dosw

I use this repeater, too. I thought it was on Ensign Peak; didn't realize it's located out by the airport. The propagation is amazing for not being on a mountain peak. ...or I guess I'm confused. You mentioned on a mountain peak overlooking the state capitol; that's Ensign peak, but the airport is 6 miles to the west of there. It's a shame that its status is so fragile at the moment.

In my case I heard it from home, heard it from the freeway entrance, heard it as I left the salt lake valley, passing beyond line of sight to the valley. Ten mile radius from the freeway entrance. And only that one day. It has to be someone messing around. It was a week or so after repeater linking bit the dust, so it might have been an act of protest in some way

It's possible your radio was being overloaded by a strong signal. But it's also possible someone was messing around and retransmitting on the second frequency. The other day I was hearing fire/medical dispatch on GMRS channel 1. It was covering a broad area, at least ten miles, as I was driving around. And I was hearing it on an RA87, UV-5G Plus, and GXT1000. The only conclusion I could come up with was that someone with a lot of antenna, or too much power, was rebroadcasting the dispatch frequency onto 462.5625 for awhile. Later in the day it was gone, and I haven't heard it since.

Given your constraint of not being able to run Chirp nor the Baofeng software, no, the answer is that you cannot turn off transmitting on a given frequency from the keypad. The best you can do is set the power level to the lowest possible, so that in the event that you accidentally push the button, you're only outputting a half watt or so, which will still propagate much further than you expect when you don't want it to, and not nearly as far as you expect when you do want it to. You could zip-tie a 2L bottle cap over the PTT button. I can buy a set of scalpels on Amazon for $59, but in a SHTF situation I wouldn't be performing an emergency appendectomy without some practice and training. That's the luxury a license buys you; the ability to prepare not only in terms of equipment, but also in terms of experimentation, learning, knowledge. Update: I see that you are licensed for GMRS. I misinterpreted the remark about "Is he a licensed Amateur Operator." Apologies. I'll leave the comment here though because the sentiment remains; when people are preparing for the worst, practice in preparation is essential. That's why we have fire drills in schools and office buildings, it's why we test backup strategies in data centers, etc. Anyway, carry on. A cheap laptop would probably suffice for running Chirp; a used <$200 model even, but you would need the data cable. Unfortunately when listing a set of constraints, eventually it's possible to constrain oneself into an unsolvable problem.

Mygmrs lists 131 in Florida. Good repeaters are expensive to put up and maintain. They benefit greatly from height. Most of Florida is height challenged. But 131 is a decent number. California has twice the land area, and 160 repeaters listed on mygmrs, which is far fewer per square mile, and per capita.

