
dosw
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Posts posted by dosw
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On 6/2/2025 at 8:43 AM, Lscott said:
Looks like you've done a fair job of researching your options.
Lets start with the antenna system.
First off I wouldn't worry too much about a few extra feed of coax cable. Likely the mount you will use has RG-58 type cable. A few may use the thinner RG-316, noticeably higher loss, but easier to route through small holes and other tight spaces. With RG-58 the difference between 13 feet verses the typical 17 foot long ones isn't worth worrying about. More on that later.
The antenna is where you shouldn't compromise. The same goes for the location on the vehical. Your usage case may justify two antennas. You would use a cheap quarter wave, about 6 to 7 inches tall, for local communications and repeater access. Then a much taller higher gain one for out on the highway traveling. Both would be better off mounted in the clear on the roof. The quarter wave is so short you could almost forget it's there, even when parking in a garage. While swapping antennas is a bit of a pain some of the folks here do it depending on where they are going to spend most of their time. Oh, the quarter wave is likely the best option when traveling in mountainous or hilly terrain. The radiation pattern gives much better coverage when two or more stations are at significantly different altitudes.
About an extra connector or two and comments about extra losses. I see people frequently get two things mixed up in that area, SWR matching and power loss. Good quality connectors have very low losses when used within their design frequency range, about 0.1 to 0.2 db. The real issue is the typical SO239/PL-259 "UHF" connectors are NOT really recommended for use above about 200 to 300 MHz, but you see them all the time used on UHF, on the back of radios and on the ends of the coax from antenna mounts. The problem with those is the "impedance" doesn't match the coax impedance of 50 ohms. This results in a higher SWR. The more of these you have the worse the match gets. Myself I try to stick with "N", BNC or RG-8x mini type connectors. Those are all 50 ohm types, and have very low power loss.
If you want to go down the rabbit hole with the antenna system design evaluation I did one for my current ride as an example. Most people don't do this, and likely wouldn't need to anyway. I did it just out of curiosity.
https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/483-cx-5-antenna-system-analysisjpg/?context=new
For antenna choices the CA-2x4SR from Comet gets mentioned frequently. It's a good high gain wide-band antenna. If you ever plan on getting your Ham license it's usable on the VHF and UHF Ham bands as is. The price is very reasonable.
https://forums.mygmrs.com/topic/7914-how-is-the-comet-ca-2x4sr-antenna/
There is a very similar antenna now available from Diamond, of course more expensive. Be careful, I see two slightly different model numbers. I believe the one you want is the NR240CA. I see the NR240C sold too, which I think is tuned a bit different. I asked Diamond about this and never got a reply. The spec's for the NR240CA seem to show a slightly wider bandwidth than the CA-2x4SR.
Now lets talk about radios.
As mentioned a 25 watt radio would be good for most every day usage. A higher power radio would be a good idea if you had to communicate through heavy foliage, trail riding on your 4-wheeler for example.
A lot of good recommendations for radios here by other members. Personally I stick with commercial grade radios. A number of the cheaper consumer grade types, including some modified Ham gear, I've played with suffered from poor sensitivity, and worse, poor selectivity and de-sense issues in moderate to high RF environments. The commercial grade radios tolerate the later two much better. I have a large collection of mainly commercial grade hand held radios if you have any questions on these I would be happy to answer them.
https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/249-my-radio-collection/?context=new
This is typical of some of the Kenwood mobile radios.
https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/250-nx-820ghjpg/?context=new
CA-2x4SR.pdf 97.16 kB · 0 downloads NR240CA.pdf 1.81 MB · 0 downloads
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.
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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
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59 minutes ago, WRTC928 said:
That's definitely a downside, perhaps even a deal-breaker, IMO.
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.
- SteveShannon and WRTC928
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10 hours ago, WRUE951 said:
yes, but with a price tag.. Some like RT, i have used both, I don't mind CHIRP, it's free and will get you the same results.
