gortex2

A scanner is a better way to listen to other frequencies other than GMRS. I have one bank dedicated to GMRS on my scanner. 

I rarely hear anybody on the radio. It's because I use DCT!
My reason for GMRS license was to have comms between family and friends when camping, hiking, kayaking etc. At the time I've got license my kids were pre-teens, and my wife had zero interest in getting ham license. We used GMRS actively over the years. My daughter is a ham too, but it is simpler for us to grab GMRS radios when we both out on MTB or on foot. Now when kids are adults and have their own interests, I mostly carry ham HT.
And DCT or not, there is very little traffic on air in Sierra Nevada and in foothills. You will hear people around campgrounds and marinas, but wander a few miles up the trail and there is nothing.

I live in SW Wisconsin myself (Racine) I own or co operate several machines, 725, 700, 700, 550, 575, 675. Ingleside IL, New Berlin, Madison, Baraboo, Rhinelander and Union Grove. As far as operating under authority, this would imply a GMRS licence under authority of the issuing agency, or plainly the FCC. As such operators are required to ID by Rule of the issued licence. This term is used extensively by the FCC, you can find the definition on there site. I don't set an id on my systems for the simple reason if somebody gets on a repeater and starts breaking rules and jamming it up the last persons ID I want being broadcast is mine. Unless I am forced to by rule change I will never set and ID for this reason. Last reason is simple, its annoying to users on other repeaters sharing the channel to have some ID heterodyning during a conversation.

There are a few retired folks and a couple who work from home, that kind of hover around 18, 19 and 20 during the day.  A couple of them are members here.
 
You will be more likely to get a response in 18 (127.3) while north of DC on the east side of the Bmore and DC beltway. The 20 pair (675) is good for the same group of folks, plus a bit more as you get into DC and NOVA. And the 19 pair (650) is good from Leesburg to Warrenton. It's a bit splashy along 95 from the Pentagon and points south, as it's on Bull Run mountain. 
 
At night and on the weekends you will hear us mostly on 19.  My call is WRBY328. Give me a call an 19 or 20 (20 is better) when you're around. I'm usually on my way to work around 10 to 11 AM and on my way back to the home office after 5ish.

Thanks @marcspaz. I travel thru the metro DC area weekly (multiple days) yet never hear much chatter on GMRS. I scan the RPT channels in CSQ but never hear alot. Normally when I get over near Annapolis I'll pick up some guys but they are never clear so normally turn down the radio. I'll have to look into the repeaters and get them loaded in my APX with tones. 

Interesting you say this. I am a active ham and have been for over 25 years. I run multiple APRS digipeaters for SAR and personal use, as well as have multiple repeaters on the air. All are P25 but in the ham world. Additionally I help with another regional ham system that I'm not even able to use from home. Both myself and my wife have been hams for years. 
My issue with hams is very similar to @marcspaz brought up. I have removed repeaters for many of the common reasons, jammers, no use, no support. My main issue is 95% of the hams are just cheap. Spend $1500 on a HF rig but then complain their $29 CCR wont work on my P25 machine.
I asked a simple question hoping to get some clarification. 

As far as location its being done but as far as I know does not work on repeaters. https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/533999
 
If you keyed up on my system with some rapid morse code every transmission I would give you the boot, I have no tolerance for Rodger beeps, fleet sync, etc. Lots of people use MDC to send unit numbers, around here we send the last 3 numbers of our gmrs call. Some groups send assigned unit numbers etc.. If you set your radio to decode MDC its silent and just displays it on the radio.
 
PL is stripped so the users don't have to hear it. Commercial repeaters ID every 15 min. Can you imagine having to hear that for 8 hours a day. 

There's actually people to talk to on GMRS.
Ham is in an activity null.  At least with repeater activity, at least in my area.
I have a console system here that I use to talk on the radio.  It has 16 resources on it.  Four are GMRS, six are the local high profile ham repeaters. 
I hear GMRS traffic on  and off all day, especially on MidWest.  The only consistent ham stuff I hear is the club net and the ARES net on Monday and Tuesday nights on the local repeater.  ANd as soon as the net is over it goes silent.  No one even hangs around to chat.    Now that repeater VOICE ID's every 9 minutes.  And it has a second ID board that runs on the quarter hour.  So that one if you time it right will ID 3 times in a row.  That drives off he users.  But none of the repeaters are active very much other than that. 
 

