AdmiralCochrane

About darn time. I didn't believe what I read on another site, but these radios seem to be branded as portable scanners too...  who knew.
 
G.

+1 to mbrun.
 
Also, remember that radio is a SNR game, or a Signal to Noise Ratio game.... sometimes the Signal might still be there, faint, but masked by the overwhelming Noise... much like light pollution under the night skies hides the fainter nebulae, stars, etc... you throw an H-Alpha filter, and all of the sudden the faint wonders of the night appear much clearer...  same with radio.
 
A few feet higher might not make the range noticeable better, but it seems to make the current link quality a bit better... and sometimes every bit counts.
 
Also, remember that not all antennas radiate perfectly towards the horizon, there are nulls on the radiation pattern, both vertical and horizontal... and problems with grounding, problems with feedline, etc... they all introduce nulls on the pattern. So if a subscriber is in one of the antenna nulls will have the same effect as being behind difficult terrain.
 
Wish I lived in a place with no obstructions... with no angry RF firebreathing broadcast 1400 foot towers... 
 
G.

If you watch the following YouTube video you start to get a clearer picture of what line of sight without obstructions can do for your UHF range. Here the users are demonstrating 27km range using a handheld .5 watt radio over in Europe. Their elevation comes from being high on two opposing hillsides.
 

 
One thing I have come to realize much better is that it is not just sufficient to get the antenna above nearby obstructions but you must also get it above a good percentage of all obstructions between the transmitting and receiving antennas. While the signal might be fully blocked by a hill abruptly, it does pass through and around foliage and many other obstacles but indeed it is attenuated by them. Place a good stand of trees between those same set of radios used in the video demo above and you suddenly you find yourself at .5 miles while the radio horizon might actually be 6 miles.
 
In some recent modeling that I did (and already shared) using an online coverage calculator I was able to see first hand that modest increases in height can be met with insignificant range improvements, even over mostly level terrain. Whereas when I modeled a doubling or quadrupling of antenna height I observed more appreciable increase in coverage.
 
When there are no obstructions, radio range is mostly affected by the radio (antenna) horizon. When you are above the horizon, the rest of the real-world’s obstacles placed in your way are your enemy.
 
Michael
WRHS965
KE8PLM
 
 
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I get that myself...which is why I can get that repeater I mentioned over 50 miles away with my base station @25W. It's located at almost 7100 feet and I am at just under 5100 feet with no obstructions in-between - classic LOS UHF radio wave propagation example.
 
Another less understandable (to me) question about of radio propagation is If mpoole can't get 1/4 with only a 40 ft ridge running interference with his 50 watt rig; how come I can get nearly a mile with two HT (HT to HT @ 2w) with a 60 ft+ ridge in  between? See elevation profile below. Situation is from my house in a suburban neighborhood with trees etc. to a park on the other side of the ridge. Signal reception to park is decent to excellent. House is at 5473 ft and reception is at 5506 ft on other side of ridge in park.
 
John
];')

try inputting ctcss 141.3 on all your repeater channels and keying up and throwing out your call sign. If you hear it ID immediately or you hear a squelch tail after you key down you found a repeater. 141.3 is considered the travel tone and many open repeaters use it. After you find a repeater try calling out at different times of the day on it requesting permission to use it. That is what I do to access unlisted repeaters. So far everyone I have contacted has been very nice and usually don't mind you using them as long as you are licensed and don't abuse it. Things most repeater owner don't like is kerchunking, foul language, interruptions of on going conversations, and unlicensed users. Most repeater owners welcome more users so don't be mic shy.

15 to 20 miles but there is one high on a commercial tower that is close to 30. The higher the tower the further you will able to hit it. I am not far from you, I am down in the south east corner near DE, I may try to hit a few of the repeaters in your area the next time I am going up to cabelas.

Kerchunking is the act of keying up a repeater and not saying anything. When ever you key up while searching for a repeater tone always throw out your callsign.

Rugged Radios gets hit hard, see the FCC document.
 
https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-20-1395A1.pdf
 
 

Nice!  I'm in a mountainous area at 2150 ft running a 50 watt radio.  Because of a ridge interference that is 40 ft higher than my antenna I can't reach 1/4 mile in that direction.  As such I'm moving my repeater to a neighbor's work shop that is 120 higher than I am.   So yes, the higher the better.

