WRKC935

Oh, for the love of God,,, do NOT call CQ on a GMRS or HAM repeater. And don't give you call phonetically, unless specifically ask to. It's a sure fire way to NOT get responded to. But don't ask for a radio check if you are looking to start up a conversation either. People that are monitoring that may have others things they are doing and only monitoring the radio may choose to respond to someone asking for a radio check because that's a quick conversation. A basic reply of "Yeah, it's working" is a lot different than a full on 10 minute discussion of the weather, or whatever topic you feel like discussing. And when you do that, by trying to start a discussion after being told your radios is working will be remembered and the next time you will not even get the basic reply that you are working. Fire off your call, ask if anyone is around, and see what happens. If you are on one of the linked repeater systems, chances are that someone is there and will chat with you. With stand alone repeaters, their might not be someone willing to talk at that point. And don't do it every 2 minutes until someone answers you either. Again, you may be heard by others that don't want to talk at that point but will choose to not talk later. I swear that someone needs to post a set of guide lines laying out the way to talk on radio. Things like waiting for a repeater to reset before keying up. Not getting into a direct two way conversation when several people are on the air and not 'passing' the conversation to the next person in the rotation (I am guilty of this one at times but some are more guilty than I am). Not entering a conversation and immediately trying to change the discussion topic. You know, things that you shouldn't do in a face to face conversation.

Which is the reason I said we need to do some critical thinking here. Yes, I delved into the tin foil hat stuff, but for a purpose. That being the ridiculousness of the prepper community and their support of these crap radios. I understand being financially limited when it comes to buying stuff (being broke). But we are talking about a group that spends thousands on supplies, and tens of thousands on arms and facility to make sure that they can survive when the SHTF. And I had a discussion with a guy about this that was pushing the Baofengs while standing there with a $3K AR-15 slung on his back, a $1000 pistol, $500 in armor plates and plate carrier, $100 pair of pants, $250 pair of boots and discussing using a $35 radio for personal communications. I'm sorry but WTF is wrong with this picture. And these folks don't have one pistol and one rifle. So there isn't a reason to not have military grade radios like the XTS /XTL Motorola's with full AES (government level) encryption) and the required keyloader, all of which are available on ebay, for their personal comm's. And I don't know, or even really think, that the commies are watching these guys through their cheap radios. But as mentioned, they are a force to be reckoned with. Even the US government backed away from them when they came face to face over that Cliven Bundy stand off. Because outside their cheap comm's, these guys do tend to take the whole militia thing pretty seriously. But then again, I suppose if I was in those groups, I wouldn't get on YouTube and discuss proper communications techniques at that level and instead push cheap radios to others from my sales website while having a cache of proper radios in my communications equipment. But yes, we are being watched. By tech companies, the government, other governments and who knows who else. And there is little that can be done to stop it.

Time to sit and do some critical thinking. Consider what the gain vs cost would be with this. The CCR are a lot of things, but they ain't dummies. What conversation would be worth putting additional stuff in a hobby radio that would 'war drive' to hack an open wireless network and pass on information. What would that information be? Would it be worth the cost of doing it? And more importantly would it be worth the cost of getting caught doing? If ANY device, cheap radio or other was to have such technology in it, that would be apparent on a spectrum analyzer. It would show up in the connected devices of wireless routers and access points when connected. So unless the radio was directly marketed with WiFi abilities, then it would stand out like a nude blonde woman that it was doing something nefarious. Now, if it DID contain WiFi connectivity, then it could route traffic to other places that could be used to monitor something. But unless it was some specific stuff, that wasn't a standard like WiFi and they were sending some other device that also operated outside the established standards like the weather balloon's (well maybe) that would play previously recorded stuff to that device, chances are NO. Now, what possible information would be gained. And this answer does lean to it being true. Government comm's are all gonna be pretty secure. And the government is NOT gonna be using that level of radio for anything they are involved in. But these radios are marketed to preppers and survivalists. And that is the biggest standing army on the planet. There is no larger group of armed individuals than the group comprised of hunters, prepper's and survivalists in the USA. And that number is staggeringly more than the next largest 'army'. Having information on those groups, including locations, possessed arms and affiliations would be important if there was a plan to invade the US with troops. And first strike locations could also be considered based on that information. But again,there are easier ways of getting it done. Including frequenting web sites and online groups catering to those folks. The biggest danger to an invading force is not the US military. With their rules of engagement and other regulations, they don't pose near as much of a threat as a bunch of red necks with an arsenal that exceed's that of some countries military arm's. And red necks don't follow the Geneva Convention or any other rules of engagement. They will operate with guerilla tactics similar to what we saw in the middle east during the American military occupation if it came to that. So are the commies spying on us, yep, without a doubt. But it's not gonna be with Baofengs and TYT radios. And the private citizens, at least some of them are the likely targets.

