gortex2

Let me get this right.... you come in here more than a week ago, make 1 post to stir the pot on a subject you know very well has history on this forum. Act shocked by the same responses that are in every other thread about this and then pop smoke with a backhanded snarky attitude.
 
Does that about sum this up?
 
Did someone put you up to this or are you just terrible at being a troll all on your own?

Well, where I'm going with this is that the travel and calling frequency has already been established.  Why is it necessary to come up with another one.  Just support the existing standard.

I just recently purchased 2 MXT575 units.  They are wide and narrow capable on repeater channels.  At first I was using the included antenna and was pleasantly surprised at the distance but the girlfriend didn't like the look of it on her car.  I didn't care for it either.  I installed Larsen thru glass mount antennas on both vehicles and they work great.  I noticed improvement on the transmit side and receive was much better than the included antenna.  The Larsens weren't cheap by any means but I've used them in the past with good results.  I know some have had bad luck with thru glass antennas.  I used to run Icom radios but I have to admit I do like the simplicity of the Midland and finding a place to mount a full size radio in a 21 Durango is almost impossible so this fits the bill.  I just keep a list of repeaters and tones on my phone if I need to program one on the fly when I get out of my area.   I was able to get the SWR down to about 1.3:1 and one unit is putting out exactly 50W and the other is about 48W.  I have to say I'm pretty impressed.

It's not.  It's been down for a long time.  It was never updated on the repeater listings.
Sorry for the confusion

Now, what LScott and a couple others were talking about.
RAC or repeater access code, which is a Motorola thing that sounds like MDC but isn't will control the access of a repeater if enabled.
First thing you need to know about it, it's only a Motorola thing.  So if you go down that road, only Motorola radios, WITH RAC ability will be able to access your repeater.
I suppose you COULD setup a single channel LTR trunking system and use that to control access.  But again, You are limiting access to a few radio types.  Standard conventional radios will not run on LTR.  So you would need to be very specific in the radios you choose to buy. 
 
My take is different.  If I am putting up a GMRS repeater, it's gonna be open.  I would rather pull the plug on it than need to go through dealing with all the crap of trying to put split PL's or RAC or any of that crap on it.  If I need to talk on the radio to someone else and I need it to be that tightly controlled, I will get a commercial repeater pair and load up some encryption in my radios and disappear.  Or just call them on the phone.  It's just simpler. 
If you are so worried about unauthorized people getting on your GMRS repeater, turn the stupid thing off and find another way to communicate.
 

Oh,,, geeze.  Long day. 
So first off.  I couldn't give a rip about the guy in Wisconsin getting blasted and then talking on the repeater,,, even if it was MY local repeater.  I am guessing he ruffled a few feathers.  I didn't hear him on today before I pulled the plug, and my guess is that he got up this morning and remembered what he did and out of pure embarrassment stayed off the air.  I believe there were a few comments made about him being blitzed as the night wore on. But again, don't care.... not my problem.  Others may feel differently, but that's my stance.
So what spun me into a rant filled tizzy.  I had a user of all 3 of the repeaters at the site contact me on one of the OTHER repeaters, not the 600 that's linked.  And he started in about the way the guy was drunk and using vulgarity (his words) on the repeater.  I replied that I had heard part of it and was aware.  I explained that it was a linked system and that I had little control over someone in the middle of the night, 3 states away acting the fool on the linked repeater system.  This for some reason didn't seem to be the response he was expecting.  Reading between the lines of what he was saying, he expected me to be equally offended and that it was totally unacceptable that someone acted that way and something needed to be done.  But I wasn't doing it and that was unacceptable in his mind.   So I reacted.  I keyed the radio up, told him he was right, and further more, since he was obviously offended by the FREE REPEATERS that I provide to the community, and that I would just pull the plug and he would no longer be offended.  Or if he was he wouldn't have me to complain to about it. 
Yes, to put it plainly, I was pissed that I was getting this passive aggressive holier than thou crap for someone I provide free GMRS repeater access to.  So I reacted in the most polite and politically correct manner I could muster.  I pulled the plug on two of the three repeaters. 
Ultimately, here's the real truth.  People say and do things that are not acceptable at times.  God knows I have, more than a bunch of times.  Now I haven't done it on a repeater, I refrain from that out of respect for others.  But I have more than a bunch of times went into a cuss word filled rant when something broke, didn't work as planned, got away from me and fell, fell on me, fell near me and was expensive, and a whole list of other reasons.  That's the way SOME people are... and I accept that.  Smack your thumb hard enough that the skin tears on the bottom side, not the side you hit, and try to refrain from letting the colorful adjectives come spewing forth.  If you can do that, you are a better man than I.  But people are people.  If you choose to NOT partake of the booze ( i personally don't) then cool.  If you choose to have a couple, that's fine.  And there are instances that a few turns into a few more and you might start acting dumb.  Again, human nature, and I ain't gonna judge.   Ol boy decided I personally needed to be offended by the acts of another.  And HE wanted to push HIS belief structure on ME.  THAT ain't gonna happen.  
 
