WRKC935

I will be there as a vendor. If someone wants to designate a frequency and tone I can put it in the scan list and will monitor and say hello if I hear someone. Not sure what all I am dragging over there. May well be a a bunch of UHF XPR radios but not sure. Please post a frequency here so we can all program in in. I don't know of any open repeaters in that area, but someone might check the maps.

I vs N. First off N means Normal and I is for inverted. the DPL/DCSS/ or what ever they are calling it has two 'modes' one being normal the other being inverted. Not all radios support the Inverted DPL, but many do. From what I remember they did the inversion thing to double the number of DPL codes that could be used. If a repeater had just D245 and no I or mention of inverted, inversion, reverse I would say that is gonna be D245N in your radio. Easy way to find out is program two channels, one with the D245N the other with D245I and one should work. But as others have mentioned,,, don't be surprised if someone asks you to leave depending on where you found your information. If it's on THIS web site and it lists the repeater as OPEN it most likely is indeed open. If you found it on radio reference or some other scanner web site or similar, it may or may NOT be open. And this site doen't have every GMRS repeater listed on it. There are other GMRS sites and groups. Most should be welcoming to new members but they also may not be so friendly. There honestly no personality test for obtaining a license, I know this for sure because I got mine, and I would have failed that part miserably, just ask some of the members on here.

Right,,, anything in the commercial part 90 realm with F as the beginning of a station designator. FB = Fixed Base. A 'base station' would be a simplex Fixed Base running a single frequency (simplex) to another station. That station may be a portable or mobile. FB-2 is the designation for a 'shared' repeater frequency that is not being used without first verifying the repeater transmit frequency is clear and not in use be a co-channel licensee adjacent to your licensed operating area. These licenses can and are granted to multiple users in the SAME geographic area. THe use of PL and DPL coded squelch is used to limit the users from hearing each other BUT users are required (although it's RARELY done) to monitor the output frequency BEFORE transmitting to limit interference. Radio's operating under this type of license are programmed to monitor for any carrier that may be present and keep the user from transmitting until the carrier is gone. FB-6 designates you are the only user in the coverage area and the next user of that frequency does NOT overlap with your licensed operating area and you may use the frequency as a control channel or other use were it's NOT required to first monitor the frequency to see if it's in use before transmitting. Then you have FB-8 and Market frequencies. These are effectively OWNED frequencies for a large region. Paging companies used these for paging transmitters that would constantly bang away 24-7 and never stop transmitting. Market frequencies are typically not licensed as a single pair however, they are a frequency range in some instances that cover multiple 'pairs' of repeater frequencies. Paging would typically use the input frequencies as links and the outputs were what the pagers were listening for. So back to the Fixed base thing with GMRS. It would make little sense to limit the power between a mobile or portable and a fixed base but limiting the output power of a radio that was accessing a repeater with an elevated antenna (commercial limits BOTH power to a certain wattage and an antenna height to 20 feet above any obstruction specifically for radios that are communicating to a repeater and not directly to subscribers (mobiles and portables) so they are NOT interfering with other repeaters on the same frequency. But, I will also repeat that the FCC has not made it really clear on what a Fixed Base is specifically when it comes to GMRS. A repeater is technically a fixed base in the commercial realm, but that doesn't seem to apply to GMRS as you would need to limit a repeater to 15 watts if that were the case. So again, my vote is they are referring to a control station or a radio at a fixed location that is NOT in a vehicle or a portable radio that is directly communicating to a repeater. Now I am applying logic to this and the FCC is not logical at times. But it does make the most sense. That being said, a call to the nearest field office or an email to someone at the FCC may clear this all up. If someone is motivated enough to email or call them please report your findings back here. I may also ask them the next time I have need to call them on other non-related matters.

Fixed station VS base station. Gonna assume that fixed station MAY mean control station where a base radio installation is being used to communicate to a repeater. Commercial radio refer to that as a control station and they are limited in both power and antenna height.

Welp, I stand corrected. But that knowledge does make thing easier. You can have a cache of FRS radios that can be handed to anyone and you can then have short distance communications with them radio to radio... I would assume that they can't use FRS radios to talk on a repeater.

