SteveShannon

I agree with you that programming Amateur Radio handhelds with a PC is much easier that most front panel programming. You sure don’t need to apologize though. I could and should have said what I said nicer. Btech sells the 1701 and 1801 Baofeng amateur DMR radios, don’t they? If not, Radioddity does.

Thanks for the information. It’s really not too surprising. GMRS is right at the edge of the range advertised. What’s surprising is that SWR is that low that close to the edge. It would be interesting to see the SWR sweep for the entire advertised range.

The joke kind of lost momentum

In order to rock that you need to wear dark glasses, a suit, and talk to your wristwatch.

You’re doing it correctly. For future reference you can leave the code off the receiving frequency. Sometimes that’s helpful for troubleshooting. When you leave off the receive tone you’ll hear everything transmitted in that frequency. When you include the tone you’ll disregard anything that hasn’t been transmitted using the same tone.

She’s a YouTube personality and the foul fowl is her foil.

I just bought a RigExpert Stick Pro which works up to 600 MHz. I have the NanoVNA with the N connectors and I feel comfortable using it but it’s a pain in the ass to recalibrate every time you want to switch to a different band or zoom out and realize that your calibration doesn’t include what you’re trying to do. The RigExpert is much more convenient. Is it $300 more convenient? I think so, but time will tell.

There are, but I don’t know about amateur radio use? Repeaters can be used with dPMR modes 2 and 3. The unlicensed dPMR446 and dPMR mode 1 do not use repeaters.

I wonder about RF exposure to the cranium and its contents. Radials radiate, right? ?

An antenna with radials mounted to the top of a hard hat really seals the deal!

It’s something that people are easily confused about. A type 90 accepted radio may be used on the amateur frequencies, but a radio built and sold for the amateur bands is not necessarily type 90 accepted.

My Alinco DJ-MD5 does VHF 136-174MHz / UHF 400-480MHz

Yes, my Yaesu radios can be on the same tabletop. My Baofeng has to be seven or eight feet away. I would recommend having someone else take the other radio outside.

I think you will have better results writing to customer support for whatever company you bought the radio from. This is a public forum, not dedicated to any specific company. The owner of the forum has an online store as well and perhaps that’s where you bought the radio, but that might be better handled by looking at the contact information on the invoice. Good luck!

Yes, very good catch, if the OP means sending text messages instead of analog voice. The regulations prohibit sending digital data on the 467 MHz Main channels: 95.1787 (5)GMRS units must not be capable of transmitting digital data on the 467 MHz main channels.

I agree about those links being down, but that’s just a portion of ham radio. Most of the newer digital modes are alternative means of communicating that are specifically designed to be available in the event that the internet is gone. They support email (sans internet) and sending files. And of course the traditional CW and phone communications have no dependencies on the internet. You know better.

The main problem is that none of the current GMRS radios are compatible with those changes.

Yes, I understand TDMA and time slots. My disagreement is that the current allocation of channels doesn’t support frequency division.

From your first post: “Thus, four conversations can be supported within each of the current GMRS channels.” But the experiments you’ve done are very interesting and I enjoy hearing about them. ?

It won’t be happening anytime soon and if you go back read my post more carefully you’ll realize that I am neutral; I’m not advocating for or against. I’m just pointing out considerations. But don’t you already have the same problem with people chatting on the radio? If not, and if allowing DMR will cause an influx of users, isn’t that an argument for DMR?

No, each DMR channel has a spectrum bandwidth of 12.5 kHz which is time divided into two channels. That’s the only way the two DMR signals fit within a single analog 12.5 kHz channel. They’re not 6.25 kHz channels. If they were I would agree that you could squeeze in four.

Our local Hytera 70cm repeater is both DMR and analog. It seems to work well. The repeater give preference to analog communications. Our Monday evening 2 meter net has moved to this repeater using 70 cm analog because our 2 meter Yaesu DR1 is locked up and the mountain top site is not accessible without a helicopter. People watching the mountain have noticed that avalanches have taken place. It’s first come, first served, like any repeater. When people are using the repeater for analog both time slots of DMR are blocked. When people are using either time slot for DMR no analog transmissions can take place. Technically that’s probably not considered interference; it’s just the limitations of the technology. After all, when a person is on an analog repeater no other analog transmissions can take place either. The coordination that you mentioned is all of our responsibility; we should not hog the repeater. The vulnerability to being blocked is something that currently exists. Changing to DMR would not change that. My only objections to the OP’s initial post are that four DMR channels cannot fit into the space of one analog channel (only two can, but that’s still a benefit) and that using DMR is not a realistic preferential alternative for someone who finds learning enough to pass the technician test difficult. Currently emission type F1D, F3E, and F2D are all permitted (along with quite a few others). Two slot DMR can be done on F1D and F2D. I’m not sure what part of the regulations make it prohibited to use DMR on GMRS frequencies now, but I suspect I just don’t recall the right paragraph.

No, not rhetorical at all. I have three different gmrs handheld radios (Motorola, Midland, and Garmin) that have separate up and down buttons for channels and tone. I don’t see how it could be easier. I don’t need my phone or a computer to program them. But we should really just be happy for Adamdaj that he found a radio that’s easy for him to use. We all want that!

How can programming a GMRS radio using a phone be easier than pushing the up or down channel button and up or down tone button on the radio?

Actually, the government will always get YOUR moolah! ?