Regardless of any previous interactions you’ve had with the OP, it’s a politely presented and reasonable question. If you don’t have an answer or don’t wish to comment, that’s easily done without being negative. 

I can tell you why I am on GMRS often.  Availability, coverage and the people using it.  Though, that changes depending on where I am in the country.
 
I cannot tell you how many @$$h0l3s I run into on ham radio every day.  They think they are smarter than everyone else, and then use that very wrong opinion to assert their 'authority' (bad opinion stated as if it was a fact) over others.  Then there are the jammers, tuner-uppers, and people just plain-ole' showing their butt.  It makes me want to toss my gear in the trash some days.  I don't have that problem on GMRS.
 
On the GMRS side, we have local person here who used their personal time and money to put up repeaters on every pair and spread them around the DC metro area, just to make it so the community has something to use in an emergency (he's actually the opposite of what the jerks are in Ham radio).  Thanks to this person, there are 90+ miles of continuous coverage edge to edge; more than 6300 square miles.  You can double that coverage if you tolerate a 60%-70% reliability rate.  There isn't a single amateur radio repeater or club network that can match his coverage.
 
As far as who I talk to, my son is the only person in my family that has a Ham license and he doesn't even own any amateur radios.  My wife let hers expire more than a decade ago.  There are a small handful of friends that have their Ham license, but are rarely on the air.
 
Now, on the GMRS side, I literally have several dozen family and friends that are on GMRS or use FRS while we are out doing things together.  The lack of testing, the affordable gear and the fact that people like me are in their life to help with technical stuff, so they don't have to actually learn anything to simply use the radio, is a huge draw to them.  Many of them refuse to get their amateur radio license.
 
 
Side note on why I hate Ham Radio:  Before you read this... it may be long and boring, which is why I put it after the more relevant part of the post.  It is still relevant, because its a great example of why I as a Ham, prefer GMRS.  As you read this, keep in mind that on the amateur frequencies from 144 MHz to 148 MHz, FM signals are just a little more that 16 KHz wide on a properly running radio.  Also, based on the 16 KHz wide signal, the proper technical spacing between occupied frequencies is 20 KHz.  However, for some reason the community in about half the country opted to use 15 KHz channel spacing instead, which leads to overlap and interference.
 
Jerks in Ham radio never cease to amaze me.  I have an example from just a few days ago, while I was talking to a traveler on 146.520.  For our non-Ham friends, this is a calling frequency.  Meaning if you are looking for someone to talk to, you go to that frequency to call for other operators, and many operators listen here to chat, too.  Once you make contact, its customary to move the conversation to another frequency, but not required.  Often it is used continuously for hours at a time for contests and special events, or just for a couple of people to just chat.
 
I was talking on 146.520 to a person who was on the highway, traveling through the area on his way from PA to FL.  Total conversation was 6 minutes.  I figured it would be best to stay on that frequency, rather than to distract the driver by having him figure out how to adjust his radio while driving on the highway.  Especially since at 65-70 mph, it wouldn't be long before I couldn't hear him.
 
I had a guy come to 146.520 and yell at me because we were tying up "the calling frequency" instead of moving to another frequency.  He was also very mad because I was using about 200 watts and was splashing him and his friends on 146.535.  He was calling me names and generally being very rude. 
 
Well, I am not surprised he could hear me on 146.535, because (as mentioned earlier) a proper signal is a little more that 16 KHz and he was only 15 KHz away from 146.520.  Him and his friends should have picked the better channel spacing of 20 KHz (146.540) or more, so there was no overlap.  The power I was using was not an issue, because I could hear him splashing me... and I am assuming it was the overlap, not his power levels.
 
Among other things I can't type in a family friendly forum, he said my gear was crap and I am a bad operator who shouldn't even be on the radio because I was splashing him so bad that he couldn't talk to his friends.  He said that he hates new operators, can't believe they don't teach new people better manners and to follow the rules.  When I told him he didn't know what he was talking about and I was an operator for 20+ years, his answer was that he was a Ham for more than 60 years and knows more then new guys like me. LOL
 
The funny part of the whole situation is, in his eyes I'm the jerk who doesn't know anything and shouldn't be on the radio, but he was the one attacking me and insulting me while HE was using bad practices of not using proper channel spacing, being at least 20 KHz away from the most popular coordinated VHF frequency in amateur radio.
 
