MichaelLAX

Ok, this has gone way off the boards, tempers have flared and research has been done by others even though I sought to avoid that consumption of time and energy on an off-topic point: My original comment was historical and YES, when Ham Radio went digital, between 2001 and 2010 D*Star was proprietary and that is why I never used it. @Sshannon and @KAF6045have done the work to show that, today, it appears that the proprietary owners of D*Star have "opened" their standard (whatever that means in a marketing document online). Thank you for your time and effort. That does not change the historical fact that in 2010 I did not jump on D*Star and waited until DMR became available on the RD-5R some years later. And that does not change my opinion that today there must be some proprietary aspect of the technology that keeps the CCR field from jumping on that bandwagon, otherwise they would be all over it, just like they are all over DMR and ham radio! To the extent that my description, inartfully articulated or otherwise, of my history with D*Star caused this flare up, I apologize!

I'd bet dollars to a donuts that 99% of the time, you will be met with a friendly response, even if it is to tell you the repeater is private. I came to GMRS in 2018 with the purchase of my first UV-5R, and some "old-timers" will tell you that historically GMRS repeaters are meant for family use. However much that may have been true in the old days, after the 2017 reorganization, all bets are off, and with a few exceptions not relevant to your use in Florida, feel free to use it as you like. By that I mean since license free FRS simplex users now have access to all of the GMRS simplex channels, including the repeater output channels, why should a licensed GMRS user have any less ability to use these frequencies? In my anecdotal experience here in Southern California I have never been refused to use an open GMRS repeater, including those that I discovered on my own including decoding the Tones.

Are you sure it didn’t dinner your computer career?! ?

I’m truly sorry to hear that from you as I find you to be one of the more serious intelligent members of this Forum. If you feel that any past statement of mine is factually inaccurate, please link me to it and I will be happy to back up its accuracy or admit that I was wrong. On the issue of my contention that D*Star is proprietary, the proof of the pudding is that there are no Baofeng, Radioddity, TYT or other CCR D*Star radios for sale.

In the meantime, check out@OffRoaderX's Thursday Night Nets and Zello, and yes, in their instance you must be approved. More information here

I have a question: Is that a Telecaster?!

Next you'll be calling their computer, the Trash-80! ?

The Urban Dictionary defines Troll as: This initial statement was posted deliberately by you with the clear intent of attempting to use "what about-ism" to cause maximum argument. It is a red herring*! *Red herring - Merriam Webster defines as: And that's what's wrong with Trolling; you just want to beat me over the head any chance you get, so that the result is that a Newbie gets intimidated from considering all possible answers to their question! And I was a bit surprised that @Sshannongot taken in by your misinformation until I went back and reread your quote of my original statement, which clearly left out: Nice try!

No there is no difference; you are just refusing to admit that my original statement ended by saying:

Let's dissect this further. So my original response was: Without taking the time to cite actual examples, it is well known on this Forum that many, if not most, requests for permission go unanswered. And many repeater owners on their myGMRS Forum repeater page actually say to not waste their time as requests for permission will not be responded to. So the OP wants to use the Cocoa 675 repeater and does one or more of the following: • He breaks into a conversation he hears on it, to ask more about the repeater •He breaks into a conversation he hears on it, to ask how he can obtain permission to use the repeater. •Not hearing any conversations on the repeater, he gives out a call asking for more information and/or permission to use the repeater. •Not having heard any conversations on the repeater not having received an answer to his inquiry, he and a friend start using the repeater. IMHO the OP has the ability and the right to do ALL of the above until such time as a person authorized to speak for the repeater owner tells him not to continue using the repeater.

With all due respect, that is not an answer to my question which was historical. Further, Wikipedia is not the end all/be all; it is like any other encyclopedia: you have to do further research on their citations to be sure they are making a correct statement -- in this context the quote you made shows NO citation to further research the truth of their statement. Are you suggesting that Kenwood manufactures and distributes D*Star radios without any licenses based upon a quote from Wikipedia? If that were true, where are all the CCR D*Star radios?!?