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.
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9 minutes ago, WSFU381 said:
You mention that you would not recommend this radio for MURS. Why is that? Also, with respect to GMRS, you said “through some simple configuration adjustments of the band ranges in CHIRP, yes, this will work for you.” I presume you mean the regular manual frequency entries…. Anything else? THANKS
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.
- WRUU653 and SteveShannon
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55 minutes ago, WSBA294 said:
Just got permission to use a local repeater. The owner said to use a specific access tone DCSxxxN. x=a number he said not to post anywhere. On the Chirp software, there is no DCS option for tones, only DTCS. I can load the number he sent, but CHIRP is automatically loading "NN" as DTCS polarity. I'm not getting thru to the repeater so I must be loading something wrong. Any ideas? Wonder if this is a digital repeater, if so I can't use it on my Baofeng. Thanks!
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?
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48 minutes ago, 73blazer said:
I've had this radio for about 2 years and it's a rock solid performer. Lots of compliments on how I sound from it. Functions very well, puts out full advertised wattage. Easily unlocked for full TX range to match the RX range (murs,marine vhf, gmrs,CB and more) on it using chirp. I've had zero issues with this radio and it gets used quite a bit. Yeah the 10m band is kinda useless without sideband unless your doing CB on it. Very nice radio and for what it does, it's pretty cheap compared to the mainstream HAM mobiles.
My only complaint with it is the fan tends to make noise in cold weather. So you get in your truck and it's 10 degrees, the fan makes a bunch of racquet until the vehicle or radio warms up. The KG-1000G's do the same thing. The fan needs a redesign or different bearings or something. But it's never prevented it from working. The noise is short lived. That and I wish there was a setting like the 935H added over the UV8H to mute the secondary area while TX'ing on the main area.
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.
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13 minutes ago, WRYZ926 said:
If you can find a single antenna that covers Marine VHF and GMRS then you would only need a single diplexer. It would be no different than how we have our 2m and 70cm repeaters setup.
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.
- SteveShannon and WRYZ926
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11 minutes ago, WRYZ926 said:
Diplexers work when using a single antenna with a radio with dual antenna connectors. The Icom IC-9700 is just on example. It has two coax connectors, one for VHF and one for UHF. Most guys will run a single dual band antenna to the radio using a diplexer.
Or as Steve was asking, one can use a diplexer to connect two antennas to a single coax connector on the radio.
We actually use dual band repeater antennas for our 2m and 70cm repeaters and a single hardline into the building. Then it goes through a diplexer to the two repeaters. That setup has been working great for years now.
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.
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Just now, SteveShannon said:
I wasn’t thinking about cross banding as much as having a dedicated antenna connection for the 10 meter antenna.
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.
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2 minutes ago, WRYZ926 said:
You do not need a diplexer or dual antennas on radios that have only one antenna connection and have cross band repeat functions. I use cross band repeat quite often on dual band radios. Just set Side A to the 2M frequency, usually a repeater, and then set Side B to a 70cm frequency that you want to use on your HT. Then go into the radio's menu and turn cross band repeat on.
Good info. Thanks. I may have to give it a try next time I'm in less congested RF-space.
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13 minutes ago, SteveShannon said:
Nice review, entertaining and informative. I apologize if I missed it (and I did go back and reread it), but does it have a single SO239 or one for each transceiver?
Single. So if you are going to crossband with it I imagine you would feed an inexpensive diplexer. I don't know how successful crossband repeater mode would be with a single dual band antenna. Seems like that would be rather hard to test without a posse of people who can hit the repeater and listen while you tinker with settings.
Another thing to mention: I'm not sure if this is standard, but the power cable on mine came with Anderson connectors on the end. It could be the previous owner installed them. But fortunately my PSU has an Anderson port, and I've installed one under the hood in my truck, as well.
- WRUU653 and SteveShannon
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I picked up a Wouxun KG-UV980P, like new in box, on ebay, and thought I'd give some of my impressions now that I've used it a few days.
