SteveShannon

The Input Tone is the tone your radio must send (your radio’s TX CTCSS) along with your voice in order to open the repeater. The Output Tone is the tone the repeater transmits. You can program it into your radio as the RX CTCSS, but it’s optional. If you don’t program an RX CTCSS in your radio it will reproduce all signals on the receiver frequency. For the repeater you show the tx frequency should be 467.550 MHz.

According to the regulations repeaters are limited to transmit on any of the eight 462 MHz Main channels. Radios are limited to transmit to repeaters on any of the eight 467 MHz Main channels. Most radios pair the 462 MHz Main channels with the 467 MHz Main channels and that makes perfect sense. But, the rules do not require it. You can program your repeater to use any one of the 462 MHz Main channels with any one of the 467 MHz Main channels. In some coastal cities repeater owners do just that because of maritime interference.

Or FRS users (at least for 1-22).

Once upon a time there was a user called WXRP381. He answered reasonable questions with asinine and judgmental answers and quickly ended up with a bad reputation. So he changed his name to Socalgmrs. But because he was the problem instead of his username the bad reputation continued getting worse. As his reputation got worse so did his comments. I’ve pasted a screenshot that shows how he spoke to new members who asked questions. Eventually he decided to leave the forum but rather than simply leaving he had the forum owner delete his account. That is why there are hundreds of unhelpful posts that now have the username “Guest”. That was three months ago. He’s back and using his same old username but because his earlier account was deleted his history of posts didn’t follow him.

They’re considered mobile radios when not called out separately and subject to the 50 watt limit.

Anytone and Alinco software is good because it allows exporting and importing data from CSV files but the format of one model must be matched or data will fill the wrong columns. RT Systems takes that up a notch and makes it even easier to move data from one model to another but you still need to understand the data model. Without knowing which software you’re using for your Baofeng it’s hard to advise. Chirp is free and works well. RT Systems is not free but works very well except for rare instances.

Doing a little ft8 I see! I enjoy it also.

I agree completely.

In my case I got the Radioddity db20g for both (even though I now use them exclusively on ham bands). They’re easy to use and very small and I’ve heard almost nobody complain about their quality, although a few people have had an issue where the squelch remains open.

Actually, 95.1705 not only specifies who may hold a license but also specifically lists whom that license holder may authorize to use his or her stations. Third parties are not listed, unlike for amateur radio. If they aren’t listed, the license holder may not authorize them to operate the license holder’s stations. It’s that simple. There’s a broad list of family members and in an emergency the license holder may authorize anyone. Also, while 95.1743 excludes minors from responsibility it goes on to state that the license holder has full responsibility for the minor’s actions while operating the station. This is absolutely not complicated by operating on “FRS channels” because there is no such distinction; all of the FRS channels are also GMRS channels. If the radio used is certified for GMRS the GMRS rules must be followed, regardless of channel used, output power, antenna permanence, or any other characteristic. I absolutely agree that the instructor avoids all of this by using certified FRS radios. And yes, I realize that none of the above rules are likely to be enforced, but I think GMRS license holders should understand them correctly anyway.

The DB20G also wasn’t supported by RT Systems until just a few weeks ago, but now it is and it works very well! I would suspect Chirp support will follow.

Are there different Roger beeps and did you change your Roger beep to one of the others?

#2 - If you don’t hear them when you have a tone programmed, it’s because either they are transmitting with a different tone or they are not transmitting with a tone. #1 - If tone scan isn’t stopping on a tone, one possible cause is that they are not transmitting with a tone.

That’s a wonderful model.

Thanks, Marc. Allowing students to press the PTT and operate GMRS radios probably would never hurt a thing and I truly can’t imagine that it would bother most reasonable people, but unfortunately we live in a world with its share of jerks who always find something to complain about. If that happened to one of the students, or worse yet the instructor received a letter from the FCC, that could result in students not wanting to learn about radio. Amateur radio is specifically structured to foster such experiences including allowing very young people to become licensed. And the opportunities to use it in a school setting far exceed any other radio service. Using ham radio my youngest daughter was able to ask a physiology question to an astronaut on the space station 23 years ago due to the efforts of her science teacher and although she never became a ham radio operator she did go on to get an advanced science related degree. Recently, I held the microphone while my nine year old granddaughter spoke during a 40 meter net during Christmas break. She identified herself using phonetic characters and wished the other net participants a Merry Christmas. Her eyes lit up. Will she become a ham? I don’t know, but she literally could study the questions and answers and become licensed now. She and her five year old brother also use my FRS radios when they’re here. I see these services as supplementary to each other, rather than competing, but the rules favor ham radio in the classroom.

One thing to check is that they are in phase with each other. Otherwise one channel will destructively affect the other. The same thing can happen acoustically with out-of-phase stereo speakers.

No, but the amateur rules expressly allow third party communications under the constant supervision of a control operator (97.115). GMRS regulations have nothing similar to that.

So the teacher pushes the PTT while the students speak?

I know that’s true for ham radio operations, but is it also true for GMRS? I don’t recall seeing anything that says that in the regulations.

Check your feedline. It sounds like maybe it or your coax connections are separating when they get cold. That’s just a guess of course. An antenna analyzer would tell you what’s going on probably.

How do you like it so far?

Here’s an semi-interesting video about the problem with the cp2105 USB chip on the ftdx10: The chip itself is less than $7 at Digikey: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/silicon-labs/CP2105-F01-GMR/4069046

Why not? These aren’t nuclear secrets.

I have the ftdx10 and really like it. The complaints I’ve heard about it consist of three things: 1. Buttons are too close together and too close to the tuning knob. 2. Buttons are not backlit. 3. Too many things require using the menu. I acknowledge the veracity of all three of those, but none of them bother me anymore.

Great job!