PACNWComms

I know a few people that say that these work for them. But, I have no personal experience with this conversion kit. I still use the old fashion needle. https://www.rfglobalsolutions.co.uk/still-using-your-old-bird-43-rf-watt-meter-why-not-let-us-upgrade-your-old-analog-meter-to-to-digital-readout-display/

Yes, +1 on that one being a dud. I have used about a dozen of them myself, and they work very well. Leave them in line with many mobile Motorola radios. When I first started using them, I was paranoid and checked with Bird 43 and similar slugless Thruline wattmeters. They all get calibrated when new, and then left in place. Some for several years now. Attached is a picture of one that I used recently with a Motorola XPR4550 mobile. Great little units, even though made in China. I buy these through Amazon, so if I get a dud, it can be sent back easily.

Larson are still great antennas. Larson and Laird are the mainstay of a fleet of vehicle antennas I have used for decades now (NMO New Motorola style that is). Although, buying from Tessco, I sometimes get ones that are rebranded, but are clearly either Larson or Laird in construction and design in their packaging. For some installs Stico is the "go to" now though, as many vehicles get parked in underground garages and I need the increased flexibility of the Stico.

Sadly, this ended a few years ago, with the implementation of "i3" (Intelligent Third Generation) 9-1-1 Public Safety Answering Point network requirements. Everything around the PSAP, telephone service providers, and data within 9-1-1 infrastructure must be sent via SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) which also meant changes for sending ALI/ANI information. Sort of like P25 standards for common air interface for radio, and set data rates...etc. CallerID information is now queried instead of just sent along as it used to be. Bummed me out too as my Zetron 3010's made crank and spam calls very interesting. Now, only a few come in with full information, and mostly from landlines (which is now only about 20% of my own inbound calls).

I use Zetron 3010 ALI displays that were part of the 3200 series telephone "Call Taking" systems. They provide a line for "name" and another for "phone number" but also show landline address, or wireless cell phone tower lat/long, then if they get the second "rebid" from an ALI database, the lat/long of the cell phone GPS. They will also show which first response elements are responsible for the callers location: police, fire, ems (emergency medical services), and usually a line or two of notes. Cellular calls will have the carrier name: Verizon, ATT WRLS (American Telephone &Telegraph Wireless), etc. However, they are not stand alone in that respect......you need access to an ALI database or something for the 3010 to query from to display information. I have several and an older copy of a local database, but have also connected one to an alarm system and another just to a keyboard for messages (the one shown). Zetron had numbered product lines: 1000 was SCADA, 2000 Paging Systems (yes, they are still in use many places), 3000 Call Taking, 4000 (Radio) Dispatch, 5000 DFSI dispatch, numbered box products, and then MAX series, and highest end Acom Novus. For the first 30 years, most of this was connected to Motorola radios, until they were bought by the JVC/Kenwood Group, then sold last year to Codan of Australia. I would consider the 3000/4000 series to be the best gear for a 9-1-1 Public Safety Answering Point, unless they can afford Acom Novus ($1 million plus cost). Zetron's hayday matched that of Motorola in my opinion, 1980-1990's. But, you do need more than the device to get expanded Caller ID....a connection to an ALI database, Internet access, old electronic phone book.....I have seen some creative uses.

There are some holes in the collection, especially with mobiles. I am the traditional radio hoarder, and have mobile data terminals, and lots of gear around, but most of it doing something. I would say about 85-90% Motorola thanks to the oil industry and planning for hardware replacement. Then Kenwood/EF Johnson/Zetron.....working for them helped that a bit, corporate "yard sales" where day three everything went for free as ""e-waste" costs the company money. My Zetron ALI display shows the entire caller ID data, as the entire data stream is sent, but consumer grade equipment only shows name and number, two lines.

Those System Saber radios were awesome. I still see some in use in some parts of the country, especially California law enforcement. I myself still use a VHF Astro Saber Model 3 for some uses as well. Had to eventually upgrade to a Lithium Ion battery, which makes it slightly shorter now, and required a newer multi-chemistry charger. But still a very capable and useful radio. If mine were in UHF, they would be used for GMRS for sure. I gave two away to amateur radio type friends and now only have two myself. They were removed from a maritime environment, spares for use on motorized barges used to transport oil products along the West coast. The Saber radios do have excellent specifications for the time they were manufactured.

