Steve

i'll see if i can reach that one from work location near parsippany. also, i'll have to find the info on that. i'll check the site. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

i'm in north nj near Hopatcong, Standhope, Parsippany, Cedar Knolls, Randolph, Morris Plains. I have been scanning GMRS for about a year and I hear no one talking. But I do hear private repeaters sending out CW now and then. I'm guessing there must be some private repeaters around. I'm wondering if anyone in that area is interested in talking on their repeater or testing range of their repeater, or coordinating with me for any emergency communications. If i had a private repeater (not listed on this site) I would want to get a local group together... If i only had a site secured. I do have a few leads on sites, but nothing is panning out. I find myself with my GMRS radio, and no one to talk with, and I'm not looking to socialize, but to have some idea of who's out there so we can reach out to someone if we needed to. How active are you guys on GMRS? It seems to be basically dead where I live.... or is it?

KS- thanks for checking in... its been a while since i have posted, not much has changed... still playing with my GR1225.... the Kenwoods are sitting on my desk. I have been playing with my other repeater and slowly realizing that i dont have a good location for it. So i'm working on trying to find a location (and antenna), and then i will be excited to finish the build. I'm at the point where i just need to connect all the wires, then test it out... I will update when i have more news.

i forgot what a RICK cable is, is that where you just connect the front RJ45 plugs into each other? if that was possible, i'm not sure i would want to do that... yes ,its simple, but i rather spend a little more time and get the controller in there for all the extra features you'd get. I figure if i 'm going to spend that much time and money on this, i want to have it fully functional.

yes, that's exactly what i want to do. make a go box with these... i think cooling is going to be a challenge. the battery and solar charging is trivial, you just buy the kit online to charge. mounting and connecting it all up is the hard part.

yes, i was just going to tell you that i found them on ebay... you should grab a pair of them, they are hard to find, and it will allow you to just plug in without having to solder directly to the board. You'll also need the plugs for the other end. I might have already posted which parts they are on this thread. as for my updates, i'm just having trouble finding the time right now to do this... but i do want to build a portable system with these. I just need to make the cables (i have all the parts for them) and assemble the radios into a case like an old plastic tool box. It should be some what water proof but allows air flow and cooling. That's the key. These radios will get plenty hot in the sun before they even kick on.

thanks PastorGary for the quick reply.

http://www.buytwowayradios.com/products/cobra/cobra-mr-hh450-dual.aspx has anyone used these before? I was looking at what to get for boat use, ship to shore or ship to ship at the lake, etc. Doesn't seem like it supports repeaters though, so that might be a deal breaker.

nah... ive figured out its all good... its a private group... sounds like a bunch of older service personal guys like cops or emt's who want to comunicate without using the company radios. they might have some linked up but as far as getting in, i dont care to, and i'm sure its too far for my transmitter even if i had the pl or dpl code. i'm sure it will come in handy in the next storm... reminds me of last time i was driving back to NJ from PA and i was able to get into the linked pa college repeater system, it has linked repetears along the pa nj border from north nj to de. i was able to drive for a good 30 minutes while talking with some guys on there using my little $30 HT The explained that its a big network of repeaters but they were unsure how they are able to receive me from one end of the state to another.... i was asking about the receivers... i looked it up online, there are different input nodes all over, so you just dial in the one that is closest to you, and it repeats out on all other nodes. i think. anyway, that's cool if that's how it works in PA. as for this bluecom one, it was more of a mistery of who was able to hit my HT from inside so clearly when they were talking so secretively.

not yet. its stilling on my desk now... waiting to be put together. I have been playing with my GR1225 repeater in the meantime... I will def update here once i do. Check the low and high key settings. do you have any plans for making it battery powered? I was thinking of building this as a grab-and-go box w separate battery pack / solar charger for camping and trips to the lake.

thanks for asking! I have not finished it yet. my next step is to make the custom cables to connect it all together. My only question at this point would be about audio quality through the repeater. I want it to sound as close to normal as possible, meaning that when i talk through it, the receiver will hear what they normally would if it was simplex. the local 2m and 70mm ham repeaters sound so good. There is this whole concept of pre emphases and emphases. I'm not sure i can easily get that signal out of the service cable tk-19. as for programming, i seem to have it figured out at this point, its just a matter of building it. i will def check in later and let you know how its going.