Not sure if this was specifically said,, so if it was, I am repeating it. If you are communicating with an FRS user that is using an FRS radio and is unlicensed then YOU are using that service. Since you are using that service and NOT GMRS which is licensed then YOUR radio needs to comply with the service it's being used on. GMRS and commercial radios are NOT compliant with the rules of FRS and therefore can't really be used to communicate on that service even if the frequencies are the same. Would you get dinged for doing it, PROBABLY not. Unless there were other factors involved. But if the FCC really wanted to they could fine you and pull your license.

It probably would sell.... but the rules state it has to be of a certain design that would not lend itself to being a mobile radio. The big thing the FCC was trying to limit was the ERP or effective radiated power. The antenna's on FRS radios are very low gain by design. Making them permanently attached means they can't be swapped out for a high gain antenna and it also means that an amplifier can't be put in the line increasing the power. With the new license fee schedule making GMRS licenses $35 for a family unit, it's really just easier to have everyone that you want to communicate with get the license and get out from under the FRS equipment limitations. You still have some limitations with GMRS, like max of 50 watts at the radio output and no additional amplification.... but the antenna gain and height are not restricted at all. Even on the low power channels. And you just don't bother with the low power channels other than walkie to walkie short range stuff were it's all you need. FRS is still good for certain applications but it's not technically legal to use a GMRS radio to even communicate to an FRS radio even though the channels overlap. If you are talking to an FRS radio then BOTH radios are using that service. And then both radios need to be compliant with the FRS rules. So you CAN'T use your HT1250 that you use for GMRS while talking to an FRS bubble pack radio.

I have been working on this very thing for the site. What I have figured out so far is that for any significant solar / wind backup system you either need to be able to build it yourself or you need really deep pockets if you are going to backup much at all. Off the shelf stuff is really expensive when you get to the point you are trying to generate more than a few hundred watts and anything wind related is costly no matter what. The first thing you need to realize is that a grid tied charging system is NOT a bad thing if you are going to have any sort of large battery plant. A large plant doesn't need to be off-grid unless there is a specific reason, like there is NO grid at that location. Those are special circumstances and I am looking to do that. Another important part is plant voltage. Lots of guys are building 12 volt plants, and while that's OK to a point. If you need MORE voltage to run certain gear then upping the voltage requires equipment that is not efficient in the line. Stepping 48 volts DOWN to 12 or 24 however is much easier and more efficient. I am looking at panels and a DIY 55 gallon plastic barrel wind setup that will charge the 48 volt plant and provide constant power for several repeaters and networking equipment. The repeaters are 12 and 24 volts in and the networking gear is 48. It's a good idea to find equipment that needs to on power supplies that power off 48 volts. That stuff is out there, although it's a bit more expensive than the 110 volt gear. Cisco made routers, switches and firewalls with 48 volt input supplies that fill this bill and much of the microwave and WiFi linking hardware from various manufactures is 48 volt and use a wall wart power supply to derive that from line voltage. That part just gets eliminated and you feed the plant power directly to the device. Another thing to consider when grid tied is load shedding when you loose the grid power. Meaning if you have 6 repeaters that are running from the plant and one 2 of them are truly critical to ongoing operations, you need to cut power to the other 4 repeaters to minimize the load. A LOT of this is planning and design before you just start hooking stuff up. And depending on what heat load you site has, you need to consider what you are going to do to remove heat from the facility when the grid is down and you have no climate control in the building. Part of your planning is load calculation. I will say that if you are planning to keep one radio and a cell phone charger running, all this is pointless. But if you are backing up significant equipment the calculations are critical. And it need to be based on a 24 hour period and not for one hour or instant load. Instant load being right now, I am drawing 2 amps, but not everything it running, transmitting or what ever. But it also means that you don't need to build to max possible current draw 24/7 for battery and charge capacity. In a 24 hour period, you will have change time and discharge time. You need to figure out How much charge will be needed in that window of time to bring your batteries to have enough stored energy to get through the discharge window and not be depleted before the next charge window. And that may need to be figured on a discharge window of MORE than 24 hours. And you need to consider that may be up to 36 hours depending on where you are, how much sun you get and how much wind you have when the sun isn't shining. Point is that there CAN be a lot that goes into building a reliable 'mission critical' solar / wind battery plant. If you are looking at a small load, then a 100 watt panel and a couple batteries is fine. If you are wanting to be able to run off-grid for an extended period, then you are gonna spend time and money to get to that point but it IS achievable with proper planning and finance.

