KAF6045

Just to show my license age (a 3Ax4N). My first GMRS radio was a Maxon GMRS 210+3. Don't plan to dig it up to photograph it -- you'll have to live with a link to the manual: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwidz7j-vPf4AhWOoWoFHXiXCWgQFnoECBEQAQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Frsws.zapto.org%2Fradiosoftware%2FMaxon%2FGMRS-2103O.pdf&usg=AOvVaw35bH5wYY31Aop7VP5e9n9V (Ugh, Google and its thousands of tracking bits). This radio goes back to the days when a GMRS license was for just TWO of the Eight primary frequencies (well, frequency pairs when you include the repeater inputs), which had to be selected when one applied. Most radios were based on part 90 land mobile/business which typically had a toggle switch between the two channels. The 7 low-power (relative to the 50W max for primaries) GMRS interstitial frequencies had become available just a bit before. Also, one of the 8 primaries was a designated emergency/traveller assist channel -- common practice was to make that one of the two channels one was licensed for, although FCC rules made it available FOR EMERGENCY USE even if not shown on the license. So that explains the 210+3 nomenclature: two programmable (technically by a shop!, though the programming manual was included with the radio -- open it up, press a button, up/down to find frequency, enter, press button for second channel, repeat) primary channels as #9 and #10. #8 was permanently on the emergency channel. #1-#7 were the interstitial channels. Two power levels. Battery compatibility with the Icom 02AT https://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/ht/02at.html (and the RatShack HT-202 which was a Maxon built look-alike for the 02AT) [Didn't expect the link to display in-line] This was my backup Amateur HT, while my Kenwood D7? was in the shop for some reason. I have a pair of Midland GXT 1050, a pair of Motorola <somethings> (one seems to be acting up -- pressing the High power PTT is causing a reset -- battery gauge shows 2/3 and the Low power PTT is okay, other showing full battery is okay with both PTTs [yes, it selects power by which part of the PTT is pressed]) Current radios... BTech GMRS-V1, and a GMRS-V2 with hi-cap battery (the latter is supposed to be 5W/0.5W hence the alternate battery vs the 2W/0.5W of the V1 -- yet with a 771G antenna it is putting out LESS power than the V1. The V1 showed something like 1.8W to the V2 1.6W, and similar values for the 0.5W setting -- 0.8 vs 0.6). Setting up an MFJ analyzer in frequency counter/(relative) field strength mode, using the original BTech V2 dual-band antenna for pickup, and positioning the radios so the antenna was in line with the end of my keyboard (so a repeatable distance from analyzer) gave: V1 stock antenna: 503 H/250 L V2 771G antenna: 326 H/228 L GXT 1050: 503 H/400 M/345 L Motorola (working one): 384 H/540 L !?, the one that resets on H also showed 500 L MURS-V1 with 701C antenna (according analyzer, this dual band antenna stinks on GMRS frequency) gave: 508 H/154 L Columbia MURS2 (one of the early MURS sets): 583 H (limit of analyzer I think, as putting a radio right up next to it maxed at that value)/200-370 L (sensitive to where my hand was when PTT)

Well, the TK3230 was approved for Part 90 and Part 95 (in 2007, so pre-reorganization). According to the FCC type acceptance, that radio is only spec'd for 460-470 MHz which would allow GMRS usage (actually, if one doesn't use high power on the 467MHz interstitial it now falls into FRS territory). Given the acceptance number, (ending in 3200), that may apply to most of the series. Also, per the PDF manual for the TD3200, it is NFM only (GMRS is still the wider FM -- distinguished from real WFM used for FM broadcast stations). The pre-set channel list does not include GMRS frequencies. GMRS primary span 462.5500 to 462.7250, TK3200 jumps from 461.3625 to 462.7625. While it may be possible to hack the frequency table for GMRS, that 460-470MHz spec most likely means that you will not be able to hack it down to 440MHz 70cm band.

