WRNA236

It is interesting how people grow accustomed to full duplex conversations.  I'm kind of the opposite since I talk on two-ways as much as anything.  I find I don't say much in Zoom meetings.  My habit is to hesitate a couple of seconds to make sure the speaker is complete (e.g. subconsciously i'm waiting for the repeater tail or squelch drop).  During which time someone invariably jumps in and starts speaking!

It is interesting how people grow accustomed to full duplex conversations.  I'm kind of the opposite since I talk on two-ways as much as anything.  I find I don't say much in Zoom meetings.  My habit is to hesitate a couple of seconds to make sure the speaker is complete (e.g. subconsciously i'm waiting for the repeater tail or squelch drop).  During which time someone invariably jumps in and starts speaking!

It is interesting how people grow accustomed to full duplex conversations.  I'm kind of the opposite since I talk on two-ways as much as anything.  I find I don't say much in Zoom meetings.  My habit is to hesitate a couple of seconds to make sure the speaker is complete (e.g. subconsciously i'm waiting for the repeater tail or squelch drop).  During which time someone invariably jumps in and starts speaking!

tl:dr:
Some CCRs are really bad clinkers while others work reasonably well.  That's the same situation as anything coming out of China, though.  They'll make anything you ask them to make at whatever price point you want it to meet.  So read reviews and test reports on this (or any) radio.  If they work alright and seem well built then don't worry about the architecture.
 
Long answer:
Don't get wrapped around the axle about SoC or similarly the terms direct conversion, direct sampling, SDR, hybrid, double conversion, heterodyne, etc.  The words are thrown around indiscriminately.  Basically a good radio is a good radio no matter its architecture while a bad radio will be bad regardless.  The RDA1846 chip that most of these radios use can perform adequately if the design is sound otherwise.  It's one particular frequency agile wideband RF chip but not the only by far.  There's tons of them now, some that cover HF to SHF.  One I'm familiar with is an Analog Devices part that can TX and RX on 2x2 MIMO from 70 MHz to 6 GHz.  It's not something intended for cheap consumer HTs though.  The chip is $300 alone and a drop-in SoM (System on a Module) is $1,600...
You might generalize saying it's easier to make a straight superheterodyne radio that performs fine but is less expensive.  Mostly it's reliability and build quality that suffers.  After decades of engineering churn there's not much fat left to cut in the fundamental architecture to significantly improve performance so all you're left with is using cheaper components.  So it won't last as long being tossed around but the actual RF performance is indistinguishable otherwise.   But such a radio is inflexible and doesn't lend itself to adaption to something else.
DSP techniques are still evolving and proprietary.  So there's a lot more ways to screw up a direct conversion radio.  Algorithms and firmware are where established companies (Motorola, Harris, Yaesu, Kenwood, whomever) can really distance themselves from competitors.  Motorola is probably using direct conversion in the XPR7000 and EVX models and it works well.  But then again no one other than Motorola knows really what is inside their ASICs to know for sure.
But the guts don't matter, they aren't able to bend the laws of economics, physics or engineering.  What matters is where the rubber meets the road - does it work or not?  And if they can do it other companies can, too.  In fact Harris builds most of the high performance, high reliability radios for the military and one portable example, the AN/PRC-152 (Falcon III), is a highly frequency nimble (covers 30-512 MHz and 762-870 MHz without gaps) 5 watt TX SDR that can do several analog and digital modes, some of which (like APCO-25, amongst other things) were added with a firmware upgrade after the radio was accepted and put into service. 
That sort of flexibility is why SDR is where it's at.  The reason these CCRs proliferate is once a basic design is done they can adapt it to just about anything.  That comes with up- and downsides.  They can just make them faster and cheaper or they can add interesting form factors or features, whatever.  And even heterodyne architecture have DSP, so the line isn't really that distinct to say this-or-that.
If you're still interested after that diatribe you can start digging into the engineering behind various architectures and RF generally here: https://analog.intgckts.com/wireless-receiver-architectures/

I agree that it shouldn't take $500 to get some of this stuff but I do think it's unreasonable to expect all the way down to a $20 radio.  Bubble pack radios aren't even made to be repaired or aligned, they are use-and-toss.  So expecting more than a basic user manual is at best hopeful. 
Also the talent you allude to is not limitless.  If you want a radio to hit a price point there's only so many NRE hours they can afford to throw at it.  So if you want the time spent writing manuals it will likely come at the expense of design or quality in the actual device. 
Same with including CPS.  I'm one who thinks a radio should have free or reasonably priced software to program it but I also don't expect it to be a feature-rich experience.  A basic tool to get the job done is fine. 

tl:dr:
Some CCRs are really bad clinkers while others work reasonably well.  That's the same situation as anything coming out of China, though.  They'll make anything you ask them to make at whatever price point you want it to meet.  So read reviews and test reports on this (or any) radio.  If they work alright and seem well built then don't worry about the architecture.
 
