Billy

From what I understand is that all local emergency comms are via VHF. The UN has established a Net on 20 Meters 14.205 Mhz Upper Side Band for stations around the world to assist. I am picking up periodic traffic from some very strong stations accross the world on my end fed HF wire. Here is a link if anyone is interested. https://www.amrron.com/2015/04/27/ham-radio-emergency-net-for-the-nepal-earthquake/

Its called the Bluecomm system. Go to the repeater database and look for the Alpha and Beta systems. Those and a few others are in the system if you are looking to make contact.

My numbers were a little better but that was my experience as well.

They look very interesting, I am going to wait a month or two to see some more details and quage performance. I am just happy to see someone adressing the GMRS market. Same goes or MURS, there is an untaped market in the MURS arena.

Cheap they work. I have tested a few, they generally do not put out the advertised power, 2.5 watts is about the best you can expect. They are good radios for the glove box but not a quality radio. That said they are less than $20. I am not the radio police but the versions I have handled did not have any FCC Certification what so ever.

There are several good ones in the area. I doubt mine will be of any use to you in Bayshore with a HT to West Babylon (ENIGMA, my repeater). It does have very good HT coverage at Robert Moses if that is where you are Kayacking. This website has a very good repeater database. Give it a look and see if something comes closer. If you have any questions feel free to PM me.

Welcome Thomas, can you be more specific about what part of Long Island you will be operating out of. I may be able to help you out and directing you to a few repeaters when you are ready. Bill

"Nearly all of the Ritron VHF radios are MURS accepted. Even their little intercoms are type accepted for Part 95A and Part 95D operations (as well as Part 90)." Ritron is the only company that I know of that applies for 95A acceptance from the get go.

There are several programming services that advertise on Ebay. They range around the $20 for programming a radio. Worth a look.

You are a mad scientist, in a good way. Great Job so far! That shed should give you a nice surface and angle to mount the solar panels.

Yes absolutely, this is the place to list your repeater if you wish for it to be somewhat public. The main reason is for band cooperation. So others know who, what and where the repeaters are so that nobody sets up on your doorstep. Repeater cooperation is very important given the limited bandwith allotted to GMRS repeaters.

Glad you guys enjoyed the QSO last night. Basically what happened is we were repeater skipping. You were listening on simplex but talking through your Philly repeater, which myself and Kevin (a member of my repeater group) were able to pick up. In return we were were talking through our repeater group WB725NY to you and hearing your repeater on simplex. If that makes sense, It was fun and maybe something we could try again. I am not sure if it was weather or just how out systems are alligned but according to Google the systems are about 126 miles apart as the crow flies, the majority of that being over the water. It was fun and great to talk to some of the group from other states. BTW, the PL's for our machines do not match, no security issue for me.

My Ritron Patriot HT's, a little big by todays standards but true 5 Watt radios with excellent audio, great battery life and are true FCC Part 95 Type Accepted. This one is late 80's vintage. My two CB's in the garage from my youth. I like to listen to skip while working outside. I have a Hamstick Dipole mounted in the attic that does a great job pulling in the stations. One is a Midland and the other is a Lafayette with Power Supply/External Speaker combo. Both work great.

Just curios as the area and the repeater you are trying to access?

A few quick things, if you have the 462.600 simplex channel set for no PL/DPL then you will hear all chatter regardless of what code they are using. So when you attempt to return the conversation their recievers set for a PL/DPL will not hear you. Second and I get this many times with my repeater system. Some members love to test to see if they can "hit" the repeater but never actually try an audio check. Hitting it and being heard are two different things. So it appears that if you are "hitting" it you have the proper PL codes in/out because you can detect your own signal. It seems you just need more power, elevation, the basics to get that audio to be detected. Putting your HT's too close to one another may also cause a situation of temporary desense. Try putting them in different locations within the house or outside, at least 20 feet away.

Very nice! One thing though, I would charge them individually initially to determine the health of the individual battery, if bad you can eliminate that one. When charged in the bank of three like that you are only as good as the weekest link. Once you know the health of the individual batteries then you can charge them together to determine what the proper average voltage you are going to have.

Prayers and well wishes to him inbound. If there is a need for anything please let us know so we may assist.

