WRKC935

It really depends on how you look at it as to if it's truly a threat or not. Motorola figured out that DMR is a REALLY bad idea for public safety in the VHF and UHF bands. Issue being the way that the FCC granted frequencies in those bands during the days of wide band FM don't work with DMR. CO-channel users interfere with each other a lot when one is on DMR and the other is on analog. Second is the unwritten requirement of interoperability and THAT specifically being a matter of national security. Motorola does not, and will not make a radio that is DMR and P25. P25 is the standard for public safety. DMR is really in the US for public safety. So if it ends up there, and everyone else is using P25 then there is an incompatibility that can't easily be overcome. Sure there is patching and other means. But you are not going to take a DMR radio and turn the knob and talk to the P25 system or vice versa. This in some twisted interpretation of things be considered a threat to the national security, depending on the situation and circumstance. If the commies are invading down through some border town North Dakota, and the local PD is on DMR, they can't warn of the pending invasion,,,, I guess because the rest of everyone else is on P25,,, maybe... i guess. But Hytera is a Chinese company. Meaning they are run by that government. Are they friendly to us???????? Depends on who you ask and when you ask. But with any communications gear, are there internal things going on there or could there be that may breach data security? If you put into a IP networked device to "call home" and bury that in the code that no one will see. How closely is the IP network traffic being watched as it's exiting a repeater? If they get the conversations from some hammie or warehouse worker about a toilet being clogged, who cares. If they are getting personal information about people having their tags run by law enforcement, getting SSN's addresses and such, that could be a problem. IS it an issue? Probably not.... but one firmware update could change that.

Please understand I speak to this from a perspective of a ham that has had exposure to how to do ARES WRONG and 12 years of being a commercial radio tech with 90 percent of my work being in the public safety arena and being a CERT member. The 'problem' with ARES is it's turned into a solution looking for a specific problem that has been worked on since 9-11. 30 years ago when every little town and burg had a police force with their own radio system and those systems being all sorts of different technology, on different bands and being supported and maintained at vastly different levels, ARES and the idea of needing to provide EMCOMM to served agencies was a thing. Now we have these state wide communications systems that everyone is on. Have overlapping coverage from hundreds of sites throughout the state (I am in OHIO... largest trunked Motorola system in the world) the need for EMCOMM is really not there. Of course, depending on where you are your mileage may vary. The next thing is ARES is not and never has been considered a first responder. So they don't fall under the public safety umbrella. CERT actually does. This means that CERT can have private commercial repeaters and radio systems / and access to the large trunked radio systems for EMCOMM. I pushed long ago for CERT to take up use of the now largely abandoned VHF/UHF public safety radio systems that stopped being utilized after everyone went to 800Mhz. The biggest issue with HAM is it's not controlled. And while it does say in the rule book that emergency traffic on ham takes priority, have a situation and see how many idiots come out of the woodwork on the local repeaters that are still in operation. My advice, for what it's worth.... research CERT and have a discussion with the local EMA director about CERT. There is a training component to it, and you learn some valualbe skills. And you are more that just radio operators at that point. You are still available to do the things that ARES would be involved in, but you are also trained and recognized to do more than that.

I am getting ready to put a second repeater on the air on 675 with the traveler PL 141.3 on the air. Thoughts were to tie this into the midwest gmrs system. This brings up some questions. First is should i have it nailed up as a constant connection or have it switchable. My thoughts are leave it nailed up so that users that are not aware it's linked or how to operate the links will still see the benefit of the widened user base. And of course the traveler channel being linked give anyone requesting help a better chance of getting ahold of someone to at least make a call for them if needed. I have looked at the interface and it's straight forward. Looks like Allstar which I have. Assuming this also requires a R-Pi or some SBC, Has anyone run this on a full computer and if a full computer, has anyone experimented with running it on a VM in a container? My P25Link R-Pi is actually a VM (natively a R-pi with a Perl application) that works well. Hoping to continue that trend and virturalize the computer part of this link to save space. Does anyone see an issue with putting the traveler channel on the link and specifically the midwest link... I am in central Ohio if there is a better system to be linking to I am all ears. Comments and thoughts are welcome here. If this is a bad idea, let me know.