Long answer:
Don't get wrapped around the axle about SoC or similarly the terms direct conversion, direct sampling, SDR, hybrid, double conversion, heterodyne, etc.  The words are thrown around indiscriminately.  Basically a good radio is a good radio no matter its architecture while a bad radio will be bad regardless.  The RDA1846 chip that most of these radios use can perform adequately if the design is sound otherwise.  It's one particular frequency agile wideband RF chip but not the only by far.  There's tons of them now, some that cover HF to SHF.  One I'm familiar with is an Analog Devices part that can TX and RX on 2x2 MIMO from 70 MHz to 6 GHz.  It's not something intended for cheap consumer HTs though.  The chip is $300 alone and a drop-in SoM (System on a Module) is $1,600...
You might generalize saying it's easier to make a straight superheterodyne radio that performs fine but is less expensive.  Mostly it's reliability and build quality that suffers.  After decades of engineering churn there's not much fat left to cut in the fundamental architecture to significantly improve performance so all you're left with is using cheaper components.  So it won't last as long being tossed around but the actual RF performance is indistinguishable otherwise.   But such a radio is inflexible and doesn't lend itself to adaption to something else.
DSP techniques are still evolving and proprietary.  So there's a lot more ways to screw up a direct conversion radio.  Algorithms and firmware are where established companies (Motorola, Harris, Yaesu, Kenwood, whomever) can really distance themselves from competitors.  Motorola is probably using direct conversion in the XPR7000 and EVX models and it works well.  But then again no one other than Motorola knows really what is inside their ASICs to know for sure.
But the guts don't matter, they aren't able to bend the laws of economics, physics or engineering.  What matters is where the rubber meets the road - does it work or not?  And if they can do it other companies can, too.  In fact Harris builds most of the high performance, high reliability radios for the military and one portable example, the AN/PRC-152 (Falcon III), is a highly frequency nimble (covers 30-512 MHz and 762-870 MHz without gaps) 5 watt TX SDR that can do several analog and digital modes, some of which (like APCO-25, amongst other things) were added with a firmware upgrade after the radio was accepted and put into service. 
That sort of flexibility is why SDR is where it's at.  The reason these CCRs proliferate is once a basic design is done they can adapt it to just about anything.  That comes with up- and downsides.  They can just make them faster and cheaper or they can add interesting form factors or features, whatever.  And even heterodyne architecture have DSP, so the line isn't really that distinct to say this-or-that.
If you're still interested after that diatribe you can start digging into the engineering behind various architectures and RF generally here: https://analog.intgckts.com/wireless-receiver-architectures/

tl:dr:
Some CCRs are really bad clinkers while others work reasonably well.  That's the same situation as anything coming out of China, though.  They'll make anything you ask them to make at whatever price point you want it to meet.  So read reviews and test reports on this (or any) radio.  If they work alright and seem well built then don't worry about the architecture.
 