The KG-UV980P is a quad band amateur radio, featuring 10m, 6m, 2m, and 70cm bands. It will also receive in the CB range, airband, and with proper CHIRP configuration, MURS, Marine VHF, and GMRS. The KG-UV980P is the amateur radio version of the well known (in these circles) KG-1000G GMRS radio.
The KG-UV980P will transmit with 10w in the 10m and 6m bands. And it is advertised as 50w in the 2m band VHF band, and 40w in the 70cm UHF band. In testing with a dummy load, my unit comes in at a little over 10w in the 10m and 6m bands, about 46w in the 2m VHF band, and around 43-45w in the 70cm UHF band. So its marketing may be slightly overstating the VHF power, and understating the UHF power. However, it doesn't matter. For practical purposes, it's an ample mobile and base station radio in the UHF and 2m VHF bands.
First obvious question: Will it work for me, a person reading posts on a GMRS website? And the answer is that through some simple configuration adjustments of the band ranges in CHIRP, yes, this will work for you. You might also ask if it will work for those people who prefer more of a Smokey and the Bandit radio band, the answer is sort of, with caveats. And some might ask if it will work for them on a band that has five VHF channels numbered 1-3,Green,Blue. The answer is somewhat, with a caveat.
The caveats: On the smokey and the bandit band the radio can listen in AM mode, but I think only transmit in FM, and would need to set the power to L or M. But at "M" you're only putting out about 2.6w in the 11m band, whereas this band is FCC restricted to 4w maximum for AM and FM transmission, so you come up a little short. On the other hand, at "H" power, you're way over the limit, at 10w, so don't do that. In other words, if you're buying this for the Superbowl band, it's not ideal; only FM, and wrong power levels. As for the 5-channel VHF band starting with the letter M, there is no power setting that brings you down to compliance, as the lowest setting is a little over 5w in the 144+ VHF band, and the M band is limited to 2w. So if you're buying this for the M band you're making a mistake; it cannot meet the technical limitations required for that band. The final caveat is this radio is an amateur radio, not type approved for bands that require type approved equipment. If you have your amateur license, it's useful. If not, radios specific to your license make more sense.
About our on-topic band: Low power will comply with the technical restrictions of channels 1-7 -- narrow band or wide. Medium and High power will comply with the technical restrictions of channels 15-22 and the repeater inputs -- narrow band or wide. The radio's lowest power setting in UHF is about 5w, and it's a mobile radio, so, like all mobile radios, it will not meet the restrictions for channels 8-14, which must transmit below a half watt.
The radio: it's two in one. This radio has two radios inside. It has two volume knobs. Its display has a left side and a right side, each of which corresponds to one of the radios. It literally can play both sides at the same time. It can function as a full-duplex repeater, and as a full-duplex cross-band repeater. It can receive and transmit at the same time, in repeater mode. Some radios have a left and right side, but only one radio on the inside. Those radios achieve this trick by rapidly shifting the one internal radio to listen on the channel set on the left, and then on the channel set on the right. This is how the RA87 works. This is how the UV-5G or UV-5G Plus work. But the Wouxun KG-UV980P doesn't need such a trick; it has two transceivers in it. This is a really nice feature for some people.
The mic: It's well balanced, and weighted. My RA87 mic feels like it's mostly air -- like a hollow chocolate bunny. The KG-UV980P mic feels like a MaBell desk phone from the 80s. It feels nice. Its keypad works well, and has all the features you would want on it (better so than the faceplate even). There is a speaker in the mic handset, and there are two speakers on the base unit. There is a volume control on the mic, a monitor button, menu button, band selection, direct frequency input, and a lot more. It's a good mic, and from what people who have heard my voice over this radio say, it sounds awesome.