Actually the lowest GMRS channel is 15: 462.5500. Channel spacing sequentially is 25kHz, but because of the interstitials (channels 1-7, and 8-14), the spacing within the band is actually 12.5kHz. Maximum deviation on the 462.* channels is 5kHz, if I recall. So I would, for example, listen on 462.5500 (channel 15). The channel width is 25kHz (+12.5kHz to -12.5kHz from 462.5500), so the actual GMRS band (including the full channel width) goes from 462.5375 to 462.7375, once you account for the bandwidth. And the same goes for the 467 portion of the band. 462.5625 is not a private channel. It's a channel that would overlap OUT of GMRS band by 12.5kHz. So you're actually asserting a privilege you don't have all the way down to 462.5250, which is clearly out of the GMRS band. GMRS is channelized. You are only permitted (with your license) to transmit on the 22 channels, plus the 8 repeater channels with a type approved radio, and the reason type approved radios are required is so that people can't do stupid things like transmitting out of band or in ways that cause interference. Let's say you decided that it would actually be more clever to select a frequency within the GMRS band, rather than one that falls outside of the band: 462.55625 (for example). What's the worst that could happen? Well from a technical standpoint, that means you've selected a frequency that falls exactly between channel 15 (462.5500) and channel 1 (462.5625). And because you have a channel width of 25kHz, and maximum deviation of +/-5kHz, you're overlapping two channels. You haven't created a private channel, you have caused interference to users on channel 1 and on channel 15. There is NO space between the GMRS channels that would allow for you to transmit FM in a way that doesn't interfere with existing licensed users. Now let's go out of the GMRS band. You've gone below the band; you're radiating below 462.5500. What's the worst that can happen? Look at the following chart, available on the FCC website: You see the long vertical bars named "Land Mobile" at 462.xxxx and 467.xxxx. Those are GMRS/FRS. Now do you see the shorter bars listed as both Land Mobile and Fixed? Those are LMR (business), and other licensed users. Your selection of a frequency that bleeds outside of GMRS causes interference to non-GMRS licensed users who pay for the licenses they have to use the frequency you're squatting on. Let's look at that a little more closely: Here, you can see exactly how the frequency is allocated that you're interfering on: Private Land Mobile, and Fixed Land Mobile - 460-462.5375. The lower half of your signal overlaps into the Private Land Mobile spectrum, and the upper half overlaps into the "Personal Radio" (FRS/GMRS) part of the spectrum. You are interfering with someone who has a license to use PLM up to that frequency. You might say, "But I don't hear anyone." And that's probably true, but not hearing someone doesn't mean the frequency isn't allocated, and doesn't mean that your interference couldn't be harmful. What if it's a digital service that only transmits in time of dire need? Your FM transmission could stomp on a digital transmission that only happens once in a blue moon, but when it does happen, is of vital importance to someone. You didn't get an amateur radio license. If you did, you would have had to take some tests that demonstrated you knew how to regurgitate answers that the FCC thinks are sufficient for you to behave mostly responsibly within the amateur bands. But even an amateur license doesn't give you permission to just pick a frequency anywhere you like and start transmitting. It limits you to the amateur bands, and asks you nicely to look at the band plan first for any of those given bands. Anyway, what you're doing has the potential of being harmful to someone who has a legitimate license. It also is harmful to GMRS users of channel 15, which you're overlapping onto. And it's illegal. You should have bought a GMRS radio and stuck to GMRS channels. Here are a couple more screenshots showing what's going on: In this first screenshot I have a software defined radio set to 462.5500, with a channel width of 25kHz so we can see more clearly the width of a channel. You can see that 15 overlaps with 1. Now in this second screenshot I'm going to show the frequency you selected: 462.5375: As you can see in this picture, that 25kHz channel spacing causes your channel to overlap part of channel 15 in the GMRS range. But it also puts you squarely on top of someone transmitting a digital signal exactly on the frequency you selected. Of course this is in my area. Your area will have different licensees and they will be using that frequency in some different way. But how do you think their digital signal (if that's what they're doing) is going to work out if you stomp on it with FM voice? This is why the FCC has rules, and has the power to fine you heavily for interfering with other licensed users. In this case it's not a case of "The FCC doesn't care about GMRS users." It's worse, because you're mostly interfering outside of the GMRS band. What you're doing doesn't fall under the GMRS rules; you're transmitting an FM signal on a band that you have no license for.

How are you determining you can't hit it? Need steps to reproduce the issue, including how your radio is programmed. If he sets his own radio to listen to the repeater's input frequency can he hear you?

I have a similar issue when skiing. But I don't think a car-based repeater would solve it. Several resorts I ski at have distinct "sides", with a mountain ridge between them: Alta Ski Area: The Albion/Sugarloaf side is distinct from the Collins/Wildcat side. There are distinct parking lots, and a bit of a mountain between them. Snowbird Resort: The Mineral Basin side is behind the Cirque, and there's no way a radio would carry from mineral basin to the parking. Solitude: The Summit lift area, and the back (Honeycomb Canyon) are behind mountains, and can't be reached from the parking lot. Deer Valley: There is skiing near the parking area, but there are three other distinct sides with mountains between them: Silver lodge area, Mayflower, and one other i don't remember the name of offhand. Snowbasin: The Strawberry side is beyond radio range from the main parking area. Brighton: The mid-section off of the Snake Creek lift is hidden from the parking. But in those cases, we tend to be pretty good at keeping the group together within that topographical "side." Anyway, the A/B approach is good. There are two ways I see to do it: A is on simplex 18 (for example). B is on repeater 20 (for example). Set the radio to dual-watch. Make sure the operators mention which side they're on when they call (A or B ) just to keep it easy. A is on simplex 18 (for example). B is on repeater 18, same tones. Set radio to dual watch. Make sure operators mention which side they're on when they call. 2 is more seamless, but also a little less clear to listeners whether they're hearing the repeater or simplex.