If they were using anything outside of FRS without IDing their station then no, they were not operating within the law. HAM requires you ID every 10 minutes. Other services the timing is different but they all still require that you ID. That would apply to any licensed service. FRS and CB do not require or have a license, and therefore you can't technically ID because no call sign is issued to be used for that purpose.

Using Mister would mean the use of some level of respect. So that obviously ain't happening. And that's how many times you have spelled my name wrong? And then EXPECT me to show YOU respect. You're attempts at being a comedian here are coming up short. I guess as long as you think it's funny in your mind then at least someone is amused.

Wow dude, you're hilarious. My guess is that it wouldn't start with KB8 since that's MY call sign. Do you really think that's funny???? Or is this yet another attempt to bump your post count or just to see if you can get a rise out of someone? I am thinking that you specifically said a while back you were gonna NOT reply to my posts and stay in your lane. What happened with that? Decided that you needed to entertain yourself again and try to screw with me? I suppose that everyone needs a hobby.

Rules on a Club call still require a club member with a valid ham license to act as a control operator for all transmissions. Meaning someone with a ham license needs to be present when people are talking on the radio using the club call. So the bigger question is what is the call sign you speak of? Assuming it's a call ending in BSA. Once you know what the call is you can look it up. The call will be linked to whoever originally applied for it, or at least who the trustee of the call is now. SO, it can only be one of a few calls to be a valid callsign. Hams of course will know that it has to begin with a K N A or W. At least if it's an American call sign. I don't believe that ham calls can start with anything else. It will also have a 0-9 in it and it will be a single digit followed by the B S A letters. But ham calls have to follow a pattern that the FCC set down long ago. You could do a partial call sign search on the FCC web site or possibly QRZ to find the call and then look it up on the FCC web site and see if it's an individual call or a club call. Once you do that you will know for sure. If you have a troop and want to use the call I would assume that you could contact your district office or the national office once you find the name of the individuals that are the trustee's or just contact them directly in order to gain permission. I would NOT advise you just use the call sign without first getting the OK from the trustee's however. And of course if it's an individual call, you can't get permission to use it without them being present during your operations.

Yep,,, this is a good reason to not post at night. You don't see everything you need to, say something wrong and Micheal gets to up his post count.

Kinda surprised that everyone is going on about aluminum as if it were less of a conductor to RF than steel. How many steel tube case antenna's have you ever seen, as opposed to the number of aluminum ones. Truth is that they use aluminum coated steel cable for high power transmitter antennas at HF and below. Most commercial base antenna's like the DB series are all aluminum construction. Aluminum conducts RF well. And reflects it well too, since most microwave dishes are spun aluminum. The trick will be getting a mount to connect to it with your specific application. But your idea of a mount that fastens to the body under the hood and comes out between it and the fender is a good plan.

Rich is gonna need to comment on the configuration of the MyGMRS software. I don't believe that is a repeater controller though, only an interface to the network. That being said, you need somesort of connection between the two radios so that the RX from one will Key the others transmitter and pass the audio from one to the other for it to act as a repeater. This can be done via a repeater controller or a simple back to back cable that crosses the RX audio and COR from teh receiver to the TX audio input and PTT of the transmitter. It's fairly straight forward. Once that has been established the ID-o-Matic will need it's audio output connected to the TX audio input of the transmitter radio and the PTT of that radio. The Pi running the system interface software will need to be connected to the TX and RX audio and the PTT as well. You will want to pull the RX audio out of the receive radio via the flat / filtered RX audio pin and NOT the speaker output pin. This will give you a good level of signal to inject into the transmit radio that will not overdrive the transmitter. You will also want to set the receive radios programming to filtered audio out on that pin. Turn off all the compression and companding on BOTH radios. It makes the audio cleaner. The TX radio will need the input level set to 200mV. the choices are 80 and 200. The output of teh RX radio is always gonna be 200 at 80% deviation for whatever bandwidth you have the receiver set to. In the case for GMRS it needs to be narrow / 12.5Khz. The transmitter will also need to be set to narrow band. This is configured in the channel programming part of the codeplug. Set the RX radio for RX only on the channel and set all the tones to off. No need to trasnmit the powerup tone and the like over the air. When you were talking about the USB interfaces, I assume you were meaning the USB sound cards. You will need two, one for each Pi as they are doing different things on different Pi's. If there is a way to share them I don't know it and I wouldn't want to screw with attempting to do that level of configuration on the Pi's anyway just starting out with them.

