Blaise

I did not. I set both apps to 20100 Hz, set them next to radios a couple of dozen feet apart, pushed the PTT, and clicked send, and confirmed reception. I simply took the app's word for it. In fairness, I could only hear a little crackling, not the usual data-burst, so I'm *pretty* sure it was ultrasonic, but otherwise, I did not have a proper experiment set up, so I can't truly confirm anything...

I feel like you might be missing the joke...

My kneejerk response to this is: So? Who cares? My dishwasher wasn't "intended" to be a sterilizing kiln for my homebrew beer-bottles, but it works great at it, and gives me a lot of added utility. The decorative tower on my rescued Victorian home wasn't "intended" to be an antenna mount, but it does a fantastic job, and gives me a lot of added utility. The internet wasn't "intended" to be a corporate-dominated wilderness of false information and endless scammers, but... OK, that one's a bad example... My more thoughtful response is: If something is intended to "facilitate our activities", and we find a new way to facilitate our activities with it, isn't that the very definition of "intended"?

This. I was able to send a message at 20100Hz over a Talkpod to a Baofeng. Is that not supposed to? My methods are hardly scientific...

Hey! Don't be insulting. We're a lot more than just comical or naive. Some of us are *both*!

Compared to the DMR crap regularly blotting out GMRS channels for hours at a time, I would think that a few 1-second bursts per minute at ultrasonic frequencies would be a trivial concern!

Ooohh, I never thought of that, the error correction would eliminate most of the issues you get with a weak or spotty signal...

Yeah, I found that post yesterday, and read the discussion. The app is just a technology demonstrator, to show you can send data easily and quickly with Ribbit. It works like a charm, too! I can see pairing this tech with vox mode to set up on-the-go networks with uplink stations miles apart with nothing but cheap HTs and laptops, at the very least...

I saw the post about Ribbit yesterday, became intrigued, and got lost down an ODFM rabbit hole for a few hours, but then, I loaded the Rattlegram App on two phones, put a phone/GMRS radio in another room, and sent a text message between two phones over GMRS radio. It was really cool. I'm addicted. Links: https://www.ribbitradio.org/#/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubPP48ojJ3E Also, anyone have any idea what it might be useful for, so I have an excuse for all this time I'm wasting on a burgeoning new addiction?

Just vanity operators...

Do you even YouTube, bro?

Desense is a possibility. I've only tried it from opposite sides of the house, as that's the farthest I can hear from, and my family is utterly uninterested in being a part of this madness, as my wife puts it... But if it *were* desense, wouldn't I not receive the repeater's tail, either? Or is that fraction of a second enough for things to de-saturate?

I've noticed some repeater weirdness too. I can open the repeater just fine, but a local handheld doesn't receive the audio. However, multiple radio-checks confirm that folks *not* in my house are receiving the audio from my repeater calls...

My gosh! He's in so much trouble he has to write an essay?!?!? Apparently the FCC's enforcement arm used to be a high-school principal...

Everything I have has only scan on/off per channel, not groups or anything. I haven't tried that. Maybe I should set up an experiment...

This is the exact thing. Like I said, not a major issue, but maddeningly incomprehensible. Happens on both my HTs and my mobile. I've started keeping tallies in my head to see if this is just perception bias, but it still seems to work this way!

Yes, they share output frequencies with simplex channels 15-22. That's the point, but not the question. When scanning, if your simplex channels have no squelch codes on them, they recieve repeater outputs just fine. The "predicament" is that during a scan where three channels might pick up a transmission, you would assume, statistically, that you would pick up on the correct channel approximately a third of the time, not effectively never. Likewise, you would assume that if there were only *two* channels that might pick a transmission, that you would pick up on the correct channel approximately half of the time, not 20% of the time. This is not good-mathy, and makes my brain ache.

Hey all, here's a persnickety question for you. My primary interest in GMRS has been to set up family communications, both for emergencies and to give my young kids a bunch more freedom without handing them a phone. However, in line with being prepared for emergencies, I scan a lot of the time so I can make contacts with regular users out there and know where/when they are likely to be monitoring. However, I have a scanning problem. I keep my radios programmed with three channel blocks. The first is the basic 22 simplex channels, the next is the 8 repeater channels, not set for any CTCSS/DCS codes, for use when travelling/discovering new repeaters (So I have a quick way to program new repeaters in from the radio on the go), and the last is my local known repeaters. When I scan, what I've found is that I invariably first catch new transmissions on one of the simplex channels or on a "blank" repeater channel, rather than on the programmed repeater channel it's actually on. So, I removed the blank repeaters from scan to decrease the chances of a wrong channel stop, and have discovered that I *still* almost invariably first catch new transmissions on one of the simplex channels, rather than on the programmed repeater channel it's actually on. then I tried reversing the direction of the scan (on units capable) or reprogramming the locations of the respective blocks so that the scan hits the repeater channels first, and found that now, I pick up a new transmissions on the programmed repeater channel about 20% of the time, rather than the 1% I was getting before. Progress, but still not super-effective. So here's my question. What the hell is going on here? With the three block scan, shouldn't I have been picking up on the correct channel approximately 33% of the time? With only two blocks scanned, shouldn't I be picking up on the correct channel approximately 50% of the time? With the reversed scan order, shouldn't it be *more than* 50% of the time? This isn't a major issue, of course, but math seems to be broken, and that makes me angry on a very deep level!

The serious kind, obviously!

I'm still new to radio, but for the last year, I too run a Radioddity DB20G, with a Tram through-glass antenna. Folks will tell you this antenna is garbage, and it may be, but I get a 1.1 SWR with it, and can hit repeaters 40-60 miles away, depending on my altitude, so I guess the 20 watts deals with the 'bad' antenna issues pretty well! Advantages to the DB20G are that a) it's so small I was able to securely mount its rail to the dashboard with removable alien tape, b) it had a 12 volt plug built in, and c) it's unlockable, so I now I can monitor marine band, MURS, and ham frequencies in addition to GMRS while I drive.

OK, so it looks like this topic isn't getting much love, but I gotta tell you, this thing has an amazing feature I just found. One of the action options for the programmable buttons is "PTT-B", which lets you transmit on your displayed B-channel without switching to B as the selected channel! Since I always keep one channel searching, while the other is set to my family's channel, this makes it super easy to call my kids without having to stop and fiddle with settings. It *does* terminate the search on the A channel when I transmit on B, but I'd much rather have to just fiddle to restart that after I'm done than fiddle to stop it and change channels beforehand when I want to talk, then still have to change back and restart after. This thing just moved from new toy to favorite radio!

They *don't* make a tool for that...

Hey all, so in a moment of weakness, I snagged the hot new toy, a Talkpod a36 Plus. The reviews are just about all spot on. The menus are a goddamn nightmare without a real manual to explain them, but otherwise, it works about as well as several other GMRS HT's I have, but with a super-low price. Some of the Baofeng options cost more! I ran into one piece of weirdness, though. I normally keep a UV-5R with a Nagoya 771G antenna scanning in my office at all times, just to know what's happening in my vicinity, so I thought I'd try using this for the same one afternoon. It worked just fine, but had trouble picking up some of the more distant sources, so I figured I'd pop the 771G on it for a little boost. What I discovered was that I couldn't receive anything at all outside of a quarter mile from my desk! I immediately swapped back to the stock antenna, and it worked just as before. I retested the 771G on a Baofeng, and *it* worked just fine. So I guess Nagoya antennae and Talkpod a36 Plus radios are incompatible???

It took me this long to finish reading this!

You, ah, might want to dial back the belligerence a bit if you want anyone to be willing to help you the next time you have a question...