gortex2

Did you go to the page for the repeater and request access ? https://mygmrs.com/repeater/3478

@WRKC935 Yes the 412. Love the box other than a couple analog features they left out. I have one back pack that fits it well but normally just toss it in a small pelican case and carry it with the phase stable cables. For the rest of the conversation the other thing folks are not remembering is these CCR radios have very wide filtering aka none for GMRS. Using a CCR base/portable and inferior cable and antenna's doesn't do what a commercial LMR radio and equipment will do (regardless of band). Noise floor is worse on a CCR especially as height increases. Just something to remember. I would suspect swapping out the TYT or Wuxon mobile for a XPR or CDM you will see the difference.

Also remember repeaters don't need to be listed anyplace. None of my repeaters are listed at this time as I got tired of dealing with unwanted folks on them. There are repeaters out there that have coverage and are linked that may not be open to other users. Remember not all repeaters are open as in ham radio. Here is a link of a GMRS network that may have something in your area - https://midwestgmrs.com/

To do grounding the proper way will cost more than your radio and antenna combined. I would at minimum put a polyphaser/transector where the feedline enters your house. Grounded to a ground rod or building electrical if possible. Minimum should be #6. Below you can grab a polyphaser for around $75.00. If you have a mast that is metal you should try to ground that to the same point as the polyphaser. https://www.dxengineering.com/search/brand/polyphaser?cm_mmc=ppc-google-_-search-_-vendors-_-keyword&gclid=Cj0KCQiAoY-PBhCNARIsABcz772B_ofhyz47cdi2i0FWZStI2MENLroGG3T5-nRA_loZkBmDokje9fsaAhwlEALw_wcB Good manuals to look at. https://wiki.w9cr.net/index.php/R56_-_Standards_and_Guidelines_for_Communication_Sites

I think NYC area has a similar dispute that has been going on for years. After reading about the CA stuff I'm glad I live in the country ! I could put all 8 repeaters up but I'd have to give each cow their own channel

I wouldn't say a fiber link is better than DSL. My house actually had DSL for 3 years as we had no fiber or highspeed from any other place. I averaged 2-3mb and that's it for up and down. My P25 would work most of the time until we got down below a 1mb then I would get garbled on the base. For link speeds it really depends on the system and how much it needs. A site with 3 channels of TRBO and controller needs more than a single channel. QOS is also very important. In a closed network such as public safety uses its easy to have QoS for Voice and less Qos for other traffic. In the commercial world the ISP doesn't give you or I QoS for our home networking. We just share the pipe and when it gets busy it slows down. Depending on the importance of the system will change the requirement from the ISP. Thats why when you call someone like Verizon for Fiber they have different plans for residential or business. Normally you will find a business account cost more for the same speeds. When building a system going to the ISP with a SLA (System Link Agreement) we will provide what we need. And for reference a system I worked on a system 15 years ago was a trunked system with 8 channels. We used a single T1 to the site. It was on a microwave link so congestion was not an issue. One of the things I think hams forget about in regards to the LTE style links is the idea of a disaster. The LTE modem on the Trbo repeater is going to work about the same as your cell phone. For those that have been involved in disaster scenarios you know that cell can be overloaded or completely gone. Many times Fiber and copper phone lines still work. All in all its about what service you need and want to provide. If I'm going t promote my P25 ham gear as a RACES/ARES type system I am going to make sure it has the ability to help, otherwise its just another radio on the air.

@Lscott Yes it would, but most commercial installations have no issues with getting proper links. I know some locations can be challenging to get a Fiber or Highspeed connection but I have seen Microwave links to another location to grab an ISP from. Alot of the commercial LMR stuff I have seen and worked on was done this way if there was not fiber to the site. More and more public safety is getting Fiber to sites as a redundant link and with coordination can be very beneficial to other users on that site.

That was my point. Most hams are dirt cheap. They wont spend $100 a month on a good ethernet link for a tower site. Quality costs money.

