SteveShannon

Welcome! If you take a few days reading through posts on this site you’ll find literally thousands of posts that recommend repeaters, coax cables, and antennas. Not quite so many on masts and towers.

APRS is a way of communicating information using packets. The most common information transmitted using APRS is location, but it can also include weather or text messages. There is a whole unofficial network of radios called digipeaters (digital repeaters) that share all of that information so it can be seen using the website APRS.fi, but if you have an APRS capable radio you can receive the information locally as well. People flying large high power rockets or high altitude balloons use tiny little APRS transmitters tucked away in their payloads so they can get them back. When my ham radio club provides logistical support for a local fundraising bike ride, many of us use handheld radios that allow us to communicate by voice on one frequency while transmitting our location on the APRS frequency. That allows our “base” to see all the moving pieces on a map on a computer screen. If you search for AI7KS in APRS.fi you may see traces for AI7KS-7 or AI7KS-8, depending on which one of my APRS radios I am carrying (assuming I remember to turn on APRS.)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/trump-administration-releases-proposed-drone-rules-and-regulatory-changes/2019/02/18/443c737e-2feb-11e9-8ad3-9a5b113ecd3c_story.html

There are losses from connectors, more in some grades of equipment. I still prefer to leave my swr/power meter connected in-line. If something strange happens it’s sure easier to diagnose. Having the meter off should not affect the SWR, unless it’s a really poor meter.

Your radio has the ability to occasionally send it’s location. If so I would assume that would happen on whatever channel you were tuned to before you started the scan. Maybe that activity causes it to stop.

Got your message. I’m just eating lunch now. I’ll be available in about thirty minutes.

I thought he might have had an expectation that he could transmit on a simplex channel as if calling “CQ” on one of the ham bands and someone would “come back”. I think for most of us we just pick a simplex channel before we begin some group activity. All of us know to transmit on that frequency and all of us monitor that one frequency. We are not sitting around waiting for someone to transmit who isn’t engaged in whatever activity that binds our group together.

Don’t let my opinions constrain you. There are certainly GMRS clubs, just as there are ham clubs. As long as you mostly follow the regulations I don’t think there’s anything wrong with enjoying your radios however you want. If I were in an area with an active GMRS club, I’m sure I would have responded differently.

There are some exceptions, but for the most part you’re correct. If you want to get on a radio and make contacts with random strangers, that’s perfectly acceptable (even encouraged) in ham radio. In that case the radio activity is the hobby. Far fewer people do that on GMRS, but some do. I use my GMRS radios for communications to my friends when we are enjoying some other recreational activity, such as amateur rocketry. Others use them to facilitate communications while they’re riding motorcycles or rock crawling in jeeps or hiking, etc. In that case, the GMRS radio is a tool to be used to help the enjoyment of another hobby. At least that’s how I think of it.

I’ll PM you my phone number. Sometime this afternoon you can feel free give me a call and you can ask whatever you want. Maybe that will help?

Midland and Baofeng use different numerical values to indicate their CTCSS tones. As long as you use the same tone frequencies instead of expecting “Tone 6” to be the same in one as in the other they’ll have no problems. Look in their different manuals and match the actual frequencies.

As Marc said the advantage is in the eyes of the beholder. If I just want to talk to my non-ham friends without getting all excited about the technology I’ll use GMRS. But if I want to learn about radio technology with fewer limitations, I’ll use ham radio.

My professional career was SCADA for more than two decades. I programmed it, I designed small and large systems, and I sold systems to municipalities and government entities. I eventually ended up supervising 13 SCADA engineers who maintained the Energy Management System (the master) for an electric transmission system carrying 2550 megawatts of power. While @KBSherwood could do what he wishes with SCADA and a license for LMR radios, that would be unnecessarily expensive and complex in my opinion. There are myriad hobby level or even home automation devices, including license free wireless communications, that can be used to accomplish this, as well as by doing what he has expressed an interest in.

That’s found herein: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-D/part-95/subpart-E § 95.1751 GMRS station identification. Each GMRS station must be identified by transmission of its FCC-assigned call sign at the end of transmissions and at periodic intervals during transmissions except as provided in paragraph (c) of this section. A unit number may be included after the call sign in the identification. (a) The GMRS station call sign must be transmitted: (1) Following a single transmission or a series of transmissions; and, (2) After 15 minutes and at least once every 15 minutes thereafter during a series of transmissions lasting more than 15 minutes. (b) The call sign must be transmitted using voice in the English language or international Morse code telegraphy using an audible tone. (c) Any GMRS repeater station is not required to transmit station identification if: (1) It retransmits only communications from GMRS stations operating under authority of the individual license under which it operates; and, (2) The GMRS stations whose communications are retransmitted are properly identified in accordance with this section.

Hopefully I understand the problem correctly! I apologize if I didn’t. I would get a Digirig and connect it between the USB port on a raspberry pi controller and a “master” radio to send tones, alarm sounds, synthesized speech or whatever under program control. They have cables for many different radios. The cables connect to the microphone and speakers to serve up sounds. The DigiRig is tiny. I would have the master radio send DTMF tones to the “slaves” to control various outputs. That’s where you could use the DTMF output board, but now that I’m thinking of it you probably could do something smarter with a raspberry pi board. Those outputs could be used to turn on or off alarms or other simple devices. You could probably cobble up a way to do multiple bit outputs but very few of them. As far as controlling high current devices you use the low current outputs as interposing relays or pilot relays to control higher current relays. You definitely don’t want to turn off the slave radios because once you do that you have completely severed connections with no way to re-establish them. You might be able to send a specific command to lock or unlock the Sounds like a fun project. I hope I’ve helped.

I would just buy a DTMF board with DO points.

@WRFF835 - although it’s not something very many people do, it’s your radio and your time. If it’s important to you, go for it. I don’t know why you couldn’t just use one of the existing apps, although probably none have been programmed to automatically look up GMRS users.

Good article and I agree that a BMS is necessary for high energy density batteries like Li-ion, LiFePo, or Lipo batteries, but in my admittedly shallow experience (a customer of the utility telecommunications department and for my wife’s electric wheelchair), if the OP is charging lead acid batteries, a BMS is not necessary. For utility telecommunication sites (I was in a different department that depended on them, so again, I’m not an SME) they simply used strings of ten lead acid batteries in glass or plastic trays for a -125 vDC system. Hopefully, by now, the OP has already worked it out.

I’m not an expert on battery charging circuits, but what I do know agrees completely with this.

Welcome, Zack!

Suggest that cousins be added. There are changes almost weekly.

How is this complicated? It’s very specifically defined. Is there any way to misinterpret it? (2) Any individual who holds an individual license may allow his or her immediate family members to operate his or her GMRS station or stations. Immediate family members are the licensee's spouse, children, grandchildren, stepchildren, parents, grandparents, stepparents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and in-laws. I thought the cousin-wife thing was funny.

Both of those are good examples.

Correcting myself to add “or if there’s a strong wide spectrum source of interference, such as some LED lights or a bad connection in a utility panel.”