure if your comments about intermod are sarcastic or not? Intermod is a catch all word, and usually the result of poor filtering. G.

If you're really concerned about lighting then ground everything well, and then use tuned cavities. These cans (cavities) will provide excellent protection since the receiver will not be mechanically connected to the antenna. Also use a lighting arrestor at the bottom of the mast, grounded. Its better to lose 1 dB in signal than to lose all your gear, and then, no signal at all. G.

Well, thats good to know. I wonder which ones, b/c according to someone who knows a lot more than I do about electronics even the AT-578UV is a hybrid receiver, not a true superhet. Regardless of receiver type, a superhet without proper front end filtering is just as bad, b/c you'll have a noisy mess due to intermod piling up noise in the IF stages. Those CCRs lack of any sort of front end filtering, which is where the $$$$ is at. Also, some people might be shocked to hear this but the Motorola XPR7550e uses a direct conversion receiver, not a superhet, yet they smoke anything else in the market. Its all about implementation. G.

Absolutely, hahaha, "samples of crack", I started with 2 UV-5Rs... but back when I got started these CCR radios where somewhat of a novelty and there wasn't much info out there on those... nowadays, with plenty of forums like this where they advise to go with something higher quality, I think, IMO, its not worth wasting money on substandard radios.

Nice, that is the one I have too. I really like it. G.

+10 on the XPR5550, regardless of the E or non-E model. Buy Once, Cry once. That will be the last GMRS radio you'll ever buy. You can find used 5550e on eBay for quite a bargain, it just requires time and patience to search the site. RadioGuy: what do you mean the advanced mic option? Did you mean the one that has a display? or just the one with the keypad?, of which there are two of those, BTW. Which one you have? the one with just an OK button? or the one that has a 4-way arrow hat as part of the OK button? G.

Superheterodyne?... hmmm, really? All CCR I own use an elcrapo direct conversion receiver, with front ends wide enough to let the Milky Way galaxy through. These POS will desense up to 60 dBm with strong adjacent signals, or in plain English: they suck. Those figures were measured with ISOTEE tests. And I have an ample collection of CCRs... yes, I know, I am dumb and I wasted a lot of money on those POS... but may my waste of money save you from wasting yours. Yep, power doesn't mean much if its all wasted in spurious output, heating transistors, etc, etc, b/c at that point all you're doing is making your neighbor's TV appear hazy, at best... and at worst you can and will damage monitors, and other sensitive electronics while at it. Don't buy that garbage. You wouldn't buy a polished turd, would you? no matter how well polished it is, right? Same applies here. A second hand commercial Kenwood radio, or Vertex, or Motorola, will draw rings around those polished turds. Don't be fooled by the color screens, or the gazillion contacts.... a radio performance is not measured by how fancy the screen is, or how many ringtones it can dish; its measured by how well it can transmit and receive radio signals. If you want fancy screens, buy the latest Galaxy phone... or splurge and get the XPR7550e... I can assure you won't regret that. Buy once, Cry once. The biggest advantage to me of these CCRs is that I can throw them off a cliff, light'em up on fire, smash'em with a hammer... etc... while not losing any sleep over it. Great stress relief tools, while at it too. Waste your money at your own peril. G.

Anything made by Motorola will work great. The Vertex Standard radios also work quite well but IMO are not as feature rich as the Motorolas. I really didn't believe how much better they are until I performed ISOTEE sensitivity tests on those CCRs vs the EVX and XPRs radios... and on average the CCRs were ~20 dB worse than the Moto/Vertex radios I have. The older Motorola radios might require a DOS emulator, or a DOS boot disk, just to get them programmed, so that might be a problem, or not. The newer radios, like the XPRs, will require a MOL account to get the CPS subscription, which isn't that bad. Opening a MOL account might be daunting, but in the end it just takes time. My advice is: don't lie on the forms, be courteous when asked and don't use an email address like superduper1234@spoofmail.kom . I got mine and I love having access to their resource center, being able to purchase things directly, etc. IMO, once you go Motorola there is no going back, really; and the XPR7550e is arguably the best single band radio you can buy these days, with audio leveling, auto mic gain, and the best receiver on the market, you simply can't touch those... I avoided going Motorola for years, made up any possible excuse in the process, but in the end I simply delayed the inevitable... and wasted a lot of money in the process... money I could've spent towards more XPR7550e radios. Moral of the story: In radios, you buy cheap, you buy twice. As for Kenwoods, sorry man, I only have a couple of Kenwoods left on my collection: two TH-F6a talkies and a TM-V71a mobile, which I'll probably hold onto since they offer features that no other radio I have has. G.

