SteveShannon

That’s not enough information. Are you talking about the speaker output? How are you generating the tone?

Except that you have now announced in an online forum where you store your keys. If you want to delete that part of your post, I’ll edit this post.

That’s the “Hello, World” of two way radios! Good job!

A friend asked me to fix his MFJ 269D Pro. I fixed it yesterday. Someone had broken the N female socket on the top. That was not designed to make it easy to fix!

It’s like speakers for an audio system.

The meter arrived today. Stupidly I didn’t order a short (about 18 inches) coax jumper; don’t be me. So, I used a 12 foot ABR 400 cable. It appears to work just fine but I have no reference. My Radioddity DB20G measured 18 watts at 146.940 MHz. At 147.500 it measured a little over 20 watts. A digital meter might’ve reported more figures to the right of the decimal, but I don’t know that it would mean anything. The SWR of my Comet SBB5 antenna measures 1.1 at 146.940. That’s the frequency of our local repeater. Again, that is meaningless as an endorsement of the meter without a reference of some kind. The only negative that occurs to me is that it seems small. I didn’t pay attention to the dimensions.

And this site explains what those three characters each mean: http://fcclicenses.blogspot.com/2011/10/fcc-emission-designators-what-do-codes.html TL; DR: So, for instance, F1D means Modulation type: F Angle-modulated, straight FM, Nature of modulating signal: 1 Digital, on-off or quantized, no modulation, Information type: D Data, telemetry, telecommand

Although I don’t have this particular radio, it just wouldn’t make sense for the manufacturer to do that. I tried searching for “cloning Btech GMRS Pro” but came up empty. Sorry.

But do they have FCC ID labels or are they just for the export market?

Unless you put the repeater someplace where that 300 foot hill doesn’t block your signals, it’s not going to help. You might have led with that information.

I don’t debate politics on this forum.

Feel free to use the ‘h’ word in all its variants, but quotes are not necessary. I had a friend who was a drafter who always had his caps lock key on for text on drawings. He would get on email and folks cringed because he was always yelling.

That’s correct; it doesn’t appear in the right click menu, but you can click on Edit in the menu bar and all the usual editing options are available.

Yes, constantly putting the word ham and its variations in sneer quotes rankled me also at first. It was a little like being at a party and having a drunken guest constantly doing air quotes where they really didn't belong. ?

I see nothing wrong with what you propose. It's your repeater so you can impose rules that make it more enjoyable for you and your users. I am a ham and I am a GMRS user and I see them as different radio services, used for different purposes, but as I said earlier, it's like the Wild West still with lots of people finding new ways to use GMRS that don't always fit others' concepts. I think it's too simplistic to blame that on others, but we can all share in developing solutions.

The repeater that doesn't require an input tone will repeat everything it hears on its input frequency. The repeater that requires an input tone will only repeat those things that it hears which include the correct tone. So, if you transmit using the input tone for the repeater that requires tones, and if you are within range of both, both repeaters will retransmit your transmission.

Exactly this ^^^ Repeaters don't have reserved channels. If a channel is busy, I'll go somewhere else, but if I listen and the channel is free, am I obligated to know that a repeater might use that frequency? How is it possible for me to even know that a channel is the output channel of a repeater? Once someone is using a frequency, whether for simplex communications or as the output of a repeater, others should respect that. That's only right. Having a repeater tone set on your receiver will invariably lead to a collision because a person using a repeater won't hear someone who is transmitting without a tone or with a different tone.

I would like to see the list. If I'm doing something that is a problem I want to know about it. I can always learn and improve.

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.