Doctnj

Now that I as well as three original gmrs guys are hams we still talk on gmrs daily and monitor it as much as possible to keep it alive and well. Just because it indeed is our families last line of coms. It helps to have a good quality repeater in a thoughtful spot that has good coverage to benefit more people. I never think about the cost to get equipment. I think about value if the grid was indeed down. Every day it looks more and more that it could happen.

One part of the club here is prepping. We have people sign up ahead of time to present a topic to the club in radio or prepping topics. The first ham we met asked us to do the presentation. I passed it on to the guy that had the very first gmrs repeater in the area but all of us went and spoke a bit but he did a great job with a power point. By the time of presentation we already had at least 3 hams on our repeater plus family members. That alone is the selling point. They want to be prepared for grid down well they need family on radio also. Gmrs fits perfectly into that role. One family license and they are all on for 10 years. And it's stepping stone to ham or was with us anyhow. Your gmrs "network" can be as small or large as you want. We have folks drive through and hit the repeaters. I'm currently in St. Louis and pulled up ham repeater page and talked to local guy last night with my HT. It's nice to get local info or just talk with new people. One more thing about our club and prepping. Many people in town are not from here. I'm not either. Something brings them here and either they stay or come back. Getting away from the larger cities to more simple life. Not simple people.

And now with tech license I talk on some ham bands but I'm comfortable on gmrs. And we have a pretty good group of regulars who talk nearly every day. We can choose to link when needed or remain separated and then it's a local discussion. Where you live I'm very familiar. I was in military a ways south of your location and came threw there a lot. With it being pretty flat you should get very good coverage. A good amount of the guys I talk to on gmrs are the same as on ham bands. The companies are starting to pay attention and making a lot more gmrs radios. I gave my old HTs to a good friend that wanted to get into GMRS and now he is in my old shoes. Good luck.

I typed up a fairly wordy reply and it didnt post. So just incase it does I wont repeat much except to say your situation in gmrs depends on yourself actually. The guy that was the very beginning of it up where I live said he was alone with his repeater for quite a long time. Now I have my own repeater on a mountain outside town and we are linking his to mine so I can also link to another and lots of folks will then be able to participate in the weekly net in our state. A year ago it was just an idea having repeaters in the state linked up together and now its growing very fast.

Well the first guy I got ahold of that started all of it said he had his gmrs repeater open for quite a long time in silence. Finally he had someone call out then a little later I got HTs and took a few stabs at programming one. I was out on my deck with just an HT with a Nagoya antenna on it and i heard him. I was very shocked because I knew how far he was away. Some where close to 17 miles and we live in the hills in NW Arkansas. One thing he kept saying is "traffic brings more traffic" and that proved to be true. Of course when I do something its 120% so next was a mobile set up and a base station. The base station is still the same now but changing a little in the near future. Right now I have an antenna that is a dual band that is trimmed to be better with gmrs however after analyzing the antenna we found it resonated at some other useful frequencies that can be used with at least some ham bands. Right now I have a triplexer between the antenna and two radios with a third waiting to be programmed. Lastly will be an hf set up when ever that happens hopefully Ill pass next week. So I guess what Im saying is your gmrs situation depends on you. If you stick it out. Build it and they will come

A couple years ago, we all know when, I was realizing that my family was not getting any information that was not being filtered by big tech one way or another. I looked into HAM right then but I knew that would take time and I didnt know how much time that was. Then came across GMRS and between a small group of dedicated radio folks we started pushing GMRS to its limits to see what we had at our disposal. In many ways it was much better than expected. A few months ago I was discussing gmrs with a ham in my area and he saw the benefit of that type of service and by the end of that day he had put in for his GMRS license. In and around our location we are putting in repeaters in an orderly fashion creating a larger area of coverage and realizing this will be our rally point in a grid down situation. The best part is anyone can get in for a small $$. Our gmrs group was invited to speak at upcoming HAM club meeting to introduce it to the rest of the group. Since this meeting we regularly talk with several of them on gmrs keeping it alive and well and participate in state wide net meeting. So they created a RADIO CLUB that evening including our form of communication in the club with out discrimination. Just as some of original Hams joined GMRS, some original GMRS got their ham licenses. I for one am studying for my general :). I hope you find in your area, radio folks with open minded thinking. A couple of these guys have been in radio longer than most have been alive. The technology is the same in both HAM AND GMRS. UHF is UHF after all. I would encourage groups in this format to reach out to their local ham clubs and simply explain to them what you are doing and what its about and let it go from there. But please do gmrs a favor and get a little organized before reaching out if possible . Heck we had a power point the evening we spoke at their meeting so we got 30 points just for that alone! WRMK691/KI5UCM

