Raybestos

There is a smaller linked system with at least one machine in range of me. If they dropped the linking, I would much more want to join them so I could use their repeaters as stand-alones, rather than listen to the blather from another part of the state.

FWIW, this thing has made my life so much better. https://www.buytwowayradios.com/xlt-rpc-k1-uf.html I am not a computer geek of any sort. I despise them and yes, I know they make us being here, possible. These cables make programming any radio that I don't have RT Systems software for, so much more do-able.

You are right! As a Tech Plus (no longer issued but used to be Technician with 5 WPM code), I finally got my 13 WPM code test behind me. Unfortunately, I had not studied the then current General question pool and failed the written test. I studied the then current General manual and found a VE group about an hour away that was doing testing. Passed the General written test and the VE asked if I wanted to try for Advanced. I hadn't really studied for Advanced but what the hey? Why not? Had I missed one more question, I would have failed, but as it was, I left the session with an Advanced CSCE (Certificate Successful Completion of Element). My plan was to get the 20 WPM code under my belt, then get the Extra written. The FCC had other plans. They dropped Morse for all license classes requiring Morse to 5 WPM. At the same time, they streamlined it to three license classes, Technician, General, and Extra. Some months later they dropped the Morse requirement entirely. I recall the hostility toward Extras who passed only the 5 WPM test, and later, the "No Code Extras". That was one reason I held on to my Advanced for so long. There was no way to have Advanced without having passed 13 WPM and the hostile old pharts knew that. The hostility towards 5 WPM and No Code Extras is wrong. Even if a person studied, practiced, and used, Morse at 30 WPM, there is and has been no vehicle for Morse testing since around the year 2000.

I agree! The three stand-alones, left up and running as such, would probably be an even greater service to their local areas; allowing for three separate conversations to take place at once time, rather than just one.

I know people get tired of hearing it, but Technician is a breeze and General is not really that bad, either. I understand, many are not radio geeks like most of us hams, but all it takes is a little study for a week or few to pass it. I will share a Deep dark secret with you and anyone else that is interested. You don't have to know all of the stuff in the manual, just enough to pass the test. Yeah, Extra is a bit of a b-word, but it can be done, too! I recommend the Gordon West license manuals. He takes what is essentially boring, dry, material and makes it so you can remember it, using humour and other devices. Remember studying boring stuff like history, English, and all, in high school? Studying for a ham license is very close to that, except it is something you already have a little bit of interest in. No more Morse code test. No more drawing schematic diagrams of specific oscillator circuits. It is all multiple choice, and as you did in high school, you will hit questions where common sense and process of elimination will get you through it. For instance: "Profanity is allowed on ham radio: A) At any time. B ) After 10 PM. C) Before 12:00 Noon. D) At no time. Obviously, the answer would be "D". I have always been mathematically bewildered. When I decided it was time to upgrade from Advanced to Extra a dozen or so years ago, I bought a Gordon West "Extra" license manual. I promptly lost it and didn't see it for about a year. About a year later, I happened upon that manual. I looked at it and a little voice inside told me to find out when the next VE testing session would be in my area. It was one week from that day. I studied like crazy. Got to taking lots of online mock tests and trying to learn from my mistakes. The best I made on any of those tests was like a 70-something, failing all of them. Then I decided to actually study the math formulas using Gordon West's book. I was actually learning to make them work, the day before the test. The day of the test, I stopped by Starbucks and got a large iced mocha with extra espresso to keep the brain synapses firing. Brought an extra $14 for a second VE test in case I failed the first one. I took the test and for the life of me, there were a lot of questions I wasn't sure if I got right or wrong. That was one of those tests that do happen, where nothing much seems like what you studied. That is the reason for the extra money, in case you fail the first. Odds are, a second test will be more familiar. After I handed in my test, the examiner asked which I wanted first, the good news or the bad news. I told him I was braced for the bad news and to go with it. He said that if I hadn't missed two questions, I would have had a perfect score. There is stuff on the Technician test that I am not interested in, never really grasped, and never will. But like I said, all you need is enough to pass the test.

