SteveShannon

Here's an article about Ukraine ham radio silence: https://www.arrl.org/news/ukraine-maintains-ham-radio-silence-in-state-of-emergency

You can still renew it, but after 10/29/2023 you will have to completely redo it. It expired 10/29/2021 Go here to find out how: https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/support/knowledge-base/common-amateur-filing-tasks/common-amateur-filing-task-renewing

VOIP is Voice Over IP, meaning an IP (Internet Protocol) network. It is simply a digitization of analog voice that is broken up into packets and routed over the internet. That's allowed using ham radio, but not GMRS. If you ask a Russian ham for their opinion you should also ask a Ukrainian ham. Unfortunately, but for defensive reasons ham radio transmissions have been prohiibited in Ukraine to prevent hams from becoming targeted and probably also to prevent intelligence reports being sent back to Russia, but a Polish ham radio organization has been helping provide radios to Ukrainian militias for communication purposes. Poland's ham radio operators would probably be more neutral than the Russian ones if you really want the truth.

It sounds like you would really enjoy ham radio. See if there's a club nearby (I can just about guarantee there is!) and see about their classes. By law hams are prohibited from charging you to use their repeaters. (GMRS has a similar rule, but it allows non-profit contributions to pay for equipment). Most hams are very friendly, although there are some who are idiots, but that's true of anything. You might even be able to repurpose the radios you bought and use them on nearby ham repeaters.

I copied six lines from my UV5R file. I had no problem pasting the copied six lines at the end. Then I opened up a new, blank file and had no issue pasting the six lines into it. Then I opened up a BF-88 file and had no problem pasting the six lines there. I chose the copy and paste commands from the Edit menu. What problems are you having?

I just loaded the newest version (I succumbed to the nagging at the beginning!) and I'll try some things. Within the same file it is seamless.

Certainly, the decision to put up a repeater is one you could make, but as you already suggested, a much easier one for you and your buddy might be to just put up an external antenna at each of your houses. Try that and see if it works. Nothing helps more than getting your antennas up in the air, but even placing a mobile antenna on a cookie sheet in the attic would be a lot better than the antennas that came with your handheld radios. Otherwise, the portable Retevis RT-97S or the equivalent Midland repeater would be good for your campground.

So, does that mean they're paperweights, unable to be used in the US?

This is a pretty good starting point in understanding how Coax works. It won't answer all of your questions, but it will give you a start.

The trouble with linked repeaters is that a conversation on one can tie up all of the linked repeaters. It's not like cell towers that pass you along.

What it all boils down to is that you have your vision of what’s acceptable and anything else is not acceptable. Whether you like it or not, GMRS is the Wild West of licensed services. People are still homesteading it for a myriad of purposes and testing to see what works. For some people it’s the ability to ragchew with others without taking a test. Perhaps one side or the other is a ham, bringing practices that you view as bad habits, but as much as people whine about it, it’s not prohibited. In fact, I’d love to see a list of what you consider those bad habits. With others it’s simply the ability to briefly get a message to someone else. There are those who build repeaters for the purpose of sharing freely and then there are those who want to monetize GMRS by building a repeater. None of those practices are currently prohibited. If you really can’t live with any of them you should try to get the rules changed.

That’s a good point. Out of laziness or bad habits, I tend to equate the various coax cables that are similar to LMR400. LMR400 is the cable made and sold by Times Microwave which does have an aluminum foil shield and a copper braid with a solid copper inner core. The actual cable I use is a Messi and Paolini product. Their Ultraflex 10.3 mm cable has copper foil and copper braid shields and a stranded copper core..

My third party observation of other people’s reports of LMR 400 losing sensitivity is that it’s caused by moisture entering the cable at the connectors. With proper waterproofing, ideally N connectors rather than UHF connectors, and higher quality coax in the first place (I have M&P that I’m pleased with) I wouldn’t expect degradation. Now with that said, if your run to the repeater is very long at all you’ll want to use something intended for low loss at UHF frequencies such as hardline. At GMRS frequencies you lose half your power every 100 feet for LMR400.

Welcome, Stan! I hope you enjoy it here.

Either change the plug or buy a TRS to mono adapter.

My guess is that the part after the dash is the network node they’re connected to.

It doesn’t matter. You will always want one more radio. You might as well buy one now. ?

No, it’s digital data. That’s permitted in accordance with the regulations, but digital voice is not allowed: Digital data transmissions. Digital data transmissions are limited to the 462 MHz main channels and interstitial channels in the 462 MHz and 467 MHz bands.

Adopting digital voice mode “Digital Mobile Radio”, which is allowed on the amateur service and business radios. It would require a change to regulations and as far as I can tell there’s really no probability of it happening.

Instead of googling “speakers”, Google “radio communication speakers“ You’ll find offerings from the various radio companies, such as Astatic, Icom, Yaesu, MFJ, etc. Almost all will be better priced going through somewhere other than Amazon, like DXEngineering or Gigaparts or Ham Radio Outlet, but if you have prime anyway the savings in shipping might make up for it.

I just ordered an MFJ-884. I did so based on reviews on Amazon and ehams.net, which were very positive except for a couple people who ordered from the bargain basement selection of used meters. https://mfjenterprises.com/products/mfj-884 These are the features that swayed me: Range from 1.8 MHz to 525 MHz Reports of accuracy Reports of accuracy even when measuring low wattage devices (milliwatt sensitivity) Ease of use (simplicity). This meter just measures forward power and reflected power. The intersection of the two needles occurs over meter markings that show the SWR. Ability to calibrate. Retail is $160. Ham Radio Outlet has it for $150 with free shipping. I generally receive items very quickly from the Portland store and that's where this is shipping from. It's not digital. It doesn't have a frequency counter. It only needs external power for the meter illumination (as I understand it). I was sorely tempted to get the MFJ-874. It also had very good reviews. https://mfjenterprises.com/products/mfj-874?pr_prod_strat=use_description&pr_rec_id=ec31e14d7&pr_rec_pid=4393832153187&pr_ref_pid=4393832349795&pr_seq=uniform

I don’t know; all of mine get approved. ?

The low power Retevis RT-97 and RT-97s both have an integral duplexer but for higher power a duplexer can be quite large.

I think he’s seeing the unanswered requests he has made.

I don’t have one. I looked at the manual and other than the frequency scan you already mentioned I don’t see any other scan function.