This stuff NEVER happens to me on GMRS.

"Fonarow pointed out that cryptocurrency is just one idea the city has heard. Trail officials may learn more once the locked boxes are opened."  If they moved them, I bet some have already been opened...
Odd that they allowed a story to be published without investigating the components (which I think they have) before attempting removal in todays climate. If that is the case I would think they know if it is HAM or GMRS or other related transmitters.
Using serial numbers and photographs to be presented to folks in the know would be to easy to ID this stuff.  I think the story is to flush out the owners, and/or locate all the units that they might not have found.
 

Putting a 40 watt amplifier on a low budget radio with suspect spec's is the equivalent of putting a 200 HP Nitrous shot kit on your Pinto.  
Until your repeater has a decent receiver with good sensitivity and selectivity you haven't done anything to improve the performance of the system. No matter how much horsepower you think you just gained.

A scanner is a better way to listen to other frequencies other than GMRS. I have one bank dedicated to GMRS on my scanner. 

A scanner is a better way to listen to other frequencies other than GMRS. I have one bank dedicated to GMRS on my scanner. 

I think it’s more accurate to say it’s not type accepted for other services, not bands. The OP might be asking about extending it to work on another amateur band, which would be acceptable. 
But if the OP wants to use it on GMRS or MURS, then this warning from BTech is relevant:
“You may be tempted to use FRS, GMRS, MURS (in the USA) or PMR446 (in Europe) frequencies. Do note however that there are restrictions on these bands that make this transceiver illegal for use.“

Why not make the sheet into a google sheet and share with you net folks. Simple and every one sees everything.

Why not make the sheet into a google sheet and share with you net folks. Simple and every one sees everything.

Why not make the sheet into a google sheet and share with you net folks. Simple and every one sees everything.

The noise issue in in duplex applications. It has been discussed many times. Its worse if any water gets in it or the connectors. If your running a repeater fine a variant of LDF and it will resolve the noise issues and have better loss. 

I assumed he would eventually figure this out.   He seems a bit challenged.  

The post was from 2018… ?

this may be a first, but I agree with Mr WRKC935 - Unless you really know what you are doing and more importantly WHY you are doing it, I would recommend not taking the risk of upgrading the radio.
Source: I own several XTL5000s, XTS5000s and XTS2500s - i've never put any through an upgrade because its too risky and I have too many friends that ended up with very expensive bricks - and they dont even know why they did it.

Another quick note.  Having a later version of CPS and programming an earlier firmware is NOT going to cause any issues. 
I do it all the time and have never had issue unless the firmware is REALLY old, like version 5 and before using CPS20.05.01 which I believe is the latest version that was available. 
 

So, first question is why upgrade?  This is not a Windows upgrade.  Have you read through the release notes of the 20.01.01 firmware to see if ANY of the changes effect conventional analog and P25 operations of the radio.
Second is you have to possess a flash key in order to apply the firmware upgrade in order for it to happen.  The XTS / XTL family of radios were different in this regard from the APX radios that are now the standard.  APX radios will directly upgrade without a flash key.
The threat to doing irreversible damage to your radio is a VERY REAL possibility.  You are rewriting the software that operates the radio.  And while a failure of a cable getting kicked loose or a power failure with a computer would mean that you just boot from the media and attempt to reinstall the latest version of Windows or whatever having a similar failure with your radio during a copy operation will leave the radio in a state that by anyone outside of Motorola, unrecoverable.  And in case you somehow feel I don't know what I am talking about, we sent a significant number of radios to Motorola during rebanding (probably 200 of the 15000 we upgraded).  And since that was a supported platform at the time, they would fix them.  You can't send that radio to Motorola any more,   they will simply drop a letter in the box saying the model is no longer supported and charge you a fee to do so plus return shipping.  Again, I work for a Motorola shop,  Been through this a number of times.
Lastly, I am not 100% sure you can go from 17 to 20 directly.  At least not safely.  You may need to goto 18 first before making that jump to 20.
 
Also, you need to understand that a firmware upgrade will NOT add functionality to the radio.  The flashcode of the radio sets the functionality and options in the radio, not the firmware version.  Changing the options requires a different type of flash key that is also NLA from Motorola.
 
 

Here is the complete build