SteveShannon

Yeah, sorry about that ?

As the gentleman said, don’t worry about any jargon. When I talk to my friend Dale, it’s just like talking on the phone. It’s obvious usually when someone has stopped so you don’t need to say Over. If someone says Roger to you that means “okay” and might mean they’re a ham or commercial radio operator. If they say Roger Roger, they’re definitely a ham. ? I don’t have any idea when to use the word “break” except in “I need a break.“

Thanks! ? Abbree does make a GMRS version: ABBREE Tactical Foldable Antenna 18.89inch GMRS Antenna SMA-Female for Baofeng etc GMRS Radios. https://smile.amazon.com/ABBREE-Tactical-Foldable-18-89inch-SMA-Female/dp/B0B1QK3YNW/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?crid=2KQ22EG0C4VGS&keywords=abbree+gmrs+antenna&qid=1669684037&sprefix=abbree+GMRS+%2Caps%2C266&sr=8-2# I haven’t tried it so I can’t comment on its value.

Because the Abbree is tuned to be resonant on the 70cm band, the SWR on the the Abbree will almost certainly be higher than desirable. That means a certain amount of your transmit power is reflected back into the radio and less is emitted. You might find that the Abbree works more poorly than the Nagoya, which is tuned for the GMRS band.

I agree. The cheap radio business model is based on making a relatively few hardware designs that can be targeted at a wide array of markets, including commercial radio, GMRS, Amateur Radio, and MURS. The incremental cost of targeting additional markets is very low, as is the hardware cost. DMR is used by both commercial markets as well as amateur and as such appears to have greater interest than D-Star, even in the Amateur markets. A radio made using DMR can be easily reconfigured to be used as a commercial radio or an amateur radio. Although still an AMBE codec, it’s a different one than D-Star. The AMBE+2 codec used for DMR is the same one used for other digital modes, including D-Star, whereas there are chips used for D-Star which are not compatible with DMR. But D-Star is unique. Although it’s claimed to be open (a claim which I believe is technically accurate) it is entirely limited to ham radio. That’s a tiny market compared to commercial radio. There’s just nothing about the market to attract a cheap radio manufacturer.

Sorry, I thought it would be obvious that I was referring to the video I linked rather than one posted by someone else. I’ve edited my post to make it clear.

It’s part 90 certified according to the Notarubicon video I linked and at 421 MHz it tested 24.5 watts. Lower everywhere else.

Here’s a video of a 25 watt hand-held:

It’s good enough for me. You’re the one who makes BS statements with no citations and then challenges other to prove you wrong. I’m putting you on the ignore list for a while.

If the Baofeng truly can’t transmit it’s probably that you have transmit inhibited for that channel. That could be the default or you might have set it incorrectly. What channel (frequency) are you trying to transmit on? On the other hand, maybe you are transmitting and due to mismatching tones the Rugged is ignoring the Baofeng‘a transmission. I would urge you to clear out all tones at first.

The post by BoxCar which I included in quotes.

From Wikipedia: Even critics praise the openness of the rest of the D-STAR standard[citation needed] which can be implemented freely. As of 2017 the patents have expired, as announced by Bruce Perens, K6BP at the 2017 ARRL/TAPR DCC in his State of Digital Voice talk.

It depends. Some repeater owners withhold the tones pending permission. Some say access is open and publish the tones. And perhaps some say closed but publish their tones, placing users on the honor system to request permission.

I agree for the most part, but I think it’s worth also pointing out that with only eight main 462 channels shared by repeater and simplex users neither repeater owners nor simplex users have the right to expect exclusive use of the channels. A person doesn’t have the right to use someone else’s repeater without permission, but they do have the right to use the same 462 MHz frequencies. Otherwise eight “access for pay” repeaters could completely control access for all of the main channels.

Those are good questions that deserve to be tested in the real world. I sincerely hope you’re a ham as well because to me, that’s where the joy of being a ham emerges. (I’m sorry, I don’t remember if you said you were). I will say this. When I mount the ~15” Faux Nagoya (Tidradio 771 that came “free” with a Baofeng UV5R several years ago) on my Alinco DMR radio, and look at the difference in signal report from the 70 cm DMR repeater that’s 16 miles away, the S meter goes up by two S units. That’s 12 dB. I was completely surprised. Nothing else changed, but the antenna. I don’t have a 70 cm radio other than 5w handhelds to compare. But, using the longer antenna cost me nothing in terms of power usage. I’m not certain about RF exposure. And I agree about the bias against adding a few watts of power. There are obviously those who say 3dB makes no difference, but many times those same people are very critical of others for choosing a coax cable that has 3dB of loss. 3dB is 3dB, regardless of the direction. I would never turn down an extra few watts, all other things being equal (features, quality, etc.) iff my power budget supported it, but I wouldn’t trade the features I want, or quality without weighing the benefits.

I am not the person to say you’re missing anything. I agree that the inverse square law affects RF as you say, but that’s the best case scenario. In a vacuum, each time you quadruple the power (6 dB gain), you reach twice the distance at the same signal strength. This is assuming that nothing else changes: antenna gain, cable losses, etc. But that’s the theoretical maximum. Practically speaking, by using a Radioddity DB20G that outputs 16 watts, instead of a handheld with a four watt output, you could potentially double the range, if you’re using the same antenna and cable. I think that when people quickly retort that a 3 dB increase is nothing, they’re wrong, but in their defense, I think that what they’re really saying is the slight difference in range (no more than 41%) is not enough to them to justify doubling the power. Quadruple it again (another 6dB) and you can now reach four times the original distance, with sixteen times (12 dB) the original power. So, if your power was originally 5 watts, your power is now 80 watts. But that’s strictly signal strength. At that greater distance what can happen to compromise the quality of the signal? In the real world, you end up with a lot of things affecting the actual signal quality, including man made interference, effects of multipath, moisture and dust in the air. So that 41% greater distance will always be something less. Each person must decide for themselves what their threshold is for cost/range.

I can understand their concern. Is that a phased array?

So is going from 25,000 watts to 50,000 watts. ?

D-star isn’t proprietary. The problem is that it uses a codec (AMBE) that’s proprietary. Unfortunately, AMBE is used by every other commercially available digital radio mode as well.

You nailed it.

Search and Rescue Could be Motorola Data Communications: https://dbpedia.org/page/MDC-1200

Certainly an increase in transmission power can increase range. Just listen to the difference between a ham using QRP versus one with a 1500 watt linear amplifier. But it’s usually the least effective and the most expensive thing to try. On GMRS Few of us ever transmit farther than the range that our power theoretically provides. Our range is limited (either transmitting or receiving) due to absorption of RF by green plants and metal in everything else, natural blockages due to terrain, or interference from every form of emf that surrounds us. In a perfect world, transmission power might make a huge difference, but a better receiver, better cabling, and better antenna and antenna placement can have a much greater effect. The most important thing is to consider all the components as part of a system.

The current successor to the F221 appears to be the ic-f6011 (uhf). New it’s only $260: https://www.hitechwireless.com/template/pdf/ICOM/icom_ic_f5011_series_uhf_mobile_radios_productbrochure.pdf It's still only single band, but if all you’re interested in is GMRS it could be ideal.

Good post, except 8 watts is 60% more power than 5 watts.

Manufacturers only sell three kinds of GMRS radios: repeaters, mobile radios, and hand-held portable stations. The entire concept of fixed stations and base stations may have stopped meaning anything to anyone who doesn’t have a license that has been grandfathered since the FCC licensed stations at a specific location. Use your mobile station from your house. The FCC won’t know and doesn’t care.