dosw

The typical range handheld-to-handheld is going to be 1/2 to 10 miles (the high end if you're pretty lucky). If you're at an elevation much higher than everything around you, you may get significantly better range, but most people are only getting a couple miles of reliable use handheld to handheld. Talking through a repeater can be better; if your repeater is well situated on a mountain peak you might be able to reach it from 20, 40, even 60 miles away. And if someone else receiving that repeater is also lucky, and able to reach it 60 miles away, there could be up to 120 miles between you. But everyone reads this sort of information and thinks that's going to be their own experience. A much more typical experience is working a repeater 1-20 miles away, talking to other people 1-20 miles away from a repeater, with some of them 40 miles away from you. If you live within 40 miles of the state line, it's possible through a repeater to talk to someone on the other side of the state line, if the terrain are working in your favor. There are a lot of ifs there. Mostly for cross-state-line communications GMRS isn't the right tool. Repeater linking is not a GMRS thing anymore. That's more of a ham thing. Over GMRS, you will not be talking from Riverside to Las Vegas, regardless of whether you're using a handheld or mobile. You could do that over 10m ham with a tech license (amateur tech has a partial swath of privileges in 10m), or in lower HF bands with a General class license and a suitable HF radio. It won't be handheld.

This band plan? 1270.000-1276.000 FM, digital Repeater inputs, 25 kHz channel spacing, paired with 1282.000-1288.000 1270.000-1274.000 FM, digital Repeater inputs, 25 kHz channel spacing, paired with 1290.000-1294.000 (Regional option) Yeah, doesn't seem to correspond with FM; you would see a carrier down the middle. Digital is possible but what digital modes grow in bandwidth and then shrink; they're usually as fat as they can be within a set deviation.

Part of the success of inexpensive overseas brands is a lack of embarrassment that would otherwise hinder them from bringing products to market. And sometimes it works out fairly well for them; they sell a ton of radios, the radios are reasonably acceptable to use, and cheap enough for everyman.

Interesting, so the signal starts narrow and then spreads out, and reaches about +/-2.3kHz deviation from center, with no hotspot down the middle. If you speed up the waterfall (is that an option for you), does it start to show any more detail?

I'd prefer an alternative that doesn't require I log into facebook for the first time in a few years. Even a screenshot of the waterfall ought to help.

On the far left half we have International. On the right half, we have US. Within the US half, we have 460-470: Meterological-satellite space-to-Earth, and we have 462.5375-462.7375 LAND MOBILE - Personal Radio (95). They do overlap. But I don't see how "Meterological space-to-Earth" can justify someone setting up a digital land based repeater. But the international Fixed Mobile, on the left... that could interfere if you're in Key West and picking up Cuba, I suppose. But there's more overlap in the 467 range: Maritime (80) and Personal Radio (95). Perhaps that's one more reason why channels 8-14 are limited to a half watt? Also notice that 462.5375. Strange number, right? The lowest GMRS channel is centered on 462.5500 (15). So why doesn't the chart show 462.5500? Because channel widths are 25kHz, which means -12.5kHz and +12.5kHz. So 462.5500-0.0125=462.5375. Or to put it a little clearer, 462.550MHz minus 12.5kHz (half the 25kHz channel width) is 462.5375MHz. You'll find the same math problem at 462.7375, 467.5375, and 467.7375.

There is nothing illegal or immoral about listening to anything people transmit over GMRS or FRS. There is no reasonable expectation of privacy for unencrypted radio transmissions. What is creepy is hearing some random road crew using FRS and you choosing to key up to say hi. Or a father and his kindergarten/preschool kids playing walkie talkie, then you pushing that talk button and chiming in with "Hey friendo, this is Anton." People generally keep to themselves on GMRS / FRS *except* for people who use open repeaters. If your equipment is capable of working repeaters, and if it is set up to work with an open repeater, you're welcome to key up and say "ABCD123 monitoring" (which usually means you're bored and looking to talk to random people over the radio) or "ABCD123, radio check; I'm looking for a signal report." If there's someone else listening in on that repeater who is also willing to participate in this exchange, they'll key up and respond. And it's considered perfectly normal within "radio people" circles to do this. I don't know of any GMRS books that really lay it all out. You kind of have to start by listening, and by asking questions here.