Well, here's some food for thought on antenna height. Amateur radio satellites orbit the earth at about 62 miles up. And can be higher. Their transmit power is typically 1 or 2 watts. The coverage footprint on the earth is also over 1000 miles wide in some instances. Yes, this is the extreme, but it's also over 60 miles of talk distance with 2 watts of power.

Yeah, because P25 is actually a standard there has to be backwards compatibility to some degree. Now Phase 2 which is TDMA and not FDMA (Phase 1 standard) are not compatible with each other but a radio that is Phase 2 compliant like the APX will still operate 'Phase 1'. I do know that the P25NX system got rolled into the p25.link system for the most part. The guy that had P25NX folded his tent and called it quits. Web site is gone and the Facebook group for the system was archived from what I have heard. I have a VHF repeater on the P25.link system in central Ohio. We do have some activity on P25 here in Ohio but it seems to be niche. There are a few of us that are active on HAM though. As mentioned I was just building code plugs for the radios and I know there is 6 UHF repeaters locally, 2 900Mhz repeaters and 3 VHF repeaters including mine in the area. But we are VERY well covered with repeaters of all types in Columbus and the surrounding area's. A bunch of them were put up as analog machines years ago and have been upgraded to various formats over the years. The one VHF machine (147.240) has been on the air a minimum of 40 years. Had numerous radio linked voted receive sites and had at the time the most advanced controller in existence (the DR-186 PC based controller). That entire system was converted to a quantar repeater running mixed mode with astrotac receivers linked with Cisco routers to an Astro Tac 3000 for voting. Coverage on it is very good. And that machine operates mixed mode analog / P25 depending on the user.

I load my tools in what some would refer to as weird. I got hooked up with the Tough Built tool pouches and sort of went nuts with them. I have a general pouch that if I walk in a building to do basically anything, I snap it to my belt. There is a set of small channel locks, a 14 in 1 a common and fly-lips insulated Klein, a stripper / cutter / linesman plier. A small multimeter, a circuit safety tester, couple sharpies and a 14 in 1 mini screwdriver and a set of linesmans scissors. Then I have my cable dressing pouch. Scissors, roll of velcro tabbed straps, roll of waxxed string, my lacing needles and a 14 in one. Cable terminating pouch is my LMR crimpers, knife, tape, file, wrenches for LDF connectors (cut short) and the swagging tool for LDF4. And yep,, a 14 in 1. I have a couple others, one is a big one that my heavier electrical stuff rides in. Then the big mouth tote and a roll around bag my heavier 20 volt drills and crap live in. and the cool part is it's all modular. The belt clips will mount on a wall so I can hang the pouches on the divider in the van, they also hang on the tote or the bag. And I have a clip on a J-hook and one on a magnet to hang it where ever I need to.

Ha Ha... I am sitting here building my codeplugs for doing this very thing just before I called it a night and got on here for a minute. Only difference, I am running O5 heads on mine, but the W7 is a nice head as well. If they would dual up with the O3 HHCH I would be rocking that setup but the firmware only supports a W3 and I ain't gonna go that route. I ran an XTVA with a W3 for a while in the truck and just don't care for it. It's hard to read in the day due to glare and the backlight sucks at night. Of course now the truck is rocking an 8500 with an O7 so I ain't got many worries. Looks really good. I will try to remember to post photos of the install once it's done.