this is gonna depend on the situation. But BOTH is the ideal situation. GMRS lends simplicity to any situation since any family member can be given a radio, so basic direction of radio operation on air and turned loose with it to use. Ham is not that way, they would need to be licensed. Ham is going to have more people on it, but that is a double edged sword depending on the situation. Don't think just because someone has a ham radio they fall into the prepper category and aren't looking for someone else's stuff because they have none. And that applies to GMRS as well and why you tell family members to NOT EVER communicate their location to ANYONE on the air in an emergency unless they are in a life and death situation calling for help. But again, the situation is going to dictate what you need, and how to communicate. Examples Storm takes down power for more than 12 hours. Combination of GMRS. ham and a broadcast receiver possibly a CB radio. Discussions will typically range from where to get ice and find charging stations. Situation is minor. A police scanner is a valuable tool for situational awareness. Major power outage,, one week. Here's were op-sec (operational security) comes into play. GMRS is useful to maintain comms with non ham family members and trusted friends. HAM is for listening now. The number of unprepared folks out there are now looking for supplies. Situation is not dire but the unprepared will be freaking out. All discussions of actual location should cease at this level. DO NOT discuss over the radio where you are, where you have left or what time you are going to return. CB radio for listening, but only by people that understand replying to calls for help could create a situation. A police scanner may or may not be a valuable tool here for situational awareness. Significant situation, extended power failure, mud slide or other situation that will exist for more than a week, extending to new normal or SHTF situations were government is no longer standing or willing or able to assist. Encrypted communications ONLY. Listening to multiple radios for situational awareness is important at this point. Obviously communications are inner circle ONLY as you have only entrusted encryption keys to very close friends, and multi-key has become valuable as some communications should ONLY be had with direct family members. CB radio is now useless. There will be road pirates and roving gangs looking for ANYTHING they feel is valuable at this point. Women will be task with telling horrible stories over the radio of their dire situations to gain your sympathy and trust to either get your location information or draw you into an ambush. The lowest common denominator of people will be all that's left on the open airwaves. Transmitting much of anything on CB will be a very bad idea. Listening to CB and ham will wear you down as the tails of others situations will put your humanity in question. And while some stories will be true, just as many will be to get you to break op-sec and give up information on where you are. Mind you this is where you are one step from a Walking Dead type situation where it's known that things will never return to "normal". But this level is where government is not coming to 'help'. Police scanners are useless. Public safety folks all went home days ago. Any activity is going to be communications from stolen police vehicles and radios. Point is this,, prepare NOW. And that goes far beyond the type and number of radios you have. If COVID has proven anything, it's shown that yes, the unthinkable is possible. Look at the situation with the toilet paper. Get stuff put away so you can live in relative comfort for an extended period of time. Get your house in order and prepare for at least some level of situation lasting for a minimum of two weeks. Cans of soup and vegetables may not sound appetizing, but once you are hungry, they will taste wonderful. No I don't have tons of stuff hoarded away, I can go two weeks without any problems, but not much further. And the time of year will dictate my personal situation, winter vs summer. But I am out far enough out and have a circle of friends that can butcher one of the local cows, or a deer for protein and I eat vegetables that others refuse like brussel sprouts. Those will always be on the shelves in an otherwise empty store.

The most valid argument for all of this is the police. They are task with chasing down speeders, going far beyond the speed limit in many cases, and still communicate with other officers during a pursuit. The normal reply is that they are specially trained. But that argument only works if a NASCAR driver is allowed to drive 200MPH on public roads because not only is he trained, but it's actually his job. Operation of a two-way radio does little to distract you from the primary task at hand (driving a vehicle). That being said. Don't talk on your handheld in a vehicle. Install a dash mount radio and be done with it. And if you live in a state that is SO gun ho on citing you for using a microphone connected to a two way radio, pack your trash and MOVE. Because honestly, that has to be the least of your rights being violated by the government of the place you live. If talking on the radio created such a danger to other drivers then it would have been banned in the 70's when 90% of vehicles had CB radios in them and people were talking on them all the time. Even the federal DOT allows for truck drivers, who by federal law can not touch a cell phone while driving allow for the operation of a CB or other two-way radio.

YOu didn't mention the height of the tower. The elevation of the tower above average terrain, or the expected coverage footprint of a UHF repeater at the tower. If the site is of reasonable height and the terrain height is good you may well pull a 20 or better mile radius of coverage from that tower. If that is the case, why tie up two frequencies by linking two repeaters. You would be far better off to just put your repeater on that tower and be done with it. Your coverage would increase and you would not be tying up two freqs with the same audio.

