jaycee
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Posts posted by jaycee
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Hey. I was trying to save two repeaters in my radio the other day and it didn't work so well. I have all 8 repeater channels in memory with freuqncies and tones saved. When I tried to add a second repeater output which was already taken up by one of the other repeater channels, I tried to create a new frequency line using CHIRP, and it saved like all the other did, however, when I go to transmit, the radio doesn't work there. I just get a dead key. I assume because on a GMRS dedicated radio, we only get channels 15 to 22 to use. So what do you do if you need more channels? Do I end up having to delete one and enter the other just to use that one?
Is there no way to save the same repeater multiple times when the channels are all used up?
If that's the answer, that we can't, well OK. I am curious if anyone else has run into this and what you do?
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I'm confused. The antenna was tuned and was garbage?
Guess you had to be in my brain.. It means that after trying to tune the antenna it still did not work. Tried my best to tune it so yea, it was tuned in a sense, perhaps not what you are used to hearing! And it ended up garbage for my use.
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I don't know all. It seems to be working fine for me. It's what I have up right now and SWR is good so it is staying for a while. Maybe some point down the road I'll invest in something else but if it works for some then it's like anything else in radio, use what works for you. Sometimes you need to experiment and learn. I've gotten some good antennas in the past 15 years and some of those that were supposed to be good. After install and tuning, they ended up being garbage too. I think how one antenna works for one person may be different for another's set up.
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Still very preliminary to draw my final conclusions, but I received my Ed Fong DBJ-1C antenna kit and an antenna analyzer this weekend (on the same day I passed my ham tech exam, so that was fun).
I ran a couple of antenna placement tests quickly. My aim was to communicate with my wife in her office, first via the local Alexandria GMRS repeater and then see if I can achieve simplex to her (2.1 miles).
The good:
- Deployed at attic height, my wife reports my voice is the clearest she has heard it over GMRS. All good.
The bad:
- Still no simplex comms. Not even breaking squelch. I'll keep trying, and will work on a mobile at home as well. I can still go higher on the antenna and mount it roof top, but that requires HOA permission and a whole lot of hassle. Still, I may well do that soon.
The surprising:
- Antenna analyzer (SureCom SW-33) in hand, I measured everything. I have the ducky that came with my handheld as well as a Nagoya NA-771 and a Nagoya NA-701C. I also have a Nagoya UT-72 mobile mag mount, but have not measured that one yet. All the duckies suck, at least in terms of SWR on the GMRS freqs I use the most. Lowest SWR I measured was 2.0; highest was 4.5.
- The Ed Fong DBJ-1C, on the other hand, measured in 3 separate measurements, a paltry 1.02. That seems nigh on perfect, and may well explain the clear and strong signal my wife received from me.
I've heard some good and bad things about the Fong kits. (Calling them kits is even a stretch. All you do is insert it in a 5 foot PVC 200 PSI pipe and you're done. Toughest part is finding 200 PSI and not the ubiquitous "Schedule 40" (480 PSI) piping.)
My initial impressions are that the nay sayers are largely wrong, at least compared to my needs and deployment. Oh, I should add that I used a high quality LMR-400 feed line with PL-259 connectors.
(Aside: As I operate mostly in UHF, is it worth changing from PL-259 to BNC, N, or some other connector better suited for these freqs?)
Cheers,
Ken
WRFC318
(ham sign pending FCC)
I have bought Ed Fong's antennas. For GMRS I purchased the DBJ UHF antenna. It is only 3.5 feet inside the pvc tube. Before this I was using a copper j-pole tuned for UHF and it did ok. The mast was up at 15 feet. With the j-pole I could get out 3-5 miles tops. Simplex. When I got Ed's antenna kit in, I got it together and pushed up the mast more. It sits at 28 feet now. My simplex test was out 10 miles to the North where the most buildings and trees are at. The repeaters went from 2 S-bar readings and now getting full S-bars on the radio. All but one of the repeaters is quieting. I hear everyone most clearly.
So far, and it's only been a week up now, I have been surprised and happy with it. The SWR is spot on at 1:02 and at the other end, 1:07.
I also have and tried to use as a base antenna, the Nagoya NMO-200C. As much as I would tune this antenna, with the ground plane kit, I could not get it to work. I put it on my car and it works fantastic though. That's why I got Ed's antenna.
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I got the Nagoya 200-C as well to put up as a base antenna using a ground plane kit. I could not ever get a good signal out or an SWR below 2.0 using the ground plane attached to a pole. I grounded the kit to the pole and the antenna to an arrestor. Still would not come down. When tonight, I put it back onto the NMO mag mount and stuck it on a piece of metal outdoor metal canopy, it starting chatting up a storm and the SWR was 1.01 and in middle of band 1.14. Anyone know how to get this to work up on a mast? I got it to work on a secondary location on my property. I might just get a 3x3 sheet of metal and mount up and use it that way. Not what I want to do but seems to be working that way.
