SteveShannon

Channel 21 or repeater channel 21, which might be displayed as RP21 or possibly even channel 29? Because the repeater channels (RP15-RP22 or 23-30 on some radios) are received on the same frequencies as 15-22, you will hear repeater transmissions while on 21, but you won’t be transmitting on the correct frequency.

No such determination has occurred or will occur. GMRS repeater systems are not illegal. The FCC added words to their interpretation page saying that repeaters could not be connected together using the internet. That's all. The number of repeaters shouldn't change.

I'm sort of tempted. I'll be in Phoenix tomorrow, but I won't know the disposition of anything here yet.

Just like this forum.

Thanks. Both of my guys went with me and gave statements to the highway patrol and have offered to testify if it comes to that. I don’t think it should but who knows. I don’t know what the other guy told the patrolman, but we all three from my vehicle told the truth. I didn’t see the two passengers of his truck either at the accident or when we spoke to the patrolman. One was a minor (the other driver’s son, unknown age), but the other driver can’t be more than 24-25 years old. He graduated high school in 2017. The other was his girlfriend, who might be his son’s mother. I emphasized to his insurance guy that this seemed like road rage, pure and simple. I see no other way to describe it. I have the ability to hire lawyers to represent me and pursue this if needed, but I would rather keep it simpler than that.

It doesn’t appear to use the earth’s curvature. I selected two points 800 miles apart and the result didn’t display curvature.

So, there was a police report, taken when I reported the accident. Montana state law requires all vehicles to be insured in order to be registered and the guy who hit me had current Insurance. A “crash report information exchange form” is either printed by the investigating officer or in this case was emailed to all drivers. In Montana if a person fails to fulfill their financial responsibility their license plates can be taken away until they do. So, it appears as though both of us have shown proof of insurance. His insurance company adjuster called me and asked me questions and had me describe the accident in my own words on a recorded line. Afterwards a friend pointed out that maybe I shouldn’t have cooperated, that maybe the insurance company could somehow use that against me, but I don’t really think like that. Some of my friends think I’m just not paranoid enough.

Did you have to change anything or was it just a matter of trying the repeater when someone else was listening?

What’s a financial responsibility statement?

I agree. It just seems like such a waste to consider a vehicle totaled because the door and fender got dented. I mean a "fender bender" used to be used to describe a minor accident! I think I know where I can find a door and fender also that look like they're in good condition. A guy is parting out a 4Runner of the same range: 2003-2009.

Thanks. It does suck, but it’s really not an off-road vehicle (but it does go on gravel roads often). But it did off-road well. It was the one vehicle I could drive almost anywhere. I’m just waiting to hear what the insurance companies say. My son-in-law really wanted this 4Runner. I thought about giving it to them but he bought a Tacoma this spring.

Thank you, Gil! It was more like “hit and lead” because he never appeared to attempt to speed off, although he was going slightly faster than I was. When we called the sheriff’s office my friend said to the dispatcher that the guy who ran into us was right ahead of us if they wanted to send a car to intercept him. The dispatcher said “No, it’s shift change and we really don’t have anyone available.” I was not terribly impressed. I suspect that this is a “he said vs. he said” thing and law enforcement will just let the insurance companies fight over it.

The officer emailed me a copy of the "Information Exchange Form" and the guy had his son and girlfriend with him, which I didn't realize at the time. I'm still not sure why he reacted that way. I've gone over it a million times in my head, wondering what I might have done to trigger him, but I just can't come up with anything. Fortunately nobody was hurt in either vehicle. I wasn't about to jump out of my vehicle when he did. I've seen too many reports of a person dying after a road rage incident after both parties jumped out full of testosterone. The estimate (new front door, new fender, new step, paint, and labor comes to $9403. That seems incredible to me, especially since blue book on this is $10-11k. That may result in his insurance declaring my vehicle "totaled" which I don't want. It has been such a good vehicle and it's fairly low miles on what some people consider the best engine Toyota has put in the 4Runner. I'm assuming his insurance will pay, but even that hasn't been communicated to me yet. I'll call my insurance tomorrow to see if they have heard anything. I have too many vehicle as it is. I have the 4Runner, a 1998 Dodge Ram with 70k on it, and my wife's wheelchair van, a 2010 Toyota Sienna/Braun Rampvan. My wife can't drive anymore, so maybe I'll reduce my stable to just two vehicles. The wheelchair van is crucial. A pickup is really helpful. I could probably get by without the SUV as long as I have a crew cab, but the smaller size of the SUV is really nice for going up to the repeater site. Oh, well.