Gonna get into the weeds here with an explanation. First is antenna separation and attenuation. And an understanding that a duplexer will provide about 90dB of attenuation. Two UHF antenna's that are mounted VERTICALLY apart on the same tower leg, will provide about 20 dB of attenuation. Two UHF antenna's separated by 80 feet horizontally will provide the same 20 dB of attenuation. So if you had a 150 foot tower, and put the receive antenna at the top and the transmit antenna at about 10 feet you MIGHT get 60 dB of attenuation. Still not as good as a duplexer. Now, lets look at the dollars and cents of this. First off you will need some sort of hardline for an install like this. And it's gonna be two runs. Lets say the tower is 30 feet from the building and it's another 20 feet to the radio. So you will need an extra 50 feet of hard line at 4 bucks a foot. Four additional connectors at 25 bucks a piece, two for the ends and two for the additional 90 dollar surge suppressor for the feed line. Then you need two antenna's. A USED DB-408 is about 150. So lets do some math. 50 feet of cable and four 25 dollar connectors comes up to 300 bucks. Now the additional 150 for the antenna, that's 450 bucks plus the surge suppressor and the labor, so 600 bucks for that additional LOW MOUNTED antenna that is gonna talk like crap because it's 10 feet off the ground. To save you HOW MUCH for a duplexer? Hell a new pass notch set is 1300 and used they are around 500 or less. So it's actually CHEAPER to run the duplexer and do it right and have it perform in a manner that would be acceptable. Yeah, gonna go the route of the duplexer every time. Oh, and you say you are gonna cheap out and run RG-8 or 9913 and not hardline. Sure... you are gonna run the RX cable down past the TX antenna in the near field of said antenna and expect the shielding from a BRAIDED CABLE to block 100% of the signal in the near field of a transmit antenna. Sure... have fun with that too.

Really? I have like 5 of those. I have one in each tool bag, and one in each tool pouch I have as well. Hand nothing but good luck with them. Sorry to hear you experience wasn't as good.

First off, solder VS not. If you use good quality caprive pin connectors and install them per the manufacture recommended manner, there is no benefit to soldering. And before you claim ANYTHING on this, remember that ALL splices in hardline up to 6 inch (largest made) are slip fit connections with flange connections for the outer shield. This is feed line that carries as much as 500KW for TV and radio broadcast. So, captive pin connectors, when used correctly are fine. Crimpers. Daniels HX-4 crimp bodies are the $500 option. But those crimper bodies are available used on ebay for significantly less money. Those crimper bodies are typically used for aircraft maintenance and have a wide variety of crimp dies for a multitude of different crimped wire terminations. I have seem a few times where the correct dies were with the bodies on ebay but you typically have to get them separate and put them together. These are the RIGHT way of doing the connectors. And use TM (Times Microwave) branded connectors when using TM LMR-400 cable. The cheap stuff from HRO and other places are just that, cheap. Yes, the connectors are 30ish bucks a piece, but once you have them in place you will never need to worry about them again. But the comments about the lesser crimpers are correct, you can use them for hobby work when you are not crimping 10 connectors a day twice a week. They will work fine. But use the good connectors anyway. The dies are labeled in crimp diameter. If you get the required diameter from teh manufacture paperwork and find a crimper that crimps that size, they will work

Lets see. 1. Motorola Astro Spectra High power 2. Motorola XTL5000 High power 3. Motorola MaraTrac high power (have a New in box model with the siren module in storage) 4. Motorola Mitrek High power (Crystal controlled) 5. Motorola Micor high power (crystal) 6. Motorola MoTrac High power (crystal, tube final) 7. Kenwood 890H 8. Kenwood 830H FORGOT ONE: Syntor X That's just the ones that immediately come to mind. I would do some research and get the correct part numbers for these radios and then head off to Hamvention in May to find one. These are all monoband radios, but most if not all have VHF high power counterparts that would also be available. All these radios are going to be remote mount with a control head separate of the radio body with a cable in between. As mentioned, I have a MaraTrac UHF 100 watt model sitting in storage that has never been out of the box. Should be a 99 channel control head and the module and extension head for the 100 watt siren unit. I also have a couple Astro Spectra's in my collection and actually going to pickup a high power XTL today to install in my personal vehicle. Stay away from the crystal controlled radios. They are also good radios but getting crystals for them would be expensive and they are not programmable, changing or adding frequencies requires new / additional crystals. ANd finding final tubes for MoTrac radios would also be difficult. If you are looking to setup a personal vehicle, I would look at the Astro Spectra's. I ran three in my durango with all the control heads in between the seats in a home build console setup with the radios mounted in the back of the truck. There are several different styles of control heads available for the Astro Spectra family of radios. These would be the W series heads and the System9000 head. So you have options if space is limited. Those also have 20 watt audio outputs so running one in a loud or open top vehicle like a jeep wouldn't be an issue.