If it were not for MURS (and analog AM aviation comms), I think my Realistic Pro-2006 and Pro-2032 scanners would never get used anymore. I am close enough to several cities that decided to protest and self destruct certain areas, coordinating via MURS, as it provided the longest range and unlicensed band for VHF comms. Then I also heard many of them move to GMRS frequencies as well. Dual band, and cheap radios mean that both MURS and GMRS get a lot of use. Makes for some interesting listening. My local Wal-Mart still uses MURS, as does Lowes and possibly Home Depot at a few of their stores in my area. I have seen a few RDM series Motorola radios on the hips at some larger home improvement stores, some look to be VHF while others are UHF.

The addition of a counterpoise definitely helps my Baofeng GT-3's and Anytone 878 as well. I do know many people that still use the magnet mount antenna and vehicle charger route for handhelds, and it does help a bit. Somewhere I still have a magnet mount antenna for AM CB, but use lip mounts for mobile and handheld radios in cars now.

I bought several Baofeng GT-3 radios about five years ago through Amazon. These were touted as being better because they came with a 23cm antenna that supposedly helped range over the stock antenna. Then I bought the same radio, but this one came with a very flexible, shorter and thicker antenna. they both worked the same, one just had a very thin, longer, but still flexible antenna. I never noticed any real world issue with each antenna, pro or con. the one with the longer antenna just became a better pointing device. Granted they are Baofeng, and might get overloaded easily, but they both work the same from a "my ear" and usable range perspective. I never connected these to test equipment to quantify any metrics though....not even sure where one of them is these days. But they did serve to get me back on the air when I wanted to find out what the rumors were about these new cheap radios that came into the market.

Great advice given above. The XPR6xxx series radios are great for GMRS use. I use one myself, although mine requires a hex edit due to the frequency it came with to allow this. Mine is the low UHF1 split, and to get to the 462/467 MHz, you have to get more creative with software hex editing of the CPS. Getting frustrated on continually wanting to change things, and that hex edit mess.....I ended up getting a XPR7550e recently which covers the entire 403-512 MHz band. Stick with that XPR6350 though, great radios, and glad to see someone keep them from the landfill. My XPR6550 is now about twelve years old, and was re-cased a few years ago, as I used it in the oil industry (2010 Deepwater Horizon response), which destroys everything.

All the old tricks are new again, just for GMRS at this point. As gortex said, this is common for radio networks when they are first starting out. Similar equipment at each site, and you end up saving on hardware and maintenance since everything is similar hardware wise. Great way to build out a radio network without getting too complicated, and easier for the hosts of the network to maintain and administer. The Motorola GR1225 is a repeater, and 10 watts is not going to strain the hardware. I still have one myself and tend to use it for extending the range of radios when camping (when I am not hiking everything into the camp), more like "car camping".....the one thing to check on the repeaters is the heat conductive paste, that tends to dry out and then you have hardware problems. Keep the fan clean and give that repeater stable power and good coax/antenna and they should serve you well. Good luck on your installation.....post some pictures when you can too. Last thing to add, is a link to the tropospheric ducting thread, as you may have this happen. with three repeaters, that could get very interesting for the times it does happen,if they are on the same frequency, even with different tones in use.

I think I could still write a book on this subject. Or those that do this with every radio or related device they get their hands on. I still recall co-workers that tweaked "golden screwdriver" style their Maxtracs for as much power output as possible, then it was the Spectra's then Waris CDM series, and on and on, while they burned up radios. Some service shops have done this to create more paying work from their customers, though they will never admit to doing so. Most recently, I had this happen on the repair of several MTR2000 repeaters with failed power supplies. Repair/replace the power supply and find out they had tweaked output wattage to try to get max ouput power, which then bore down the power supply, shortening its life. Excellent point there.

Yes, this speaker being behind the keypad, and then the use of Motorola Trbo Ion series accessories is my issue. Ion series Trbo equipment is more expensive than the legacy XPR7xxx/e series accessories, and most of the company has been using XPR7k series radios for a few years now, with stock on hand accessory wise. My employer also has APX900 and APX4000, essentially similar radios to one another except the APX4000 has dual microphones for the noise cancelling and as you mentioned, it is noticeable in high noise environments. Forklift drivers end up getting APX4000's as a result, with custodial personnel getting APX900's as they are not working during business hours and it is a much quieter environment. It will be interesting to see how much the audio difference really is, transmit and receive. If anyone finds video at some point, please post here and any other radio related site, it will be watched for sure.

