NCRick

Unsolicited comment: midland sells a heck of a lot of radios so it is likely they have quite a lot of influence over whoever is manufacturing the radios for them.  There is at least a chance, that they own or have some kind of stake in such a business and some other radios are offshoots of their efforts or directions.  I'm thinking that we, the people on this forum may not totally be in the mainstream when wanting to connect a computer to the GMRS radio in our Jeep or whatever.  If I was Midland, having to certify, market and support these types of radios I doubt customer low-level programming is something I would find advantageous.  I'd want a fool-proof, reliable radio with compatible accessories.
 
having said that, I want programming access to my MXT400 but to be sure, I have not run into real limitations with it yet.  I'm going to guess it is transmitting in the wide band mode on repeaters just because it sounds strong. With my suboptimally  mounted Midland 6db whip antenna, yesterday I reached a repeater 40+ miles away.
 
im not bashing commercial radios but I'm not dissatisfied in having purchased a nice clean new radio from Midland directly with super fast service vs me having to dig the Cooties out of some icky old taxi cab radio. 
 
sorry for the rant but sometimes a different point of view can be worth considering.

Just got mine, just started testing and so far it looks like its going to be a great radio for the price. I live in Galax, Va, and on low power hit the Stone Mountain, NC repeater with a great signal report that is 31 miles away indoor with stock antenna, very nice. so more to come 
 
 
 
 
Ed
WRKU609
W4EDS

There is such a thing as a simplex repeater that is fairly cheap and simple, but......
This is not for socializing or that kind of thing like duplex repeaters.
It is intended for emergency comms or remote areas like a hunting camp or something.
Maybe you would use it for special event with a club - for essential or emergency communications only.
 
https://www.argentdata.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=98
 
It is not clear to me whether the law specifically addresses these for use on GMRS.
I did not find a definitive answer.
Definitely check further if you are considering it seriously.
 
This is a clever audio accessory that you can interface to just about any radio.
People (who are licensed) use them on ham bands and you can use the same device with various radios as long as you get the right cable.
You do not use a "repeater channel" with split frequency operation... there is no offset.  It all happens on the same frequency.
You use a normal simplex channel.
 
You interface this to a radio that you place on high ground in your area of operation.
Maybe you park a vehicle equipped with it on a hill above the area you are hunting. 
The "repeater" radio will repeat every message that it hears - delayed in time.
So you will hear yourself on "the repeater" after you are done talking.
If you are within "direct" range of another talker you will hear him twice - once direct and once on the repeater. 
 
Obviously this is a rather "clunky" (but clever) system intended for essential communications in remote areas.
It is of very limited use but for certain situations it could be real a life saver. 
 
Of course, do not even consider buying one of these unless you FULLY understand exactly how it is used.
Also, of course, you would need to be sure they are completely legal for GMRS.  I did not find a clear answer.
Even so, I would only consider using it "in the middle of nowhere" for special situations like hunting camps.
 
So, do not go and buy one of these and put it up at home thinking your are going to have a "real" repeater for hanging out with your friends.
That's not what it is.  It's just a curiosity for most of us.
I think it's "wicked" clever.... but I'm probably not going to buy one.
 
Vince
 
 

Radioguy
 
If PLs only work when your are far from interference and other traffic  then we never need them.
 
If you believe in the 95-5-5% then we are already near zero.  If we dont use PLs we will become CB.  Wild west,  If you are really worried, most radios have a "busy channel lockout".  If someone is talking when you PTT you will get bonked.
 
Businesses have using PLs to create "channels" for 50 years.  That is how trunked radio got its inspiration.
 
Kirk
WRHS673
 

Hello Kirk, and welcome to the forum!
 
I have been using FRS and GMRS off and on for nearly 20 years. This is the first time I have heard the suggestion of there being a ‘reluctance’ to use PL codes. You have me curious. What is the nature of the comments you’re hearing that give you this impression?
 
My personal perspective follows.
 
While I do use repeaters, my primary reason for having GMRS is simplex. There are times I operate both with and without PL codes. More often without them.
 
I use codes only when I am in an area where there is heavy use of the frequencies and I want to leave my radios on for extended periods but only want to hear traffic from my group. After all that is the reason PL codes came into existence in the first place. They provided a way for different businesses and other groups to share a frequency without having to listen to with each other’s conversations.
 
My personal experience has also shown that without codes, when in an area of low RF noise that the receiver will open squelch at a slightly greater distance without the code than with.
 