The speakers: With a speaker in the mic, and two speakers on the base unit, it sounds good and offers nice options for listening. There are also two external speaker outputs. Remember, it has two radios in it. And this is why. I've used the radio indoors, and in my super quiet 2014 F150. In those environments, the speakers are plenty loud. I have not tried it out in my old Bronco with a 5.8L v8, 3" exhaust, every rattle known to man, and a thin shell of a roof. I suspect that just like my RA87, which is mounted in the Bronco, its speaker will be almost adequate unless I'm at highway speeds. However, the fact that it has a mic speaker may help in noisy environments.
The faceplate: The radio's faceplate is removable, and can be mounted separately from the base unit. It comes with a short connector for mounting the face plate on the base unit, and it comes with a long connecting cord, as well as a dash mount to allow the faceplate to be located a few feet away from the base unit.
CHIRP: This unit can be programmed with Wouxun's kooky Windows software, or it can be programmed very easily from CHIRP. You will need to purchase a data cable, as it doesn't come with one. The cable is not expensive. With CHIRP you can program its 999 channels, set the band limits, set many other options, and even allocate channels to ten different scan groups, of user-defined size. This allows you to set it to scan only 2m repeaters, or only GMRS, or whatever other scan groups you can imagine that fall within its band capabilities. On my Linux laptop, the cable required no additional drivers; just download and install CHIRP, which I already had, plug in the cable, download the code plug from the radio, modify it, and upload it back to the radio.
Modes: The "left side" radio supports AM and FM. The "right side" is FM only. Despite supporting 10m, it doesn't have SSB. It also doesn't have any digital modes.
Transmit bands: 10m(&11m), 6m, 2m(+...), 70cm(65cm).
Receive bands: 11m, 10m, 6m, VHF from 144-179, UHF from 420-470, plus airband (123), and 33cm.
Heat: I don't talk nearly as much as I type, so I haven't really gotten it hot. It has a fan, and the fan can be set to always on, on while keyed up, or on when it reaches a certain temperature or is keyed up. Heat dissipation doesn't seem to be a problem. I keyed it up for 90 seconds into a 50w dummy load at high power, and it got warm enough to feel the warmth, but not hot. Nevertheless, dash-mounting the radio and then rag chewing in southern Arizona may not be a great plan. If you're going to dash mount it, dash mount the faceplate, and put the base unit somewhere shady in the vehicle, with sufficient ventilation.
Programming: The menu is not too difficult to understand, but it's sure easier using CHIRP to get the radio configured, and then to just rely on the menu system for a little tweaking here and there. That goes for programming channels, too. Just do it in CHIRP, upload, done.
Overall quality impressions: The radio is hefty, solid, has nice sound, close-enough power, good venting, great features, and great mounting options.
Antenna choices: The closest I have to an antenna that will cover this radio's capabilities is a Comet CA2X4SR-NMO. I don't have a General class license, so I don't spend time in the 10m band. And nobody uses 6m in my area, from what I can tell. The CA2X4SR-NMO covers the 2m, 70cm, and closely adjacent bands nicely, so that's what I use.
Odds and ends: Independently configurable Tx and Rx tones, compander, over-temp detection, high/low power input detection, scan groups, CTCSS and DCS scanning/detection, and very important to some, a roger beep. Very important to others, the roger beep can be disabled. DTMF, call groups, lots of features you'll never use.
Should you consider this radio? Well, it depends. It's not cheap, at about $380-$400. There are far cheaper ham radios out there, and far cheaper GMRS radios. You might even find less expensive quad-band radios. But the build quality and sound quality are pretty darn good.
If you are only GMRS licensed, get the KG-1000G Plus. It's the same radio but type approved for, and configured for GMRS. You'll be very happy with that radio. If you're a CB person, no, get a proper CB because it will have the appropriate power levels available, and will be type approved. If you're a MURS person, no, get the KG-1000M radio (which is serious overkill -- so really get an inexpensive MURS radio). If you're an amateur who operates in the SSB portions of the 10m band, get a proper HF radio so you can also enjoy 12m, 15m, 17m, 20m, and 40m.
