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What do you mean by "max 5 watts"? You're receiving a signal from unidentified source. You would have no way of knowing its power output without the message you're receiving telling you. I know in amateur radio there are beacons set up that continually emit a morse code (cw) message that tells a call sign, a location, and power level. This is used by others to determine if a band is propagating. But you just get this "sometimes", so it's more likely that someone has equipment that is outputting morse to identify their station. However, if you're really curious, you can record the signal, and use an online morse decoder (or decode it yourself manually) to read what the message is saying. That will probably tell you who owns it. ...- ...- ...- is usually the beginning of a beacon's signal. The "vvv" symbols are easily identifiable as a beacon preamble.

Thanks. I'm going to order it. I don't have a true "no ground plane" situation, just a hood-fender mount, so it's an incomplete ground plane. And I've found that the CA2X4SR has too high of an SWR in the 462-467 range. It's even pretty high in the upper 420-450 range, on this vehicle. It really does like a good ground plane.

I've been looking for days for a source for the NR240CA. I have a CA2X4SR-NMO but it's not quite right for the ground plane I have under it. Instead, I'm using a Laird TE B4505CN for GMRS, and a 2m/70cm no ground plane antenna when working in amateur bands. But it's got a higher SWR (>2.4:1) at 462-468. One antenna that is a no-ground-plane antenna that covers the range advertised for the NR240CA would be ideal. Nobody's got it advertised for sale, that I can find.

As I've posted previously, I have a Wouxun KG-UV980P, which is physically identical to the KG-1000G but with different configuration (one is ham, the other is GMRS). This post also covers installation of a KG-1000G Plus, since its hardware is substantially similar. I've been using the KG-UV980P for a couple weeks loosely installed (wires connected but nothing routed or bracketed in) to test it out. I started down the path of installing it myself, but in the end decided to go with a professional installation since the interior of my truck is too clean for amateurish work, which I would certainly achieve. My vehicle is a 2014 F150 Lariat Super Crew 6.2L v8 6.5' bed. The center console is pretty packed, but there was one area near the bottom that seemed like a possible fit for the radio's faceplate. A nice feature of the KG-UV980P, KG-UV950P, KG-1000G, and KG-1000G Plus is that they have a detachable, remote faceplate. You can install the face plate on the radio, or remotely, where it must be fed with a wire that looks like (but isn't) a Cat-6 cable. This allows for cleaner installation options. Here's a big thanks to Innovative Audio in Sandy, UT, who performed the installation better than I had asked for. It wasn't cheap, but they did great work. The equipment: KG-UV980P. Diamond stainless antenna mount for 2009-2014 F150. Diamond low profile NMO connector with integrated cable. Laird TE B4505CN antenna (no ground plane required). This is a 5dBi gain antenna designed to work in no-ground-plane or poor-ground-plane applications. And some custom brackets that Innovative came up with. I also have a dual-band UHF/VHF no-ground-plane antenna that I swap in for 2m/70cm use (Diamond NR770HBNMO). Pictures attached. You'll see the faceplate mounted at the base of the center console. The base unit is mounted behind the glove box amid a rat's nest of other stuff. I have no idea how they got it in there. In one picture you can almost see the PL259 connector. I asked them to leave the data cable attached, which they did, and it is routed into the glove box. The antenna cable and power cable are routed nicely through the firewall together. And Anderson connectors are found inline between the battery and the radio's power cable so that I can disconnect it easily. The mic is mounted adjacent to the face plate. Despite the radio being installed behind the glove box, I can still hear its speakers very well. But additionally, this radio's mic has a built-in speaker. I have both set to work simultaneously, and the sound quality is just fine. Pictures below.... 1cI1Cuc82OIORIht0KruyUfotMt1kqC1I 1cLFpEks6_8DufPIbSFfuGwKOO11HDnoX 1caXVXEhv35By5zxZhs2UqwlHCUbx9_dK 1cadyxIWJrQNf8rf3bExVYhzRID5-1NyG 1cbh71eF_FLX1_D4v4IcoMmvyvufTHAJb 1cgTii_W1wld9AT7flXwwz7DYh5Vdmluw 1cGr3mvQB-ZRAhteXc_-nAsVcs0fZzIud 1cHj38upff9q-yR4LPVuWSEoLViG8STiv 1d-wlBEY01CxzogRPtfn0XIZ2bs5ld8FQ 1d5SM3-n9paG2-63xu0Drj7gh7UCxwWA7 1d-JS6oOMGi5bFvcuDi1bns29dcuCeqgy

Well, to be fair, the Midland GMRS radios that I've used or investigated don't have very much to set up and configure. Each frequency is one channel. You cannot have the same frequency on more than one channel. That means you cannot have two repeaters configured for the same frequency, but with different tones. No channel naming, they're just very simple but reliable. To me the downside is the cost; you pay *more* for the simplicity.

