WRKC935

OMG..... THIS AGAIN?!?!?! Talk about the beating of a dead horse and we are 5 pages in AGAIN. Not typing the reply again. Go read it here. You really don't want DMR on GMRS. You might think you do.... but the problems it will cause will quickly set you straight.

Make sure that the repeater is configured as a base station and not a repeater in the programming. There is an audio delay in the system from time to time due to network latency where you can hear yourself. But for it to be there twice indicates a loop of some kind. Also make sure if you have multiple repeaters, they are NOT BOTH linked to other repeaters creating a loop. Meaning don't link your repeaters together and then individually link each repeater to a third repeater, or in the case of a large system like MidWest, link them together and then individually to other repeaters in the system thinking you are setting up some sort of redundancy. It creates loops. The proper way of linking repeaters if you have multiples. Link YOUR repeaters together in some fashion. Either a STAR configuration where multiple repeaters are all linked to the lowest numerical node number you have or link them in a line where repeater A is linked to B, C is linked to B, D is linked to C. DO NOT link them in a mesh configuration where A is linked to B, C and D then B linked to C and D and so on. Maximum of TWO links per node if linking in an A <> B <> C <> D configuration. Then link ONE repeater to a HUB or State Node. And don't link to more than one HUB unless you are getting permission from a higher power and other repeater owners on those HUBS as you will be tying them together through your links.

Ham testing will NOT go away until the rest of the world agrees to it. The ITU (International Telecommunications Union) set the rules for all countries to follow with regards to radio communications. One of the biggest things that allow's GMRS to exist with no real verification of knowledge is the fact it's UHF and low power. Other than Canada and Mexico, no other countries are going to be in the communications range of any US station (other than MAYBE Russia and users in Alaska, but even that's a big IF. Lower frequencies especially HF stuff will carry for extremely long distances when the conditions are right and that happens much more often than band openings in the UHF region. So it's really not as easy as the FCC just handing out ham licenses. The ITU was the reason that the Morse Code requirement hung in so long. And it was the maritime industry and regulations for ship to shore communications that was the driving force. A bit of history. Just prior to the ITU lifting the International code requirement, ships over a certain size were required to have a licensed radio operator on board that knew Morse Code for emergency communications. That requirement was lifted a year or two before the ITU met and recended the Morse Code requirement for ham licenses. The whole idea was that a ham operator would be able to receive and handle emergency traffic from a ship at sea that was having problems. With the full implementation of the EPURB satellite system and a new requirement that all ships were required to have on board emergency radios that would automatically give location information via GPS to the monitoring stations for the system, there was no longer a need or requirement for Morse Code. So ham radio requirements were lifted for the first level of ham license (No Code Technician) and the flood gates opened. The higher class licenses still at that time had a code requirement, mostly due to the older hams raising hell claiming that it would be the end of ham radio,,,, of course that didn't happen and the requirements for code were lifted for all ham license classes. I actually started as a No Code Tech, and held that license for over 10 years. I did finally upgrade to general, but I am yet to get my Extra class license. I may do it at some point, but I really don't know that I care enough to bother. Regardless, I will maintain my current call sign as I have had it now for almost 30 years (originally licensed in 1994). Point is there is a reason that hams have to test. And those are the reasons. With GMRS on UHF we don't really have much ability to interfere with other services in other countries. With Ham radio on HF or even 50 Mhz (6 meters) there is that possibility and operators need to know where they can operate and where they can't. And remember, GMRS radios are NOT suppose to have VFO's, or be programmable one any frequency outside the bounds of the 30 frequencies we are allocated. Ham radios are not that way. Granted, they do have transmit blocks in the newer radios. But the old tube gear was smile and dial so to speak.

Did you submit the forum?

Seems an odd way to tune a window filter for a RX multicoupler. And damn wide to boot. Mine are 466 to 470 for 461 to 465 inputs. And there isn't any 465 around these parts. We top out at 464 with any license I have dealt with. The other window filter (yes I have two) is tuned to 446 to 450.5 for ham repeaters. And I assume you are on a TX combiner?