 
 

As a fellow repeater owner... I agree with your rant...  In fact, I have an aproved only closed repeater and first problem maker, change the codes.  Per FCC I have the rules in my favor.  There are two types of users, those so thankful and the other who think it like public access and they can say whatever.  Keep to you guns...
EDIT: My repeater is not listed and it more word of mouth, friend of a friend....
 

I just finished a conversation on one of my repeaters about the antics of an operator on the system last night. 
Like I personally have any control over it.  But then I realized I do have control of it.  By yanking the cord out of the wall feeding power to the repeaters.
At this point Johnstown675 and Johnstown600 (the linked repeater to midwest) are off. And may well be for good. 
 
So here's what NOT to do.  When you are a GMRS user, and you are using someone else's repeater FOR FREE because they make a serious effort to provide and maintain equipment for you to use.  Don't complain to them that someone 3 states away on a linked system was acting the fool, cussing and drunk on the repeater system.  It's a REALLY good way to make them mad.  For them to decide it's NOT worth the trouble to keep the equipment on the air and then decide to just pull the plug.
For those of you in this area that were using the link and the 675.  The jury is still out on what I am gonna do going forward.  You have ONE person to thank for it being gone.  And that's for you to figure out.  But I ain't listening to people complain to me about the actions of another on a linked system.  And if you happen to be the guy that complained.... CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!! You got the repeaters shut down.  SO there will be no more bad words on the repeater, since there will be no repeater.
 
RANT OFF>...
 
 

For those that are not familiar with MDC, the transmitting radio is programmed with a 4 character MDC identifier. Valid characters are 0001 through DFFF. Typical ID's are usually just 4 digit numbers, but hex can be used. That ID is what is transmitted in the "beep" squawk that is heard on the air. The sending of the code can be either "pre" or "post" on the actual voice message. I prefer "post" because it is sent as you unkey the mic so there's less chance of the voice and the MDC colliding with each other.
What is displayed on the receiving radio is also dependent on programming. Most agencies build a "call list" which is a matrix of MDC codes and what each code translates to. For example, I set my personal radio to transmit code 1001 for use in family convoys. If the receiving radio has no call list, but is set to decode MDC, it will display the same 1001. However, if the receiving radio has a call list defined, then the alias in the call list is displayed when that code is received. For my other radios, 1001 is programed to read "Steve Truck 1". It could just as easily be defined as "Steve WQPG808" for a community group setting or maybe "Steve Tail Gunner" for an offroad group. But the alias is programmed into the receiving radios. In a group setting, the complete call list would have to be programmed into all the radios in the group for the system to be effective.

I mentioned this before.  I think there is some confusion between two different conversations being had here.  I think people are mixing up ORI compared to a standard simplex channel.
 
In early to mid-2000’s, Popular Wireless and the Personal Radio Association came up with the idea of an Open Repeater Initiative (ORI). It was designed to get repeater owners to open up and share resources instead of locking them down, reducing difficulty to get access to a GMRS Repeater system. The idea was to make it easier for a GMRS licensee to use available resources.
 
The ORI standards were simple.  ORI epeaters were open to all users regardless of a club/group membership or not.  Implementation of the 141.3 CTCSS/PL, which was and still is referred to as the “travel tone”, so people could program their radios as a standard when traveling or visiting different areas.  Lastly, the repeater pair 462/467.675 (rCH 20) was to be used.  However, as time moved on, it morphed into any repeater pair using 141.3 as a standard PL access and did not require prior permission.
 
Even though Popular Wireless and the Personal Radio Association are gone, the spirit of ORI still lives on today.  While many people consider repeater pair 462/467.675 (rCh20) the official travel channel because of the verbiage of "travel tone" of the rCh20 pair, I am not convinced this is what @OffRoaderX and others are talking about when supporting CH19 as the road channel (or travel channel).  I believe they are advocating use of a simplex channel with no tone.  So, anywhere you go, regardless of if a repeater is around, you have a main channel to communicate on while traveling.
 
Also, if I understand them correctly, using a channel other than 20 is a good idea to reduce confusion and accidental interference from cross-traffic on channel 20, since so many repeater owners are still honoring the spirit or ORI.
 
So, Randy... am I completely off base or does that somewhat sum up what you're discussing and advocating for?

We spent 6 months arguing over this before. Don't think we need yet another thread. Both points of view were discussed. Use a channel you want and go from there. 