Pick the channel of the repeater you want to use and put enter the DCS/PL tone needed. Its pretty simple and is in the manual step by step. https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0531/2856/0817/t/10/assets/MXT275-Owners-Manual.pdf?v=1619734294

As a public safety user and administrator I never took any shots at Public safety. My comment was and still stand that Hams nor GMRS users have any authority to program public safety channels in their radios for transmit. I feel the user has enough info from this post. I don't endorse nor support the use of illegal radio operations regardless of reason.

@tweiss3 There is no need for internet other than linking. I think a lot of hams forget about that. In commercial DMR systems that are linked there are specs for links however many don't go by them. In Public Safety those are crucial. I have seen many DMR repeaters using a hotspot or similar LTE router on top of a repeater. Most issues are poor coverage inside shelters and hams don't want to put up real LTE outside antennas. A county I just finished has this issue. The ham guys continue to complain that since they moved the repeater it doesn't sound right. Local talk groups are fine. They have a cheap hotpot on the repeater with no antenna. I have no Verizon and 1 bar of ATT inside the shelter. The hotspot shows 1 bar sometimes. It would not surprise me when the repeater keys up the bar goes away just from local interference and RF. . They don't understand that. With no linking a DMR repeater can sound really good. As said good test gear and properly setup sites are really good.

Those rules are for Part 97. That means if your a tech and have HF you can use it in an emergency. I continue to be baffled at the ham community who think they can use any frequency they want in an "emergency". This is the reason hams are getting less and less involved in public safety. There is a reason agencies have MOU's for inter agency stuff.

@wayoverthere DMR sounds good when setup correctly and uses good radios. When DMR first got popular the only option was Motorola MotoTrbo repeaters and radios. None of the CCR market was building anything. Over time they did. I know of a few DMR repeaters that sound pretty good over the air. They are mostly MotoTrbo but some other LMR brands on the air also. On the other side there are a lot of "home brew" repeaters now on the air with MMDVM boards on analog radios. Most that get put up never get aligned or setup properly and don't have the audio quality of a LMR repeater. Mostly because many hams don't have the test gear required or the know how to set them up right. Next issue is the subscribers. Again the CCR market has flourished and blanketed the market with cheap stuff. They don't sound as good and putting them over a home brew repeater makes it sound even worse. Some of us have learned the hard way after buying "economy" radios then spending a bit more on a true LMR radio the difference. Even though I have many high quality P25 radios I got suckered into the cheap DMR market when I wanted to dabble in DMR. Mostly because it was easy. The radio got used once. Its in a box. Sadly DMR is dead where I am so only listened when working in different cities. I did finally get an XPR7550 and its night and day from the MD I had. YMMV

@marcspazThe only good way to know loss on a cable is to order certified cables. I spend more on a 3' test cable than most spend on a mobile radio on this site. Just ordered a 4.3-10 -> N cable. It was $142.00 plus shipping. It would be nice to get more radios in the field and see what others find. If its common across the board its an issue.

So using some math here 10% +/- is 5 watts. So that puts the radio at 45 watts in specification to some point. Take your cable loss and connectors out of the mix I think 40 watts is what you would get. As reference I just finished the install of a 100 watt GTR 8000 repeater. Programming shows 100 watts. My R&S Meter shows 79 watts. Jumper in radio to back plain is .18 db. Cable from Base to Power Sensor is .75 db. That is about 1 db for quick math. 1 db from 50 db (100 Watts = 50 db) is 49 db which is 79.433 watts. So in all you still meet the 10% +/- With the Midland 50 watts should be about 47 db. Just take away 1 db for cables and inconsistency of meters. That's 40 watts (39.811 per my PC) So in reality it most likely meets the specs provided by the manufacturer. I think too many get worked up over a number. I think the real test is the real world use that Mark plans to use it for. I'm curious to see what he finds and how the radio performs in the world and not on a bench. I like to see a number on my service monitor or watt meter match what a box says but it doesn't always happen. Mark keep us posted once its in the JT !