This was commented about on the Facebook group and I figured I would share it here. We did have (there were a number of us on the air at the time) an interesting contact a few mornings back. A guy keyed up and said he was coming through the Johnstown PA repeater. Problem was there is no Johnstown PA repeater. I was on the Johnstown600 which is in Ohio and could tell he was coming through that repeater since it has two different courtesy tones. One for local keyup's and one for linked keyup's. So I knew he was on my repeater. It got interesting when I corrected him about where the repeater was and he replied that he was on a handheld radio in Wheeling WV. which was later verified to be 127 miles from my site. Obvioulsy he was on a hill over there and not down in Wheeling since it sits in a big hole. But that's pretty good for a 5 watt portable radio. Yes, the propagation for UHF has been interesting for about the past month.

Not really a wad. spent 450 on a Harris X-100 portable and setup a buy that will happen later this week of an APX 7000 V/U r1 for 1500 but that was about it. Other than that it was dumb stuff. 20 bucks on a Cisco 800 small office IP phone PBX, 50 on an MW800 computer, couple other things. I did buy materials for building two antenna's that are for a customer but will get that money back once the antenna's are built and sold. I am sure there were other things I bought but can't remember what they were at this point. Outside of that, I saw a number of friends that I only see during Hamvention. And one of them I do see a bit more often had my KVL that I got back. Looking forward to the new radio, and getting the programming worked out on the one I have in hand.

I ask the same question on their facebook page. I am gonna guess it's open to all since they posted the PL for it. Or at least that's the way I am gonna treat it until told otherwise.

Google is your friend here. If you have specific questions then feel free to ask, but I really don't want to get into a ground up discussion on here about it.

Interesting.. Would like to hear a recording of what you are hearing. Curious if you have your radio programmed narrow band on the repeater channels or not. COmmon mistake that will cause audio issues on receive and transmit. Truth is that radio is radio. Commercial, Ham, GMRS, FRS, it's all FM modulated carrier. It should all work about the same and sound about the same.

This may or may NOT be an issue with the specific user but instead the repeater. While MOST of the repeaters out there are setup correctly, both linked and stand alone repeaters, there are a few that have audio issues. I recently ran into one while traveling and got questioned about my audio quality. As soon as I got into the coverage area of the next repeater and changed the channel, the issue resolved. Now obviously I didn't make changes to my radio outside of changing the channel and later found out that specific repeater is known for hot receive audio into the system. Point is look carefully at the situation and make sure it's not something else before condemning the users radio. Yes, there are some out there that are running their audio too hot. But there are other causes.

And why in the hell would anyone bother to do that? So that someone else can come in and question what's been said? To throw around their 'years of experience' and self imposed higher understanding of the regulations and try to pick apart what has been said by others? Yeah, gonna get right on that. Wait, I think I DID do exactly that several pages back and then someone got in and questioned what I said. So why go to the effort of trying to explain that or anything else on here for that matter when it's just gonna get argued and claims by others will indicate that's NOT what the regulations say when its pretty damn clear that it's EXACTLY what is being said.

Your node needs to allow the connection to other nodes (meaning the node you are connecting to needs to allow your node to connect) I just tested BOTH the nodes you mentioned and BOTH rejected my connection. I will dig into it and see about the node connection setup and get back. Also, your firewall configuration needs to port forward port 4569 from the outside IP address to the internal IP address for the Raspberry Pi. ONE other thing,,, you MIGHT consider hiding the external IP address for your router when posting pictures of your router configuration.