Depends on if you are wanting to run multiple repeaters on the dual antenna's or just one. Here's what is required to run dual antenna's. Transmit combiner and receive multicoupler with window filter. You CAN'T effectively put up a repeater with two antenna's and no filtering, unless you are going to put 100 feet of seperation between the transmit and receive antenna's. And of course when you do that, you loose a LOT of transmit distance. Find a good duplexer (pass / notch) and run that. If you are going on broadcast towers, you don't have a choice in this. A notch duplexer will NOT filter the significant RF that is present at a broadcast site. And that RF, even out of band will get in the front end of the receiver and deafen it significantly. So don't bother. And even with a window filter and all that, it's still a problem. Far as not wanting to foot the bill for a repeater. Are you looking for one of us to pony up a repeater and duplexer? Sorry, I don't see that happening. As I said before, if there are a large number of GMRS users in your area, pass the hat to them and see if they are willing to donate to the setup of a GMRS repeater. Come up with something of value to trade for a repeater and duplexer. Now I am NOT the person to have this conversation with. That tower, and that stack of repeaters are all privately owned. That tower represents 200 bucks a month in electric bill, 2100 a year in property taxes and about a grand a year in maintenance. That's just keeping the tower lights on and powering the equipment at the site. This is all being done out of pocket. ANd I am not independently wealthy. I work a 8 to 4:30 job just like many others on here. Gonna toss a couple other pics on here. One is what we got when we got the keys to the building. The second is what's there now (actually an older photo, there is more stuff in the building at this point. And ALL this install, from the electric, setting the racks, installing and cabling the equipment is all done by me.

OK, you work for a two-way shop and can't locate used equipment? Shop refuses to sell it to you? Nothing out there still floating around that was decommed during narrowbanding? No one upgrading to digital formats from analog that you could aquire? This isn't a cheap hobby. And we are all in different positions in life and finance. If you have a number of people running simplex GMRS and a repeater would help them out, pass the hat in your area. Find some broke stuff and repair it and get it on the air. But in all honesty, if you are having those sorts of issues, load up the U-haul and come to Columbus Ohio, I am pretty sure if you have the experience you said you do, I bet I know a place that will hire you. https://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=radio+technician&l=Columbus%2C+Ohio&vjk=906f8ef3f7b7b97e&advn=9428139108340606 But we don't have much need for GMRS repeaters here. I sort of have that covered in this area.

No. I know this seems to be a trend lately. I was just sticking my nose in and be difficult.

Well, I don't know about that. I put one up before I even had a license, it was licensed under my buddies GMRS call, so it was legit, even though I put it up. Then I got licensed and added two more to the site, for a total of three repeaters. The three Johnstown repeaters in Ohio are all my gear. Two have my call on them and his call is still on the 725 machine.

As mentioned... these are commercial radios. But if you are wanting 110 watts the model numbers you what are the 790H and 890H. These are single band radios that through special firmware can be setup in a dual brick configuration with a single control head. Not a 'dual band' unit in a single brick / chassis. Motorola did the same thing with the Astro Spectra and XTL platform radios. You could get a VHF and UHF brick, a special cable and a HHCH (hand held control head) and once you had all the firmware worked out you could run a single HHCH on dual radios. This was a favorite of the three letter federal agencies. I personally started down that path with a couple Astro Spectra's but the HHCH that was required was expensive at the time and I was driving a big SUV that had space for individual Series 9000 heads that I really preferred. To do it with the XTL radios you have to locate one of those old expensive heads for the newer radio to make it work and I didn't feel the need to bother. I have a set of the low power Kenwood's that are paired. It takes 3 IC's that are still available on the 3rd party market to get it running of you so desire. But in truth, unless you have a REALLY small vehicle I would run two complete radios and call it a day. Unless of course you have 5 grand burning a hole in your pocket and can swing an APX 8500. The biggest issue with any of these setups outside the 8500 is you have to build blank zones in the locations for the other radios active zones. Meaning that you can't SCAN band to band. You can't have multiple bands in the same zone at all. THe 8500 allows this, and a bunch of other stuff that's uber cool like FPP (front panel programming) but it's a hard pill to swallow dropping 5 large on a hobby radio. Even one that will tell you what channel it's on. Yes, it will talk to you if you program it to do that.

