mainehazmt

Just a reminder for some of our new members - Forum participation on or near US holidays is always less than at most other times.  Please be patient for member replies at holiday time at the MyGMRS Forum.

Thanks and have a safe and enjoyable holiday weekend..
 
 
MyGMRS Staff -

Very nice decision and I'm sure that it will be greatly appreciated... (until the new owner tries to program it...LOL...   )

A few days after I returned from my annual visit to the "Holy Shrine of Hamdom" (Dayton Hamvention) I received a mysterious email notifying that a package was being sent from Ohio via FedEx. I was a bit suspicious since I knew I hadn't ordered anything. Then I thought maybe DARA (Dayton Amateur Radio Club) was sending me a polo or tee-shirt as a thank you for my weekend of volunteer work as a shuttle driver.
 
But then, I noticed that the package weighed 2.5 pounds, and a signature was required, so just what was it?
 
When it was delivered a few days later, I briefly noticed that the edge of the box had "JCVKenwood" printed. Now my curiosity was truly aroused!
 
It turns out that unbeknownst to me, I had won one of the major show prizes in the hourly ticket drawing! It was a brand new, shiny Kenwood TH-D74 Tri-Band HT!  Shoot, the thing will also receive AM, FM, SSB and CW. Every thing pretty much from DC to Daylight no less. MSRP for this HT is $585 USD, and the currently lowest price is $506 at Amazon.com
 
While it was indeed a very pleasant surprise, having played with it a bit, read the manual, and watched quite a few YouHooTube videos, I'm come to the conclusion that it has several drawbacks, at least from my point of view.
It's way too complicated with nearly 1,000 menu options. Its programming software is more complex than any DMR radio I've ever seen, and that includes Motorola. It's digital mode is D-Star, not DMR. As there are only two D-Stars in Chicago, they are way out of range of an HT in Northwest Indiana. It is completely useless for GMRS since it will only Rx on those frequencies, Tx is inhibit and cannot be modified, except for the traditional MARS/CAP expansion! I first thought I'd sell it, but by the time PayPal and eBay extorted their share of the proceeds, I would probably only net around $400 or so...
 
For these reasons I've decided to donate this to my local ham radio club to be used as a Grand Prize in a future raffle. At least this way the club will benefit, and we can use the proceeds for our STEM projects to encourage youth in their education, and perhaps gain a few new youngsters into becoming amateur operators.
 
 
 

Here is our reply in the Docket, posted today:
 
https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/1061939433150/FCC%20Comment-MSI.pdf

If anyone has verifiable official documentation that ANY GMRS licensee has ever been given an FCC citation for using a Part 90 Type Certified "transmitter" in Part 95 service, please add that documentation to this thread.  

ah 2 other freq that no one is on up here  lol

But they can still vote...

It's Part 90 certified (somehow), which is better than no certification. CHIRP is the programming software to use. Regardless of whatever service you're operating on, you will want to turn off STE, RP-STE, and ROGER, and leave PTT-ID disabled, AL-MOD on SITE, and RPT-RL on OFF. Within CHIRP, you can disable transmit on a memory channel by setting its offset to "off", and that should be done for anything you don't have authorization to use (such as out-of-band frequencies and private repeaters).
 
All GMRS repeater channels have an offset of +5.0000 MHz, and a receive frequency between 462.550 and 462.725 MHz. Any other offset other than 0.0000 (simplex) or +5.0000 (repeater) can take you out-of-band, so it's important that you double-check your frequency entries on Part 90 radios.
 
Once you know which repeaters you want to add, check both their transmit and receive CTCSS/DCS settings. If transmit CTCSS/DCS is wrong, the repeater won't hear you; if receive CTCSS/DCS is wrong, you may be hitting the repeater but you won't hear it (the green light on top will still light up, but audio won't play unless you hit the monitor button).
 
If you've got it all loaded and you want to check if it's working, you can hop on a repeater, give your callsign, and ask for a radio check. Anyone else out listening will usually tell you how well they can hear you, and at a minimum you should hear the repeater's tail.

Thank you for the info. Im only looking to use it on the one gmrs repeater in my area for me and family  nothing more nothing less.  I am new at this nknew i needed a license got that part right  now just got to save and get better radios All local law and emergency service in my area are on 800 trunking systems  there are a few repeaters in the ham range that are used for emergencies off limits when there is a disaster . but im learning  so thanks again.  

Good job. But. Your pictures don’t have any snow. In jelous. And temps of 40 lol

This is getting off topic and should probably be moved to the Ham area - however I have to call BS (sort of) on this. The BaoFengs and other brands work just fine.  I've watched them on a spectrum analyzer, and while a little sloppy compared to a high end radio, they were certainly not as bad as YouTube would have you believe.  There are always those who look down on inexpensive radios, most of them have no actual experience using them.  IOW they are "experts by proxy", passing along information they heard or saw on the Interwebs.
 
If you don't like cheap radios, fine.  But they work, they are a great entry point for new Hams, and don't deserve the reputation they get.
 
IMHO, YMMV, HAND.
 
73's.

Yep - here's a better picture of the radios as I was programming the scanner:
 

 
That is one benefit of the center console armrest install - the radios are out of sight, and they don't attract any unwanted attention.  That's kind of the theme/look I'm going for with my install.  I'm not really trying to advertise the radios anywhere on the truck.  The all black antennas are barely noticeable at a distance, blending into the background or the black color of the truck itself, and no radios are visible from the outside looking in.

since your mobile is set to open it can hear anything on that channel, even a radio transmitting a PL/DPL, Your HT does not hear your mobile since you have the PL set to 141.3. PL/DPL tones do not provide privacy they only reduce interference from other radio transmissions.,

No my mistake folks, it's 462.600. Never could type well............. :-(

At 180 feet above ground, you should get around 25-30 Miles of coverage. Let us know how that works out.
 
...and Hello to you also.

The It’s because we have super secret thoughts and ideas here......and we had to put them away before new people found out!

Getting back to the original post.... broke.......between gmrs, gmrs repeater, ham, and all the toys there..... naw it isn’t really that bad...but...
Now I need an amp, antenna, new radio......

Getting back to the original post.... broke.......between gmrs, gmrs repeater, ham, and all the toys there..... naw it isn’t really that bad...but...
Now I need an amp, antenna, new radio......

Someone on the radioreference.com forums was kind enough to send some replacement bulbs for my Realistic Patrolman the other day. I swapped out the bad bulbs last night and the radio now has a permanent home on my desk:
 

Could this 15 watt station possibly be like the “shotgun” setup used during linking repeaters?

Which is really silly since there exist charts that point out the precise frequencies allowable, along with their useage modes. 
I'm so anal about the matter that Saturday during the annual Field Day I asked for an Extra to help me with logging since many of the best signals were in the portions of 15m that I'm not legally allowed to use.

Since none of my radios has MDC, I simply make the noise myself (I am amused easily)...

a change has been made
PM for further
JE

Well, I sent the duplexer out the other day to be tuned and low and behold, the duplexer wasn't even close to being properly tuned. As of now the duplexer is tunes 92dB from the TX and 82 dB from the RX. When it arrives on Monday I will do another test and see if there is much difference.

I do want to thank everyone who commented. As I said before I am rather new with repeaters and I am learning quite a bit. I was told from a few pros that the LMR400 should be ok for the time being. The antenna I have set up should also be ok [though they said I should look into replacement eventually as it is not exactly set up for repeater service.] For now though, just getting everything online and working is the goal, Fine tuning and tweaking can come later

The It’s because we have super secret thoughts and ideas here......and we had to put them away before new people found out!