Sbsyncro

Update on this. I received a replacement mic and it did not solve the issue. Next step is to send the radio in for testing and repair (out of warranty so it’s on my dime). Disappointing that I’m having this issue after a year of use. I am anxious to determine the cause and get it resolved because I really like this radio when it is working properly. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm using this speaker and its working great. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007841794 Note that there are separate connections for the A and B radios, so if you want to hear both, you either need a Y cable or you need to buy two of these. I'm also curious about the Bluetooth mic, but my experience with a Bearcat bluetooth CB mic was not good. It had to be VERY close to the transmitter and people complained about my voice being very tinny (more so than normal CB)

I spoke with Buytwowayradios this morning about this and they are sending me a replacement. (again). GREAT customer service! They are aware of the issue, but I'm the first person they are aware of that has needed to replace two mics in the year since these units hit the market. I suspect that the PTT switch is not tested/designed to handle the number of cycles it is seeing in my hands (I tend to lead groups and will be on the radio for 4 to 6 hours several days a month). That doesn't sound extreme to me, but its probably 2x or 4x the amount of use most of these radios are seeing in the field at this point. I'm tempted to get a bluetooth mic as a backup (available from B2wR for $80) but I've not heard great things about the performance.

OK, I just had my second mic fail on the KG-1000G unit that I've had for about 1 year now, and I'm wondering if anyone else has had this issue since I believe it is a "thing". I use this radio a lot - it is mounted in my Jeep and it is used all day long for a couple of days every third weekend or so. My first mic failed after about three months of such use. My replacement mic just failed this past weekend (incredibly frustrating when on a group trip and I lose primary comms!). Luckily I had a couple of backup HTs, but I digress....] The "failure" seems to manifest itself in the PTT button losing its tactile feedback (it becomes difficult to tell whether it is being "pushed" just by feel, if that makes any sense). This physical failure is accompanied by a deeply attenuated transmission - where people report that my voice has suddenly become "washed out" or "drowned out" by static. This is exactly what happened the first time, and after checking everything about my install (including replacing antenna and cable) I verified it was the mic. A replacement mic fixed the problem. I am going to reach out to Buytwowayradios today to hopefully discuss this issue, but since I have had it happen to me twice, I'm wondering if anyone else has had this issue? I LOVE this radio, but this mic problem needs a permanent fix! Brent

One thing I'm always curious about - let's say you have 5,000+ people running around in an area of the desert (say, like at TDS in Anza Borrego) and there are dozens of people on every GMRS channel because of how popular GMRS has been made by certain people on the YouTubes. I and my group use PL tones to not have to listen to everyone. It works GREAT. But what does it sound like to all the people that don't know about using tones? I know they can hear our comms, even though we can't hear theirs. I assumed that we'd be constantly stepping all over people, and that our comms would also be compromised by people stepping on ours (even though we can't hear them). But that didn't seem to be the case a couple weekends ago... It was like we had the free airwaves all to ourselves all weekend... In this situation, does the "strongest signal win" or something else like radio quality? (I'm using a KG-1000G, so a "good" quality radio and maybe those on Baofengs had more issues...) If the strongest signal wins, I would have expected a lot more problems with our comms over the weekend, based on the traffic I heard on the same channels but without using tones...

I have not spoken directly with the repeater owner, but have spoken with someone local to it that has his own repeater. We discussed the oddity of being able to make regular contact, and I confirmed with him the location of the repeater. That being said, I think you might be on to something with the "wave guide" idea. Check out this enhanced map (enhanced to show slope angles). It indicates a pretty clear "channel":

Interesting read, but the weird thing (the "head scratcher", if you will), is that I can contact this particular repeater any time I want. It is not behaving like some rare atmospheric "window" that allows a brief period of refraction/deflection of the signal. I've done it on a sunny, cloudless days and on a partially overcast days. (never was it foggy). Now my line of sight situation is not as dramatic as that post by MBRUN you quoted, but it still looks "impossible" on paper... Its pretty interesting to me that I can jump on and talk with this repeater any time I want with good signal strength on both sides...

No, I asked. it was the owner of SLO700 - another nearby repeater, who monitors both repeaters.

FWIW, I just made contact again with the same repeater and talked to the same person again. We chatted about how curious it was that we were able to have such good quality comms considering the distance and mountain range in between us. I also confirmed the general location of the repeater. the Rx signal on my side was very good with some static, but I had no problem hearing the other party very clearly. 3/5 bars on my KG-1000G whatever that means.

Rated for 50 watts Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

www.gaiagps.com - its free unless you want multiple map layers. Draw a route using straight line mode. Yes! Although I recently heard that they didn't make it through COVID lockdowns are are now out of business, sadly. I have not confirmed this.

I can’t recall the technical term, but the repeater will transmit back briefly in response - the tone will open your radio’s squelch and you’ll hear “dead air” for a second. I should note that a lot of people frown on “kerchunking” repeaters. I did it because I thought there was extremely little chance of me actually hitting it, and frankly I hadn’t heard any traffic on that repeater for the 30 minutes or so I’d monitored it while working on some other stuff. when it did respond unexpectedly, I immediately identified myself and asked if anyone was monitoring the frequency. A moment later someone got on with me and we could firmed each of our physical locations. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Based on the 2700' mountain between us, there is no LoS, unless I misunderstand that term. As to atmospheric ducting, I was able to make contact again a few days later and plan to try again today to rule that out. When I make contact, I'm going to ask them more about their setup. Maybe they have a 1,000' tall tower.