Anyone asking thinks they can tell a difference. And if you compare two radios side by side maybe you can tell a difference. But the person 27 miles away hearing you through a repeater is mostly hearing their own confirmation bias. When I hear someone coming through all scratchy and thin sounding, I don't think "CCR", I think that person hasn't gotten their antenna up high, doesn't have good feedline, that sort of thing.

I'd start with a 2m/70cm handheld, an SDR, and a discone with mount and cables to be swapped over to the SDR or the HT as needed at home. ...and a few adapters to fit it all together. For an SDR, you can spend a lot to get one with wide bandwidth and wide frequency range reception, or you can go inexpensive with an RTL-SDRv4. With an SDR you'll hear so much more, and see so much more than what you would be aware of with just the handheld alone. You can learn a lot by watching the waterfall, tuning to the signal you see, setting the right mode, and listening. With my SDR I've listened to not just UHF and VHF, but also HF signals from all over the world. The antenna makes a lot of difference, of course. I find I use the SDR more than my HTs and mobile units. Hearing the ISS pass by is pretty cool. One time I picked up a Q&A session between Sunita Williams and amateur operators from hundreds of miles around. And it's really cool seeing the waterfall shift due to the doppler effect as the thing approaches and recedes. Also watching for SSB signals in the Tech portion of the 10m band is fun. I don't have HF equipment yet but it's nice to see that there is some activity there. Everyone's reason for getting into amateur radio may be different, so what I find enjoyable may not be what you do. I'm bored with the concept of 2m/70cm nets but others may really like the social aspect of amateur radio. I guess I'm drawn into the mechanics of it all.

It hasn't happened to me. You're using the "5RM" profile, and have a code plug from the same model of radio? Last time I heard a report of this happening I hooked mine up to a power meter to confirm that things were as they should be, and they were.

Birdies are usually focused on a narrow frequency, not across 1MHz of spectrum, aren't they?

What would be putting out a signal spanning so much bandwidth? Is this some device causing interference, or is it some form of spread spectrum transmission?

Consider the following graphic: In this graphic you'll see a thin red line. That's just where my SDR is tuned to listen. And then a wider red vertical band. That's how wide in terms of frequency bandwidth I have my SDR software set to listen. Within that faint red band is a jiggly band that grows wider and narrower. The bottom is the beginning of a transmission, and the top is the end of the transmission, in time. If I have my listening radio set to narrowband, that's similar to the faint red band being narrower. If that were the case, you would see some of the transmitted signal falling outside of the band in which I'm listening. So we're losing information. However, that also means that more of the faint red band is filled by radio waves (the jiggly band), so it will sound louder, though more distorted.

A couple years ago I was in a parking lot where there were parked a few plumbing vans. My 15w GMRS radio set off two of their car alarms when I pushed to talk. Strange how sensitive some things are. I never heard of GFCI plugs tripping though. That's wild.

Woah, hold your horses there pardner, you posted the same exact question three times within ten minutes. I'm sure it's a technical glitch, but whatever it is you're doing, less of that would be great. Can't answer the question, but I'm sure someone will answer one of the three instances of it.

Reach out to the owners of 2m or 70cm repeaters listed in your area; it takes a little research to find them, but they typically identify with Morse which will give you a call sign that you can use to find the owner. Or look in Repeaterbook, or on the band plan website for your region. A 2m/70cm repeater owner could help you through the process of finding a site (possibly the site they're using), getting in contact, and so on. Some hams are happy hams, and will help.

There's a spring kit available for it. https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/cma-ca-spr It's $22, which doesn't seem unreasonably expensive. It's too bad they don't sell a spring version to begin with.

I've also found that the CA2X4SR really needs a good ground plane. I tried it out with a GP01 kit from Nagoya, with the radials fully extended, and it stunk on 2m and wasn't great on GMRS. Installing it on a magnetic mount on a vehicle in the middle of the roof brought the SWR right down to where it should be. It might be because it's such a broad-band antenna, but it is not happy with a less ideal ground plane. With a good ground plane it's fantastic, covering 2m, MURS, 1.25m (even though it doesn't claim that band), 70cm, and GMRS.