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Try putting 50’ or so of separation between the two radios to see if it makes a difference as wayoverthere suggested. If there is not difference, cut your distance to the repeater by 50% and try again.
At my home I am on the fringe of a number of repeaters when I am using my HT with rubber duck. I will experience the same symptoms you describe until I reduce the distance between my HT and repeater or switch over to a higher-gain mobile antenna. I have no issue opening up the repeater, there will just be no usable audio. Sometimes just closing the distance from 26 to 25 miles is enough to get it to work.
BTW propagation was great last week. I had two days in a row where I could get into the repeater with nearly full quieting using the HT with rubber duck. Third day, nada, back to normal.
Michael
WRHS965
KE8PLM
Hey, thanks for all the info guys. Here was my plan for today. I set up both our radios so that my spouse could take a drive to see our daughter where two repeaters intersect by the maps. I was hoping that at least, I could talk with her on the first repeater closest to us and where it shows we are within 15 miles of the center point. It shows a 30 mile radiation to it.
We tried sitting in the driveway and me in the shack, did not work. Hitting the repeater was fine just no audio. I had her go out to the freeway for a more straight shot and still no audio. Then about 3 miles down the freeway it goes up a steep grade to be even with the repeater so should have been a straight shot. Still no audio. We gave up at this point. Plus she got too far out by then.
If I have the radio set up correctly, and if by kerchunking the repeater is a good sign, then I believe my issue is going to be with the antenna height that I have. I have a GMRS j-pole made by a reputable Ham/GMRS person I found, and have that at 17 feet up. Looking from the street in front of our house, I really need to have that up 25 if not 30 feet to do any real business. The s-readings on the radios was only hitting 3 bars so I am sure our voices may just not be getting over the noise.
Now I have to figure out how to make up a mast to be high enough for that. I'll have 14 feet if I tie it off to the eave of the garage which then would give me plenty of strength I believe, to add the additional height and perhaps not have to guy it. But I can do that if need be. Anyone have good ideas on how to do a homebrew antenna mast!
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Are you testing with the radios close together? If so, it's possible that the transmitting radio is overloading the other, hence not hearing the audio come back from the repeater.
At first I was but then moved out as I thought that could be happening. It didn't change it any.
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When trimming a mobile antenna for the lowest reflected power I use a trick learned many years ago. At some point additional trimming will cause the reflected power to start to increase. The whip is beginning to be too short at this point. When unsure if you have reached the ideal length, I temporarily make the whip a little bit longer by adding a small piece of wire to the top of the whip where the little ball is attached. A short piece of solder works great. Wrap a couple of turns around the whip and extend the solder past the ball on the end about a quarter of an inch. Measure the reflected power/swr. If it improves or stays about the same stop any additional trimming. You are about as good as you can get it. If adding a small amount of solder causes the swr/reflected to go back up then you are on the right track. Continue trimming a small amount at a time. If removing a sixteenth of an inch from the whip fails to make any improvement then stop. Probably as good as you can get it.
Yes, that is where I am at now. I've trimmed the last I want to unless there is something else I am forgetting to do. Since I was trying this with a ground plane for a base antenna, I want to place it on the mag mount and see what difference there may be on the car.
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When trimming a mobile antenna for the lowest reflected power I use a trick learned many years ago. At some point additional trimming will cause the reflected power to start to increase. The whip is beginning to be too short at this point. When unsure if you have reached the ideal length, I temporarily make the whip a little bit longer by adding a small piece of wire to the top of the whip where the little ball is attached. A short piece of solder works great. Wrap a couple of turns around the whip and extend the solder past the ball on the end about a quarter of an inch. Measure the reflected power/swr. If it improves or stays about the same stop any additional trimming. You are about as good as you can get it. If adding a small amount of solder causes the swr/reflected to go back up then you are on the right track. Continue trimming a small amount at a time. If removing a sixteenth of an inch from the whip fails to make any improvement then stop. Probably as good as you can get it.
Interesting trick, I hadn't done that before but will give it a try to see what it does at least. Thanks.
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Most antennas allow some adjustment. That's usually done by loosening a set screw that holds the whip element in place.
What I've done is set the whip down as far as it will go then check the match. If it's too high, and you need to know if the match gets better as you move up in frequency towards the desired mid-band point, or you move down in frequency.
If it looks like the whip is too long, the match improves as you move down in frequency to the mid band point, the whip is too long. Try cutting off about a 1/16 inch off the bottom of the whip then repeat the measurement. At the frequencies use by GMRS you have to be careful to only cut off very small lengths of the whip.