But if you're like me -- rather addicted to nice equipment, enjoying both amateur and GMRS, needing flexible installation options, and appreciating the features this radio offers, it's a pretty decent choice.
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Amateur radio spans almost the entirety of the RF spectrum, and LW, MW, and HF propagation are vastly different from VHF, UHF, and other much higher frequency band propagation.
GMRS uses 65cm, which is very close to amateur 70cm. For those, propagation will be virtually identical; UHF 70cm and UHF 65cm GMRS will be identical.
GMRS doesn't extend into VHF. Amateur radio has bands in 2m and 6m that can be described as VHF. VHF requires bigger antennas than UHF for similar gain characteristics. VHF suffers less from attenuation by foliage. But UHF is a little better at getting through walls. Both are "line of sight."
Amateur offers 10m (a lot like CB propagation -- pretty long range during periods of high sunspot activity, line of sight at other times).
Amateur offers 20m, 40m, 80m, 160m. These are the bands people use to talk all over the world, but they're subject to seasonal changes, day/night changes, sunspot activity, and so on. They achieve these long distances by bouncing the radio waves off the ionosphere -- layers in our atmosphere. Requires knowledge and good technique for knowing when to use which band. Very large antennas are common, and high power levels. Not entirely reliable.
You're probably asking about 2m/70cm amateur vs GMRS. And again, there, 70cm vs GMRS there's no practical propagation difference. 2m vs GMRS there can be some advantages to 2m if you have comparable gain antennas, which will be bigger. But the advantages are subtle.
The fine print: I skipped over the following amateur bands: 1.25m, which is less used, but close in propagation to 2m. I skipped 900MHz and GHz bands because they're uncommon for simplex over any distance. And I skipped LW/MW, as well as 17m, 15m, and 12m amateur. 17,15,12 are going to share characteristics of 10m and 20m, but are less common bands. LW and MW require much larger equipment and are relatively niche bands. 160m is pretty close to MW though. I also skipped over MURS, because its power requirements are more limited, despite propagation being similar to 2m. 30m is useful in the same way that 20 and 40m are useful, but less common. And 60m is relatively niche. I skipped CB because at 11m, its propagation is similar to 10m, but it's a dumpster fire of crazy traffic. However, people do use CB. It's limited to 4w for AM transmissions, and 12w for SSB transmissions.
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3 hours ago, WSGC728 said:
I have had good luck with my Retevis RA87. According to my SWR meter, it pulls a steady 1.0-1.1 SWR reading & anywhere between 40-45 watts of power with a Larson magnetic mount antenna. It also pulls the same SWR & wattage on a dummy load.
SWR is the Standing Wave Ratio, and is a function of your antenna, cabling, connectors, antenna mount, ground plane effectiveness, and environment. As power is reflected back into the radio rather than efficiently disappating it in the form of RF output, the reflection back into your radio is the standing wave. This is a bit of an oversimplification, but accurate enough to explain that if you see a higher SWR your radio is usually the last place to look, the last thing to blame. And into a dummy load -- it would be a terrible dummy load if it were reflecting power back into the radio. Their purpose is to absorb power with the proper ohm load to avoid elevated SWR that could damage the radio.
Anyway, the RA87 has been very reliable for me over the past year or so. Unfortunately it fits in great with the utilitarian interior of my old Bronco, but not as well with the cushy interior of my newer F150. I'll probably go with something with a remote faceplate if I can figure out where i want to mount it, and how to route the antenna cable in this newer truck. In the old Bronco a few visible wires and a big radio under the dash just ads character.
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Confirming:
You hear them but they don't hear you, and you don't hear the kerchunk when you key up the repeater?
How are you verifying they can't hear you? Is it by asking for a radio check while you know people are active? Or are you listening for the kerchunk on the radio you transmitted with? Or do you have two radios in close proximity, one to transmit and one to listen?
Different troubleshooting tactics apply to each.