Vertex Standard EVX-5400, on two of my cars. G.

You're welcome, sir. Just remember: I started out with only a couple of Baofeng UV5Rs... IMO, its all about the tools you have, not the radios: they say tools, tools, tools, you can't get anything properly done without the proper tools. Having a VNA, an SG, or an ISOTEE, a RF power checker, etc, a far more important thing to have than having fancy Moto radios. G.

Hi there, I own several Motorola and Vertex Standards radios and I am not an expert, far from it. I also have a very large CCR collection, radios like the Wouxun, etc. These CCRs served their purpose which was to got me hooked in this hobby, unfortunately I kept buying them for too long before I realized I made a mistake. Why? B/c after trying nearly every other CCR out there, the moment I tested my first XPR6550 I realized I wasted all my time and my money for far too long on these CCRs. Yes, you can call me a Moto snob now, I am not BTW,... whatever... its your money... Point is I am not an expert, and just don't hate CCRs, but they sure have a lot of limitiations. Once you acquire enough knowledge/gear/equipment to perform useful measurements on your own, you'll begin to realize the same thing I did: why these radios are just called CCRs. If you need range you are going to need a lot more than a portable Wouxun, especially if you live in a suburban area; a lot more than a high gain antenna and an 11 feet pole (like Moses ). For these CCR radios, i.e Wouxun, et. all, you'll need a lot of filtering, and I mean, LOTS of it... Then, the more gain you have in the antenna, and the higher up you raise it, the more RF signals you'l pick up, which is good, but unfortunately not so good for those CCRs which can't deal with such a rush of incoming RF, why? b/c they lack any front end filtering (back to why you'll need filtering)... So what do these CCRs do instead? they desense like its going out of style. What is desense? Desense is like when you have to close your ears at a rock-and-roll concert to hear your friend trying to scream you something... radios have to reduce sensitivity (desense) to be able to hear anything. Don't believe me? well, I guess I would've not believed myself talking about this when I got started either... But here are some real numbers obtained with an ISOTEE and a signal generator. So, hooked up a GD77 to my a Hustler G6 GMRS (6dBd) antenna, placed 40 feet AGL. Measurements read the GD77 desensed ~40 dBm... Yes, you heard that right, -40dBm... it doesn't sound like much... but a -40dBm desense means the radio is now useless. I wish I could tell you this was the only CCR radio that showed this massive desense, unfortunately ALL my other CCRs (under 180 dollars) that I tried desensed about the same figure: -40dBm. That is why they are called CCRs b/c they aren't that good. Now, for comparison, on the same Hustler G6 antenna, placing a portable Motorola XPR6550, also unfiltered, I was able to hear the Signal Generator (SG) all the way down to RF site noise threshold. The usable sensitivity on the GD77 was measured at -72 dBm, and the Motorola XPR6550 usable sensitivity was -116 dBm (unfiltered). To give perspective, on the stock rubber duck antennas, the GD77 had a -100 dBm usable sensitivity, whereas the Motorola XPR6550 had -118 dBm usable sensitivity. (see correction values at the end) If you want range, you should start by acquiring measuring tools. To me, a VNA, a Signal Generator and a simple ISOTEE changed how I see the hobby completely... Now I can unequivocally measure things and make an informed decision, rather than an educated guess, or a guess, or "bro'science".... and those tools are just "basic tools" compared to what more expensive service monitors can do. Once you have measuring equipment you'll be in a position to measure things like noise floor, cable quality, connector quality... and you'll be able to tune your own filters, cavities... After you have those tools, then you'll quickly realize you need better radios than a Wouxun. Nowadays, when high quality radios like the XPR6550 can be found used on eBay for ~100 bucks, there is literally zero reason to own a CCR for GMRS... While some XPR6550s might be a bit scratched, some might be rehoused... etc... they still work great for GMRS... and how much better than a CCR? At best, ~21 dBm better than nearly all CCRs I measured with rubber duckies... at worst, -44dBm better using a high gain 6dBm base antenna placed 40 feet AGL. Again, I don't hate CCRs b/c I now I own Motorolas and everything else is is crap. I still own a ton of them CCR and they are great, just not when the word range is involved. For small stuff, like giving to your 3 year old to start liking radios, loaners... plenty of uses.... all great, but once you find you like the hobby, don't be fooled by the CCR's fancy color screens, bells and whistles, gazillion contacts, etc etc... Buy high quality used commercial grade radio(s)... which might or might not even have a screen, screens don't make radios great... good RF performance does... and there are a LOT of good used commercial grade great radios on eBay (like the XPR6550.) There are also many very helpful members here (like @Marcspaz, thank you) who will help you setup these commercial radios if you are stuck. G. EDIT: Correction, after going over my notes the ISOTEE figures I quoted from memory for the rubber duck are actually for a 1/4 wave magmount, and the Motorola XPR6550 UHF is -116 dBm and the GD77 is -93 dBm... I am sorry for the mistake. EDIT2: The rubberduck I just performed the test with the ISOTEE, and the Motorola XPR6550 yields the same -116dBm as with the 1/4 wave, and the GD77 is -96 dBm. This was measured in the quietest RF place in my house with a noise floor of -123 dBm average. on 462.600 MHz.