If the whip is too short just loosen the set screw and move the whip up a small amount. Then recheck the match.
On gain type antennas they are normally pre-tuned by the manufacture. Other than the small adjustment in whip height allowed by the set screw it's recommended not to cut the whip. There are several sections on the gain antennas separated by phasing coils. Cutting the whip will likely make things worse since each section would need adjustment.
The best and cheapest antenna is a plain old 1/4 wave whip, about 6 inches long. It has the widest band width. I build several out of heavy bus wire and a PCB BNC connector, a 1/4 wave antenna with 4 ground plane elements, as an experiment. I got a 2:1 max SWR over an approximate 430 MHz to 470 MHz range with the min around 450 MHz. The antenna is usable for both the Ham 70cm band and GMRS.
For GMRS I would look for the min SWR at 465.144 MHz, which is half way between the lowest simplex frequency and the highest repeater input frequency.
Great info. So after cutting a few times, mid-range to the SWR is at 2.0 now. 1.7 at the lowest GMRS channel and 2.6 at the top of the repeater channel. It was much worse when I started but doesn't seem to be going down any further than this. If this was pre-tuned at the manufacturer, then I think they missed the mark. The other two antennas I got I had to do no cutting and they are fine. Maybe this is just a bad one.
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ha ha it's me again. Different issue. I have both my radios (Midland MXT-115 and BTech 50X1) set ok and i can key up the repeaters. When I talk into the mic of either radio, the repeater will stay connected until let go. But no voice is coming across on either radio. The Midland radio has no mic gain as I checked to see if it was closed off, nope. I have double checked the tones and they are correct. Putting them into monitor mode doesn't make a difference. Is there some other reason voice is not being sent or heard? I only have the tone on the output side of the repeater freq.
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Pretty much. Setting both tone and tonesql, the repeater will hear you, and you'll only hear the repeater.
If you set tone only, and leave tone sql blank, you're spot on, you can still talk to the repeater, and you'll hear the repeater and any other traffic on that channel.
Got it, thanks for further clarifying!
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I am having exactly same issues (bold and red in the quote) with BTECH GMRS-V1 and CHIRP software. Any help from gurus on this forum would be great.
I don't know if this is right or what, but what is working for me in CHIRP right now, is I can set the Tone Mode to 'tone' and have a tone code or set to TSQL and a ToneSql code, but not both. If I do want both though, then I have to set the 'cross mode' to Tone->Tone and must use 'cross' in the Tone Mode.
Now both of those will work, but what is actually letting me into the local repeater is setting to 'tone' in the Tone Mode and a tone code only. That seems to be working. That doesn't follow what others have said so I am not sure what to say about that. I can key up the repeaters ad I hear it open but I have yet to have a conversation on it. I'm going to try that tomorrow.
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Glad to help. It's definitely been a learning curve for me too.
there's a ton of useful info here to digest (and helpful people) that's applicable to more than just gmrs, if the interest takes you that direction.
One thing I will give btech credit for is at least getting instructions translated (or wholly rewritten) to reasonable English compared to what you get with the average baofeng stuff.
I have a Gen Ham ticket already but been out of the practice for several years. I'm a bit rusty on the repeater lingo and just wasn't sure how the GMRS repeaters worked, or if the same. Thanks.
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In simplified terms, tones act as a gate, signals without the key (correct time) don't get by. the 'tone' is the transmit tone, so the repeater hears you. ToneSql is for receiving; setting a code there (tone->tone) means you'll only hear signals with that tone. Leaving tonesql blank (tone->), you'll hear EVERYTHING on that frequency, repeater or not.
The variety of radios and menus and various settings does make it a bit of a puzzle to figure out sometimes
OK, if I can be a little more simplified for my brain... I should set my frequencies to have the 'tone' and 'tonesql' so that I only hear and transmit on the repeater set, correct? But, I can set the 'tone' only which means I can key up the repeater to talk on it but I can also hear other non-repeater users on that same simplex frequency? Just want to make sure I understand what I am reading.... thanks.
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From experience the best way to tune your antenna is when it is installed in its final location. Near by metal objects, height above ground etc. tend to affect the antenna. It might not be that convenient but you’ll know the match won’t change because you move the antenna location.
And I'm good to tune this in the final position it will be in. It is more of a question of what is the right method. I don't want to tune it and then find out I cut off too much of something and then it's ruined. Thanks.
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Here's a little info specific to the gmrs v1 : https://www.miklor.com/BTGMRS/BTGMRS-FAQ.php#TransmitterReceiver
And the main info page: https://www.miklor.com/BTGMRS/
Looks like the menu item you want will be named r-ctcs...that either needs to match the repeater's output tone, or be set to none/off to hear the repeater (the tones are effectively a filter; the MONI button bypasses that filter).