Well one Ham got tired of people using cheap Baofeng radios, and other similar CCR’s, on his repeater. So, he switched over to require a MDC sequence to activate it. The cheap Chinese radios typically don’t have it. It effectively kept them off his repeater it seems. Of course he got branded as a Motorola snob. However some of the other main stream commercial radio manufacturers have it as well, not universally on all models, so it’s not that huge of a limitation. I have it on some of my Kenwood’s, for example the TK-5220/5320 P25 ones in my collection. There are some other Kenwood models I have with it too besides the ones above.
https://www.urci.com/downloads/kenwood/kenwood_tk_5220_5320_brochure.pdf
The TK-5320 with the band split of 450-520 has FCC Part 95 certification, FCC ID ALH378500. The radio can be programed and used for GMRS legally provided power, frequency, bandwidth and modes are followed as listed in the rules. One could use the MDC signaling as a means to keep unauthorized users out of a private GMRS repeater. 
 
Another use would be to identify which radio in your group is transmitting. This is advantageous when the radios are all operating under the same license. Let’s say you’re out camping, hiking etc. and one of your family members is injured and can’t speak. Simply keying up the radio will uniquely identify who it is.
 

I think pretty much all of my Vertex gear does MDC1200, including the analog, part 95 certified, vx4207's. (Double checked that, fairly sure the others do as well)

I don’t mind OffroaderX proposing this (In fact I enjoy his videos), and I don’t mind having it discussed again for people who have recently joined the forum.  I just happen to disagree with it because of Line A.  However, it really won’t ever affect me to be honest, because I live near Line A and because I don’t expect to drive around with my GMRS radio on anyway.  If I ever do it will be with a group of people and we’ll select something else so we don’t interfere with the Road Channel.

Sooner or later somebody will propose using channel 2 for dirt bikes (2 wheels), channel 3 (3 wheel types), channel 4 (for the Jeep crowd), channel 19 for those that can’t figure out the logic for the first few channels etc. Yup, something for everyone. Get enough people confused that means less people jamming up your favorite “official” road channel.

Leave them alone, the influenzers and their court. People who can read and able to put 2+2 together will find out about 462.675-141.3 very quickly. Those who have youtube-watching gland overdeveloped will congregate on channel nineteen. Win for everybody.

Actually, there is another channel that has been in place for decades. 462.675 pl 141.3 has been the recognized travel channel for decades. Many repeaters are here, on this frequency/tone.

It would have been a good idea to do your homework before all this. All you are doing is creating confusion.

Sent from my SM-A125U using Tapatalk

It's funny, I travel and go wheeling up and down the east coast several times a month. I never hear anything on 19 on the highway, but I always hear people on 20.
 
And as far as offroad, at the National and private parks I hear people on every channel pair.  This weekend I was at AOAA doing some wheeling and there had to have been well over 200 people sharing 22 channels. It was busy.
 
Anecdotal, I know. Just sharing an experience. 

It isn't about killing ideas or censorship, it is about a specific topic that has been beat to death so many times and on so many sites, that has become an annoyance for a lot of people.

I would point out again that even the proponents of the 'national travel channel' can't seem to get it going even on a local level.

This topic is a proverbial 'broken record'.
 
Honestly, I think it keeps coming up because the OP didn't research the topic before posting, or just enjoys creating controversy.

Perhaps the best thing to do here, is rather than even comment or suggest the topic be moderated, is to simply ignore it, lest someone take a dissenting view and extrapolate it to the Nth degree to suggest it means something far more sinister.

?

Back in the early 1970s, in the great lakes area, the truckers were on CB channel 11.  I think the whole channel 19 as a road channel thing grew out of people hearing that dip-shit song Convoy, like a lot of the CB boom.  Before the 'boom' (and that stupid song) in the mid 1970s there was usually 23 channels of mostly static and 5W AM with a modest antenna was good for many miles (without 'skip').  CB Channel 19 was never really any kind of standard, and the 'road channel' was more of a case by case geographical thing.

As far as GMRS road channel...

IMHO, if a 'road channel' was something that was ever going to become popular, it would have happened years ago with 462.675 and CTCSS 141.3 when it was the suggested channel.  GMRS is way more popular than it even has been, but it's just not something that John Q Public is going to have in his car and use on vacation or traveling to grandma's house for Christmas. 

Indeed, the popularity of CB is way down all these years later, it has become a borderline wasteland populated mostly by die hard 'hobbyists', most of whom are using SSB these days, foul mouth truckers, and nut jobs running a couple thousand watts talking to nobody, none of these demographics follow the rules.  Compound that with the complications of GMRS of having to know how to program/change CTCSS/DCS codes, programming a radio, etc.. none of which has to be done with a CB radio.