Well, there are a couple reasons. First is the repeater is farther away and has less signal getting to you and the other radio than the distance between the two radios that are talking simplex. If you are talking across a room and the repeater is 15 miles away, that can have a tone to do with it. Second is the repeater isn't setup right. Yes, just because someone was able to connect up some cables and get an antenna up in the air doesn't mean it's actually done right, or that it's a quality repeater. There are a number of repeaters out there that are just two mobile radios taped together with some wiring between them. Nothing correcting the audio levels coming out of the receive radio sending into the transmitting radio. This is the BIGGEST reason a repeater will sound 'bad'. This can also come from the repeater being programmed incorrectly. There are audio gain settings in most repeaters that are of good quality. For the most part these should be left a default, but some don't believe in leaving anything alone. They have it in their minds they know better and 'tune' the repeater for louder audio which just screws up the audio. Another common thing I see is radios that are programmed opposite what the repeater is programmed for with regard to Wide Band VS Narrow Band. Narrow Band radios and repeaters transmit HALF the audio level of a wide band radio and expect HALF the audio level on receive. So if everyone is telling you your radio lacks audio or to speak up and everyone you hear sounds loud and distorted, then you are no doubt programmed narrow band on a wide band repeater. And GMRS is WIDE BAND for the repeater pairs. Again, a simplex radio, especially matching radios programmed by the same person, or true GMRS radios that are factory configured for GMRS only operation are going to have the correct programming in them for the simplex channels that typically never get messed with. But it's a settable option on all commercial radios and many of the GMRS specific radios as well. SO that's something to check.

ANd NO window filter on the RX or running the TX into a combiner or other filtering of any kind?

There is no DIRECT connection for the repeater if that is what you are hoping for. You will need to build or buy an audio interface that goes between the Pi and the Quantar. This is typically done with a CM108 USB sound card and some very precise soldering work. Look for the ASL (All Star Link) or HAM VoIP interface information pertaining to the mentioned CM108 interface.

Yes, there are devices like what you are describing, however, the cost associated with them isn't what most people would consider reasonable. A typical DAS (distributed antenna system amplifier, known as a BDA or BI-directional amplifier for UHF frequencies is going to cost around 15 to 18 THOUSAND dollars. This equipment is meant for providing coverage to public safety personnel when in a building responding to a call for service at the facility. So what are other REASONABLE options for you and your situation that don't cost more than a decent used car? First would be a base station radio with an external antenna. This can be connected to a Zello interface that can be used with your phone and the Zello app. This of course will work anywhere your phone will work if the computer interface is connected to the Internet. Obviously your phone with need either carrier signal or be attached to the Internet wirelessly, but it's a workable solution. A set up from that would be a Radio-Pro interface from CTI products. Coupled to a MotoTRBO radio, the phone app that works with this interface will add the ability to select channels on the radio remotely. This is not exactly cheap however. So I would be looking to find a used interface and hope it works. These interfaces typically come with a SINGLE license for the phone app so it would be a single connection sort of thing. Again, completely workable solution. I have this as well as Zello on a control station as a backup. Both work fine. Both are LEGAL methods of doing what you are talking about. From here it gets into the sketchy stuff from a federal regulation standpoint. NONE OF THIS IS SUGGESTED, while it's a technically workable solution, it runs afoul of regulations pertaining to radio communications. First would be a dual band radio with an outdoor antenna with crossband ability. VHF-UHF and a VHF portable radio for communications to the cross band repeater where the cross band radio is programmed for the repeater on one channel and the other channel programmed simplex to communicate to the portable radio. Second would be a set of back to back radios that did the same thing as the dual band radio. Again, if you go this route, turn the power DOWN all the way on the VHF radio to eliminate (or close to it) the signal getting outside the building on the VHF side.

I believe that SouthWest Ohio GMRS group opens up one of their repeaters for general access during Hamvention. You might try to find their web site and see if that is going to be the case.