Thank you sir. Those are great sites to keep as reference. Yes, the r-ctcs is what is used in this radio compared to others. I have the manual but sometimes those are still hard to figure out.
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You have wrong PL/CTCSS tone for this specific repeater on your Btech V1. Your scanner does not have any PL/CTCSS/DPL tones set, and this is exactly why you can hear the conversation on your scanner. The MONI turns off carrier squelch and tone squelch - so you can hear when holding MONI down. You need to find out the correct tone for this repeater and program it into your BTech V1 (I do not own V1, and can't help here).
Ahh, Alex, thanks that makes sense now. Love this learning but pulling some hair out trying to figure it out on my own. Glad you guys are out here. Thx.
Jaycee
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I have some similar questions to this. I'm a big confused fairly new with these GMRS radios and CHIRP. I have an Open Repeater near me so I finally got it to work today. But it's not how I was instructed to do so. I finally got it to work by setting the Tone Mote to "Cross" and having a Tone of 141.3 and a ToneSql of 141.3 and then the Cross Mode set to Tone->Tone and it works.
I was told to use TSQL and no ToneSql and leave the Cross Mode blank. When I did so, it would never work. Is this common to have to play around with these settings depending on where the repeater is and its settings? The repeater settings showing in the repeater search on MyGmrs.com don't explain much more than the frequencies and the tone code. I thought these would be more consistent than I am finding. Thanks.
Below text is an image of my CHIRP settings as example:
i set up as example i am seeing. location 28 is working now, location 29 is how I was doing it but would never key up the repeater. Is the right way to do this, just however it happens to work?
Example:
Memory Loc 28 / 462.675000 / REPT20 / CROSS ///// 141.3 / 141.3 ///// TONE->TONE / + //// FM
Memory Loc 29 / 462700000 / REPT 21 / TSQL //////// / 118.8 ///// / + //// FM
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A newbie to GMRS radios myself. I purchased the BTech GMRS-V1, here is my question. I was trying to listen to a known repeater that has a weekly net. I was able to hear this station on a receiver but on my GMRS-V1 radio, I was not able to hear it unless I was holding down the MONI button. I turned the squelch to Zero but still was unable to hear anyone talking again, unless I held down that button. I reviewed the owners manual but to no help. Is there some setting for this? I don't have PL or CTCSS tones on my other radio and hear fine. Does anyone know what's up?
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I have a follow-on question to this string. I know how to tune for SWR and have the right meter, my question is where to tune the antenna? Do you tune it sitting on the ground, on the workbench, on a mast 20 feet up? Is there a method for doing this so you get accurate readings and not grounded unnecessarily? I've done a base antenna one time but it was up on the mast and I took it up and down a few times to get it right. Can this be done laying down on the mast?
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Hi jmcconomy,
The GMRS V-1 is a nice radio. I have one and use it often. To program the radio using chip is not hard once you understand what info goes where. I will try to explain it so I don't confuse you. For example using a repeater on channel 18. If the input is 467..625, the output is 462.625. If you have a PL tone of 555.5 (not a real tone, just used as an example) , here is what you would enter in chirp. Repeater channel 18 for the GMRS V-1 is line #18 in chirp.
Frequency = 462.625
Tone Mode = TSQL
Tone & Tone Sql = 555.5 ( enter actual tone from MyGMRS.com)
Cross Mode = Tone-Tone
That should get your repeater channel programmed in. If you have any other questions, I will try to answer them
Hope this helps and enjoy your radio.
Another newbie here GaDalek, new to GMRS that is and have this same radio. I have set up repeaters in my ham radios just fine for years, but this is not working as planned. GaDalek, you mention the above quote. When using CHIRP and I go to enter the Tone and Tone Qsl to be 555.5 (as example), whenever I move out of that column, the Tone disappears, is removed. If I go over to set Cross Mode to Tone-Tone, as soon as I move off of there, it also disappears and then the TSQL I chose earlier for Tone Mode, changes to Cross automatically.
The only way I can get the Tone and Tone Sql to remain in, is to keep Cross Mode to Tone-.Tone and to leave the now changed Cross alone. It will not keep TSQL. Is there something else I am getting wrong here in Chirp?
Jaycee
Saving Repeater Settings
in Technical Discussion
Posted
I have the BTech GMRS-50x1. In CHIRP, I first downloaded the initial load, then after I was done making the repeater tone settings, I used the Upload to Radio method. Did that do a reset of some sort than obvious?
The repeaters on all the channel slots are working right now. It is when I want to add another one with the same frequency, not sure where to put that. And like I said earlier, perhaps you just can't do that. I get the 8 channels and that's it. If I wanted a different repeater using the same frequency but different tone, then i would have to go in and change the tones all the time. Seems counter-productive but maybe that's the way it is built.