So ive been running a wouxun mobile as a base station for over a year now. It has earned its spot in my ham shack having no issues in over a year. I am getting a couple other brand radios to cover some ham frequencies. Several times in this past year Ive tried to find a reason to dislike this radio that many of the super powers in this forum call junk. i havent run across any to date. We set up and use repeaters which are in very close proximity to very important repeaters. The radio equipment that are being used for the actual repeaters and link radios are a different brand and that is mainly a duty cycle performance of known components. But I have used the repeater with my wouxun radio with no interference in either direction, Some of my ham buddies have switched to the 1000g to run gmrs. One in particular has ove 50 years in the radio world and he describes the 1000g as being solid. So much so that he ordered some more wouxun to run as mobiles. He runs radios for hours every day and continues to say they are solid. I agree completely. So if you are on the fence about this brand, I would say with malice that the 1000g is a great selection for gmrs. WRMK691, KI5UCM

One of the first things I did out of the gate was put up a repeater outside of town and advertised it on all gmrs web pages. It's actually getting kind of busy on there at times. We will be putting up a few more and try linking w strictly RF to stay away from internet. So the fcc ok's 50 watt repeaters but only one Chinese company makes radios that are 95 certified to be used as repeater with less than perfect duty cycle. They need to allow the use of other equipment that can be programmed similar to part 95.

There are radios that fit the bill but only a ccr will probably be part 95 etc etc. As an example only because I have read up on them, Motorola xts5000 model 3 fpp looks like it would be pretty perfect and programmable making it close to 95 Yada Yada. And can take weather and keep working. The best part is all the accessories still available for these HTs. Like I said back when I started the ccr thread, I don't like supporting the capital c in that title,... well it gets difficult to not do that and stay compliant

Wow this is an old thread with some newer replies. I'm glad there are some you tubers that can make the radio world look fun and interesting. Cause man there are some complexes going on here.

I have this exact same one and it works great. Had to make a mounting bracket for the top of my truck but it is well worth it. Using an amplifier with this antenna works really well.

That may indeed. Right now I've been using batteries and it's functioning fine. I have one eliminator left. Wouxun is fast to blame the amp in line with radio although Motorola makes a device you drop your HT into and it too has an in line Amp, charges the battery and uses installed antenna. And actually I'm about to receive my new Motorola and want to see how it does and I'll figure out where best to use it. May just get a converticon and be set.

I did that exact thing. I got my license, my personal radios for a little while. Now I have 40 watt Motorola repeater on on DB411 antenna with heliax hardline 120' agl on mountain. Great coverage. I'd say a very good start.

No once it starts it happens all the time. Right now I just use a battery. I have one more so I'll try it again.

I tried to upload a video but since it takes about 30 sec to shut off the file is too large. I've trimmed it down and it.still won't work. Strange it's only on rptr channels where it drops TX.

It works when just listening but key up and talk and you have about 20 S before it shuts off the transmission. I'll record it and post it.

This is the second battery eliminator from wouxun that from my point of view is now trash. They replaced the first one that died so Im thinking I just got a bad one. Now I'm thinking there is either something I did or someone needs to go back drawing board. The first time it happened with the first B. E. , I started to get cut off while transmitting. By the clock it would shut off transmission after 20-30 sec. I keep an HT in my truck and keep it hooked up to antenna as well as battery eliminator on the HT. I do unplug sig lighter when getting out of the truck so to my knowledge it hasn't been accidentally transmitting for any length of time. I just got the bigger battery so between those two I probably don't need an eliminator. But I still have one last B. E., un opened. Guess for emergency it can be useful but it too will probably have a countdown.

I will say that its very understandable why they use radios. Cell signal on the beach is terrible so they are using what works. I am really impressed with the number of gmrs repeaters in the state!! That is pretty cool for sure.

