quarterwave

I always like the one where the guy is being an internet professor, and you later find out he's been licensed for 6 months and knew about radio for 7. I don't try to be a know it all, I rarely even give advice, but I will if I see some moron giving bad advice and misleading someone. I've been licensed since you had to give a lat/long and pick a frequency to have a repeater.

What exactly is a "BIG" repeater? I am curious. Why would Oil and Gas be using GMRS when they are obviously a business, and would benefit from more exclusive system/frequency assignments and technology modes? You can use that CB whip... have fun. If you have never used a "wimpy" 6 inch whip (1/4 wave) UHF antenna and seen that the results are very good, not to mention they solve alot of installation problems I suggest a try. Everyone wants to run to bigger-better theory which is a bit off for radio. Gain antennae are a crutch. The standard 1/4 wave is a good antenna. That 102 is a 1/4 for CB....that's why it worked so well for it.

Yep...point being just because it says 50 on the license doesn't mean you need it. You know.

Just a note I thought of as I a looked at repeater updates this week... Whether you are an experienced radio guru, know enough to be dangerous. or a beginner, keep this in mind about repeaters: If you put up the highest gain antenna you can find, the biggest low loss transmission line and set your power out to get right on 50 out of the tx cans of the duplexer, and score a site 1500 feet AAT....the question is, how much do I need? If your best radio, or a user on your repeater, his best radio can get in from a maximum of, say 10 miles out, but your repeater can be heard for 50 miles...you might be overdoing it. Not only that, you might be keeping another GMRS-er from being able to use the frequency elsewhere if there is crowding, even if your tone is different. Remember, it's a user coordinated service, it's up to us to share. I once had a customer who had a 125 Watt VHF repeater, and on a good day his reliable coverage was 30 miles with mobiles, 40 miles if you were knowledgeable. You could hear it for 150 miles depending on where you were that far out. We turned it down to 75 watts and they never knew a difference. So, just my opinion, but I do believe in the ham theory that you only need as much power as it takes, no more. -

Just so this doesn't run off the rails...I was referring to VOX as a means to record radio traffic simply as a research tool. Not for transmitting. I think you all know that....but I wanted to say it. To get real fancy... lol ... 30 years ago, in Part 90, we would take an old fashioned wall clock that ran on a 1.5 volt battery and setup a receiver so the Detector triggered a relay circuit which applied power for the duration of a received on-channel transmission and this moved the (analog) clock forward from 12:00:00 the number of seconds each time. Come back to the tower 2 weeks later and see where the clock was....then you knew how much co-channel activity you would have. Sometimes this was followed by 2 weeks of recording to see what the level was. Interesting old research facts!

This is probably covered here somewhere as advice for new people coming on the scene, and hey, I probably covered it myself in years past here. If you are new to GMRS and buying a couple or more radios to put a group on the air simplex for activities, please consider a good read of the manual and programming, then do a little homework locally, or where you intend to use them, before settling on your "home channel". I suggest scanning, with no tone set (CSQ) on all channels to see who's using what channel and how strong the signal is, before picking one. It's not a matter of " not getting on someone else's channel", no, you got your license so you are entitled to use all of them too. They are shared channels. What it does for you is allow you to pick the best one for your area so you don't run into same-channel usage, or as much (remember, someone else using a channel is NOT "interference"). Once you find a fairly quiet one, or maybe even an all-quiet one, then you can make it your home channel, and pick a tone/code for squelch if you like. I have, in the past, even setup a receiver at a good site, and used a vox recorder or a program called scan-rec which is the same, just in software so you can use a PC, and let it run for weeks to see what's going on. By monitoring in open squelch, you can hear it all. If you program a tone too soon, you will only, possibly see a busy light, if you are looking, and not know why, at the same time you may have trouble communicating because it's a busy channel and you didn't know it. Searching the database here, and avoiding the existing repeater channels is a good idea too, that way you can steer your activity to a lesser used channel. Of course if you will be using a repeater, this really only applies if you want a secondary go to channel everyone knows to use, a designated backup, so to speak. All of this is known as self coordination. I bring it up, mostly because you can sure save yourself a lot of headache and be much happier with the performance of the radios when you are not a victim of so much co-channel activity. I also mention all of this because for years, I have heard people get new equipment and start using it...on channel 1, and sometimes code/tone 1. This does no one any good unless you are the only guy with that idea. Ever. Happy communicating!

In my experience these things usually burn themselves out before too long.

The lovely people in the marketing departments at the manufacturers have helped muddy the waters on this subject. Using PL/DPL (CTCSS/DCS) has nothing do with a channel or frequency per se. Prepackaged radios have referred to having X number of channels but what you find is the frequencies are just duplicated with different PL's. The basics are that you program a FREQUENCY into a CHANNEL on your radio and use it Carrier Squelch (Which is not the same as Open Squelch) and you can hear anyone on that FREQUENCY. They may hear you if they are not using PL. If you add a PL to your programming, you will not hear anyone but your group of like programmed radios, other users will still hear you of they are running Carrier Squelch. Generally if running PL you should MONITOR (switch to Carrier Squelch or Open your squelch depending on your radio) before calling or starting a conversation. (Courtesy). In a group of multiple people, you would just designate a PL everyone would use or go Carrier Squelch. Otherwise PL, in my book, is a have-to on a repeater. Some operators prefer to use it on the input only and some prefer to mask the input PL by using a different one on the output, whereas the standard is the same in/out. It all depends on the amount of traffic, and how much you want to hear that doesn't concern you. (Some radios do not allow split programming).