I haven't paid the RT price, so I don't know what I'm missing there. CHIRP has been adequate for my needs, and I find that it does control all the settings I can think of for the KG-UV980P, as well as for my other radios (UV-5G, AR-5RM, RA87). There are things I don't like about it's UI: Copying, moving, pasting, cursor movement.... some things are just not quite as easy to use as a typical spreadsheet. But it works and is reliable. And it's community driven so new radios show up pretty quickly. I did try the Wouxun software and didn't care for it.

MURS is limited (by FCC regulation) to 2w, and this radio's lowest power setting in the band that encompasses MURS frequencies is 5w. Therefore you cannot set this radio to a power level that is appropriate for MURS. It will work but it will be putting out too much power. The reason for the 2w limitation imposed by the FCC for the MURS band is that there are non-MURS frequency allocations for other services interlaced between the MURS frequencies, and higher power is more likely to interfere with those other services. As for GMRS, using CHIRP you can set up channels in the radio that are configured exactly as a regular mobile GMRS radio would be set up. Once it's set up properly, you would just turn the knob to the correct channel (or input the channel on your mic), and it will work as you would want a GMRS radio to work. As I mentioned earlier, this would not be in compliance with FCC type acceptance. But it could be configured to meet the technical specifications of GMRS. Remember that no mobile GMRS radio should transmit on channels 8-14, the FCC doesn't permit those channels for mobile transmission. Here, the reason is because 8-14 use frequencies directly between each of the repeater input frequencies. Transmitting on these interstitial frequencies at 5w or at wideband has a higher than acceptable possibility of interfering with repeaters. These channels are supposed to be a half watt only, narrowband only, and fixed antenna. But for channels 1-7 and 15-22 plus repeater inputs you can configure this radio to meet the technical limits of GMRS. Bear in mind that a type approved GMRS radio like the KG1000G+ will already be configured correctly, so you can't mess it up. And it will be type approved for GMRS.

I wouldn't know, anymore.

There shouldn't be "digital repeaters" on GMRS, at least it's highly unlikely to find one. What method are you using to test? Please share specifics, such as the radio model, antenna configuration, where you (the transmitter) are located relative to the repeater, where your listening/test radio is set up, and how it's being monitored. How do you know it's not working? Do you have a positive offset of 5MHz set in CHIRP? Do you have access to a radio that can listen on repeater inputs? For example, if you are using a repeater on 462.5500 (15R, or 1R, or 23R depending on your radio's naming conventions), if you take another radio and set it to listen on 467.5500, do you hear yourself on that radio?

The fan appears to be a rather standard-sized commodity PCM fan. You could probably replace or upgrade it with one from Amazon. With the TDR function on the 'C' key you can pretty quickly switch off the second band, but you're right, automatic muting as an option would be nice.

Right, and that's what I did. It was a little harder than I would have preferred because the masthead doesn't provide its own good ground plane, the forestay, backstay, and upper shrouds can actually influence the apparent ground plane in weird ways, too. A mobile antenna such as the Comet CA2X4SR would have been broad-band enough, but not compatible with the wonky ground plane 30 feet up the mast. I ended up with a base-station broad band dual-band antenna that provided acceptable SWR from 2m through GMRS, including Marine VHF. I don't remember the model I went with, but at this point it works nicely. I prefer keeping a dedicated Marine VHF radio, as they offer marine-specific features not found in amateur radios. So that rig will always be a Marine VHF / GMRS dual radio setup.

Right, I've done one version of this on a sailboat; At first I considered putting one diplexer at the top of the mast, and one at the base, to allow a single LMR400 run up the mast to drive a dedicated marine VHF antenna, and a dedicated GMRS antenna. And then the one at the bottom to feed a dedicated Marine VHF radio, and dedicated GMRS radio. But then I ended up going with a broad band dual-band antenna at the top, eliminating the need for the top diplexer (and its associated signal loss), while still allowing two radios at the bottom. Inside a sailboat mast, space for coax is rather limited, and the weight of running two separate coax lines is also not desirable.

Yeah, for that you'd either need one of those crazy looking antennas that supports quad bands (they often have a short vertical half-way up the main vertical, standing off about an inch), or a diplexer. I see the Diamond MX62M that has a 1.6MHz-56MHz branch, and a 76MHz-470MHz branch. That would be almost perfect. Then for antennas you would need a 2m/70cm, and a 10m/6m.

Good info. Thanks. I may have to give it a try next time I'm in less congested RF-space.