DPL = Digital Private Line, which is a totally misleading name for DCS (Digital Coded Squelch). It is very similar to the also poorly named "PL" tones (Private Line, which they aren't), which are just CTCSS tones (Continuous Tone-Coded Squelcy System) tones. DCS and CTCSS are a way of layering in information to your transmissions that allows a receiving radio to hear that information and open squelch so the receiving party can hear you, and only hear people transmitting with the same tone. It works like this: Transmitting radio transmits your voice, and also a continuous "Tx tone". Receiving radio hears there is something being transmitted on the frequency. If it has an Rx tone set, it will only turn on its speaker and play what it's receiving if the Rx tone it has set is the same as the Tx tone you're transmitting. It would also turn on the speaker if it has NO Rx tone set. The Rx tone is an opt-in tool that the receiving user can set so that they don't hear everything that comes on a frequency, only those things that are accompanied with the correct tone. The tone, if it is CTCSS, is an actual sine wave tone in the lower audio-frequency range within the transmission. It will sound like a hum at a specific frequency; 123.5, for example means 123.5Hz. A DCS tone is a digital code transmitted along with the voice transmission, also in a lower audio-frequency range within the transmission. It will sound like a low-frequency buzz. Receiving radios apply a high-pass filter (low-reject filter) to make it so that you, the listener, don't actually hear the tone or code. If you were to listen through an SDR with the filter setting disabled, you would hear it. It's mildly annoying. Within DCS, N is normal, I is inverted, as has already been stated in this thread. And when the "N" isn't specified, it's implicit. Normal might mean you are transmitting 1010, and inverted would mean you're transmitting 0101. Unfortunately there are collisions, so N vs I doesn't mean a doubling of the number of possible encodings, but it does produce more than if you didn't have the option of inverting. 265, for example, may be 100001001. That would be the "N" encoding. If it were inverted (I) encoding, it would be 100100001 that gets transmitted. In reality it's not *quite* that simple of a protocol. The bit patterns contain parity bits, "always" bits, and the three-digit code, bits. https://mmi-comm.tripod.com/dcs.html . The patterns are 23 bits.

Wideband won't solve everything. When I transmit in wideband with my Retevis RA87, people sometimes tell me to speak up, that I'm coming through quietly. There's no gain control on that mic either. But you're certainly at a disadvantage right out of the gate if you have a narrowband radio transmitting to wideband radios.

The 275 doesn't have one. There's an upgraded mic you can buy for the 275 that provides "ANC" (Automatic noise cancellation), but it doesn't seem to provide AGC settings either: https://midlandusa.com/products/mxmc01-anc-microphone-for-mxt275-mxt575?variant=41996353929393 MXMC01 The reviews for this mic are quite good. But it's an expensive experiment, at $89, to find out if it actually improves the transmitting loudness. At half that price I would probably buy one to try out. I'd rather spend the $89 on a discone for my SDR.

Nooelec makes the HackRFOne, which starts around $320 and transmits at up to 15dBm (31.62mW, .032 watts, which is less than 1/10th the power of an FRS radio on channels 8-14. Any meaningful transmission would require an amplifier which will carry its own separate cost, and would mostly only be permissible on amateur radio frequencies (with appropriate amateur license).

Keep it simple: Get an SDR that allows from HF to upper UHF without needing to drop into direct sampling in the HF range. An example of that is the RTL-SDR v4. Direct sampling is poorer performance, so a model that doesn't require it for HF is nice to have. And that dongle is about $40 last time I checked. A single unit will give you 2.4MHz swaths of waterfall to watch, to see activity happening. And you can very easily move through the bands looking at the activity you might want to listen to. You'll learn to spot SSB, FM, AM, and digital transmissions; they all have characteristic looks in the waterfall. And you'll learn how to tune in and listen. There's a steep curve the first few days, and then it gets pretty easy.

Your radio transmits and receives in "narrowband" on all channels except the repeater channels, for which it shifts to wideband. I've confirmed this behavior through listening and through observing the bandwidth deviation in a TinySA spectrum analyzer. This is how the radio is designed. The net effect of this is that when you transmit to a radio in wideband mode you'll sound quieter. And when you receive from a radio in wideband mode, they will sound louder and possibly with more clipping distortion at the loud points. In repeater mode it shifts to wideband. I have heard that some people have asked Midland to reconfigure their radios for wideband only, though those discussions were a couple of years old, and even then, it seemed to differ by which support agent handled the query. These are good, solid radios. They have nice sound quality, and are very simple to use. But this is one quirk of the radio; in an effort to make it simple they precluded an option for setting wideband or narrowband yourself.