Then there is the “real” interference thing. Two people cannot operate on the same frequency without adversely affecting the reception by the intended listeners residing within their shared coverage area. This is true no matter how many PL codes there are. The use of codes masks the presence and use of the frequency by others. A knowledgable and respectful two-way radio user knows not to transmit when the frequency is in use. When PL codes are active it is easy to overlook the fact that someone else might be talking and complacency will result in unintentional interfering transmissions. If no PL code was being used, it would be pretty obvious if someone else nearby was using the frequency.
 
I hope this helps.
 
I look forward to hearing more about the reluctance.
 
 
Michael
WRHS965
KE8PLM

I make zero assumptions that any repeaters will be up and available in a time of serious local emergency involving a grid-down scenario (especially long-term), unless the repeater was put up and maintained for that express purpose and eventuality. I know of no such system within radio range of me. The closest candidate (but one I cannot reach) lives on a hospital and is known to be powered by the hospitals main emergency backup system.
 
For most individuals, putting up a repeater is a technical and costly challenge. Add in the investment and maintenance costs for a quality long-term grid-down power backup system and suddenly the repeater, antenna and duplexer costs are dwarfed. Most will not invest in something that they receive no immediate benefit from.
 
For those with repeaters co-located on a commercial tower site, some maybe connected to the local UPS and emergency power generators. That is good, but other equipment may be given emergency power priority.
 
As I continue my personal GMRS and amateur radio journey, my focus is optimized simplex communications, such that operation is not reliant on repeaters. Working repeaters in a time of need will just be the sweet icing on the cake.
 
Wayoverthere, perhaps you have discovered a need and the opportunity for pulling local resources to support a mission of creating and maintaining that ideal local site that you and the community can count on during a time of need.
 
 
Michael
WRHS965
KE8PLM

One owner of a repeater has spoken to me plenty of times.
Several owners have responded to my request via email.

Personally, I don't mind the chatter....that may be the seeds of the radio hobby taking root to bloom later on. Its just the endless call tones that get old.

enjoy the chatter of kids while it lasts, someday you may wish to hear kids chatter instead of suffering through a horrific time. When the kids are silent start to worry...any parent will tell you that 
 
Yes, I hear them.  

I have played around with the companding option in my commercial radios I use on GMRS.  I end up turning the compander off after a while because of the issues it causes.  The companding feature does work as advertised to help clean up the audio SNR.  The companded audio has a "processed" quality to it and I don't mind that.  The problem is it requires ALL radios talking to each other to also be using companding in order to sound right.  It's an all or nothing type deal.  Radios that don't compress their transmitted audio will sound muffled and distorted when heard out of companded radios.  The expander in the receiver expands audio that wasn't compressed originally and blows it apart and sounds like 'expletive'.  The compander is best left disabled when you have a mix of radios that do and don't compand their audio.  Motorola includes a low level expander (LLE) option in their top tier radios.  When using LLE, the transmit audio is not compressed, only the received audio is expanded by a small amount.  It gives the audio a very slightly "fuzzy" quality to it under some conditions.   Overall if a radio has companding capability, the radio needs to include the option to disable the compander.  The compander feature should be OFF by default.
 
The Motorola Talkabout FRS bubble packs use companding.  Motorola calls this feature "X-Pand".  The compander is always enabled and with no option to disable it.  With Motorola's VHF and UHF business radios, the Business Bubble Packs as I like to call them also compand audio on narrow bandwidth channels with no option to disable the compander.  People who have complained about bad receive audio quality out of the Motorola Talkabout FRS bubble packs are really complaining about the effects of the compander on the received audio, especially when hearing radios that don't compress their transmit audio because they don't have companding.  Motorola could greatly improve the Talkabout FRS bubble packs by simply adding the option to disable the compander.
 
My wife (g/f at the time) and I had a pair of Motorola Talkabout 250 FRS bubble packs in the early days of FRS.  The Talkabout 250 was one of the early 14-channel FRS bubble packs from Motorola.  It was one of the first models to push their "X-Pand" audio companding feature.  Motorola added X-Pand to all of their analog radios back then.  Motorola's top tier radios have the ability to enable or disable companding on a per channel basis.  With Motorola's FRS bubble packs and their business bubble packs, the compander is always enabled.  The Talkabout 250 had LOUD audio for hearing them in noisy environments which I liked but the companded audio sounded like 'expletive'.  The radios aggressively companded the audio by over-compressing the transmitted audio and over-expanding the received audio.  The companded audio quality was so bad and to the point that basic functionality of the radio was impaired.  The radio was almost unusable with radios that don't compand their audio.  It was THAT bad.  Reducing the expansion ratio in the expander part of the companding system would have helped a lot.
 