Exactly, and some of the codeplugs I’ve done for Maurice have hundreds of channels for DMR and at least 100 analog.

My off-road ride is a 2006 4Runner Limited. Stock except for some kind of 10 ply all-terrain tires. It’s my favorite vehicle, comfortable, small enough to safely follow most jeep trails, and only 123,000 miles on the original v8 engine. Last Saturday I drove up to our repeater which sits at about 9700 feet. The last 1500’ of elevation is on a shale trail that starts at a forest service gate. I was given permission by the Forest Service to go around the gate on a trail created by recreational riders who scoff at the USFS gate. After surveying the condition of the repeaters (2 m analog and 70 cm DMR/analog) we returned to town. We (three of us in my vehicle) fell in behind a white Chevy Silverado. The road was plenty wide for two way traffic. When the Chevy stopped and pulled a little bit to the right at a wide spot in the road, I pulled to the left and passed. I was nearly read to pull back to the right side. Apparently, my passing set off the Chevy’s driver for some reason and I heard him romp on the accelerator. I glued my eyes to the road ahead thinking he was trying to overtake me and pass on the right but my front seat passenger said the white Chevy turned right toward us. He hit us with his tire at the very front of the right rear door, just a scuff, and then his left front tire ground itself into my right front passenger door before his fender wrinkled my fender. His tire also bent my step down. We both pulled to a stop. He jumped out and started back towards us. I rolled down my window. He yelled “What the f?!” I yelled “I thought you pulled over to let me pass!” He threw his hands in the air. I yelled “What’s your name” He got back in his truck and drove off but not before we got a picture of his truck and license plate. We were in an area without cell service so we drove back to town. He stayed ahead of us the entire way, even stopping just ahead of us when traffic was stopped for construction. As soon as we got back to cell service one of the guys with me called and reported the incident to the Sheriff Department. They asked if we wanted to meet an officer somewhere or come to the station. We chose station. A highway patrol officer took our statements and then called the other driver based on the license plate. He had gone to his house several miles west of town (the accident happened south of town) so he had to drive back to Butte. I don’t know if he was cited or not. The patrolman let us go before the other guy. I reported it to my insurance company who reported it to his insurance. He hadn’t reported it. When asked about it he said he didn’t think anything had been damaged. I don’t understand that at all. Here are some pictures:

The TYT MD UV380, when loaded with the open source OpenUV380 firmware does an excellent job of speaking menu words that are in its vocabulary, but spells everything else, letter by letter. I sent mine to my blind friend after loading the firmware and I don’t remember for sure whether it spells channel names or speaks the channel number.

“Off with their heads!” cried the red queen.

Yes! Sorry, I thought I included the phrase “all other things being equal.“ I meant to anyway.

Because RF is emitted in all directions equally from an isentropic antenna, one way to compare the range of different power outputs is to think in terms of the volume of a sphere: Two watts fills the volume of a sphere of a radius of 0.78159 (the units in this case end up being the cube root of watts.) Five watts fills the volume of sphere of 1.06078. So, all other things equal, the range of a 5 watt radio compared to a 2 watt radio, to produce the same RF strength, will be approximately 36% further. Increasing it to 10 watts (five times the power of the two watt radio) results in 70% greater range. Increasing power to 20 watts gets you a little more than twice the range of the 2 watt radio (2.14 times to be exact). Finally, increasing it to 50 watts gets you less than three times the range of the 2 watt radio. (a factor of 2.917). Hopefully this illustrates how little/much RF power actually matters.

I can answer your questions on electronic theory if you need.

Why not just get into ham radio? There are DMR repeaters all over the world. You can even target an individual user. Nothing is private of course, but the Brandmeister network allows you to connect to a talkgroup or an individual radio. All it takes is a technician class ham radio license and a DMR radio. The TYT MD-UV380 is under a hundred dollars. I recommend loading it with Open UV380 firmware.

Yeah, apparently I missed the original post too. Such hubris.

Good for you! I think home brewing antennas is one of the happiest aspects of ham radio and I am interested in your results for GMRS. It’s so much easier for 462 and 467 MHz than for anything in HF.

Welcome!

Yeah, no matter what you do some people will complain.