50 yards is far enough that it's likely beyond the width of your home/property, unfortunately. With a scanner, or an SDR, you could put both the output frequencies and the input frequencies in the scanner. When you key up you're going to be transmitting on the input frequency. The scanner should jump to the strongest signal; the input frequency. When you release the PTT, the scanner would probably jump over to the output frequency since it will still be outputting the squelch tail. When you're not transmitting but someone else is, the scanner would jump to that. So with, say, a Uniden scanner, if you're trying to listen to the 700 repeater, then you would create a very small scan group of 462.7000 and 467.7000, set squelch appropriately, plug into your VOX recorder, and let the scanner jump to the strongest signal (or at least the first signal it hears, which will be the input frequency until it goes away). With an SDR, you would use SDRTrunk (software) and set up a small scan group of those two frequencies. Again, it will jump to the stronger of the two. SDRTrunk has a recording mode. So I'm saying your base station may not be the receiver you need to be using to accomplish this. I understand it's what you want to do, but this is an XY problem. Here's the Wikipedia explanation of an XY problem: While the Wikipedia explanation is not as tactful as I would prefer (I would not suggest you're ignorant about X or confused about the problem Y that you're solving, I assume you know a lot about all this stuff), it does demonstrate that if you take a step back from the problem and look at what you actually want to accomplish (Y), you may find that X is not the best way to do it. Just being open to other options may make the problem easier to solve. If you don't have a scanner or an SDR, never fear. Even a cheap-o Baofeng will let you put 462.7000 in "A" and 467.7000 in "B", and set up dual watch. Plug it into a recorder, leave it on the other side of your house, and it should do what you want. All three techniques I've mentioned -- a scanner, an SDR with SDRTrunk, and a Baofeng with the repeater pair in A/B slots -- are techniques I've actually used.

Hook up the *handheld* to the recorder. Or get an SDR and run SDR++, which has a recording mode.

Create your petition with the FCC. https://www.fcc.gov/about-fcc/rulemaking-process#:~:text=Electronic Filers%3A Comments may be,the website for submitting comments. There's nothing to debate until the actual process has started. (It's never going to pass, but there's no point stirring up an argument here without any skin in the game. Go ahead and get the process started.)

Before buying a nice, expensive KG-1000 Plus and a nice antenna, get an inexpensive Baofeng UV-5G Plus kit that includes a 771G style (longer) antenna. Get to high ground in your area, and try to hit that repeater. BUT, if I understand correctly, a repeater has advertised a range of 35 miles, and you're 20 miles past that. My guess is you're not going to reliably hit that repeater. However, you can set that radio to scan, and leave it on for a few days (in its charging cradle). If you hear traffic that sounds like repeater traffic, take note of the channel, and then start doing some research, or reach out on simplex in hope that someone will be listening with an open radio (no tones). That way you might find a repeater that isn't listed, and can discuss access. Once you've found actual access, you can spend on the KG-1000 Plus. If there are no repeaters, you may be better served by going for an amateur Tech license, because there ARE 2m/70cm repeaters in your area: https://www.wr9g.net/links/repeaters.html (Looked up your town via callsign lookup)

Height is might doesn't mean a longer antenna, it means get up above the terrain, because the real rule is that if two antennas can see each other, they can communicate. And if they can't, and the reason is due to terrain, lots of buildings, or dense forest, they may not be able to communicate. In this case, a longer antenna might not change much for you other than making your radio more particular about being held very close to vertical.

I've re-read this thread and fail to see what it has to do with the post you added to it. You're dragging an amateur radio fight that got dragged into a reddit fight into a random thread on a GMRS site.