Wikipedia article on companding:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companding

For house, I found the Laird FG4500 to be really really good. 
 
For the car, I found that an NMO was the way to go, so I removed the factory sharkfin/antenna and placed a GMRS antenna there. Performance went through the roof (no pun intended) with a 6 inch 1/4 wave.
 
G.

Don't rule out a 1/4 wave on a magnet mount in the center of a 18" pizza pan.
 
Believe it or not this will talk almost as good as a mobile if you can get it in front of a window.

Adding to the answers above, there is nothing different about a repeater. It is still a single antenna and subject to the same rules (or lack thereof) as any other GMRS station. About the only difference in a repeater antenna is if it is used with a duplexer, in which case you need to be sure the antenna design will provide good response on both transmit and receive. But, of course, that has nothing to do with where or how the antenna is mounted.

This is not JUST a repeater issue.  Where I live we use GMRS/FRS channel 7 with a PL code for comms from cottage-cottage or golfcart-golfcart.  At my hunting property we also use channel 7 BUT with a different PL code.  So with my Midland 275 I have to stop and change PLs when en route from one place to the other.  All of this is on simplex.

All radios were programmed Wideband, and performance verified prior to shipping with an Aeroflex/IFR 3920.

First off, you are welcome.
 
Second, you make a very fair statement. There is no doubt that the signals in my environment are in fact very much attenuated. That is why I believe the unreliable/fringe zone from 6/10 to 1.4 miles to be such an important zone. Agreed too that if the fringe area were known to be say, 5 times larger, that finer differences would have been able to be detected. I also believe under laboratory conditions small differences would be detected. But this test was all about the practical, in my environment. In the end, I take no exception to amending the conclusion to clarify.
 
Thanks for your feedback.
 
 
Michael
WRHS965
KE8PLM

You’re welcome. Certainly not a lab-grade experiment, but very practical.
 
 
Michael
WRHS965
KE8PLM

With 5/8 wave it should be a coil that does matching, to balance out the big -jX component, but I may be wrong here - working from memory, and too lazy to check on internets. "Colinear" usually means 2 or more sections in line, but also could mean that Midland marketing dept found a cool scientific-sounding buzzword.
You are absolutely right about adjusting to minimum reflected power. I think moving antenna back and forth on a lip mount will not make a big difference, if any, but worth tying. Good practices means that your soldering and crimping is good and no sharp bends of the cable. I tend not to use RG58U in my car installs, I prefer RG8X or LMR-240. However, if you already have cable and connectors, it's fine. On 8' length difference in attenuation is negligible.

Yes its only a scanner for the other bands.  

I think the KG1000 is receive only outside of the GMRS band.  That being the case, you will be fine with the antenna you have as it should pick up just fine if not being absolutely optimum.  I would personally put the effort into putting your existing antenna up as high as I could get it.

SWR 1:1 does not necessarily means that your antenna is at resonance. It means that it's well matched. Assuming there is no big loss in your feed line (that eats up forward and reflected power), the lower SWR, or reflected power, the better the match. And antenna does not have to be resonant to be an efficient radiator. Resonant quarter-wave above ideal ground has 36 Ohm impedance and SWR 1.5:1 when connected to 50 Ohm feedline. So, tune for lowest SWR, i.e. for lowest reflected power. Use good practices to ensure minimal possible loss in the feed line.

Unsolicited comment: midland sells a heck of a lot of radios so it is likely they have quite a lot of influence over whoever is manufacturing the radios for them.  There is at least a chance, that they own or have some kind of stake in such a business and some other radios are offshoots of their efforts or directions.  I'm thinking that we, the people on this forum may not totally be in the mainstream when wanting to connect a computer to the GMRS radio in our Jeep or whatever.  If I was Midland, having to certify, market and support these types of radios I doubt customer low-level programming is something I would find advantageous.  I'd want a fool-proof, reliable radio with compatible accessories.
 
having said that, I want programming access to my MXT400 but to be sure, I have not run into real limitations with it yet.  I'm going to guess it is transmitting in the wide band mode on repeaters just because it sounds strong. With my suboptimally  mounted Midland 6db whip antenna, yesterday I reached a repeater 40+ miles away.
 
im not bashing commercial radios but I'm not dissatisfied in having purchased a nice clean new radio from Midland directly with super fast service vs me having to dig the Cooties out of some icky old taxi cab radio. 
 
sorry for the rant but sometimes a different point of view can be worth considering.