i'm using the older version, 3.1. wont run on my xp machine or win7 64 but runs fine inside Win95 VM. what is DOS Box? I have some kenwood radios, but i can run the software i got for it on Win7 64bit just fine. so i doubt i need it.

you know, i just looked at a chart of all the frs and gmrs frequencies, i never realized how close the gmrs input frequencies are to the frs radios. for example, FRS 467.5625 is 12.5k right in the middle of 467.5500 and 467.5750 for GMRS 1 and 2 repeater inputs. how good of a notch filters would you need? i've got the $100 black box duplexer, notch filter. in your case, obviously its illegal power on FRS if you can get that kind of distance. when you key up your repeater, do you get interference noise from the FRS frequency or is it more of a desense issue?

sounds interesting.

so i got a trial version of VMware workstation (free vmware player might also work) and found a vm of Windows95 from the link below. So you can run win95 inside the VM on ANY machine, I'm using Win7 64bit. I loaded some programming software that is only 16bit and wont run on anything newer than 95/98. I mapped the com ports on the host PC and the VMware software, i enabled com ports and then went into the win95 vm and ran the "software" and told it to use the same "mapped" com port. Attached to my host PC was a USB adapter (with built in RIB) from ebay under $20 and it worked! Win95 was able to reach through the VM, and reach the radio! I was able to program my GR1225 repeater. windows 95 vmware ready to run image file... https://winworldpc.com/download/3DCDE31D-18DA-11E4-99E5-7054D21A8599 vmware workstation (paid app, tested and works) http://www.vmware.com/products/workstation/workstation-evaluation free vmware player: (free, should also work, but i didn't test it) http://www.vmware.com/products/player now i can keep all the programming tools and apps together in one file that is portable and I dont need a special "old school" hardware machine.

update: i spoke with the guy i bought it from, he thinks its the power supply and is going to send me a new one and help me fix it. also, for the record, the "monitor" issue is not an issue... that is a feature that i didn't understand until he pointed it out. I feel pretty stupid that i didn't realize this but the monitor will monitor all traffice on that ch without and pl tone fliter. so when you were hearing the audio even though the monitor was not enabled, that was in fact correct. it should be playing the audio becuase its the proper pl tone audio. the only issue is it will sometimes not transmit, and again, we think its a faulty power supply.

new issues with my GR1225 ...maybe someone can help.... as i mentioned in an earlier post, the repeater wouldn't repeat, out of the blue, just stopped, then started repeating again the next day.... I was hoping it was just a one time thing, but it kept doing this at random times during the day.... so i edited a video together showing the issue.... its about 4 and a half minutes and about 2 and a half minutes in you can see it just start working after a power cycle.. when the first 3 power cycles didn't have any affect.... i also point out the issue with the monitor enable button not working and a buzz coming from the speaker during idle, as if the audio amp circuit is enabled. usually this is the sound you'd hear when the audio is enabled and sound coming out, not during idle time. Normally during idle the speaker is muted and you hear nothing. it sounds almost like loose connection or bad ground. my thought is maybe a cold solder joint somewhere... i'm not sure. Please take a look and let me know if anyone has any ideas on what it might be and how i might be able to fix it..... http://youtu.be/R4xrJwq8g50

thanks, i tried all that, compat mode, etc. even ran it on xp 32bit hardware, etc. tried ver 3.1 only. i looked for ver 4.0 but after downloading it, it was still just 3.1 inside the zip file.

