SteveShannon

Here’s the sad tale copied and pasted to save a person a trip to Facebook: Hello Everyone... This is not a good-news post. Since we have not received the promised financial support (or further contact) from those that have pledged to us in the prior months, our trustees met last month and we had to make a very tough decision. BARN-R1 will be turning off for the last time in July. This was a heart-wrenching decision that was not made lightly. We just cannot afford the site costs, lack of support from our current users, and lack of effort by those who made promises to help us financially. The site is a key location as it's only one of three towers that covers both the San Francisco and Monterey Bay Areas without loss of signal from Point Reyes down to King City. We were grandfathered into the site from K-Comm (Howard Krawitz) to the now-current owners, K2 Towers, LLC. Howard and I met through a common friend back in 2008, and placed us up on Crystal Peak for a mere $85/month! He allowed us to put the antenna anywhere on the south tower, so as long as we weren't on someone elses side arm. So we chose the 120' level, hauled up a steel side arm, and placed our signal-winning 7.1 dB antenna on it. Our 1/2" 100' heliax hardline was donated to us then, along with its connectors and a few other cables needed to get into the compound building. Howard sadly passed in 2017, and his wife took over. Struggling to meet the demands of the wireless clients, she sold K-Comm to a company based on the east coast, and K2 Towers, LLC took over. They immediately assessed the current clients, raised rents, and now charged us $125/month. The new company also had strict requirements and expectations for their newly-aquired clients, and made it difficult to work with non-profit systems like us. Then Covid-19 hit, which caused us to spiral down financially. Our normal supporters couldn't float both the site as well as their own family during this time, so we had to let the bills pile up. This resulted in over $4,100 in backpay to date, and was the boulder that broke our back. We tried desperately to obtain financial help from the community, but it seems people would rather freeload than support (sadly). We've also offered to transfer the site to other existing groups that wanted to expand (including keeping the grandfathered rate in place vs the $450/mo current rate), but no one wanted it. We even went so far as to sell the entire system to anyone who would want it, but there just weren't any takers. So, by the end of July, 2022, we will be closing our R1 system down. We've been on-air since 2003 without any limitations, and are the longest-running open-use GMRS system to date. Our goal was to provide full coverage for both portable, mobile, and base station licensees without signal loss, and we did. We also exceeded the goal of providing our system for use by emergency organizations including The American Red Cross (ARC), Bay Area Emergency Radio (BAER), Blackberry REACT Chapter, San Jose CERT, and CalFire (CDF) during the Loma Fire. We've achieved so much, but now are fighting against a generation that lacks interest in this service with other users buiilding their own unregulated low-level system and cluttering the bandwaves in the bay areas with no coordination. It's time to step down and move onto other projects that don't cost us an arm/leg to operate. For those that have recently donated, your funds will still go directly to offset the rent backpay, and we thank you sincerely for your support during this time. There is a question that we've been getting asked constantly, and that is "if someone steps up and pays off the entire backpay, can R1 stay on the air?" Yes, absolutely! We would still pay the monthly rent, but K2 Towers, LLC is threatening to kick us out regardless if we don't pay the backpay in full. Despite the numerous emails and phone calls we've made to them to help them understand the economy struggle California still faces (as they live on the east coast), they seem to not care. So we are forced to shut down permanently. We want to thank each and every person and their families for your support, usage, and interest in BARN. We wouldn't be here without you. And while it will be a dead site without a full-coverage system for future users, you won't be forgotten. Thanks again for the 22+ years serving the Bay Areas! It was fun while it lasted! D. Ryan Seregow, WPUI299, N6BRN Founder/Owner John Bridgeman, WPYN438 Financial Trustee Laura Bridgeman, WPYN438 (WQMG760) Membership Trustee

Of course it’s a test. If there’s no reception whatsoever a person can rule out some things. It doesn’t test everything, but it helps rule out certain failure modes.

There are two different sets of credentials: those for the website and those for the forum. They don’t have to be the same, but frequently are. You must be logged in using the website credentials to use the repeater lookup. You must be logged into the forum to participate in the forum.

Good job troubleshooting! Thanks for letting us know.

The first test should be to see if you can receive anything. Did you try that? Although you say nothing has changed, it's obvious that something has changed that affects the radio. It's acting like the antenna is disconnected somewhere, causing high SWR and heating up the circuits. Since you say there's no visible physical damage, I would check for moisture damage. Test the antenna cable with a multimeter at the very least. You should see no continuity between the center conductor and the shield. You should see no or very low impedance between one end of the shield and the other. Same for the center conductor - continuity between ends. If you have another section of cable (and even another antenna) you could try it to see if the radio works with it. Again, check for reception before jumping right in and transmitting. If it cannot receive from a nearby handheld, there may be some hidden damage that transmitting would only exacerbate. Good luck!

How flexible/rigid does that top section seem, Marc? I bought a 40 foot Spiderbeam, which is great for portability, but the top section is so flexible that I would hesitate to use it for anything other than holding up a wire antenna. To support a small vertical antenna and keep it vertical, I would probably leave the top section telescoped down inside the next section.

Sounds like it’s pretty useful to road crews and construction people though. ?

Test it for yourself. Connect the positive lead to positive, leave the negative disconnected, and put a voltmeter between your antenna and ground. (Voltmeters are high impedance so current would be very low if there was any.) The power supply requires connections to both positive and negative in order to work. That fuse may even provide some reverse polarity protection.