Long answer:
Don't get wrapped around the axle about SoC or similarly the terms direct conversion, direct sampling, SDR, hybrid, double conversion, heterodyne, etc.  The words are thrown around indiscriminately.  Basically a good radio is a good radio no matter its architecture while a bad radio will be bad regardless.  The RDA1846 chip that most of these radios use can perform adequately if the design is sound otherwise.  It's one particular frequency agile wideband RF chip but not the only by far.  There's tons of them now, some that cover HF to SHF.  One I'm familiar with is an Analog Devices part that can TX and RX on 2x2 MIMO from 70 MHz to 6 GHz.  It's not something intended for cheap consumer HTs though.  The chip is $300 alone and a drop-in SoM (System on a Module) is $1,600...
You might generalize saying it's easier to make a straight superheterodyne radio that performs fine but is less expensive.  Mostly it's reliability and build quality that suffers.  After decades of engineering churn there's not much fat left to cut in the fundamental architecture to significantly improve performance so all you're left with is using cheaper components.  So it won't last as long being tossed around but the actual RF performance is indistinguishable otherwise.   But such a radio is inflexible and doesn't lend itself to adaption to something else.
DSP techniques are still evolving and proprietary.  So there's a lot more ways to screw up a direct conversion radio.  Algorithms and firmware are where established companies (Motorola, Harris, Yaesu, Kenwood, whomever) can really distance themselves from competitors.  Motorola is probably using direct conversion in the XPR7000 and EVX models and it works well.  But then again no one other than Motorola knows really what is inside their ASICs to know for sure.
But the guts don't matter, they aren't able to bend the laws of economics, physics or engineering.  What matters is where the rubber meets the road - does it work or not?  And if they can do it other companies can, too.  In fact Harris builds most of the high performance, high reliability radios for the military and one portable example, the AN/PRC-152 (Falcon III), is a highly frequency nimble (covers 30-512 MHz and 762-870 MHz without gaps) 5 watt TX SDR that can do several analog and digital modes, some of which (like APCO-25, amongst other things) were added with a firmware upgrade after the radio was accepted and put into service. 
That sort of flexibility is why SDR is where it's at.  The reason these CCRs proliferate is once a basic design is done they can adapt it to just about anything.  That comes with up- and downsides.  They can just make them faster and cheaper or they can add interesting form factors or features, whatever.  And even heterodyne architecture have DSP, so the line isn't really that distinct to say this-or-that.
If you're still interested after that diatribe you can start digging into the engineering behind various architectures and RF generally here: https://analog.intgckts.com/wireless-receiver-architectures/

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tl:dr:
Some CCRs are really bad clinkers while others work reasonably well.  That's the same situation as anything coming out of China, though.  They'll make anything you ask them to make at whatever price point you want it to meet.  So read reviews and test reports on this (or any) radio.  If they work alright and seem well built then don't worry about the architecture.
 
Long answer:
Don't get wrapped around the axle about SoC or similarly the terms direct conversion, direct sampling, SDR, hybrid, double conversion, heterodyne, etc.  The words are thrown around indiscriminately.  Basically a good radio is a good radio no matter its architecture while a bad radio will be bad regardless.  The RDA1846 chip that most of these radios use can perform adequately if the design is sound otherwise.  It's one particular frequency agile wideband RF chip but not the only by far.  There's tons of them now, some that cover HF to SHF.  One I'm familiar with is an Analog Devices part that can TX and RX on 2x2 MIMO from 70 MHz to 6 GHz.  It's not something intended for cheap consumer HTs though.  The chip is $300 alone and a drop-in SoM (System on a Module) is $1,600...
You might generalize saying it's easier to make a straight superheterodyne radio that performs fine but is less expensive.  Mostly it's reliability and build quality that suffers.  After decades of engineering churn there's not much fat left to cut in the fundamental architecture to significantly improve performance so all you're left with is using cheaper components.  So it won't last as long being tossed around but the actual RF performance is indistinguishable otherwise.   But such a radio is inflexible and doesn't lend itself to adaption to something else.
DSP techniques are still evolving and proprietary.  So there's a lot more ways to screw up a direct conversion radio.  Algorithms and firmware are where established companies (Motorola, Harris, Yaesu, Kenwood, whomever) can really distance themselves from competitors.  Motorola is probably using direct conversion in the XPR7000 and EVX models and it works well.  But then again no one other than Motorola knows really what is inside their ASICs to know for sure.
But the guts don't matter, they aren't able to bend the laws of economics, physics or engineering.  What matters is where the rubber meets the road - does it work or not?  And if they can do it other companies can, too.  In fact Harris builds most of the high performance, high reliability radios for the military and one portable example, the AN/PRC-152 (Falcon III), is a highly frequency nimble (covers 30-512 MHz and 762-870 MHz without gaps) 5 watt TX SDR that can do several analog and digital modes, some of which (like APCO-25, amongst other things) were added with a firmware upgrade after the radio was accepted and put into service. 
That sort of flexibility is why SDR is where it's at.  The reason these CCRs proliferate is once a basic design is done they can adapt it to just about anything.  That comes with up- and downsides.  They can just make them faster and cheaper or they can add interesting form factors or features, whatever.  And even heterodyne architecture have DSP, so the line isn't really that distinct to say this-or-that.
If you're still interested after that diatribe you can start digging into the engineering behind various architectures and RF generally here: https://analog.intgckts.com/wireless-receiver-architectures/

I wouldn't touch any radio from which the original tags had been removed... ?

tl:dr:
Some CCRs are really bad clinkers while others work reasonably well.  That's the same situation as anything coming out of China, though.  They'll make anything you ask them to make at whatever price point you want it to meet.  So read reviews and test reports on this (or any) radio.  If they work alright and seem well built then don't worry about the architecture.
 