OK, great. Have you found sites to put the repeaters? What equipment have you secured for this project? Repeaters, antenna's, duplexers, feedline? Have you discussed pricing for tower access or do you have arrangements for access and negotiated agreements? What rental costs are involved. Will the repeaters be linked to each other or stand alone? Will either of them be linked to the mygmrs system? There is a thread on here titled ' I just got my license and now I want a repeater' or something to that effect. You should go read it, I believe it will be informative.

SWR meter will tell you if you have one. If the SWR is high and it wasn't when you did the install it's probably bad

What is the possibility that something could be setup to extract via a CSV file or spreadsheet the information for repeater approvals by the repeater owners. Obviously this would only be accessible for the owners of the repeaters. But if an owner had multiple repeaters it might be good to be able to download ALL entries for all of their repeaters and have a value for the repeater the access was granted to, or for all repeaters to be displayed and a tick or some value be generated in the field for each repeater that approval had been granted for. Just wondering if that would be possible.

I would go right to a Kenwood 790H / 890H dual brick setup with a single head and call it good. These are FM only commercial radios that would of course be limited by programming and would NOT have a VFO. You really didn't mention what you are planning to do with the radios. This would be my option for a vehicle setup. Obviously if you are needing SSB and satellite functionality, this is NOT the way to go. If that is what you are looking for I would find an ICOM 910-H. That will get you 1.2Ghx as well. I think my satellite rig is a Yaesu 891, but don't hold me to that. I am still getting the antenna system built for satellite work so I am not in front of the radio at all yet. I do know it's all band and all mode with satellite functionality (dual tracking VFO's for each band for dopler shift) And BTW,,, not all that sad. Weird and a bit pissed off, but never sad.

As long as you consider air flow across the equipment it should be fine. Obviously don't build a pocket for the radio to slide into that has no air movement. That goes for the radio and the power supply. Far as interference. Again it shouldn't be a problem as long as the antenna is not right there in the room. Put the antenna outside and use quality cable to connect it to the radio and it will be fine. You have to remember that mobile radios typically are mounted in vehicles that see high internal temperatures and suffer from a lack of real air flow. Places like under seats and in trunks are common. You are gonna have it in a conditioned space. But I would watch the placement of the cabinet so you are not near a furnace vent that would be blowing hot air into the cabinet.

Keep checking. But are you offering them anything in return for access. Sometimes even site maintenance (mowing the grass and maintaining the building is enough). Far as can't add anything else to the site. Is it that you can't add antenna's or can't even add equipment in the building? If you have two UHF antenna's on the tower, there are options for adding more repeaters, but you have meet certain requirements to make it work like the antenna's need to NOT be at the same level. I have two antenna's on my tower and have 4 repeaters connected to those two antenna's. One antenna acts as a receive antenna and the other one is for transmit. It gets a bit complicated, and can be rather expensive, but it's certainly possible to do, since I am doing it.

Radio selection for overlanding is different than other applications in my opinion. I would look for a commercial radio that had coverage for both HAM and GMRS in this case to minimize the number of radios required in the vehicle. And I might (personally WOULD) be looking for something like an XTL5000 that supported dual head so I could have a control point in both the drivers area and the living area of the vehicle. This would minimize the need to move to the cab to get access to the radio when needed. The other reason for a commercial radio over a modded ham radio or other option is you have better programming options (creating ZONES for specific areas) instead of needing to dial through a large number of channels to get to the desired channel. Commercial radios can have fairly complicated zone / channel layouts where the ham stuff, while it may support the same 512 or 1024 channels, will only allow one 'zone' with all 512 channels in numeric order. Other options with some commercial gear is the ability to control a PS grade siren / PA system. While the siren may not be very useful, the PA, radio over PA, and air horn functions can be valuable for overlanding operations in groups. The other thing some commercial setups have is the ability to control other equipment through I/O pins that can be programmed to radio buttons for controlling lights and other things via relays. Again, eliminating other things in the vehicle cab. Think about the amount of stuff that is controlled in a police car or fire truck and then consider that level of control in your overland vehicle. Yeah, it's gonna cost more than the CCR radio you were considering, but it can also save on space and offers additional functionality that a standard radio can't.