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The GMRS version of the 5RM series is the UV-5G Plus.
Type-approval aside, the 5RM variants (with the exception of the UV-5G Plus) cannot be set to power levels below about 2w. That makes them incapable of meeting the technical requirements for operating on GMRS/FRS channels 8-14, since those channels are supposed to be constrained to 0.5w or less. Aside from that they can be correctly configured for 1-7 and 15-22, though they would still not be type-approved, so still in violation of the FCC rules, which not even the FCC has enforced against individuals historically. It would be impossible to distinguish a 5RM series configured technically correctly on channels 1-7 and 15-22 from a UV-5G Plus. Nobody could tell the difference. And on 8-14 it would be hard to know, though transmitting at 2w when you're supposed to stay under 0.5w is more likely to interfere with nearby repeater mains, so not a good practice.
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If there is now a 5RM GMRS variant, that is probably going to be something very similar to the UV-5G Plus. And it may even be a type-approved radio. You could look it up in the FCC filing but it's a lot of work to find, and ultimately not worth the bother.
- WRTC928 and SteveShannon
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This is a topic you could search for hours on and not come up with a clearly definitive answer. In fact, there's almost no argument, even. The advantages and disadvantages of each are so minor people don't really seem to be all that passionate about it.
CTCSS will behave with older equipment that doesn't support DCS. But who are we protecting? There aren't a lot of people operating 20 year old blister pack GMRS radios lacking DCS support on repeaters. Both are subaudable tones or sequences that have to be filtered out by the radio's high pass filter. Both have different reasons for behaving a little oddly at fringe-reception areas. DCS *may* take a little longer for the sequence to be transmitted completely enough for a radio to open squelch, but we're talking tenths of a second at most. CTCSS may be a little more crowded (you may have a slightly harder time finding a channel and tone pair that isn't in use).
But the fact that we have both systems really is a product of the evolution of marketing bullet points from vendors. One or more vendors claimed they had a new and improved system, and they pushed it to the point that it gained adoption. But the fact that DCS and CTCSS have continued to co-exist for decades, filling the exact same purpose, without a clear winner pushing the other out of the way kind of indicates there's not a clear winner.
- SteveShannon, TrikeRadio, GrouserPad and 1 other
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4 hours ago, WRYZ926 said:
GMRS repeaters are going to have the same coverage area and range as 70cm repeaters when antenna height and locations are equal.
We get 30-35 mile radius of coverage with our GMRS repeater antennas at 400 feet and 35-40 mile radius of coverage with our 70cm antennas at 900 feet. Both are on the same tower. And both 70cm and GMRS has the same dead spots when one is mobile.
GMRS repeaters have the same exact propagation characteristics as 70cm. I'm aware of this as you are. But 70cm doesn't have a prohibition against linking. The point I was making was that it's possible the OP was hearing a 70cm repeater that was legally linked -- a very common practice -- as opposed to hearing a GMRS repeater that is illegitimately linked -- a much less common practice nowadays.
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Are you sure you were listening on GMRS frequencies? Could the radio have been set to pick up 70cm amateur? It's a lot more common to find repeater networks in the amateur bands. It still happens in GMRS despite the FCC clarification. But if you were picking up 70cm amateur it would be less surprising.
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4 hours ago, Socalgmrs said:
Nope. Never heard of a dummy antenna. Dummy load? Yes. Dummy antenna? Nope. Another question that could have been answered by a quick internet search.
We all value knowledge and experience here, but the way you're treating newcomers is out of line. Everyone starts somewhere, and being dismissive, impatient, or outright rude doesn't make you look more knowledgeable—it just makes this community less welcoming.
If your goal is to actually help people learn and grow, then your attitude needs to reflect that. Otherwise, you're not building anything—you're just gatekeeping. You were new once too. Try to remember that.
New to GMRS Loving It So Far, Looking for Advice on Mobile Setup
in Technical Discussion
Posted
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.