Please report if you do try one. Because of a changed mounting location we can't attribute the performance completely to the Laird Phantom but there was a decrease in communication distance once installed on my friend's vehicle compared to the tiny mag mount his mxt275 came with.  The MNO mount make it an easy swap when the wife isn't looking...

Welcome to the myGMRS, brotherhood of fellow newbies Michael WRFS927.  I would pick Wouxun KG-1000G, per the specs, sounds like a great radio for the price and features... I would use the radio in my Jeep or base but my KG-805G 5 watt Handheld reaches the big repeater with 20-30 miles range and have a great repeater owner/operator.  
 
I wish the USA radio firm who are marketing Chinese made radios add the added the feature we are lookin for and see in the KG-1000...  My mentor Michael WRHS965 and I both have Wouxun products...  I which so call American made radio firms who outsource manufacturing of their radio tell their Chinese manufactors to up the features that Wouxun has.  I do like the Motorola products as I have been in LEO for 30 years and trust them well, but they are not Part 95 certify or made in USA IMHO, so if I'm wrong let Motorola correct me for my knowledge...  Under full disclosure I will be using a Motorola GR1225 for a family private repeater which is Part 90 certified with a lot of feature I'm looking for.  I will have less than $800 in a family repeater project thanks to the myGRMR advice.
 
I also like the Wouxun KG-1000G with the removable face plate or head for use as a base and or mobile installation.  In my life I want to have flexibly which is key as I learn so much from the guys on this forum....
 
Hope this helps..
Jack 

Maybe I am the only one, but I am confused about the purpose of this ongoing rant. Complaints on an online forum are not going to change anything. If you want change, file a Petition for Rulemaking with the FCC. Then get people to support your petition.
 
But, to the points you raise. First, about GMRS radios themselves: Some of your facts are wrong or off target, there is no need for a -5 MHz (not KHz) offset on a GMRS radio. There are only 8 repeater input frequencies defined and those are all 5MHz higher than the 8 defined repeater input frequencies. And, the number of internal memory locations (aka "channels) that a given user needs is very difficult to determine. Probably more than 22, but 180? Zello? Zello works just fine without a GMRS radio at all. But, Zello is an Internet (IP) based app, which means anything that connects to Zello needs an Internet connection. But, you also suggest GMRS should work when away from any cellular infrastructure. So, how is your Zello equipped GMRS radio supposed to connect to Zello when you are in the middle of nowhere? And you complaint about morse code, I really don't know what that is about? We live in a free market economic system. Manufacturers are free to offer products they feel will meet customer and investor needs. You have a choice. And, if you don't like the certified GMRS products you can choose from, there are plenty of other options, from super-cheap CCRs to super-high end Part-90 commercial equipment.
 
Technical questions aside, your major complaint seems to be about licensing fees. Here again I think you are off base. Many services, especially commercial, marine, aviation, LMR, broadcast, common carrier, cellular, etc. have licensing fees and they are often quite expensive. At $7 a year, GMRS is cheap by comparison. Yes, it is more than Amateur. But, Amateur radio is also considered a public service, with a long history and International agreements. And, what difference does it make who you pay a licensing fee to the FCC, the ARRL, a local radio club or whatever? But, even here you are not current. There is now a proposal in the FCC to lower GMRS licensing fees to $50 and add a fee for Amateur radio. The reason? It appears federal law requires fees be set to recover costs. The GMRS fee was bringing in too much money, ham radio was bringing in nothing.
 
You also object to being taxed on your GMRS radio, but have no issue with the FCC requiring a cell phone company to offer a GMRS repeater service on every tower for free. When you consider the equipment and installation costs, plus administration and maintenance costs, are you willing to pay for that every month when Verizon and AT&T raise your bill to cover their costs? There is no free lunch.
 
Ok, you obviously feel strongly about something, otherwise you wouldn't have started this topic and posted 7 follow-up comments. But, it is really hard to understand just what it is you are complaining about and what you think should be done about it. Can you succinctly state the top 5 high level problems you see with GMRS today, the reasons you think those are problems, and 5 proposed solutions.