First question is do you understand what function the ground plane has regarding antenna placement? Then you need to figure out what you want to accomplish. Which is typically to talk 360 degrees if you are referring to a mobile antenna. And yes, there are antenna's that REQUIRE no ground plane that are mobile antenna's but they are typically low or no gain designs that generate a 'ground plane' by their design. These are also referred to as di-pole antenna's where there are two radiators that are in line vertically and the lower element is 180 degrees out of phase of the upper element creating a radiation pattern without a conductive plane below the upper element. These are for specific applications however and are not the norm. Now there is something else that needs to be considered with a mobile antenna and how it's used. That being it's designed frequency range. A ham antenna will almost NEVER work well on GMRS. Not only will the SWR be high but if it's a gain antenna, where there are multiple elements in phase creating gain due to pattern manipulation, the antenna being operated outside of the designed frequency range will result in poor performance of the antenna. But specific to a ground plane and mobile operations. You want the ground plane to be equal in all directions if possible and the minimum distance from the point of mounting to be at least the distance of the first radiating element of the antenna. If the antenna is 1/4 wave, then the ground plane needs to be 1/2 in diameter. If it's a 5/8 then the ground plane needs to be 5/8 radius (radius is 1/2 the diameter). If that is not achieved then the resulting antenna pattern is NOT going to be equal in all directions around the vehicle.

Open or not? That is the question. Well no, not really. But I guess I need to determine what your definition of closed is. Are you referring to it being closed as requiring permission for access, or are you referring to closed as no one outside your specific group as having access going forward. And I will warn you that even having an OPEN repeater on this forum with POSTED PL's but the ability to request access will fill your email box with permission requests. I get them all the time. No one has ever been denied, but I still get the requests. So will you. If you are going to make the access semi-private, not post the PL / DPL information publicly, like I have, and wait for requests, you will get MORE requests. But at least the repeater is publicaly posted for frequency and area of coverage. This will cut down on the possibility of someone else parking a repeater on your frequency with a different PL. Not posting it publicly at all can get a repeater parked on your frequency if no one else knows about it. Or posting it as being PRIVATE, or fee based membership. Then you will get to deal with assholes like me that absolutely abhor the idea of taking a shared resource and trying to charge money for it. My way of dealing with it was building a repeater that completely covered the other guys coverage area and making it fully open. Of course he did have a for profit business of selling access to his GMRS repeaters, so I really had ZERO heartburn doing so. He was the only one that suffered form that since his users could access my repeater for free, so they didn't need to pay him any longer. But those are the breaks. I work very hard in this area to work with anyone trying to setup repeaters for any type of use outside of that. I have run coverage maps for all the repeaters in my area, referenced this site and others trying to locate all the operational repeaters around with their PL / DPL information so when someone is talking about putting up a repeater I can assist with something resembling frequency / PL coordination so interference is kept to a minimum and everyone is happy. I have programmed repeaters and tuned duplexers for others to get them on the air. And I have provided equipment to people to get a system on the air if they had a location to get something up and running. I just refuse to support it as a business, and will attempt to scuttle ANY attempt to turn GMRS access into a business for profit. Now understand that this stuff is EXPENSIVE. SIte access, electricity, equipment and maintenance all costs money. Requesting donations, having raffles, and other fund raising operations are well within the scope of getting the bills paid for keeping gear on the air. But GMRS is not there to enrich you financially. So in truth, leaving it open for use is the best option. Here's why in my opinion. First is management of access. There frankly is none. For those people that get on there and act dumb, the other operators will deal with them, typically by just ignoring the stupidity. And that is the best way for dealing with LID operators. They get bored and go elsewhere that they can get a rise out of people. You will have more users if there are fewer restrictions for access. But there is a requirement of good equipment for that as well. My linked repeater on the MidWest system gets over 1000 PTT's a day and 4 to 6 hours of talk time on a normal day and twice that on the days there is a net. You can't get a couple mobiles in a box to stand up to that usage level for long. But it's always better to have good equipment from the start and not need to worry about it. The other thing with more users and activity is you can see the fruits of your efforts. And there are people there if you want to just chat with someone.