For the most part. As SteveShannon correctly noted, there is a small portion of 10m open to Technician. For the 75m and 40m stuff that I mentioned, yes, you need at least a General.

That is the stuff nightmares are made of. I fully expect to wake up screaming, then whimpering, tonight; after reading that. Gee, thanks.

You make a good point. SHTF can take many forms and cover everything from a neighborhood, to the whole country, even the world. If there were a widespread cellular outage lasting days or weeks, I imagine CB radios would start flying off the shelves in affected areas. Believe it or not, they can still get your voice out, and bring others' voices in, just as they did in the 1970's. Something that helps you find a working or stocked gas pump in time of shortage, is as valuable today as it was in 1973. Just knowing you have the means contact another person and ask them to send help; in the event of a vehicular breakdown, collision, or perhaps being targeted by a hostile person or groups of people, could mean a lot. When I talk of ham radio, it is not because I think hams are the greatest, the best, or anything; but the fact that there are a lot more ham repeaters in most places than GMRS, and they usually have greater range, makes it worth mentioning. Although most hams do not participate in it, hams have a neat thing going for them called the National Traffic System or NTS. This consists of long established nets, usually on 75 meters and 40 meters, that handle message "traffic" in the form of brief formatted messages, known as "Radiograms". These nets meet daily or nightly and handle traffic coming into or going out of a given area, coming from or going to another area. Frequently, these messages reach the final recipient in a day or two. In the event of a situation like 9-11, health and welfare messages to loved ones who had no other means of knowing the status of a friend or family member in a disaster area can mean so much. Learning how to format, copy, and relay these messages is an integral part of these hf (shortwave) nets. In an area with a GMRS repeater with good coverage, as with CB, being able to communicate with others and knowing you are not totally alone can be a huge comfort.

Because those on the linked system have no idea about anyone they may be denying access to/interfering with, nor do they give a flip. They have their noisy little toy that lets them pretend they are hams by talking unnaturally long distances, using the same technology that facilitates most long distance calla, VOIP. That is all that matters to them.

I hold my own, too. There was that one time in the bus station restroom when some creepy guy offered to hold it for me. I told him "no thanks".

You would need to set the R-CTCSS and the T-CTCSS to the tone your group is using. Let's say they are using 173.8, for instance. This applies to any of the analog tones. Be sure to "Confirm" by hitting the "Menu" button after the tone is selected on each Menu choice (R-CTCSS and T-CTCSS). If you select a digital tone, then you would put whatever tone your group is using in "R-DCS" and in "T-DCS". For instance, if your group is using "D311N", you would put that tone in both "R-DCS" and "T-DCS". As with analog, be sure to "Confirm" or set the tone in memory by hitting the "Menu" button after selecting the tone for each Menu item. Hope this helps.

Hi Marc! I agree with you about satellite/voting receivers to fill in reception gaps for mobiles and ht's on large footprint repeaters. That really adds no additional interference issue and requires no additional use of scarce bandwidth. I see no harm with that.

Yes, from listening to the conversation, the two guys were on one repeater, about a hundred miles away. Because it is a linked system, their conversation tied up the channel in my area, and a few others, all on different frequencies. Had they been on the Ch 19 repeater, I would have just chalked it up as, "that's the breaks".