It might sound like a nice idea to some, but it is just not something that will ever happen.  The nature and limitations of GMRS... it doesn't make sense and, as someone else mentioned, groups that do need to coordinate their communication have long since settled on a (GMRS) channel and/or other radio services and/or technologies.

John Q Public.. you find them down on the bubble pack radio channels, usually channel 1 and what ever tone (if any) it was on when they pulled it out of the box.

I doubt that any of the current people calling for this could even get it rolling in their local area, nevermind nationally.

All that said, this is such a redundant and beat to death topic, perhaps the admins will ban it going forward.

?

We spent 6 months arguing over this before. Don't think we need yet another thread. Both points of view were discussed. Use a channel you want and go from there. 

Pertaining to the discussion of MDC being a form of 'encryption'  It's really not.  FCC specifies that it's illegal to modify the transmission 'to obscure the meaning of the communication'  MDC doesn't obscure anything.  And even being 'proprietary' doesn't hold water.  I don't own a fusion radio or a DStar radio.  So since I can't hear it, is it being specifically obscured so I can't hear it as a ham operator, and is it being done specifically so I CAN'T hear it?  Of course the answer is no.  And if you were to program up a GMRS radio with MDC status messages and broadcast them, are you obscuring the meaning?  Not unless you specifically will NOT allow others to know what those status messages are.  If you were to set up 16 status messages in MDC and then POST them here on the board, they aren't obscured.  If you are only using MDC as unit ID's for your radios, nothing is being obscured, it's your radio ID.  And MDC is limited to what it can send.  It's not packet of another digital mode where you are shipping text messages with it.  The status messages are assigned a specific number that is universal to the protocol.  If STS16 is 'A$$CLOWN on repeater" then it's not obscured if posted. And it's universally STS16 message on the MDC protocol.  Now I can' have STS16 as "I Love You' to be sent to my wife.  It's still STS16.  Of course if you have it as something else, then your radio will display something different.  But again, I am using it to communicate with my wife and you are using it to warn others of shenanigans on the repeater.   But they are BOTH STS16 in MDC. 
Now, if a number of us were to get on the repeater and start speaking Russian, is THAT 'encryption'.  If we are doing it do others CAN'T understand what we are talking about, then yes, that's encryption, not because we are using the Russian language, but because we are SPECIFICALLY using it to obscure the meaning on purpose so others CAN'T understand the meaning of the communications.  But if we have a Wednesday night net to keep our multi-lingual skills up to par and speak Russian for most all of the net then it's perfectly legal.  It all goes back to intent.
I honestly believe the only reason that we aren't allowed ANY form of encryption on ham specifically, even on WiFi links is the FCC doen't want to field the telephone calls about it from the old farts that would be raising hell about it because they can hear it on their old tube radios.  I have no doubt that when VHF went to FM the old codgers were mad because their AM VHF radios wouldn't hear it.  And it was gonna be the downfall of ham radio.
Now I am not saying GMRS should be allowed P25 C4FM modulation and AES256 encryption.  But DMR and building a nationwide network with IPSC (Ip site connect) would be nice, but also not really needed. 
So I really think it's about intent at the end of the day.  But I will also say this about MDC.  One of the features with MDC is Radio Stun.  Which enables you to send a command to a radio with an MDC ID to basically turn it off.  It's used commercially to disable rouge radios and stolen radios that pop up on the system.  And it's pretty effective.  Yes, you have to have a radio or console that will transmit that command, but that stuff IS out there in the wild. 

CB channel 19 wasn't used nationwide as a travel channel. The Pacific Northwest used Channel 17. That area included all of Washington state, Oregon and most of Idaho. Channel 19 was primarily used for rag chews and sideband use.

This Topic, Again??  ?
 
 

Well, I specifically put a repeater up on 675 with a PL of 141.3 because that WAS at one time the designated traveler channel and traveler tone.  The only other listed repeater in the area was the clown with the for profit business selling air time.  So I figured it was the right thing to do.  I honestly don't care if y'all decide it needs to be different, the repeater is on it air and I ain't changing it.  
And to sort of quote WROZ250.  Why are we rehashing this AGAIN???
Dude saw a video on YouTube and decided that it needed to be discussed in it's own new thread after we generated how many pages of discussion on this topic?
I'm sorry but I am all for requiring your first 5 posts to require being approved by a moderator and a rule in place saying that you have to search the site before posting a new topic.  One of the boards I moderate has a back end that when you type a topic for a new post, there is an area that populates with similar topics right below it.  And it will ask you if you want to post an already discussed topic.  Moreover, if you DO post a topic that's already been beaten to death, it gets added to the other thread or deleted and you get a strike for posting it.