wayoverthere

Hadn't seen it yet, actually....I don't get their emails even though I've bought from them before, evidently. I'll give them credit for getting with the program, though. They were a really compelling option when they were basically the only thing in the gap between Midland and the LMR gear, but they were falling behind with a lot more flexibility in Radioddity, Anytone, Wouxun, and Retevis gear that's on the market now. Curious to see if there'll be changes coming to the 50x1 as well to open that up too.

Good catch, both. Thank you for filling in the details...I clearly haven't used mine under gmrs mode enough.

I'm inclined to think firmware bug, honestly, but I'm open to other ideas. I took a look at the dat file (I have the Anytone cousin, but use the Radioddity software to program mine too, and nothing stood out as the culprit in the configuration. I do notice that the option in the channel settings window to disable TX is greyed out, which I suspect is part of the GMRS configuration. I have one of mine opened up for ham use, and that option is definitely available in that configuration..if I have a chance later, I'll grab the radio out of the car and try it in GMRS guise and see if that option shows up. If it's still there, that would make me lean even further toward a firmware issue. Perhaps @MichaelLAXmay have some ideas? You may also reach out to Radioddity to see if there's an update needed to the firmware...from what I've read, they're reasonably open to fixing such things, and solid on support.

You bet.... hopefully it has what you need.

Have you run across this post? https://forums.mygmrs.com/topic/295-repeater-linking-discussion/?do=findComment&comment=36613&_rid=2738 I realize it's far into a topic that started a while ago, but that one includes a link to a quick start guide and links for images to use with the rPi.

Good point...I'm probably overgeneralizing a bit much (for illustration, mostly). I have the spring kit on mine, but mounted on the roof of my truck, it'd probably still be kind of hard on the antenna even if that "ring" in the middle didn't hang up on a beam. On the trunk of a car (mag or lip mount) or hood/fender/jeep door hinge, it'd probably be fine with the spring (maybe without, too).

I would also ask about level of comfort with radio programming. Adding a couple tones and a repeater or two to an already well set wouxun is a different proposition than tracking down software and programming a part 95 lmr radio from scratch. On the antenna side, what restrictions are in play, and what's the terrain like in your area? If it's a base radio, are there hoa restrictions? For a mobile, what kind of height restrictions are in play, and what mounting options are under consideration? Willing to drill the body/roof? Need to park in a low garage regularly? Or are there minimal height restrictions? A 1/4 wave "hatpin" antenna (~6") on a drilled in roof mount will fit nearly anywhere, but something like a comet 2x4sr ~36") is going to require folding for most garages.

One factor may be equipment; split tones are no go for all except for the most recent iterations of the Midland mxt115 and mxt275 radios, and required software programming to get the mxt400's on split tones. Depending on your user base (and their choice of equipment), that may be one barrier. That aside, what is the activity level like on simplex? Are there just not a lot of active users?

Very cool ?

Apologies for the off-topic, but is that an ex 'long lines' site?

Handheld definitely has convenience on it's side...power can help too, though line of sight is even better. If using a smaller antenna let's you use a better/higher mounting location, it's likely worth it. A 1/4 wave for gmrs is just a little 6" hatpin. depending on your choice of radios, it's nice when you can just make one common code plug (term for the file of programming) to use on both radios (base and mobile).

Power wise, there's lots of options at various price points, the key is making sure what you get can provide enough current to support what you want to run. Less expensive power supplies may scrimp on filtering (read, interference) or features. Dx engineering has a few options here link while se of the Tekpower on Amazon are well regarded as well. Antenna wise, indoors or outside below roofline are varying levels of less than ideal, but that doesn't mean they won't work to some extent. Haven't tested simplex, but I get into the local repeater fine with a small 5/8 wave whip indoors on a bookcase, mag mounted on a piece of sheet metal.

The owners manuals have a table near the back that lists what code numbers equate to which DCS codes they have programmed. (I think they may be missing a couple, I know there's 2 or 3 ctcss codes missing)

Yes, that should let you set the DCS rx code separate from the DCS code used for tx.

https://chirp.danplanet.com/projects/chirp/wiki/MemoryEditorColumns This page may help clarify, when Tone Mode is DCS (the correct entry for a repeater that uses DPL), the radio will use the same DCS tone for both tx and rx, based on the DCS Tone column. On the DCS Pol column, that refers to Polarity, either Normal or Inverted; if not specified in the listing, it's usually assumed to be normal polarity.

It's not a bad term to differentiate between a data connection and an analog connection. I won't disagree with it being a bit of a grey area though, in the same ballpark as dsl. I wouldn't chance a phone as a hotspot, for sure.

With everything cellular being digital data anyway, and no direct way to make a telephone call on that device, could it be argued that that it IS ip networking, given a dedicated cellular hotspot? I know an actual cell phone as a hotspot is more risky, but it could be argued that cellular data is even further from the PSTN than DSL.

Overkill, perhaps, but that would be kind of a cool setup to set up one of those retevis portable repeaters as a node, connected to the network via cellular hotspot, and just use a handheld to talk into it and have the network wherever you go, including within short range of the truck.

I have a lcd monitor that throws lots of RFI on channel 3, and a lower level on channel 6. Turn off the monitor and it's gone. I'd start looking at electronics close by firstban see if I could quell the interference;failing that, I'd try setting a rx tone on ch 19 so the radio (hopefully) bypasses the offending rfi, or just excluding it from the scan.

The Btech comes with the offset already programmed on the repeater slots (REPTXX, as opposed to the simplex channels, GMRSXX), no programming needed. Outside of tones and names, those first 30 channels are hard coded, and anything else you add past those is RX only. If you have the handhelds in the same room as you're transmitting to the repeater, what's probably happening is the strong signal from the Btech causing the others to desense, effectively "going deaf". They may light up like they're receiving a signal, but not have any audio, or just not respond. You may also double check that the tones are correct, and that the repeater is using a tone on the output (if you have the handhelds set with a Rx tone), but my money is on desense.

Good deal. I ended up with another with a sma-m on the end that's a little thicker cable; it looks like they call it "3d-fb" now, but it was previously listed as lmr200. It's been invaluable with other radios as well.

nice setup, too. did you get that so239 to SMA pigtail from amazon? i tried twice from there, and they got lost en route both times