SteveShannon

That means a lot. Best wishes for your preparations! WRYZ926 gave some really good specific advice, better than I did.

The Wouxun KG-1000 is widely considered one of the best 50 watt (maximum allowed) mobile GMRS radios, but with the right antenna even a 20 watt radio should do nearly as well. There is no purpose built GMRS “base station” radio, only mobile radios installed in a permanent location with a base station antenna.

You might think that, and in the absence of a definition I would agree, but the FCC defines Remote Control: Remote control. Operation of a Personal Radio Services station from a location that is not in the immediate vicinity of the transmitter. Operation of a Personal Radio Services station from any location on the premises, vehicle or craft where the transmitter is located is not considered to be remote control. And they define “Operate” in a way that seems to be more than the limited scope of remote control that you might expect: Operate. Control the functioning of a Personal Radio Service station; in particular, cause a Personal Radio Service station to begin, continue or cease transmitting.

Just ignore it.

Yes, an output tone is always optional. If the repeater has one and you program it into your radio you’ll only hear the repeater or other radios transmitting on the same frequency using the same tone. If you leave the tone empty (or use Tone Mode = “TONE” then you’ll hear everything transmitted on that frequency.

You might be able to pull the plastic shroud off to see if the capacitor has broken free from the coil internally. If so, just resolder it.

My reply wasn’t intended to disagree with you. You’re right that the ordering or labeling of the tones on different brands of radios is not standardized, even if the tones themselves are. Fortunately most radios now simply list the frequency rather than an abstract label. And some tones are not included for technical reasons. The 100 Hz tone is sometimes not included in some countries because it’s exactly twice the frequency of the 50 Hz electric system and there were concerns that interference from power lines could open squelch inadvertently. My old Motorola Talkabouts, Midland GXT1000s, and even my newer Garmin still uses labels. Fortunately I only needed to set those older GMRS radios once; our rocketry club settled long ago on channel 7 tone 6 (which appears to be the same across different radios). My Wouxun kg805 uses frequencies; i haven’t played with it much. All of my amateur handhelds (mostly Yaesu but a couple Baofengs, one Alinco, and one TYT) present the actual frequencies in ascending order. That’s easier to understand than the labeled tones.

Sure there is: EIA/TIA-603-E

Motorola invented PL tones, other companies added tones. There’s more to it than simply picking tones out of a hat. Read the history on Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_Tone-Coded_Squelch_System

Some radios have a wake up feature that allow you to use CTCSS or DTCSS to get through the repeater and then separately send eith a two tone, five tone, or DTMF sequence to wake up a radio. That’s more commonly available than using two different CTCSS or DTCSS tones. Most inexpensive radios cannot send two different CTCSS or DTCSS tones and whatever tones are required by the repeater are continuously needed. Look for 2-tone or 5-tone settings in the instructions and make sure someone has been able to use them successfully. On the forums recently someone was trying to do the same thing without success.

They could, and many of us feel that “open access “ means no permission is required. But, the courteous thing to do is to acknowledge the generosity of the repeater owner and thank them. A repeater owner doesn’t “need” to grant access, but because they are responsible for the use of their repeater it makes sense to at least be aware of who’s using it. A repeater owner has responsibilities under the regulations: § 95.1705 Individual licenses required; eligibility; who may operate; cooperative use. (d) Individual licensee duties. The holder of an individual license: (1) Shall determine specifically which individuals, including family members, are allowed to operate (i.e., exercise operational control over) its GMRS station(s) (see paragraph (c) of this section); (2) May allow any person to use (i.e., benefit from the operation of) its GMRS repeater, or alternatively, may limit the use of its GMRS repeater to specific persons; (3) May disallow the use of its GMRS repeater by specific persons as may be necessary to carry out its responsibilities under this section.

Kenny was just saying that the negative/ground wire doesn’t have to be run through the firewall because there are established chassis ground points that are nearer, reducing ground wire length, voltage drop, and potential to pick up interference. The positive wire should still be run like you did, to the battery.

There was nothing wrong with your attempt except compared to some I’ve read it didn’t seen over the top at all. . I guess my humor was desensed.

What do you mean “serious emergency comms”? Who do you think you will talk to if a riot breaks out at your 8 year old daughter’s soccer game? Riots don’t interrupt cell phones; call 911.

We hams always have the same answer when we don’t know: Try it! Honestly I think it should work.

I would return the antenna. Some poor quality antennas either short the center lead to the shield when installed or leave the center lead disconnected from the antenna element.

1-7 are authorized for 20 kHz 8-14 are authorized for 12.5 kHz 15-30 are authorized for 20 kHz

You posted exactly the same question 9 hours ago in General Discussions. I didn’t know the answer then. You might want to explain what ASL is for those of us who don’t know, although presumably the folks who can answer your question will know. I’m pretty sure you don’t mean American Sign Language. Good luck getting an answer.

And it’s flaky ever since.

Guest John, I don’t see where you are but NOAA stations go down and come back up from time to time. Look on their website to see if the one in your area is offline. That’s especially possible since you said you could hear it and then it just stopped. The one near Bakersfield was offline recently. This shows their outages: https://www.weather.gov/nwr/outages

A dipole, as used as the driven element in most Yagi antennas, presents an impedance of about 72 ohms. Four of them in parallel, without using some sort of impedance matching splitter, would be 1/4 of 72 or 18 ohms.

Unfortunately the TYT TH-9800 doesn’t have SSB, if that’s important to you.

Yes, you could have even before getting a license Just say your call sign once in a great while. You don’t have to spell it out. And if you neglect saying it probably nobody will notice. Push the button and talk.

Tropospheric ducting.

Welcome!