SteveShannon

It’s against the rules to transmit on GMRS frequencies using a radio that hasn’t been certified for GMRS. But unless you’re doing far worse things nobody will probably ever know or care and the FCC will not cite you.

A heavy forest and flat ground is almost the worst case for uhf. And although I’m one who over generalizes that a person will typically not notice the difference between 3 watts and 5 watts, that’s not in all instances. I could definitely see it making a difference getting through woods or other material that attenuates the signal rather than outright blocking them. If power were completely meaningless we could all get by with 100 milliwatts. I made a contact hundreds of miles away last night on ham radio. I was using 800 milliwatts on 10 meters when I did it. It was an accident and I was busy trying to figure out why my RF output was at 0.8 watts at the time. Of course conditions must have been just right and once I figured out my mistake and started operating at nearly 50 watts I was getting contacts faster than I could handle.

This is the only thing in your post that gave me heartburn. RG8x is terrible for GMRS. If you’re using more than just a very short length you’re attenuating a significant portion of your RF output in the cable before it ever gets to the antenna. Fifty feet of RG8X attenuates 62% of the signal. 50 watts out of the radio becomes 18 watts delivered to the antenna. https://kv5r.com/ham-radio/coax-loss-calculator/

Not all repeaters have squelch tail and some radios have squelch tail elimination. If the repeater beeps after it repeats a signal that’s sometimes called a courtesy beep. If the repeater did the courtesy beep before you got the new radio but makes no sound now I agree with you that you’re not activating the repeater. That can be caused by you transmitting on the wrong channel, being out of range, sending the wrong TX tone, or filtering out the signal by using the wrong RX tone. New radios always introduce new peccadillos. Try getting rid of the RX tone if you’re using one. With no tone you’ll hear everything on the channel. Then double check your channel and your TX tone. Finally, try getting closer. Try the radio that previously worked just to make sure. Good luck!

Not all repeaters have output tones. Instead, ask if anyone can hear you.

In engineering we refer to Occam’s Razor. The simplest reason is usually right. I like the way you said it better.

I discovered it accidentally, but it has made my life easier.

The technique I described above can also be used to break a single quote box into multiple boxes so that the original statements may be commented on separately. For instance, a series of statements like below: By placing the cursor inside the quotation block where you want to break, and then giving two returns, then backing up to the blank line between statements and giving three more returns, the quote block is divided: Of course the same technique can be used between the second and third statements as well: becomes: So you can reply to the statements separately.

Hi and welcome! Sometimes it takes a few days for your call sign to be recognized by the forum software. It’s not a daily update. Don’t panic!!

About 14 miles as the crow flies, but I would probably have to ricochet the signals off a mountain.

Try moving the power cable and usb cable away from each other to see if it makes a difference.

Maybe, but if I wanted to establish a dedicated wireless intercom or SCADA system between my home and my cabin, setting up two fixed stations is a good solution. I could set it up a full duplex system using the 467 MHz and 462 MHz main channels, using only 15 watts to minimize interference with Yagi antennas pointing at each other.

There’s an entire thread about Fixed Stations, but the definition of each in the regulations is the place to start.

The Input Tone is the tone your radio must send (your radio’s TX CTCSS) along with your voice in order to open the repeater. The Output Tone is the tone the repeater transmits. You can program it into your radio as the RX CTCSS, but it’s optional. If you don’t program an RX CTCSS in your radio it will reproduce all signals on the receiver frequency. For the repeater you show the tx frequency should be 467.550 MHz.

According to the regulations repeaters are limited to transmit on any of the eight 462 MHz Main channels. Radios are limited to transmit to repeaters on any of the eight 467 MHz Main channels. Most radios pair the 462 MHz Main channels with the 467 MHz Main channels and that makes perfect sense. But, the rules do not require it. You can program your repeater to use any one of the 462 MHz Main channels with any one of the 467 MHz Main channels. In some coastal cities repeater owners do just that because of maritime interference.

Or FRS users (at least for 1-22).

Once upon a time there was a user called WXRP381. He answered reasonable questions with asinine and judgmental answers and quickly ended up with a bad reputation. So he changed his name to Socalgmrs. But because he was the problem instead of his username the bad reputation continued getting worse. As his reputation got worse so did his comments. I’ve pasted a screenshot that shows how he spoke to new members who asked questions. Eventually he decided to leave the forum but rather than simply leaving he had the forum owner delete his account. That is why there are hundreds of unhelpful posts that now have the username “Guest”. That was three months ago. He’s back and using his same old username but because his earlier account was deleted his history of posts didn’t follow him.

They’re considered mobile radios when not called out separately and subject to the 50 watt limit.

Anytone and Alinco software is good because it allows exporting and importing data from CSV files but the format of one model must be matched or data will fill the wrong columns. RT Systems takes that up a notch and makes it even easier to move data from one model to another but you still need to understand the data model. Without knowing which software you’re using for your Baofeng it’s hard to advise. Chirp is free and works well. RT Systems is not free but works very well except for rare instances.

Doing a little ft8 I see! I enjoy it also.

I agree completely.

In my case I got the Radioddity db20g for both (even though I now use them exclusively on ham bands). They’re easy to use and very small and I’ve heard almost nobody complain about their quality, although a few people have had an issue where the squelch remains open.

Actually, 95.1705 not only specifies who may hold a license but also specifically lists whom that license holder may authorize to use his or her stations. Third parties are not listed, unlike for amateur radio. If they aren’t listed, the license holder may not authorize them to operate the license holder’s stations. It’s that simple. There’s a broad list of family members and in an emergency the license holder may authorize anyone. Also, while 95.1743 excludes minors from responsibility it goes on to state that the license holder has full responsibility for the minor’s actions while operating the station. This is absolutely not complicated by operating on “FRS channels” because there is no such distinction; all of the FRS channels are also GMRS channels. If the radio used is certified for GMRS the GMRS rules must be followed, regardless of channel used, output power, antenna permanence, or any other characteristic. I absolutely agree that the instructor avoids all of this by using certified FRS radios. And yes, I realize that none of the above rules are likely to be enforced, but I think GMRS license holders should understand them correctly anyway.

The DB20G also wasn’t supported by RT Systems until just a few weeks ago, but now it is and it works very well! I would suspect Chirp support will follow.

Are there different Roger beeps and did you change your Roger beep to one of the others?