Well, wouldn't this be considered an adapter too? an adapter to the recessed threaded connector inside the radio? I mean, the fact that there is a thread inside the radio means you could buy an RG400 cable that threads into the back of the radio and go straight to the cavity/duplexer/antenna... etc.
 
Correct?
 
G.
 

I tried it. It’s exactly what WRAK968 said. -60dB would be Max with the noise floor, and the sweep is real slow. I’ve tuned lots of similar devices, I took mine over to friend with a service monitor to see how close I was. Best I could do was about -60 on 466.52 vs the 467.575 I was tuning for. If you nailed it you would be lucky. My repeater had RX desense because I tried the NanoVNA, now it’s a 20 mile repeater once I put the Amazon duplexer on the service monitor.

Unfortunately the FCC doesn't seem to do much when it comes to GMRS violations unless there is some form of interference with emergency services. This leaves repeater owners to fend for themselves. I have just gone through this myself about a month or two ago. Unfortunately, my only solution was to change to a split tone system leaving the original tone on output, and changing the input tone. (Example, if the repeater is using 141.3 for in and out, change the input tone to 146.2 and leave the output tone at 141.3) This can be a hassle for some bubble pack users who cant do split tone, however it seems to clear up the interference rather quickly. I have not had any issues since (Knock on wood.) The other thing is that you shouldn't post the new codes publicly, and instead require people to request access into the repeater. This helps you to keep track of who is on the system.

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. 

Just, FYI, FCC compliance is binary, You either have it, or you don’t.  I.e. there is no partial compliance.

You're getting those static if you're on the edge of repeater's coverage range if you're in the correct repeater frequency you will having any problem hearing your transmission to your other radio. and on the positive note don't worry if you miss up something its all about learning, experimenting and having fun!.

Excellent explantion of why a higher end radio will recieve a good signal 20 miles away when a CCR only gets it 16 miles away.  Too bad everyone inside the 15 mile circle will never know the difference.

I just realized I never posted the final configuration of my base station antenna.
 
I ended up building a tilt-over mast with a simple 1/4-wave ground plain up at 27ft AGL fed with about 55ft of DRF-400 coax running to the radio. I have tested the base to HT range with my Midland GXT 1050's and can get at least 5 miles to the HT if I am not in a low spot. I have also been able to hit a repeater over 50 miles away that was LOS. I also am able to hit my local repeaters in my local Front Range GMRS group.
 
So basically I did my research online, took excellent advice from this group, did my calculations and that, with a little bit of luck, managed to exceeded my original requirements.
 
EDIT: Added a photo I neglected to the other day.
 
John
];')

if it was 16.5 I would say don't use it.14.5 isn't out that much I just don't think it will provide enough current to run the TX side. those old RS unit were only rated at 1.5 or 3 amps IIRC

The absolute best way to know is to check with the radio manufacturer to determine what voltage range is acceptable. Some, but very few, manufacturers actually publish this information.
 
That said, you are probably ok, and here is why I say that.
 
Manufacturer’s have done us a disservice. They call the radios ‘12v’ radios but their radios are actually designed for use in a vehicle that is operating on 13.8v and not 12v. The higher voltage exists because the vehicle battery needs a higher voltage to be charged. Consequently 13.8v is the voltage most everything in the car is designed around. Also, when a lead acid battery is charged, a charger may delivery up to 14.4 volts under certain conditions to top it off, this exposing all other electronics in the vehicle to that as well.
 
So where does that leave us? I imagine you are measuring your power supply without a load on it and that you’re getting 14.5v. This is just slightly above the normal max that the alternator would generate to charge a battery. If you put a load on your power supply, you will find that the voltage drops, perhaps down to 13.8 or even lower, right where you expect to be.
 
The better the power supply design, the less variance in output voltage between load and no-load conditions.
 
I just recently read a spec on a mobile radio where the manufacturer actually published its usable voltage range for its 12v Radio. It was published as 13.8vdc +/- 20%. That is the exactly the way it should be stated. This eliminates all guesswork. This translates into a radio that manufacturer says will operate correctly within a voltage range of 11.04-16.56 vdc.
 