Long answer:
Don't get wrapped around the axle about SoC or similarly the terms direct conversion, direct sampling, SDR, hybrid, double conversion, heterodyne, etc.  The words are thrown around indiscriminately.  Basically a good radio is a good radio no matter its architecture while a bad radio will be bad regardless.  The RDA1846 chip that most of these radios use can perform adequately if the design is sound otherwise.  It's one particular frequency agile wideband RF chip but not the only by far.  There's tons of them now, some that cover HF to SHF.  One I'm familiar with is an Analog Devices part that can TX and RX on 2x2 MIMO from 70 MHz to 6 GHz.  It's not something intended for cheap consumer HTs though.  The chip is $300 alone and a drop-in SoM (System on a Module) is $1,600...
You might generalize saying it's easier to make a straight superheterodyne radio that performs fine but is less expensive.  Mostly it's reliability and build quality that suffers.  After decades of engineering churn there's not much fat left to cut in the fundamental architecture to significantly improve performance so all you're left with is using cheaper components.  So it won't last as long being tossed around but the actual RF performance is indistinguishable otherwise.   But such a radio is inflexible and doesn't lend itself to adaption to something else.
DSP techniques are still evolving and proprietary.  So there's a lot more ways to screw up a direct conversion radio.  Algorithms and firmware are where established companies (Motorola, Harris, Yaesu, Kenwood, whomever) can really distance themselves from competitors.  Motorola is probably using direct conversion in the XPR7000 and EVX models and it works well.  But then again no one other than Motorola knows really what is inside their ASICs to know for sure.
But the guts don't matter, they aren't able to bend the laws of economics, physics or engineering.  What matters is where the rubber meets the road - does it work or not?  And if they can do it other companies can, too.  In fact Harris builds most of the high performance, high reliability radios for the military and one portable example, the AN/PRC-152 (Falcon III), is a highly frequency nimble (covers 30-512 MHz and 762-870 MHz without gaps) 5 watt TX SDR that can do several analog and digital modes, some of which (like APCO-25, amongst other things) were added with a firmware upgrade after the radio was accepted and put into service. 
That sort of flexibility is why SDR is where it's at.  The reason these CCRs proliferate is once a basic design is done they can adapt it to just about anything.  That comes with up- and downsides.  They can just make them faster and cheaper or they can add interesting form factors or features, whatever.  And even heterodyne architecture have DSP, so the line isn't really that distinct to say this-or-that.
If you're still interested after that diatribe you can start digging into the engineering behind various architectures and RF generally here: https://analog.intgckts.com/wireless-receiver-architectures/

Are we sure it isn't  a third harmonic problem with the Sheriffs transmitter?
 
Well looky here:
 
FRS Channel 11 : 467.6375 / 3 = 155.879 MHz
 
155.880000  (output)
  158.95500 (Input) KNEP918 Sheriff Dispatch   Custer County   Law Dispatch    
Looks like either the Sheriff is the violation or the BaoFengShui GMRS V1 cannot tolerate all those powerful signals getting into it from the new base antenna. My money is on the BF GMRS V1 crapping itself.

I would guess it boils down to being easy to do with existing hardware and be first to that market, rather than developing something from scratch.
Repurposing existing hardware with firmware tweaks seems to be wouxun's thing, really, and they seem reasonably willing to modify an existing product to a vendor's specs, probably with a minimum order quantity. It seems like buytwowayradios and bettersaferradio both have pretty much one-off wouxun products, no?
No disagreement that making it small would make sense, though the remote head capability the 980/1000 chassis brings is something rarely found in the smaller radios, and may make the actual size of the unit less of an issue since you can stash most of it in the trunk or under a seat.