So I travel up and down the coast of CA so I programmed my KG-1000G with a bunch of the open repeaters on my routes so that I can possibly use them while traveling. After I finished the programming I found that I was able to hit the nearest one (almost 70 miles away) and talk to the person there. I was frankly baffled. (He confirmed his location in San Luis Obispo, which is on the other side of the tower from me). I plan to do a bit more testing to confirm that it wasn't a fluke, but how would one explain the ability to talk to a repeater 70 miles away and through a 2,700' mountain? I'm basically at sea level and the tower is about 1300 feet. It is operated by Rugged Radios, apparently. I'm on a Wouxun KG-1000G with a Midland 6db antenna mounted to the roof rack of my Jeep.

Maybe a dumb question, but have you looked here on MyGMRS.com for the repeaters listed in your area? For example, I've scanned my area for hours listening and never heard anything. Then I looked at the database here and found ones along my typical travel routes and programmed them into my KG-1000G. Just for giggles, I kerchunked the nearest one (about 70 miles away) and to my astonishment I received a response from the repeater. So I went on and announced myself and lo and behold there was a human there and we just did a quick radio check. I confirmed that he was using the repeater in the location where I thought it was. 70 miles away in mountainous coastal central California terrain! I'm still not sure I believe it, TBH...

Here is an elevation map of the route I took as the other person was sitting in his car in the parking lot (at the far left of the elevation chart). We had consistent comms the entire time. Once I hit the point at the far right of the elevation map, he entered the freeway and began to follow my route, exceeding my speed by about 10mph (so he gradually closed the distance over the next few hours. We were able to stay in radio contact the entire time as he closed the gap. I have found that the 50w radio and high antenna placement will make up for being out of line of sight - I have absolutely and definitely been able to talk to people that I did NOT have line of sight.

Great question. So just last weekend I was caravaning with a couple guys with different radios and got to do some real testing. I was able to talk clearly to a buddy who stayed behind for 15 minutes before getting back on the freeway. I was able to maintain contact with him the entire time and we estimated that we were about 20 miles apart on undulating terrain (freeway). Important element: I was on a KG-1000G with roof mounted 6db 5/8 wave antenna and he was on a Midland MXT500 with the included mag mount 1/4 wave antenna on the roof of his Tacoma. We had a guy in between us on a Baofeng who was not able to talk to either of us at times. Antenna placement is everything. Most people using HTs inside their car don’t realize how badly it limits their ability to communicate. Same for people running “stealth” antennas mounted on their spare tire or front fender. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ok I don’t even like the fact that I’m opining on this, but WRT the idea of “just scan it” doesn’t help the person who wants to reach out on the radio and say “anyone know what that accident is up ahead?” or something like that. What channel does he use? Repeat it 22 times and hope that everyone else is scanning? But I’m one of those guys who actually prefers silence on long drives. I can go 8 hours with nothing but my thoughts, and I have a good radio AND a nice stereo system… Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Just got this message back from their support person: The current DIY channels are repeater channels, we will open 1-22CH frequencies to choose in the future. The software is still testing by our engineer. Please stay tuned. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Sorry, I was browsing this too fast on my phone and just realized that my previous post talked about Rx-only programming, and thats where I led myself astray. What I meant to mention is that there is no ability to specify a TRANSMIT frequency. If you use the "DIY" slots, then the TRANSMIT frequency is hard coded to a 5 MHZ offset (for GMRS repeaters). If you use one of the "empty" slots at the bottom, then it is a RECEIVE ONLY channel, as there is no way to specify a Transmit frequency:

Unfortunately it doesn't look like it.

I don’t see how. The channel editing window only allows a drop down of GMRS frequencies to choose from except for the 2 VFO slots, which have an editable field for frequency. Note that I am running v 2.6 of the software and the latest firmware for the radios. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thank you. So the VFO A and VFO B slots are what will be displayed/active if the radio is changed to VFO mode then? I’m trying to figure out a good use case for that feature… I do notice that it is the only place once can specify non-GMRS frequencies for Rx only. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm just starting to dive into programming the various radios I have (Baofeng, Radioddity, Wouxun, Midland, etc) and one thing I am confused about is that all seem to have some confusing choices around "VFO A" and VFO B". Are these just the currently displayed A and B channels on the radio's display? (and they actually just correspond to one of the existing programmed channel "slots"?). What is confusing me a bit is that my Radioddity GM-30 is set for a single line display and the currently tuned channel is 17 (462.6000) but that is not what either the VFO A or VFO B slot is programmed for.....

Hey all - this thread seems to have drifted around from the original post, but I'm hoping this is still the most relevant spot to post this... A buddy of mine just got the MXT500 (I have a Wouxun KG-1000G) and we both run in a 4x4 club that uses two dedicated channels with PL tones so that when we are in busy crowded areas we can cut out all the other traffic). Yea, I know thats not ideal, but it is what it is.. On to my question: On the Wouxun I am able to copy the GMRS channels to a new "slot" and add the tones for the two channels so as not to change the regular "open" GMRS channels (15 & 17) on the stock radio programming. I now have the "regular" GMRS and RPT channels, plus two additional channels called "Club1" and "Club2". Programming the MXT500 from the keypad, I could not see a way to do this and instead had to just add the tones to the existing channels 15 and 17. Is it possible to create two new channel slots (either via computer or FPP) so as to leave the original channels 15 and 17 open and undisturbed?