1. Technical area for specific parts of understanding, purchasing and use of GMRS gear. This would cover mobile and base installs, repeater install and maintenance information. 2. Bring the linking stuff to the forefront. You mentioned doing the linking on a case by case basis. I believe that you need to spell out what the criteria are for linking. Things like other linked repeaters in the same coverage area. Overall coverage of a repeater system. Some level of a map showing the known coverage area's and what those repeaters are. And an understanding that CLOSED repeaters are NOT going to be linked. Now this is all my personal thoughts on linking, but if you take time to consider them they make sense. If there are TWO or more repeaters in the same area, then there are TWO frequencies (resources) in use in the same area. It's not a good idea to tie up more than one repeater with the same stuff. 3. A current projects forum. Have users that are implementing repeaters and the like a place to post what they are up to or more importantly what they are proposing. Reason for this would be if I am gonna put up a repeater on a big tower and it's gonna be a beast with coverage and someone see's it they may want to setup some partnership with the builder and pass their frequency off to enjoy better coverage overall. 4. possible links to audio feeds for busy GMRS repeaters or at least the link systems. Scanner guys do a lot of this. Giving the ability for someone to listen to the link systems may push them in one direction or the other on making the decision of linking vs not. Give users some level of classifications that are based on technical knowledge vs post count or other metrics. As of now, when someone comes and asks a question, there are typically a number of different answers that range from highly informative to yeah, he really just said that. If folks were recognized as having expertise in certain aspects of radio communications then maybe that needs to be recognized. And it would help new comers that have questions on who to ask or listen to. And of course, there needs to be an OPT OUT part to that as well. If there are three guys that are antenna experts that get 20 questions a day... one of them will probably NOT what to be continuously pestered. He /she should have that ability to have their knowledge level remain private if they desire. I will think on this some more and toss more up here most likely...

If you are wanting to create a map, go find a piece of software called radiomobile and work out how to use it.

This needs simplified. Repeater antenna. No Limit to height in rules. In certain area's around airports FAA regulations limit the tower height. In all locations, towers exceeding 200 feet need to be registered with the FAA and lit with a type accepted lighting system. Base station antenna's. Meaning antenna at a fixed location that is talking and receiving from mobile and other bate stations where no repeater is involved. 50 feet Control Stations. Meaning a fixed station (base type station) that is communicating with an off site repeater to extend coverage. I believe is 20 feet (for sure with commercial radios but this run gets broken constantly) No limit on mobile / portable antennas that I have seen in rules.

If the scanner is continuing to work with it switched, I wouldn't use that switch with a transmitter. Two types of switch, one shorts the unused port to ground, the other does not. I would verify what I had and if it's not shorting the port for the scanner to ground you take the chance of overloading the receiver in the scanner and burning it out

I am thinking those MAY support MPL or multiple PL. It would need programmed into the radio, but I believe like the MaxTrac it had that functionality. If not it will support a fair number of channels and zones, do you could in theory program up a number of zones each with a different PL used for the channels in the zone. It would be time consuming to create that codeplug but if you are wanting MPL on the radio it's at least possible.

Well I sort of figured it out

First question is what radio is it. Doing remote control is not a big deal but it's not exactly cheap either. The simplest way is using tone remote and desk sets. Desksets look like a phone but they are for connecting to radios. You can do this over a single pair of wires, or run it through VOiP devices and run it on ethernet. If you have routers at both sites the configuration is going to be a bit complex as the two devices will need to see each other. Kb2ZTX made comment about the MCD and RGU, which will work, but it says Motorola all over it and has the price to match. There are other options that would be from Gaitronix or CPI. In fact if done over IP, you could use Barrix 100 units and a local control deskset and eliminate the tone remote stuff all together but in limits the number of desksets you can have on the radio. With tone remote it's up to 15 I believe.

Seems you are pretty hard on tires there

Yep, tried that. Tried from flickr I get error can't use that image extention files are jpeg

Yes, there is one that I can think of. Motorola APX 7000 with the VHF and UHF-R2 bands in it. It will program for both bands and should be legal on both ranges you inquired about. They are about 3 grand used. But you might find a deal on one for 2 grand

Not having any luck with using the chat function on the page. Is this not something that is available or is it just broke??

Can anyone give me direction on uploading and linking photos for direct display on posts? I can neither upload into the gallery or directly post pictures in my forums post.

Well gee I wonder if they will be sending back half the money for folks that got their licenses in the last 12 months.