OK, you said dropping the output power INCREASED the range? That points to a mistuned duplexer. Now, there is something else at play here as well. The little Celwave notch duplexers are just that, a notch filter. Meaning that any RF outside the notch comes in at full strength from the antenna. And the first RF stage in a radio (including most repeaters) is not band specific. So it can be deafened by RF from any band, not just the one of interest. Meaning if you put a repeater on a TV or radio station transmit tower, it's not going to work very well with a notch duplexer because the high RF field will get into the radio and decrease the gain of the first stage. A BPBR duplexer ONLY passes the frequency of interest plus a bit of RF right around the specific tuned frequency. This means it will filter out that stray RF from a high power transmitter in the near field of the antenna. This is also why you mount antenna's down away from broadcast transmit antenna's to get better performance form the installation. Duplexer power ratings THe small notch ones are 50 watts or less. Don't care what they say, I have tried and failed to run increased power through them.. It don't work. Larger ones go as high as 350 watts, but are typically limited to 200 watts or less. And most of this has to do with the maximum amount of isolation that's reasonably possible without increasing the insertion losses. Any type of filter, the insertion losses increase with the decrease of pass bandwidth. Very tight filters have high loss. They are sometimes necessary for some situations, but are not worth the loss unless those specific situations are present. Oddly enough, GMRS presents one of those specific situations. That being transmit frequencies being very closely spaced. Like the GMRS repeater channels. Going from 462.550 to 462.725 in 25Khz steps, they are all close. I personally have 3 GMRS repeaters connected to a total of 2 transmit antenna's with a common receive antenna. This was done with a very specific setup called a HYBRID combiner. This comblner consists of a standard UHF 4 port combiner where two or the circulators were fed directly into a 3 port power divider. Frequencies are 462.600 and 462.675. The can is tuned to the fequency directly in the middle between the two (462.6375). This allows it to work, but at a cost. With 50 watts coming from the radios, I get 18 watts out of the combiner on those frequencies. It talks 40 miles in most directions that are not blocked by hills and valleys. Tower height is 240 with the TX antenna at 180 but the HAAT or Height above average terrain, a calculated height based on antenna height from the ground and ground elevations for 20 miles in all directions every .5 miles divided up in 3 degree increments in the circle. In other words. Tower in middle of 40 circles, lines drawn out from tower every 3 degrees and everywhere there is a intersection of the lines a ground level height is taken and the number difference between the antenna height above sea level is compared. THose numbers are all averaged out and a single number is generated. Mine is 525 feet HAAT. Yes, it's done with a computer and yes it takes the computer about 10 minutes to complete the calculations. But my point is that I have 350 feet of feed line going to the antenna. The antenna gain is 6dBi. Using 7/8 cable so losses in the line are about 4 dB, so for all the loss it does remarkably well.

Yeah, I just got hit with this. I put in a request (for access to MY repeater) explaining to the guy he mush have screwed up and to please delete the faux repeaters.

I was just on there and it showed the stale and offline repeaters both. I had turned them on the last time I was on the site and it stayed that way. I would assume that a cookie or some other piece of data is dumped on your computer for it to do that. Your security settings may be set too high on your personal web browser for the settings to be remembered.