i got it working! i found a Win95 VM for vmware and loaded that, put software ver3.1 on there, linked up the virt com port to the real com port on my win7 laptop, connected the usb-rib from ebay adapter cable, and yes! it worked. i was able to go in an change the hang time. too bad you can't change the delay between carrier loss and roger beep. i would love an extra 100 or 200 ms so i can hear it on the HT. hangtime is an extra second long.... there was course and fine power adjustment in there too... the model info says its the 45 watt ver but on low its only putting out 15 watts according to my SWR meter. i'll test that out more before i touch that because those adjustments looked right, the high was all the way up and the low was pretty low..... not much room to move them. i found this, and loaded it into a free trial of vmware workstation: https://winworldpc.com/download/3DCDE31D-18DA-11E4-99E5-7054D21A8599 ran this all on my win7 64 bit machine and used the $10 cable from ebay and it worked! not sure if this mattered, but on both the host and the VM i set the com ports the same and set them to 1200 baud, away from the default that was 9600. not sure if that matters but i did that.

a little more looking around, i found out i need to run it on Win95, not XP like i had been doing for the HTs. I have to go back even further.. wow.

Are there any owners of the GR1225 out there who can tell me if i should be using CPS or RSS? I have CPS r06.04.00 but it wont read using the usb rib adapter. i have run the CPS before for my HTs.

okay, yeah, red blinking when i key up, that sounds right. The brochure has it green, and with the hiccup i had where it wasn't repeating, i was wondering if the blinking red was something more than just traffic, maybe something wrong. Had it working more on sunday all day, no problems. my experience so far with it... vs what i was using... with the SWR in-line, and my not so great coax rg8x 65ft, adapters, and ed fong jpole antenna, my receive range on this compared to straight into my kenwood tk880 is a lot less. I believe the meter and duplexer each have at least 1 or 1.5 db of loss on the receive, so i was unable to hit my repeater from the edge where i normally can at least get a signal back home. this just goes to show how important the line is and everything it goes through. I hope to get an adapter in soon and connect it straight out of the duplexer with N to the antenna cable on so239. Next step once spring is here, is new shorter LMR400 line with a new high gain antenna. I can "hear" the repeater fine a mile away, but it has a lot of trouble hearing me on my HT. I'm not making it in from 1.0 miles over the hillls, but i was able to hear the HT over the noise when connected directly to the kenwood mobile. My terrain is really more challenging than you may think. When i look out the window of my house, in the direction i want to cover, there are houses along the ridge going up. I have to tip my head down and look up to see the top house. I am literally broadcasting inside a shadow area to everyone else. I'm realizing that my terrain is my most limiting factor, in terms of receiving the HT from over the hilltop.

KG-UV920P-A.... that looks like a nice radio for mobile.

brief update: all parts are in except for the duplexer. I will start making the custom cables in soon. I am going to try and build the cables and connectors so that they are universal, that way, i can swap out the radios at will. I might upgrade to other mobiles, or maybe use some HT radios for light weight low power portable use.

my GR1225 is on the air! all tuned and programmed up great. I just had one hickup so far... I would like to describe my issue and see if there is anyone anyone who has ever programmed or used one before that might have some ideas. In short, does anyone know why the Rx light blinks red and not steady green like the broshure? http://www.motorolasolutions.com/web/Business/Products/Two-way%20Radio%20Networks/Repeaters/GR1225/_Documents/Static%20Files/rd-gr1225-01c.pdf the reason i ask is because when i first plugged it in, it worked for a little while, and in the time i took me to program up my second radio, it stopped transmitting. It would receive fine, but the controler would not re transmit. Monitor would hear fine, and even the speaker mic was able to braodcast fine. The RX led would blink red on receive and the Tx would normally be steady red but it just stopped Txing and would only RX. I'm thinking the Red Blink on Rx might be an indication of a setting such as PL is active on Rx, or its in low power mode, etc. I'm using a PL on the in and a different one on the out, and its running in low mode and my SWR meter shows 10 watts out and almost zero watts reflected. I thought maybe the repeater somehow decided it was not safe to transmit? I didn't change anything else, using the same radio,etc. When i turned it off and back on, it still had the same problem, just the RX would blink red and the TX would not light, no output. But again, i would hear the PL decoded audio on "mon" setting. I tired to key up with no PL and there was nothing coming through the monitor, so i know the PL was correct. After unplugging it overnight last night and trying it again today, it has been working great. Today i did some range testing with it and all seemed to work as it should. I don't think its heat related because it was only running for 20 min before it stopped working. Any ideas?