Since I do respect your opinions which tend to be well-stated and founded in fact and reason; with whom are you agreeing for the most part?

Wow: you joined a GMRS Forum in July just to rant about a Ham Radio organization (and to say Welcome)?!? How do you feel about the price of turkeys this last week??? ? PS: Thank you for your service.

So you're saying that Kenwood implementation of D*Star did not require any legal licenses from 3rd parties (other than the use of AMBE), such as ICOM and/or the Japan Amateur Radio League? I believe you are historically incorrect, but it is just not worth the time to research the point and debate it.

Since you have a history of posting contrary comments to many of my posts, I will not waste my time other than to say your reply is a complete distortion of my position and practice. And I find your practice of trolling me disturbing and needs some serious reconsideration.

Another Midland "feature!" ?

That question is beyond my pay-grade, but historically it was great fun to listen to with a cat's whisker home brew crystal radio (similar to this one): In my days as a teenager it was KMPC, 710 AM, owned by the legendary Cowboy Singer, Gene Autry. Now it is an ESPN affiliate, KSPN.

Correct me if I am wrong: you are frustrated that the closest GMRS repeater to your home is "down" and you are looking for ways to "communicate" with other GMRS users of the Midwest GMRS network via your computer? While I am not well-versed in this area, I will note that the repeater set up by @OffRoaderXcan be accessed through a smartphone app called Zello to communicate with other GMRS users of this repeater, whether by OTA or also through Zello. Since I live too far west to "hit" his repeater, I am a registered user through Zello. Different technology, but similar in practice to how I use EchoLink on my iPhone to communicate through far off Amateur Radio repeaters. So perhaps the Midwest GMRS repeater network has one of these technologies implemented?

I have friends that live around the corner from this 50,000 watt AM radio antenna system and have been none to happy about the possible affects on their children's brains!

It's normal. My attitude is that if a repeaters radio waves cross over to your radio, such that you can decode its tones and use the repeater, you have the right to use the repeater until such time as a "proper" authority tells you otherwise. Obviously being courteous in attempting to obtain permission first is always good practice.

I think you are being unduly technical about the vocabulary in my general statement that: The fact of the matter is that when D*Star become commercially available to amateur radio (and through the repeaters of my local PAPA club), ICOM was the only vendor that offered such equipment (and even to this day holds the trademark on the term D*Star). That is when I made the decision that I did not want to be tied to one companies implementation of this technology and waited until DMR became popular, whose technology became freely available for multiple manufactures to implement, including of course CCRs. By the time DMR and its Brandmeister implementation for Amateur Radio, became prevalent, even AMBE was being implemented without the requirement of separate license fees in such products as DVDongle, etc. by use of the relatively inexpensively licensed DVSI vocoder chip. In any event, it is a side point that I made about ICOM and is not too relevant to the OP's current use of an ICOM LMR for GMRS mounted in his vehicle's cup-holder. I don't think it is worth debating the technological specifics in a world where digital communications are available in many flavors from many vendors.

TBH: My AT-779UV (a/k/a Radioddity DB20-G) performs so well in the shack through my Comet CX-333 for GMRS, I just don't see any reason for the increased investment. I've always been a big ICOM fan, although I never purchased any of their radios. When Ham Radio went digital, I was just offended that D*Star was proprietary software and never showed any interest in Digital until DMR (based upon TMDA) became available on the Radioddity RD-5R. I enjoy to be able to scan all of my available frequencies in VHF/UHF on 500 channels and jump on to any convo that I hear!

Thank you for that detailed review. Of course for that much money (used) and ICOM's reputation I would only expect a much better radio. I looked it up and too bad they are only UHF or VHF and not both! Does ICOM make a Ham Radio version that mimics this radio?

I hope you remembered to feed her at least!?! ?

? WHUT? ?