Hi Marc! Normally, on many topics, I might be inclined to agree with you, but not on this one. Regarding linking GMRS repeaters, it is much more than going against my personal preference. These linked repeaters, as correctly noted by the FCC in their most recent missive on the topic, go against the originally intended purpose of Class A CB/GMRS. In many cases, they tie up precious and scarce GMRS spectrum for hours with absolute drivel that often as not, is taking place on one repeater, maybe two, out of several or dozens of linked repeaters. This renders not only the linked repeaters not being used to facilitate the conversation as useless, but also use of the 50W simplex channels (same frequencies) which carry those conversations but are not involved in them. There are areas in our country where all eight repeater/50W simplex channels are polluted with conversations taking place on one repeater in the linked system for significant portions of the day. What about the rights of GMRS licensees and their families to use the service as originally intended? Do they not matter? Or does "might make right"? Friday about a week ago, I decided to try the unofficial and informal Friday night 9PM Simplex net on Channel 19 (462.550). Unfortunately, there is a linked repeater on that frequency tied in with several others, located about 20 miles from me. It has a fairly strong signal at my home. Wouldn't you know it, right at 9PM, two guys on a repeater about 100 miles away started jawjacking and rendered all of the repeaters on that paid network, as well as the Simplex channels those repeaters were on, useless. "Hey Bob." "Yeah." "Whut are you doin." "Nothin." "Me too." ...and it just went on and on from there. Was me being unable to contact a possible local on simplex, the end of the world? Of course not, but this typifies how obnoxious linked repeaters are. I am also a ham. I think the linked repeaters suck on 2m, 220, 440, etc, for similar reasons, but I am not calling for outlawing them. Ham has lots more spectrum to accommodate this foolishness and has, as one of its many purposes, facilitation of experimentation and such. If someone has an insatiable desire to use the exact same technology (VOIP) that facilitates long distance phone calls, let em get their Technician or higher class license. If it isn't worth that small effort to them to make it happen, then they never really wanted it to begin with. With "freedom" comes responsibility. Do laws that require us to drive on the right hand side of the road equal tyranny? What about laws requiring us to stop at a Stop sign or red light? Should someone be able to decide to block off your street and stage an hour long parade down it, denying you access to your home or the ability to leave it?

Exactly! The only thing that should be affected are those long and pointless national and regional nets that seemingly drone on forever. "Net control, this is WABC123 in Miami, checking in. Thanks for calling the Net, Bill." "Net Control, this is WDEF456 in Seattle checking in. Thanks for calling the Net, Bill." "Net Control, this is WGHI789 in New York checking in. Thanks for calling the Net, Bill." ...and on, and on, and on, and, on... If anyone really misses this so much, hopefully someone will record the last one and put it on a CD or similar. On what would have been Net night and time each week, they can play it. It will be pretty much the same info and informational value.

Hopefully, the FCC will have the foresight and the sense to make linking repeaters prohibited, by whatever means. They got it right about it not serving the purpose of GMRS with linking. This is a cancer that never should have seen the light of day.

Boy, did you ever get reamed out! I guess I need to confess my sins and hope they are a little kinder and gentler with me. "Forgive me Father for I have sinned..." Back in late 1992, I planned a vacation to Middle Tennessee with my girlfriend at the time. While there, we were going to do some research that had the potential for us to split up and check out old grave yards. In that day, nobody I knew had a pocket or belt size cell phone. I had a hardshell portable/mobile and had to punch in an activation code for any roaming area I might try and use it in. There was no FRS. There was no MURS. GMRS existed but as far as I know, you needed prohibitively expensive Moto or GE radios for that. The night before we were to leave, I was in Radio Shack and saw a pair of Itinerate Business ht's (1 or 2 Watt) that were packed on the Red Dot channel. From listening to that channel on my scanners, I already knew it was a mostly unlicensed free-for-all. Still, it fit my needs at the time, quite well. CB ht's were too big and bulky. Their antennas were too long and they did not work satisfactorily inside of buildings. These small business radios were just what I needed to keep in touch with her for safety and convenience. They were CSQ only with option to add another itinerate business channel, which I never did. The xmit and receive audio of those radios was outstanding. We used them throughout the trip and occasionally on her small rural tract of land, back home. The only other party besides my girlfriend that I talked with on the trip, was a guy in Gatlinburg. I was on a mountain about 18 miles from Gatlinburg and asked if anyone was out there. This guy was on a mobile and we both heard each other with full quieting signals. Were we taking that trip today, FRS/GMRS would have met our needs perfectly. Back then, there was no such option, especially on a budget and on short notice.

Says the guy who has a home where he can key up one of his favorite repeaters, 69 miles away, with just about any ht he happens to have laying around.