On vacation in Florida. Looking over list of repeaters in the state it's easy to see that it's a big deal down here. Easily over a hundred in the state and that is just the ones on the list. While at the beach in a tall condo tower I could hear lots of conversations. Several were just on frs frq but many were on gmrs/repeater freq. Absolutely no one used a call sign on the gmrs. No one! If you go to repeater tab and look up Florida it's amazing how many repeaters there are. I'm sure many are used in business but don't they still have to use call sign every 15 min? Just an observation.

Recent addition. For fathers day I got the B-tech 25 watt amp to use with HT in my truck. Was pretty pleased so far. I have a better quality pigtail on the way. And by that I mean a little thicker and hopefully will take a bit more wear and tear. I was using a battery saver and toward the end of last week I started being cut off from transmitting and the radio would beep and act like it turned back on. I thought it was TOT but it wasnt. It wound up being the saver getting hot and cutting off. Switched to back up saver and problem solved. As far as amplification, my swr shows 24 watts output from amp. It was advertised as producing some sort of multiplication of input wattage. My HT puts out 4.8 so doesnt look like that is what is happening.

So I've learned

Yes Michael It is a lot of fun. But just under the surface is also a desire to not be controlled by an outside company to rely on for communication. And getting things together and seeing it work is great. My father was a master electrician and dealt with the first cable company in our city. Many times he had to build equipment because there were few things out there at the time. When he was young he was a radio operator voice and Morse code on b 29. I attempted code but I sucked so there goes that. I can geek out with the best of them but having a self sustaining means of coms is the best reasons. I will get as much kick from making my own installation brackets that work the way I want them to work just as much as the radio equipment it self.

Yeah that sounds like the same characteristics. Between the layers of this tape on the roll is mylar film to keep it from becoming a solid Puck.

One last thing. I was talking with a guy on a repeater about 50 miles to me. I first started on my base and then out in the mobile. As expected I was able to talk on the base but we were pretty amazed when he could still make out what I was saying and I was on a mobile rig. I give this gear two thumbs up.

I have posted about a lot of my set up but this weekend I got the last piece of the puzzle and it all works much better than expected I must say. For my base station I have the Tram 1486 up around 25 ft to the bottom of antenna. On a Rohn mast bracketed to the house and Rl400. Inside I have power source and use a wouxun (sp?) 1000g radio. Right from the start that seemed to be a pretty solid set up. I have been talking to folks through a couple repeaters. One over 50 miles away across a range of we like to call mountains in nw Arkansas. Ive been able to listen to very clear conversations coming from that repeater and I talk to our "local" guys on a repeater in a town around 30 miles south. They have always said I was strong and clear with little noise. Now in my truck. I hadnt finished the installation because I wasnt sure of the final configuration. Well now I absolutely am. The radio is 805G. I started with Nagoya 775 on the HT and driving around and seeing how far I could talk to my base. From inside the truck it was right around 2.5 miles due to hills and trees. I then upgraded to a nagoya 770g and made my own bracket to mount it to the top of my cab. My entire truck body is fiberglass to the metal bracket I think helps w ground plane also. When testing the swr with this set up it was basically the same on all frequencies. I almost wrote channels, working on it. 1:1.04. At this point I retested the distance with home base and it pretty much doubled with just this antenna on the outside of the truck. Im sure many would do the exact same thing but this is my list none the less. I didnt finish the inside installation until I knew how I would run it. I dropped hints to the fam for a btech 25 watt amp for fathers day. Well they came through!! I hooked it up and started talking to one of the guys on our local repeater, 30 miles away. What he described to me of how my radio sounded made me smile all day:) So next was a distance and clarity around the town test. I was really excited on how far I could be and clearly talk to home. I made a loop into town and back home. Normally I would get cut off about half way to town and never get picked back up.. This trip I never dropped even in dips. Even on my end it sounded like I was still in the subdivision. Still have some more testing to do but this will be the set up I am going to run as a mobile. It gives me the ability to bring the battery and antenna and exit the truck and have an HT with me. I am working on getting a repeater up for use in our area on a mountain just outside town. I dont think there will be many if any dead spots in and around town after that gets put up !! Now that I have settled on this combination, my next step will be deciding how to mount everything in a more secure way.