Received the Motorola Whitepaper for the new R7 Trbo series radio that is supposed to replace the XPR7550e, which has an expected end of production date for mid or late 2023. The paper really pushed the better receive audio and noise canceling transmit in high noise environments. However, until I find video of this audio side by side with a XPR7550e, it is just subjective rhetoric. Motorola R7 Whitepaper.pdf

In my area Community Emergency Response Teams host a GMRs repeater, to be used by families in the area, that have been instructed in using FRS/GMRS or post-2017 GMRS only radios, on their own licenses. CERT made it clear though that users were to use their own call sign and unit number if applicable. This also infers no group or club license option. It was also noticed at my State's Emergency Management Department radio rooms that there was a Bridgecom GMRS repeater, supporting Auxiliary Communications Service.....however, I am not aware of how they operate license wise.

I have this problem with both fire and private security personnel, people that carry a radio as part of their job everyday as well. Yesterday, I had to have a firefighter show an office worker how to find the serial number on her APX8000 Motorola radio. I was attempting to confirm the serial number to a radio ID. This was commercial and very expensive radio, and this type of situation still takes place. But, you are ahead of many that do not even place a label on the radio or attempt to instruct end users.

When mobile, I do both......my daily driver has a Radioddity DB20-G VHF/UHF mobile, and a Cobra 75 WX ST AM CB radio. Both have their place, but in my part of the country, it is GMRS that seems to be used a lot more now. On a road trip to Montana I only had one driver talk back via AM CB, while I had several respond on GMRS. It varies due to a lot of issues. I sometimes wonder how often people on these forums answer back someone on the radio in real life.

Yes, that is the one I use for XPR7xxx series Trbo handhelds. Good luck gman1971, I would only be able to do the manual/calibration, not Autotest, test on those Vertex mobiles.

I could do that if you want to ship to the west coast. That is if they are equivalent to XPR-4xxx/5xxx/e mobiles. I have TDMA Trbo Autotune. Might be a bit pricey on shipping though right now. My newest Vertex are a handful of VX-3200's analog only, back when Motorola first bought the company. My 3920 does seem to clean up some of the Sunny Comm XPR4550's people buy in this area. (I like the XPR4550 over the XPR5550e as people get into the menu and mess things up on the XPR5550e. Great radio, but too easy for end users to change settings and then get lost in the menu tree.)

I remember those days as well. Now it is "1 watt, 1 mile" for the more honest. I still get a kick out of the blister pack FRS radios that claim up to 28/30/32/46/50 miles, when that is under very ideal conditions at best, top of mountain to base of mountain.

Yes, the XiR8668 is a XPR7550, just the model number sold outside of the United States and Canada. It would look the same. In this brochure for Belize and the XiR8668, it shows them with a silver band on the antenna.....those bands come in many colors and are sold as an accessory for marking radios as part of a specific teams or frequency band. An expensive rubber band essentially. The new R7 radio is going to retain the same model number worldwide (R7), and then will need to be regionalized, by connecting it to Motorola Solutions Inc. servers. This will set the region, by loading the appropriate language options. I could take my XPR7550e from the United States to an office in Zhoushan, China and it will work with corporate XiR8668's, mine would just show English language text. (I administer the radio network in Zhoushan as well for my employer.) Chinese language does take a lot of memory in the XPR7550/e/XiR8668 radio though. xir_p8600_bro_ar3-04-001_0412.pdf

I recall many years ago seeing an episode of "Cops" in Russia (for the young ones, predecessor to "Live PD") where the Russian police bragged about having authentic Motorola radio's and HK MP5 submachine guns. Certain things lead to the look of credibility.....like many small businesses buying Cisco lab kits and phones, to look like they have an entire IT department. Motorola, Cisco Systems, and other companies add credibility to an environment by being leaders in their field. I used to, and sometimes still do, provide network and radio services to local businesses, and they want the look of a larger company by having certain products and infrastructure, even if it cuts into their profit margin for a long time. That is interesting though, I wonder if it was a Motorola XiR series radios, the equivalent of the Motorola XPR series in North America. The recent release of the R7 radio is touted as being regionalized by connecting it to Motorola servers, instead of having model specific numbering based on sales region. (XPR7550 in united States is the XiR8668 in China for example.)

+10 on this. Don't make it complicated. There was a previous thread on this a month ago. In my part of the Pacific Northwest, many people agreed on using FRS channel 1, no Tones. That still works often and well. And great advice on leaving something in the vehicle or trailer that mentions the radio information being used. Near Mount Baker, Washington there was an incident about a decade ago where a hiker was using Morse Code, and the Auxiliary Communications Service had decided they did not need a CW key for HF, as most people were new "hams" and passed the No Code test. I walk into the room and heard this, then I told them to switch to "CW" and PTT as if it were Morse Code.....you could hear a pin drop. Keep everything life safety related stupid simple, it may save your life.