Part 97 grants no authority to use Part 90 Licensed frequencies. Part 97 allows the use of amateur frequencies and zero outside of it. This comes up on many forums all the time and the end result is you can't do it. If your truly worried about calling on a public safety channel I'd pick up the phone and call said agency and ask them what their response would be if a citizen called on their channel. I can say for sure many counties would not be so open regardless of the emergency.

Hold on ! Are you authorized for these interop channels ? And if so the D578 is not certified for public safety use. You can't just program up public safety channels to use if you feel there is an emergency. In the OK FOG there clearly state - Note: The OKFOG does not grant authority to operate on radio frequencies. The use of these frequencies requires an FCC license. Having a Ham Radio License or GMRS License does not authorize you to use Public Safety Frequencies. Pick up a cell phone or go to a ham channel.

I'm waiting on the 575 to hit. As soon as it does I'll be ordering one and will put it on my service monitor and validate. I hate to order the 500 to do true tests as I have no need for it. The 275 is what I'm running right now and plan to upgrade just to test more or less. On testing I agree that real world over the air vs into a dummy load may be different. In TIA102 testing standards radios there is a tolerance for all tests on a radio. Normally this is provided by the manufacturer but TX power of +/- 10% after accounting for test cable and internal cable losses is not uncommon. Any test is going to show some uncertainty. Using calibrated test cables, calibrated test equipment is really the only way to know for sure. Many don't have access to either. In addition environmental factors could cause a reading to be different in field use. I think Mark provided a good representation of what other users would see using similar gear. 99% of the hobby uses hobby gear. While I love my Bird 43 that's kind of like a 57 Chevy in regards to technology updates also. Now Bird and Rohde & Schwarz make some really nice stuff (AKA not cheap).

Is it one of the standard DCS/DPL codes ? I know a lot of CCR's have extra tones that are not in Motorola and other radios. I glanced at the list and thought most were in the midland but I'll need to dig out my DPL list and verify.

Agree. I was surprised at how well it worked. The one site had 4 repeaters using 4 6.25 splits. Repeaters were in different areas of the campus and they never seemed to have issues. I think if they were all at one site there would be not a way to make it work without serious cash in filtering. I'll have to try to dig out my old ones and run some tests on the Anritzu with them.

Yes. You can add some channels with different PL and can select Narrow or Wide. You can add channels 8-14 with different repeaters and PL info.

When the ICOM came out with the early NXDN stuff I put one on a service monitor and was really surprised it hit that 6.25 mark. One of the systems I did took 4 UHF channels and broke them up to give them 8 talk paths. I still have a few of the ICOMS in my storage unit as we had hoped to move SAR towards that but the P25 was too prevalent to switch.

@PACNWComms supposedly with the next release of software the next can be programmed by CPS again or RC. I hate having to use RC but on the other side I have the code plug backed up. As for FF use agree. I took mine on a few calls and the display doesn't work well with my gloves. There is a new "XE" version out but don't think i'll end up with one anytime soon. I do use the NEXT for SAR because I can look at the map. Just a feature. Not for navigation. But still like my 8000XE for Fire stuff.

The issue with the RT97 is size. Your not going to get higher power with the duplexer used and radios. As said for some that box is a perfect solution. I replaced my GR1225 in my motorhome with it and was one of the best things I did. I didn't do it for anything other than size and simplicity. The GR1225 took more room and with the fan took alot of power from my system when dry camping. In the past Midland had repeaters. I had one in VHF for SAR that was 25 watts before duplexer. We had installed a few UHF when I was at the radio shop also that seemed to be a good basic repeater. Simple basic programming. They since discontinued them but they are out on ebay and other places. The 71-4050 can be found around $300 with some searching.

If you look at the map its still there but over a year since it has been updated. Yo have to select "show stale repeaters"