Yep, thinking the same thing.

I'm sorry but NO... do NOT use adapters. Get the connectors that are correct for the application and don't adapt anything. Adapters are for testing things and NOT for permanent installations. I too would advise NOT using the LMR400. for 100 feet of run it's better to use 7/8 but the cost of that can be a bit much. 1/2 heliax would be better as well but another option is LMR 600 cable which has loss numbers similar to the 1/2 heliax, but at less cost. You will want to have your jumpers made up for your duplexer to the radios with good cable. The connectors on the GM300 radios are a mini-uhf. I would advise finding jumpers made from RG142 cable (double shielded) with the other connector matching whatever is on the duplexer. The runs between the duplexer and radios are important especially the receive cable. You want that to be as shielded as possible.

This is NOT the way to be doing that. You need to find some 75 ohm cable and cut two EQUAL lengths of it and put the required connectors on it. Then you use a Tee connector fed with a 50 ohm cable. But the two 75 ohm cables have to be the same length. If you split the power in a divider, then only 50% of the total signal goes to each antenna. It will maintain the correct impedance, but cuts the power in half. When you run the two pieces of 75 ohm cable you correct the impedance mismatch that would be 25 ohms (2 50 ohm loads in parallel) by adding 25 ohms of impedance to each leg. And I would be looking for proper cable for this like RG11 with a copper shield and NOT TV cable. TV cable typically will not take solder as well and is a pain to terminate.

Uhhh NO. This will not work for what you are trying to accomplish and in reality will do the exact opposite. If you have a cable that is low loss then more signal gets to the antenna to be radiated. A higher loss cable means LESS signal to teh antenna. It's true that a higher loss cable will SHOW less SWR (reflected power) on a watt meter, the mismatch still exists at the antenna and the reflected power is still there, it's just not making it back the cable to be shown on the meter you are testing with. In truth a high enough loss run of cable with a shorted end will show zero reflected power simply because none of it makes it back to the meter even though there is a 100% reflect or ALL the transmitted power. Now, all that being said. A 1.5 SWR is not that big of a deal and you are loosing so little overall power that even if that issue was corrected and you were at a 1 to 1 match, the performance of the radio and it's ability to transmit and receive would not have any noticeable change. Frankly your grasping at straws. The 2.38 match is concerning however. Not sure which Midland antenna that you are using, but I am wondering if it's a UHF antenna that is sold for ALL of the UHF band including ham and it's simply too long. I would advise you to look at the lower frequency channels and teh higher frequency channels. If the SMR on the lower frequency channels is lower than the higher frequency channels then the whip on the antenna is TOO long and needs trimmed. Consult the instructions on the antenna and see if it needs cut to a certain length for the frequency range you intend to operate it on.

Not gonna get into manufacture bashing. I will tell you that quantars and MTR repeaters will at full rated output will act as a control channel on a trunked system. This means that they WILL transmit at full power for months at a time. I have PMed more than one of them that the log showed they had been keyed up for more than a year. I have never seen a Kenwood that would do that. Not saying they will not, just saying I have not ever seen it first hand. That being said, EVERYTHING pretty much has a place. I personally would NOT put a Kenwood repeater up on a tall tower on a busy channel, but I would have no issue with putting one in for a small system for a large family to use on GMRS. And I even see the applications of the two mobiles in a box. I sold and serviced countless XPR 8300 and 8400 repeaters and a number of Kenwoods that were pretty much two mobiles in a box as well. And in the right application they work well. But again, real world testing I have never seen the Kenwood that would hear like a Quantar,,, and the MTR3000 and 8400's will hear better than a Quantar from what i have seen in real world testing.

Amiss how?? Not having coverage in down town Columbus from east of Johnstown? That's not gonna happen even though I overlook Columbus. Too many buildings and crap to penetrate that area. Try getting on top of a building and talking on it. Should work fine.

Transmit and receive frequencies, PL/DPL tones that you are using and your call sign. Specify one minute less than the required interval for IDing on GMRS, this will keep you legal as a commercial repeater will NOT force ID and instead hold off until the channel is clear. IF you are planning on immediately connecting the repeater to some sort of controller then you will need to add the programming for that device. Consult the manufacture of the device for guidance on that. But no controller is needed for GMRS operation. Lastly, POWER LEVEL. You are only allowed 50 watts on GMRS and MTR repeaters were mostly 100 watt stations, you will need them to set the power level to 50 watts.