You need "triple modular redundancy" if it *really* matters. That means, a third opinion, basically. The old sailor's saying was "Never go to sea with two chronometers; take one or three." But you're below 2:1; it doesn't matter enough to worry.

i can drive 4 minutes to a location where I'm at 5500 feet, and have clean line of sight to the entirety of the Salt Lake Valley, mostly 4200-5000 feet. The amount of traffic pulled in even by my MXTA26 at that vantage point is overwhelming. Even my home (5050 feet) has clear reception when transmitting to a repeater 45 and 64 miles away. Any further than that, and mountains block everything. But one time I hiked up Mt Olympus (near 10k feet) and was hearing a repeater in Wyoming, and another in Idaho with a Nagoya 771G antenna. I didn't try hitting them though. There are 2m and 70cm repeaters at the top of mountain peaks near Brighton and Snowbird ski resorts. Those things have a bubble that reaches three states: Wyoming, Idaho, Nevada. ...maybe Colorado but the Uinta mountain range gets in the way a bit.

I trust the NanoVNA more. Try hooking it up to your computer so you can get nearly infinitely fine-grained scan points. Or narrow your scan range, or set the center instead of start/end points. Also there's a menu buried deep within for increasing the scan power. I haven't used it, because "auto" seemed good enough. I've found the two tools disagree a bit, too. Be sure you're calibrating for the exact range you're sampling.

Do you know the name of the menu option that needs to be enabled for this to work? I wanted to hook it up through 70dB attenuation to a TinySA, to see what is happening. UPDATE: Found it. Menu option 41: Voicepri (on/off). I don't see it doing anything. I suspect I would need two device both with this set up to actually work. When I key up, I just see the frequency I have selected being used, within the TinySA, and also when I directly connect to my RTL-SDRv4 (both through 70dB attenuation).

A ground plane is more than just having the antenna mounted against a metal surface. It needs to be 1/4 wavelength radius (6.5 inches) or more, in all directions. It doesn't have to be electrically connected or grounded, just needs to be a fairly flat surface for the 6.5" radius (or more). A lip mount works for me because there's a flat metal panel aft of the hood, too. But if you're at the edge of the hood without a flat metal surface on the other side from the mount your propagation will be stunted in the direction of inadequate ground plane. But if you experience this issue at, say, 200 feet, it's less likely to be a ground plane issue. I'd still be looking for sources of electrical interference.

My experience has been different. Using Chirp, with the 5RM profile, I first downloaded a stock code plugs from the radio, then added a few air band frequencies and uploaded them to the radio without any problem. I guess YMMV.

Yes. The repeater has an awesome antenna at an elevation that provides near perfect line of sight to your radio's minimal-value rubber ducky antenna. Your friends within 1/2 miles are not "line of sight" to your antenna; there could be trees attenuating signal, buildings, hills, and other obstacles blocking your antennas. If you can see the other antenna, you can talk. If you cannot, all bets are off. The repeater must have a high gain antenna, may be outputting near 50w into the feed line, with high quality cable, the antenna may be on a tower, and it may be up above obstacles. Probably all of these things are happening. By way of example, a 70cm ham radio (UHF, very similar to GMRS) can transmit to the ISS (250 miles away) with a Yagi antenna pointing in the right direction, and with less than 5w output. On the other hand, two 5w handhelds may not be able to communicate with each other more than a few hundred feet away. The difference is almost always line of sight first, antenna design second, power a distant third.

There are not a lot of dual band options that cover GMRS while also being stubby. The full length monster of a mobile antenna, the Comet CA-2X4SR-NMO covers 2m, 70cm, MURS, and GMRS. It even has reasonable SWR in Marine VHF and 1.25m. But it's 40 inches long. However, it can be folded down when you need to get into a garage, as it has a folding hinge. Some say it's not super in GMRS range. I would say its ears aren't quite as good as my MXTA26, but that's a tradeoff you might need to make to get a multi-band antenna. I have used it to achieve impressive distances, though. I like it. But you'll have to fold it down to get into the garage. There are some very good reviews for it online, and a few mixed. I guess I'm in the thumbs up group. A ground plane for GMRS needs to be metal, with a radius of about 6.4 inches or more. More doesn't hurt anything. Less hampers signal propagation. It doesn't need to be electrically grounded to the antenna, it just needs to be directly beneath the antenna. Ground plane radials are common for fixed (immobile) installations, while using a vehicle body for the ground plane for mobile antennas is common in that application.