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I have run across several articles that support the idea that alternative, non-OEM HT antennas do not necessarily perform better than a radio's stock OEM one.  Here is one such article...
https://www.hamradio.me/antennas/ht-antenna-comparisons.html
The author also showed that the use of a tiger tail aka counterpoise does not provide a universal benefit - it does in some cases but not others.
The author's takeaways:
1) For his Yaesu FT1D, the stock antenna performed well. (Perhaps the Yaesu/ICOM/Kenwood) engineers design an antenna tuned well for each particular model.)
2) If he needs a more capable antenna for demanding situations, he recommends a roll up antenna (e.g., Ed Fong DBJ-2).  Note that there are amateur radio and commercial versions of that antenna.  The commercial one is suitable for GMRS and MURS.  The rollup antenna would be good for home use or for stationary work camping or hiking.
Finally, and this is a personal decision for each of us - how many non-conspicuous extras do we want to add to our "portable" HTs?  A giant whippy antenna?  A counterpoise hanging off the radio?  Maybe a suit of armor with an NMO mount at the top of the helmet?  What a ground plane that would make.  ? 
4 out of 5 dentists say that walking around with an HT automatically disqualifies one from getting an invite to a Victoria's Secret show.  Walking around with an HT loaded with octopus-like accessories may go a step further - it might result in a regular block party invite getting "lost in the mail."  ??

I just made a dual band antenna out of two coat hangers  Ended up scrapping it due to over-trimming the 150mhz band portion.   I the video I saw had the coax connected directly to the coat hangers via the terminal strip, but when I remake mine I am going to use jumpers and connect an SMA male connector onto it for my SMA female coax connector.
 
Anyhow, I just welded the stinger onto another groundplane antenna using brass rod that I bought to make tumbler pins for locks.  They are 12 inches long and I am going to install them full length, and run my analyzer on it and see where it resonates and trim it from there.  Just curious..
 
I do not know how well brass will work, but I have plenty of brass, so/239's, and coat hangers, so I can play..
 
WRMQ982

The ARRL has provided a free "RF Exposure Calculator" for everyone to use. It is simple and straightforward:
RF Exposure Calculator (arrl.org)
More information and resources may be found here: RF Exposure (arrl.org)

Looks like the scadacore tool believes in a flat earth! 
Probably the paid version includes curvature but the free version leaves it out.
 
Vince

That 8" per mile rule of thumb tells you from your eye level how far the horizon is away from you if you're laying on the surface. 
If you're off the deck it's not a straight linear calculation because you're perpendicular to a curved surface and your view is a line tangent to the horizon to something else perpendicular to its surrounding chunk of the sphere..

 
The formula you use is:

So if your eyes are about 5 feet above the surface the horizon appears to be about 3 miles, not 7 like the 8 inches per mile would say.
Then if you have two observers trying to talk on perfectly flat ground that means the most they can be apart is 6 miles, each seeing 3 miles and meeting in the middle at their common tangent intersection.  Note that this is the optical line of sight, in reality you can see and radios can hear beyond the horizon due to diffraction, which in this case complicates the basic geometry.

 
Remember that "flat" is relative.  You're actually perpendicular to the surface of a round object. 

So the question is how tall does something have to be relative to the surface for you to see it.  This calculator introduces that using the concept of an "obscured part."
https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/earth-curvature#how-far-can-i-see-before-the-earth-curves

So if your observation point is 5 feet high and the distance over the curved surface of the sphere is 230 miles the object has to be 34,414 feet tall for you to see the top of it.  If you move your observation point to 200 feet the horizon becomes 17.3 miles away but something 230 miles away from still needs to be 30,144 feet tall.
Think about it with things you know.  Like a city skyline.  When you're driving into any city with tall buildings you can watch something several hundred or thousands of feet tall come into view as you travel just fractions of a mile on the surface of the Earth.
Also the military relies on this heavily, particularly for radar and for pilots and ships.  Their height or altitude is a critical way to stay obscured or knowing how high something should be so you have a clue to how far away they are.  For a radar antenna 100 feet high you can only see 12 nautical miles away, for example.
https://www.rfcafe.com/references/electrical/ew-radar-handbook/radar-horizon-line-of-sight.htm
 
 
 

There's no ISM band around GMRS so if you're hearing baby monitors it's an image.  They typically use 49 MHz, 902 MHz or 2.4 GHz. 
There is an ISM band in Europe and Africa (ITU Region 1) at 433 MHz that hams there have to co-exist with.  Here on 70cm hams are secondary users on part of our allocation to military radar.
The only user I can think of near the spectrum GMRS covers are meteorological satellites (such as GEOS) that have a downlink at around 468.8 to 468.9 MHz for DCP Interrogate.

Here's a few to scan through.
https://www.theantennafarm.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=191_193_258_977_978

Well that is not how it was presented to me back in the early days of D*Star, but a quick "google" indicates that your presentation is correct.
Thank you.