About a -10dBm difference at equal distance in free space, 145 vs 460 MHz, but then you can also have much higher gain antennas for equivalent lengths, so in the end its mostly a wash... provided you setup things right, emphasis in "setup things right". G.

Back... haven't checked regularly in a while... sorry about the delay. I think I meant "ask around" in terms of performance, not to ask to find one. The place I've used so far is eBay... there you can find 2nd hand commercial radios for dirt cheap. In fact, I recently acquired a few Moto XPR6550 for about 100 bucks a pop... I'll be selling all other non Vertex/Motorola radios I own after I am done swapping all the radios with 6550s. G.

Meh, if you must have a CCR get the Baofeng DM-V1, at least it has a detachable antenna and DMR capabilities which that one does not. For similar price you can buy used Kenwood/Icom/Motorola/Vertex radios with far better receivers than those CCRs... ask around... G.

Like Radioguy said, I have programmed several 7550e talkies for DMR and FRS/GMRS, and these have like 1000 options and toggles in advanced mode on the CPS... the 5550e has a few extra options too... and these "e" series are arguably the best mobile/portable radios money can buy today. The receivers on these "e" series are, in simple terms, out of this world good... G.

Yeah, I had the same issue the base could be heard for 20+ miles, but it couldn't hear anything beyond 5 miles... Hope the DB408 works out! Also, perhaps too much gain is too much gain? If you live in a hilly area might be better to run a lower gain antenna? G.

Hi, I have a large 25 foot 1 1/4" metal pipe bolted on the side of my house using the 1st floor roof as a starting point. Until this past week it was never guyed it, and it has survived 40-50 mph winds without much of an issue for almost 3 years... Lately Its been super windy and since I am stuck at home I've seen the mast swaying, nothing too crazy, but I figured I'd add a couple of guy wires to it just in case. I think if you mount it well and the pipe is strong enough guying is probably not needed for anything 40 feet AGL under... unless you live in a place where winds are regularly stronger than 50 mph... then I certainly would've guyed mine since day 1. G.