That’s exactly why people participate in forums, to discuss. Plus, everything learned here can be applied elsewhere. Everyone has different priorities; we shouldn’t dismiss discussions based on coverage, but I understand the feeling that some discussions go on far longer than their sell by date. I would love to find an Ignore Thread button so I could permanently disregard the “Radio Hatred” dumpster fire. To each their own.

Marc, I just want to understand. So if I buy an RT97, which has no way to incorporate an automated ID, is it your interpretation that if I have written record showing that I’ve shared it with someone, the repeater is legally identified when they use their call sign, thus making an auto ID unnecessary? So, I could understand that if I had it as a loaner: This weekend I take it camping and I use it to speak with all the members of my family who may operate under my GMRS license. Next weekend my good friend Marc picks it up and takes it with him to use to talk to his family under his license. But what about those times when you and I want to use it to chat with each other. Naturally you and I identify ourselves using our own call signs, but how does the repeater get identified? Does it get identified when I use my call sign and re-identified when you use your call sign? Kind of like a Sybil, a repeater that is identified using multiple call signs? Or is this when the repeater is being used as an open repeater and so we have to also ID the repeater using my call sign (since I’m the owner)? Thanks,

It looks like the navigation system is called Tread. It pairs with your phone using Bluetooth and it communicates within its own network using 2.4GHz. You can add the optional MURS voice radio for $400, which also serves as a holder/mount for the navigator. Although the Tread navigator is networked to other Tread navigators, I saw nothing that indicates that the Group Ride radio is limited at all, or that the group ride radio is part of the navigator network even. Actually, except for the specifications page and a couple videos, which I didn’t watch, there’s no documentation for the Group Ride radio at all. I have been a user of the Garmin Rino GMRS radios for several years now. I like the gps and the sharing of location data with other Rino users. The GMRS radio works well. It was spendy as well. I am not tempted to switch, but for someone just getting into overlanding I could understand the temptation to adopt a Tread and Group Ride radio.

Is it used to turn on or off simultaneously receiving? One of the features of the 935 is its ability to receive two channels at once. Maybe this turns that off.

I reported your post to the admin. Hopefully he can assist you with this.

Okay, nice to know you. Reporting your thread is a way to actually send a notification to the administrator. It should be obvious that serial bumping your original complaint hasn’t exactly worked out.

Did you try reporting your post and using the comment field to explain your issue? I have had good results doing that. Simply being tagged might not attract his attention.

When I joined, which was very late last year, I had the option of creating a username. I still had to provide my call sign so they could verify my license, but I didn’t have to use my call sign as my username.

Not that I’ve found, Tom, but the KG-UV8h appears to be a ham version that might be able to be used on GMRS frequencies also according to the comments accompanying this video:

It’s impossible for them to even know. It’s a victimless and harmless violation that can’t be detected. The very epitome of government uselessness.

I am an engineer ? When it comes to antennas, everything affects them. A metal roof certainly would. Foil backed insulation between rafters would as well, but usually insulation is between the ceiling joists rather than the rafters unless the attic is heated. Even roofing nails can have an effect. Attics are also not terribly elevated. However, antennas are frequently placed in attics, including a lot of wire dipoles, and they sometimes work well enough. That’s all we need right? Good enough? Try it. You can always decide to put it outside. Note from personal experience: be careful about roofing nails that stick through the sheathing. More than one person has holed his head on them.

From the sticky at the top of this guest forum: Note to Guest Users: To participate in all Forum threads, you must be registered at the main MyGMRS.com website listed below. In order to register at the main website, you must have a valid FCC issued GMRS license and call sign. It can sometimes take up to a week for the FCC database to sync with the MyGMRS.com database, so if you try to register at the main website and get a note stating that the license listed in your application is not valid, please wait a couple days and try again. Once you are registered at the main website, THEN you can also register here at the forum. Thank you.

Check the Accessibility settings in your device. That’s typically where I make changes that allow my wife to see things better.

@rdunajewski- How can I ignore or mark as read an event or invitation to join a club. Currently there’s an event which leads to an invitation to join Southdade GMRS club. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s simply not something that interests me. It’s in the wrong part of the USA for me. If I click on the event I am asked to agree to the terms and click join or cancel. I click cancel but the event continues to appear whenever I filter for unread content. I don’t see where I can ignore the post either. How I solved it: I clicked “Mark site as read”. That did it. Now, when I click on show unread content, I have an empty list. But I’m still curious why visiting an event post doesn’t mark it as read. I could only click “Mark site read” because I had truly read all other posts, otherwise I would lose track of what I truly had read or not.

Threads don’t get deleted. They remain so that others may learn from them. With that in mind what did you figure out about the receive audio?

Go to ULS Advanced License Search and look for all GMRS licensees in Texas: https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/UlsSearch/searchAdvanced.jsp;JSESSIONID_ULSSEARCH=NmlSvfQf3LLCynDMknHT40XzHm1LpkTbTyJJNL2ZVqb332mzGd2J!-1761060429!-1920965459

I’m from Butte. I don’t know of any repeaters in the state other than the ones shown on the listing here, which includes one in Kalispell and three in Billings. There is a pretty good DMR network for the state if you are a ham.