Please understand,,, I have had a failure rate working on these of about 1 in 4. Most of it being the PROM not wanting to take programming correctly after being UV erased. Repairing them for someone that knows how isn't actually too bad. Would rather work on one of these as opposed to the new stuff where it's a few large IC's and very few supporting components. I will say that if you are a ham operator, it will program up for that as well. It may not broadband enough to run full power and have the receive at both ends (ham and GMRS) but I am thinking you might find a happy medium. And I only bring up the power and transmit bandwidth because a LOT of people forget that part. Can't tell you the number of high power Maratrac's, Spectras and even a few XTL's that had all the FRS and GMRS stuff in them and programmed for full power. And 3 dB is NOTHING (50 vs 100) as opposed to 500mw (legal limit on some FRS) and 110 watts (what the radio will do). But a Syntor that's working right is a really good stable radio. Have fun with it and good luck.

Oh wow.. a 9000 Syntor. So there are questions that need to be answered here and you need to remember that is a 100 watt radio. GMRS is only 50 watts. Who ever does the programming on it needs to be aware of that so you are ??legal?? Not to mention that is NOT gonna be a narrowband radio. I keep hearing that GMRS is narrowband and is NOT narrowband. So, I would investigate that and verify that you are legal there too. Programming. If the unit has the display head (looks like a W9, but is NOT) it can be programmed with a RIB and cable. It IS most certainly a DOS only radio and is most certainly a SLOW computer ONLY programmable radio. When I say slow... we are talking 386/486 slow. IF you have a Pentium ANYTHING it's TOO fast. I been down that road. I do still have everything needed to do it including a computer that will go that slow. No, I have no interest in programming your radio, please don't ask. Those old radio's are finicky as hell, and it may or may NOT take a programming change at this point and I have no interest in telling you I broke your radio trying to program it. If it has the clam shell head (its' actually a Syntor and not a 9000) it will need programmed with a suitcase programmer or the EPROM will need erased and reflashed. Either method will work but it will depend on which radio it is on if it has a EEPROM and EPROM or a PROM. A double E will straight program, and EPROM will need erased with UV and can be programmed with a suitecase and the PROM has to be UV erased and flashed with a PROM programmer. Again, been through it, prom programmer is over on a shelf after the shop I work for decided they didn't want it any more. I couldn't see tossing it. As mentioned before.... there is a good bit of info over on BatLabs about those radios and you should be able to figure out WHAT you have there and proceed accordingly.

Hmmm, 4dB huh? Yeah I suppose in a crappy duplexer. Really shouldn't be that much loss in any decent duplexer. Transmit combiner on the other hand can be more like 6 dB. Which is what I have. Of course I can connect 4 repeaters to that combiner and they can ALL transmit through it, and do. Instead of worrying about the loss in you duplexer, and not having 50 watts at the port going up to the antenna, worry about installing an effective antenna system with sufficient height to provide the coverage that you desire for your repeater. My setup is as follows. Receive antenna is at 220 foot at it's base, top of the tower. DB408 currently and will be upgraded to a DB420 this spring. Transmit antenna is at 110 feet. Antenna is a Station Master. It's side mounted and is shadowed to the South currently by the tower. This will be replaces and relocated by a split DB420 (two DB408 antenna's on a common mast) that the top antenna will be on the ham combiner and the bottom will be connected to the lower antenna. This will be relocated to the 180 foot level. Point is, as it stands, on a clear day the system talks 60 miles in some directions. And ONLY hears as well as it talks. Meaning I am NOT transmitting into area's that I don't have the ability to hear a 35 watt mobile. I will always have some level of shadowing from the tower, due to the fact it's 20 feet wide at the 180 level. But it's still able to talk a good distance in those area's that are not shadowed. There is some deeply rooted misconception that you need every last watt of power possible going to your antenna or your not able to talk. And it's simply not true. I have a commercial system over on the east side of Columbus that is 500 feet in the air. The transmitters are set down to 20 watts because they will not turn down further. It uses the same combiner I have with a 6 dB loss per port and 600 feet of feed line to the transmit antenna. It can still be heard in Springfield, but has NO ability to hear that far for various reasons. So it's talk out coverage is STILL with all that loss, far greater than it's ability to receive.