I have used the roll up and tested it. I used the supplied RG58U which I think is 8 or 10 ft. worked great. Longer runs like forty feet of lousy coax on an ht is not a good way to go. This antenna is to get a "little bit" of elevation and pick up 5 or 6 db over a stock HT antenna. This it does well. I use both his DBJ-1 as a dual band and his HiGain UHF 5 DB for my repeater. Both with excellent results. I use a 50 foot run of LMR400 end to end. The DBJ-2 is simply a roll up version of the DBJ-1 which is Unity Gain on both UHF and VHF. I have stuck with it simply because it works great and is very wide banded as it will do 70cm to GMRS and stay less than 2:1 on the SWR meter. Good Luck

The NA701 and 666 are vertually the same antenna, the 666 is thinner and more flexible, I have both and they perform identical. I also have the 771 and honestly cannot justify its 18" length. It is simply too unwieldy to be practical as it can poke you in the chin while clipped to your belt. From my testing I have gone with the 701, not too long and more durable than the 666. If you go to Eham.Net you can get some decent reviews on all the antennas. The Nagoya company has been making antennas for the bigger companies like Diamond, Opek and others for years so they know how to do it. There models rival any of the bigger companies at a fraction of the price.

Welcome, enjoy the UV-5R. As much as I try to knock them in my mind I always come back to just how much they do for the money. I have two in my go-bags with two antenna upgrades. A Nagoya NA-701 which is the best dual band upgrade for the UV-5R your gonna get for $8 delivered. The second is an Ed Fong DBJ-2 roll up dual band antenna ($24 delivered). This is a throw in it a tree, string it up in a room type antenna that gives you true Unity Gain (2.1 DBI which is about 6 db over any HT antenna) performance on both bands. First and closer to your question is the NA-701 is a great fit for the UV5R and not too long about 6", you will notice a huge improvement in both TX and RX. Both can be had on FleeBay quite handily. Good Luck and enjoy your new hobby. Billy

Specifically the repeater ID. I have mine set for every 15 but the repeater has an option of with or without PL. I have it currently with id'ing with the PL but was just wondering.

What is the required interval and should the ID be transmitted with or without the PL tone? Thanks Bill

John, I would use the roof of the shack to my advantage. Align it for the best exposure time and angle being that you are going to build it from scratch. It is going to be the best average angle because the suns angle changes by the season but I would optimize it for the winter since there is less sun then. I also like the idea of the wind turbine. That would help quite a bit on cloudy and snowy days. I think 400 amp hours is plenty or storage for the repeater. Here is some information on the alignment by region and season. http://solarelectricityhandbook.com/solar-angle-calculator.html

John, I have played with Solar for quite some time and have built quite a few of these solar generators for friends. If you just want to run a shed/garage on a small scale (radios, small power tools, a few lights) that can be done fairly easy. It is when you try to run household appliances on a normal basis that solar becomes not very viable. A 100/200 Watts of panels and two Series 27 125 aHr Marine Deap cycle batteries, 1000 Watt quality inverter and 15 Amp solar charger regulator you could easily keep you radio running 24/7 on DC and have enough juice to run the inverter for hours at a time with small items (drill, lighting, etc.) I do it all the time. Make your lighting LED and you can have it on 24/7 as well. The unit above was my research platform, 1 deep cycle battery 2-20 Watt Solar Panels, 10 Amp charger regulator and a 800/1200 Watt invertor. I powered my repeater on it for two days without a charge, it was used during Sandy quite extensively as a portable battery charger/generator and lighting station. It will run a 3/8 drill and circular saw. I have found that 40 Watts/3.5 Amps is the minimum you want to use to maintain a deep cycle battery, that is why I recommended 100 Watts for two, that extra amp will give you a greater charge efficiency. If you can go bigger there is nothing wrong with that either, you can always add a panel if you feel your system does not replenish fast enough. It was my intention to set this up in my shed but have not got around to it. When I relocate I plan on setting up and entire detached garage via solar to include 24 volt Marine/RV appliances. On a small scale it is very doable. Bill

I never read anything about hi gain antennas being a no-no on MURS, only two Watt limit. Guys do similar with packet and satellite work all the time. My guess is you could have a fairly effective MURS Simplex system with one of those up high enough.