I think you are missing the point. But OK.

https://midlandusa.com/the-best-two-way-radios-for-pilot-cars/?fbclid=IwAR28HiOThCZvso-x1Cuj3euasb_tAaWBNnQo5kORSEVw6DQ22HkJY0pAKMo

While technically true, and they can get away with it, the spirit of the rule is that GMRS is not for everyday for-profit business use. That is what Part 90 is for unless you can get by with FRS/MURS. Would we also justify that if each operator had a Ham license that they could technically get away with operating the for profit business on Ham frequencies? I would assume most will say no. I think the scenario plays to the spirit of the rules, and the fact that someone would be going to alot of trouble, and alot of technical indulgence to get each employee licensed just to use the service, whereas employees come and go (with their license) but a business license covers whomever works there, and for most people, their contractors. Now, put all of that in a probability machine and figure out who the advertisement plays to (who knows all of this) and you get near zero. Not crying foul...just shedding light.

I was disappointed in Midland the other day after seeing an ad of theirs on Facebook. It was advertising the Micro Mobiles (GMRS) for use in a commercial business. I commented that while this could be done if the business was family operated and the family using the radios had a license, it was very unlikely, or maybe hit and miss would be best, that a pilot car company trucking things cross country would be all family operated only affair and that I thought that it was misleading the public on the proper use of GMRS. Now, use of the FRS handhelds would be fine. Call me a stickler, but there is right and there is wrong.

That was another persons reply, I think he was just peacocking us on how many radios he has...

P1225 is a commercial grade radio. It will do repeater. PL/DPL, Scan, and I think that one even does two-tone decode which you most likely would never need. Now...that was 2 months ago and I have to look and see if still have that, or a 16 channel P1225 left. But I will let you know.

"Channel" makes me think of Crystals. I call OTA TV, "Channelized TV" whereas Streaming TV is not, it's more like a browser or free form. Another way of thinking of the non-repeater mains in these radios is "Talk around" (long used in commercial service) because you talk around the repeater (bypass) it...or simplex. So if someone is on that frequency using a repeater (and same DPL/PL) you could still hear them (the output of the repeater) and they could conceivably still hear you transmitting on simplex if you are close enough to them. You generally have a couple of very radio-wise operators on the air if this is going on. Same with reverse pair...but we won't get into that.

That's fine. One needs to understand the differences of FB2, FB4 and FB6 to really see the light here. The point it is...a repeater does not run itself, so a licensee and possibly the one that owns it will be the one using it. The transmitter is not required to be located on the license. The real way to track it...if they did was through the call sign of the user...and I don't know any owners that wouldn't, at some point use their own repeaters. In the Ham service it's always been the thing to have a IDer on the machine...in commercial I saw very few. I can say I have seen a 15 mile circle where a licensee in GMRS had 3 repeaters on the same frequencies, each with a different input PL and none of them ID. If they did they would put out the same ID. It's not just a cut and dry deal...

GMRS repeaters do not have to ID. The users of the repeater must ID when they use it. When I first became licensed, about 25 years ago, you had to designate on the application IF you were going to have a repeater, how many mobiles, how many portables.... also you had to designate which pair you were using for the repeater, your LAT/LON and calculate your ERP. You don't have to do any of that now. If the FCC needed repeaters to be "registered" they would still require that. Tower wise, mine is beside a barn on a hill, it's about 35 feet with a 18 foot ASP fiberglass stick on top. There was never a requirement for a site registration because we are under 200' tower height, and not in a flight path. There are TV antenna towers at 60 feet around here...so no issue there.

Sorry for the delay, they are 4 channel and R.

So you are interested in buying them?

A friend has a couple of CP200 portables for sale... $60 each, also an EX600, $100. I have a 16f P1225 that I will let go. $40. All come with charger, and a battery....batteries are used, plan on buying a battery! Programming available. More info, pics on request. Thanks

Bandwidth is one thing, but it will not necessarily affect reflected power in within a band range. The main difference is the gain... so think of the output of a 1/4 wave looking like a ball, and the gain (antenna) looking like a ball you are squeezing between your fingers, it becomes an ellipse. The higher the gain the flatter the ellipse.

I think there should be a renewal component to registration. I know of a listing of about 20...and I'm not sure if even one of them is on the air. Some people list them to try to keep others from using the channel and others list them...well as the dream of owning a repeater. I don't like that 2% of people are making the resource inaccurate.

Post a picture of where the antenna is. I think I know what you mean, and it's a hard spot if it's close to the metal structure.

Sounds like your TX is eating your RX. In other words, the receiver is not selective enough in that environment to handle whats going on. Try it with the power down to half where you are now and see if the same occurs.

I use a REECOM receiver which turns the relay back off at the EOM signal. Mine only comes on for the 45 second warning message and then resets. Custom interfaced to a low power control station with programmable TOT for secondary safety on the stuck TX.