Ok, since I got into GMRS I've added to my pre-existing collection that included a scanner, a couple of Marine VHF radios, a shortwave radio, and FRS radios, the following: Radios: UV-5G (2), UV-5G Plus (1), AR-5RM (1), MXT-275 (1), RA-87 (1), GTX1000 (2). Antennas: MXTA25, MXTA13, MXTA26, HYS SDN-1T, Laird TE B4505CN, Comet CA2X4SR (2). Nagoya NA771G, NA771 dual band, NA701G, ABREE dual band, Tram Marine VHF 5.1dB whip. Ground plane kits: Nagoya GP01 (2) Test equipment: Surecom SW102, NanoVNA, TinySA, 50w dummy load, 40dB, 20dB, and 10dB attenuators, and a whole bunch of various adapters and patch cables. SDR: RTL-SDRv4 (4), Raspberry Pi (2) Software: Chirp, SDR++, SDRAngel, TrunkSDR, nanovna-saver. Cables: LMR400, RG8X, RG58A/U, various lengths, plus various short length connectors. UHF/VHF diplexer (to use radios on two different bands on the same antenna). Mounts: NMO through-deck mounts, GP mounts, Midland magnetic mount, Midland hood mount. Multiple MXT275 brackets. Upcoming: Another Comet CA2X4SR and another diplexer to share a dual-band antenna. A mobile 2m/70cm dual band radio. A 2m/70cm Yagi antenna because I want to experiment with listening to / working through the ISS repeater, downloading NOAA imagery (using the SDR), and so on. Prep for General.

https://chirpmyradio.com/issues/11566 "Unable to upload to AR5RM": Closed as "not a bug" because the person reporting the bug resolved the issue by following the instructions of downloading from the radio first, not from some other similar radio. https://chirpmyradio.com/issues/11535 "No programming for UV-5RH": Different radio, but either way, this one was rejected because it's a duplicate of https://chirpmyradio.com/issues/10889, but also not applicable to the AR-5RM. https://chirpmyradio.com/issues/11529 "Add AR-5RM to the model alias map": Closed as done, implemented. https://chirpmyradio.com/issues/11474 "Error downloading from AR-5RM": This issue is still open, presumably because nobody's been able to reproduce it. Is that the same issue you're seeing? Adding your screenshots and radio pictures may help if that's the issue you're having. https://chirpmyradio.com/issues/11333 "Error reading data from radio: not the amount of data we want": This one is still open, and I'm not sure why. It looks like it's actually providing a solution of making sure that the driver for the cable be installed. But again, if this is the same issue you're having, providing more diagnostic information would probably help. But also that one is the UV-5RH, not AR-5RM. Which bug, specifically, addresses the issue you're seeing? This is active development, volunteer software. They only improve what they know about.

I've reviewed the Chirp code for the 5RM and the 17Pro. It's largely the same code (5RM class inherits from 17Pro class). There is no reason that I can see that the 5RM radio of the same version as mine, would not work with the 5RM entry in Chirp, unless you downloaded your code plug from a different radio and then modified it and tried to upload it as a 5RM. I suggest that if you cannot use the 5RM model in Chirp for your 5RM radio, you file a bug report with Chirp, because it's clearly not the intent for that to not work. As a software engineer it drives me crazy that two people with identical hardware and identical software would not get the same result. If you file that bug report, you will help all the people who are experiencing the same problem you are experiencing. Here is a link to the code in question: https://chirpmyradio.com/projects/chirp/repository/github/revisions/master/entry/chirp/drivers/baofeng_uv17Pro.py#L1313 That code encapsulates both the 17Pro and 5RM classes of radios. And here is a link for submitting bug reports: https://chirpmyradio.com/projects/chirp/issues I've seen that the developers for Chirp are highly responsive. Your bug report will get addressed. The address may be "We can't reproduce", but I rarely see bugs closed that way in the Chirp issues stream. Usually they either result in a patch being created, or the developers discovering an issue with how the software is being used. But either way, someone learns, the developers improve their knowledge base too.