Yeah, 100, 200, or however many users ×2 or so kerchunks a day might get a bit annoying. I have never heard that level of kerchunks from people casually checking out the system on any repeater. The occasional malicious interference generator, I have heard do that, but that is a whole other situation. Can you imagine 100, 200, or more pointless ID's and contacts in the same day?

Hi OffRoaderX! I meant to say "harder". I have since corrected it. If one is determined to hack the tone, they will get it. That is true. If there is not much traffic on the repeater to allow for tone scan, the next way they might try hacking it is going through all possible tones to see which one keys up the repeater. If there is no hang time, that option is pretty much off of the table.

As to kerchunking, I never got why some people got so bent out of shape about the occasional kerchunk. Yes, frequent or continuous kerchunking can be annoying. I get that. Occasional kerchunks never bothered me, though I have known plenty (mostly hams) who got totally bent out of shape over it. "Why do some people not spend the extra effort to identify along with the kerchunk?" Probably because they just wanted to ascertain that the repeater was working and/or get an idea as to how well they could receive it from their present location. They may not have wanted to get trapped in a long conversation with one of the many emotionally needy souls who sit by the radio all day, waiting for some hapless soul to identify so they can pounce on them.

Some owners of closed (owner and close associates only) repeaters will set it to zero hang time so that potential intruders do not know there is a repeater there and if they do, it makes it harder for them to hack the PL or DPL. I understand and get their reason for doing that. Why anyone running an open system repeater would set their hang time to zero is beyond me. It is a total (b-word) move in my opinion. Leaving at least a two second hang time lets users know that 1, they hit the repeater, and 2, gives them some idea how well they can hear the repeater from their present vantage point. I was aware of at least one well-known radio dealer that set up an open system repeater with zero hang time. Also, they required a tone to access it (good idea) but did not encode the tone on the repeater's output (dumb idea). That meant if the end users (who frequently were their customers) would often think there was no repeater on the air when traveling through the store's area, due to zero hang time. The lack of a tone on the output also meant if your tone decoder was turned on, you would not hear anyone responding to you. It also meant that since your decoder had to be turned off to hear the repeater, end users potentially had to listen to static from various sources, as well as FRS kiddie talkies and the like while monitoring that repeater system. None of these things went far towards giving a good impression of the expertise you might expect from that store's technical staff.

I understand that it can be fun to ask in a desperate voice, for someone to bring a roll of tp to the dressing room. Reiterate that you had to go and there is no tp in the dressing room and you really need some to "clean up" with.

I have posted this before. For those who have seen it already, I will beg your forgiveness on the redundancy. For those who may not have seen it, I hope it helps. Any radio I have which allows for more channels, in addition to the main thirty most radios come packed with, I do the following. I set each channel to encode only, a 141.3 tone. That is channels 1 thru 30. Being that 141.3 is the most commonly used tone and the travel tone on GMRS, I figure it enhances your chance that someone might hear you throwing out your call when on the road. You may be trying make a contact in an area where someone has their radio's PL decoder turned on to screen out random noise from automobile circuitry, gas pumps, or kiddie talkies. I leave the radios decoder off (also known as carrier squelch mode) in case someone hears me and responds, but is in carrier squelch mode, themselves. Either way, if in range, we will hear each-other. Also, for whatever reason, there are quite a few repeaters out there that require a tone (again, many use 141.3) to access the repeater, but do not encode a tone on the output. Should you hit one of these repeaters, if your PL decoder is on, you will not be able to hear anyone responding to your call. Channels above 30 (31, 32, 33, 34, etc), I set for repeaters I commonly use or anticipate some day traveling through their area, including encoded tones and (if applicable) decode tones on the repeater output. I follow this protocol on my radios and those of friends whose radios I program for them, provided they have the ability to add channels beyond the main thirty. Oh, time saving hint: If an ht capable of transmitting on all thirty, I program it like that on all thirty channels. If on a mobile, since they do not transmit on channels 8 thru 14, I do not program a tone as it would be pointless.

Interesting!