Well, lets pick this apart. Why not ask for a radio check when you are wanting to start a conversation? Best reason here is it comes off as being dishonest. And the issue with it, frankly is that when you, and others think it's OK and people get wise to it, then they refuse to even answer radio checks because they don't want to be dragged into a conversation they don't have time for. And you will get the operator requesting a radio check every 30 seconds until someone answers them or finally gives up. That leads to them being frustrated and possibly giving up on GMRS. Sort of like what's happened to ham radio. Towns full of repeaters that are silent. Using phonetics. There is zero need for it. It's FM short haul communications. If someone is rattling off their call sign too fast for you to understand, ask them to repeat it, or don't. We're playing hobby radio having routine conversations, not handling communications regarding the release of nuclear weapons. Are their specific times it should be used,,, yes, but not as a rule. And BTW U is Uniform,,, not Uma. If phonetics means so much to you, get a ham license and join the HF traffic nets. Then you can pass traffic where you get to do basically the whole message in phonetics. I say again Delta Oscar, space, India, Tango, space, Sierra, Oscar, Mike, Echo, Whiskey, Hotel, Echo, Romeo, Echo, space, Echo, Lima, Sierra, Echo. Because on FM short haul radio where your not fighting signal to noise issues it's frankly India,Romeo, Romeo, India, Tango, Alpha, Tango, India, November, Golf. (Irritating). And to me it's every bit as irritating as sitting here doing it on a written page. Why?? Because again it's NOT needed with this format. Unless of course you are receiving codes to verify the release of nuclear weapons have been authorized or some other equally important information is being conveyed. But I may have missed the memo about NORAD and STRATCOM switching from their communications systems to GMRS radio. Lastly, why get so wrapped up in all this. Simple. Sam Hams. Ham radio at one point was very active, and now it's all but silent except on HF. Doing stuff that the 'hams' do / did when it was active may well have contributed to the loss of interest. Stuff like using phonetics in the eyes of the new guys can easily turn them off to it because they are figuring it's gonna be informal chatting on radio. You start adding a bunch of structure past basic radio etiquette of allowing everyone a turn and not talking over others into phonetics, codes, and that sort of thing they feel out of place. And then loose interest. But, again, this is my personal opinion. Yours may differ, and that's fine too.

Why would YOU care about the other guys call sign? Again, it's NOT ham radio. We don't exchange QSL cards, create contact logs or any of that hammie stuff. To each his own I guess. I do love how you slipped in the FCC and the threat of not legally IDing your station by NOT using phonetics. Here's the thing with that. My license has WRKC935 on it as my assigned call, NOT Whiskey Romeo Kilo Charlie Nine Three Five. And my ham call doesn't appear in my ham license phonetically either. On HF, I will use the last three phonetically working a pileup when needed, but I rarely give my full call that way unless it's specifically requested. Again, to each their own.

A sure fire way to get ignored, and for others to turn their radios off to not hear it being repeated every 20 seconds. We have a ham repeater locally that you can 'converse' with. At the top and bottom of the hour it will ID. If you key up it will ID again, with a different ID. If you key again the OTHER IDer unit will then ID. All within 20 seconds. repeater: Voice ID, ME: KB8VUL, who's that? Repeater: Second Voice ID ME: Say it again, say it again Repeater: 3rd voice ID. NO one talks on the damn thing because you have to wait for it to ID so much. It's frankly annoying. So no one uses the repeater. They never bothered to set the controller and secondary Voice ID unit to CW ID in the back ground when the repeater was in use and the Secondary ID unit doesn't recognize it's in NET mode so it still VOICE ID's every 15 minutes. During sever weather nets and the like. As said, toss your ID and that you are listening, monitoring or ask if anyone is around. THat is not going to change in 20 seconds. YOU ARE NOT ON HF HAM RADIO. You are not looking to make a contact to someone that is spinning around on their VFO trying to find someone else to make contact with. GMRS don't work that way. Ham operators recognize that type of thing right off, sort of like speaking your call phonetically every time you give it. Don't do that crap either on ANY FM service. Phonetics are for poor signal situations to pass traffic in less than idea situations. NOT to have normal conversations on FM radio. Whne was the last time you hear a broadcast radio station use phonetics for their call sign? When was the last time you heard a public safety dispatcher or officer use phonetics to ID their stations? You haven't because they don't. And for FM stuff, you shouldn't either.

Looks good and it will get the job done. You need to get some outdoor rated ties and properly fasten the cable to the pole though. Those little zip ties will harden up in about 6 months and fall apart. They do make UV rated ties, and that's what needs to be used. Also, you need to put a drip loop in the cable. The way it's run right now, water will get on the cable and ride it down to the point it enters the building and probably run into the building if it's not totally sealed. This will cause water ingress and the problems that come with it. Think P-trap for plumbing. Create a low spot in the cable run and then have the cable come back up a little so the water runs to the lowest point and then falls off the wire before it gets to the entrance of the building.