Hope this helps.
 
Michael
WRHS965
KE8PLM
 
 
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The "NN" means "Normal/Normal" DCS polarity. If it were "IN" it would be "Inverted/Normal" - etc.
 
Grendel6522: I assume you were just truncating the actual frequency, and that you aren't actually trying to use a repeater on 462.000 MHz, right?  That's NOT a GMRS repeater.

Frequency listed is not a GMRS frequency.
Are you sure the repeater is using DCS codes and not CTCSS codes?
Are you certain that different codes are being used for Tx and Rx?
I am speculating based on the way information is formatted in my viewer, but it looks like you might be using DCS with inverted polarity. Is the polarity of the DCS codes correct?
 
Michael
WRHS965
KE8PLM
 
 
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It takes time to learn the more advance radio tasks. LMR's make the task of programing and using the radios a little easier, however are still a little confusing the first few times you write a new code plug. Give it some time and you'll find it easier to do the things you want to do.

One can never have enough radios. 8-) GMRS is a good way for people to test the water and see if they like radio communications without having to do any testing. Good luck getting your Tech Class license. Later you can upgrade to General Class which gives you access to all of the HF bands for world wide communications, very handy if the worse happens and local public communications resources are completely wiped out.
 
Some commercial band radios are FCC certified for Part 95, and the programming software will allow Ham 70cm frequency entries even if they are outside of the "official"  range for the radio, the software throws up a warning message, but allows the entry. I've used two so far, both Kenwood radios, TK-370G-1 and the TK-3170. I can get them down to around 440MHz or so which covers the simplex and repeater sections of the Ham 70cm band. Now I only need one radio for both services and its legal since I'm licensed for both.
 
There is one other radio service on VHF that could prove useful too. That's MURS and no license is required. You can find some MURS certified radios out there.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-Use_Radio_Service
 
https://www.intercomsonline.com/murs-radio-multi-use-radio-service-technology-guide

Could you point out the rude part of my comment?  I asked for secondary help, no sarcasm or rudeness in the text.   I truly wanted to know how far down to scroll.  Thanks for the detail I was hoping to find.   Is there a time limit on how far back the search feature works on?  I really used it and came up blank.

Good Day and welcome to GMRS.
 
First off you are in the right general area, but the frequencies you list are not official GMRS frequencies. Refer to the official list of frequencies and make sure you entered them correctly. For repeater use, you need use what are referred to as the main GMRS frequencies. The Rx frequency will being with 462, and the Tx frequency will be exactly 5MHz higher and begin with 467.
 
 
Regarding beeps, that may be Morse Code. Morse code is one method regularly used by repeaters to comply with FCC identification requirements. A repeater will transmit that every 10 to 15 minutes when the repeater is active and often immediately upon becoming active if it has been idle for more than 15 minutes. You could be hearing something else completely different if you are not using correct frequencies.
 
Now, assuming you had a typo and actually used the correct frequencies, one of the things you will learn about radio is what is called “desense”. Desense is the condition where a radio cannot operate properly when it receives strong RF signals that are different from its intended receive frequency. When using radios with a repeater, the radios transmit on one frequency and receive on another. If your handheld radios are sufficiently close to one another, the transmitting radio frequency may be overloading the. receiving radio which is trying to listen on a different frequency. If desense is your problem, you may find that separating the radios by a good distance (perhaps 50-100’ or more) will solve your problem. A good way to visualize desense is this. Imagine its night and you are trying to read the front license plate of a car from 100’ away. You can read it because the license plate is dimly lit and you have good eyes. Now someone turns the headlights on and suddenly you are blinded by those bright lights and consequently your eyes can no longer tune into that dimly lit license plate between them.
 
Lastly, it is very common for repeaters to continue transmitting for 1-2-5 seconds after you stop transmitting. This is done for a variety of reasons. One benefit of this to you when you are testing is that you can key-up, announce your callsign and that you are testing, then under. If you made it into the repeater you get the benefit of hearing that squelch tail from the repeater. Generally a good sign you got in. Never do this without announcing yourself.
 
Hope this helps.
 
 
Michael
WHRS965
KE8PLM
 
 
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