OK, this has been a sticking point for a number of years with me. And I have had several discussions with both other ham operators and FCC field agents and attorneys pertaining to this and here is what I have come to know. The commercially available ham radios do not transmit outside of the FCC allocated ham bands. Not in GMRS, commercial bands or anywhere else. Yes, they can be modified, but you are not suppose to do that unless you have a MARS / CAP license and are ONLY operating them in those allocated frequency bands. Here's the reason. A part 90 commercial radio, in the specific regulations that dictate what a part 90 radio can and can not do. First one is a VFO. Second is field user programming. These are both BIG no no's for a commercial radio. And the reasons are obvious if you think about it. If you could dial the radio around you have the ability to interfere with public safety communications. Which leads into the second thing I found out. The statements in the amateur radio regulations indicate that you can in an emergency use "ANY" means of communications at your disposal to communicate said emergency. Now, the hams think this means cut the TX block on their Kenwood and dial up the PO PO. It doesn't mean that, and never did mean that. What it DOES mean is that if you are a NOVICE operator and have a 2 meter radio and no privilege on 2 meters due to your license, you CAN use 2 meters to contact another station to convey your emergency. Or if you are a Novice / Tech license holder and you hear a station on a part of the HF band that is outside of your allocated frequencies, you can contact that station to convey the emergency. It don't mean you can talk to the po po. And that stands for GMRS as well. The radios are pretty much a commercial radio. Meaning it's LOCKED to the programming that it has in it. NO VFO. Now, we have some other regs that limit power on certain frequencies that we are allowed on. And some FRS freqs that due to having removable antennas we can't use with a radio that has a removable antenna. All that being said. Using ANY radio on ham bands is gonna be ok for the most part. While there is a type acceptance for ham radio commercially sold radios that keep them from doing certain things. Taking a commercial radio and programming it for the ham bands is acceptable in all cases as long as it's operated within the other limitations of the ham regulations. Of course, since narrow banding getting radios to operate on the 5Khz wide modulation scheme is gotten tougher but it's doable. The biggest thing is keeping ham radios off the commercial allocation. They simply don't need to be there, and there is NEVER a reason for it. MARS / CAP is the only reason, and it's ONLY for that.... not talking to the po po "Just in case". So if your CDM or HT 1250 that you use on GMRS has some ham channels in it.... it's fine. But if you cut the TX block out of your Icom hammie radio, that's a no no. And as a side note,,, for those that missed it. The FCC part 90 licensed CCR's are NOT legal on the part 90 allocation. Reason is that you have the ability to program it with a VFO, And it is easily, without software, programmable from the front panel. Sure, you can turn that all off in programming, but since it's there, it negates the legality of the radio.

We are trying. But it IS a work in progress. On a side note. Can pictured be posted via links here? I have tried to post images here that are on Flickr here and had no luck. If there is some secret to this would someone let me know what that is please. Plan is to archive the project here and being about to directly post pictures and not just links I believe would be beneficial.

Na. screw it. Between you and the guy that said I need to get a part 90 frequency pair and run P25 with ASE256 and RAC to keep things private,,, I am in agreement. Why should I care about other license holders. And if I invest in a number of FB6 pairs, I can put up a commercial DMR system instead and sell time on it. Who has time for hobby and family radio users anyway. Thank you for helping me to see the error in my thought process. I will say that we need to quit hijacking this threat. So when a Mod see's all this,,,, please clear it out until it's back on topic.

I don't have any interest in choosing who uses the repeaters. That's the point. If you are legally licensed, you can use any of them it will be ASK of those using them to use the lower frequency repeaters first if they aren't busy. When they are busy, they are free to use the higher frequency repeaters. Like I said, even semi-private is too strong of a term. But if you are thinking I shouldn't do it. Then maybe I will just skip it.

Site is owned by the other guy involved with this. So it is privately held. The previous owner was in process of razing the site when it was purchased. They had not scheduled the explosives team to drop the tower and sold it to my buddy for the value of the land under it. His goal is to be strictly ham radio. There have been inquiries about space for rent by WISPs and a commercial broadcaster that wanted to put police scanners there for their news team. He was and still is adamant the site is not to be a business venture. If the site had been commercially viable he would not have been able to buy it anyway. As far as repairs. The building was a mess. Ther was nothing there in way of electric. The first order of business was to get a temp service set and get the tower light working. Then it was money hand over fist to rebuild. I would say with the generators, electrical, securing the site, camera system, and other expenses he spend 12K in addition to the purchase price. Thats not counting the taxes, insurance or electric bill.

Private is a strong word. Not really private,,, more like here are TWO repeaters for the masses. Knock yourself out. Yes, they are free to use. Here are two other repeaters that when these two are busy, you are welcome to use... But try using the other ones first. Personally I feel it's better than putting up multiple repeaters on EVERY frequency, and charging money for getting access to said repeaters. Take a look over at the new tread about the tower, the GMRS project and what we are working with. It's not to limit access to anyone. It's to provide access to repeaters with decent coverage, that will be available at all times. Better yet, let me ask you this... Once you see my tower, and know what the coverage footprint is, you will want to put a repeater on it. Your Kenwood, or two Midlands with a back to back cable and a CW ID board. So YOUR call sign is on the repeater, and you have lots of coverage. And you are willing to share your repeater with other GMRS users by calling it an OPEN repeater. So what is the difference if it's My gear and my call sign on the repeater if YOU still have access and don't incur costs of renting a port on the combiner or antenna space rent for a fixed antenna on the tower?