Resurrecting an older post! Note that there is no such thing as a "family HAM license". EVERY user will need to pass the appropriate tests and get their own license (minor exception is when the licensed user is present to handle the controls and lets a third-party do the talking, maybe letting them handle the PTT). In contrast, GMRS was originally aimed at family and small business (visualize a moderate farm, repeater/base at farm house, field workers with HTs). One license covered family members who resided in the same household. Actually talking across licensees was somewhat limited (and base to base was verboten). Current FCC rules seem to have dropped the "residing in same household" clause, and just list what relations are allowed under the license. But since the license holder is responsible for behavior, I don't think I'd let the nieces operate under my call sign (they live some 40-60 miles away, brother is up the block but I don't trust him at all; his wife, maybe). Amateur radio is focused on communication, emergency support, if one is a MARS/CAP associate one can have radio's modified for the military frequencies for cross-over support, and experimentation/development of new communication technologies. Granted, many repeaters may become rag-chew forums or used by licensed truckers (in lieu of or in addition to CB). But that helps encourage the maintenance of the repeater -- repeaters that don't see much use may be quietly shut-down by the owner. If you have the access (maybe a very low-band/wide-receive scanner with a long wire antenna, 14.300MHz runs a Maritime Mobile net and occasionally has reports of boats that are missing). None the less -- ID at 15 minutes or end of conversation IS IN THE FCC RULES. If you really don't like that aspect, stick to no-repeater NFM FRS rigs. After all, after the 2017 reorganization, those are permitted up to 2W on all but the 0.5W 467MHz interstitial channels (that limit is so that they don't interfere with the GMRS repeater inputs). Original FRS (aimed at... family... keeping track of children at parks, stores, etc.) was limited to only the interstitial channels at 0.5W to reduce interference with GMRS (which runs nearly twice the bandwidth and is allowed up to 50W on the primary channels -- now numbered 15-22, but originally referred to by the kHz part of the frequency or channel 1-8; back in the day when GMRS licenses were good for only TWO of the 8 primaries [chosen at time of initial licensing]). I have two pairs of pre-reorganization (sold as FRS/GMRS) radios that, after the reorganization fall solidly into the GMRS side. Midland has three power levels, and H is above the 2W limit, while the Motorola only has two power levels (selected by which half of the PTT is pressed!), BUT has repeater capability.

Referring back to the OP's post from ages past... That "long wire" antenna they rejected would probably be the least obnoxious WRT "the wife". Two masts (or trees if one has them) and some of the thinner wire types would practically vanish. Rig it as an OCFD and one should be able to get three or four usable bands from the single antenna (I'm running an MFJ with thicker wire -- think it was rated for >500W -- with 40, 20, 10, & 6 meter; now all I need to do is actually get on the rigs... Upgraded from Tech to Exta a decade ago and STILL have not done HF voice! PSK31 seems my most used mode). More obnoxious is something like an Alpha Delta (Outpost?) tripod with one of the Outbacker multi-band (mobile) whips mounted. Sure, one has to go out an move a jumper to switch bands, but again -- not tied to one band. I used that with a PerthPlus for 6m and up field day once...

Whereas 25 years ago a 250 page book covered GMRS repeater listings... Most required one to contact the owner for access. Those with semi-open access (which means the listing had a clause "only for emergency and traveller assistance...." followed by a CTCSS tone) tended to be government entities. For examples: .575 PL 146.2; Grand Rapids City Government Radio Engineering[sponsor still active license]... .725 PL 141.3; WXMI (TV 17)[expired in 2000] Both entries required prior approval for use of other CTCSS tones... Of course, as businesses transitioned to narrow band gear they likely gave up the GMRS licenses

According to the listing I'd found, ALL law enforcement talk groups are encrypted. The statewide system is used by State Police, county Sheriff, and municipal Police departments. APCO P25 phase I Air Ambulance, Red Cross, bomb squads, and similar are not encrypted... but anything interesting is out of reach. Dumping the Michigan listing from https://www.radioreference.com/db/ took 120 pages (booklet, double-sided -- 30 sheets) last July.

These days, one may not be that fortunate. For example, as of last summer, pretty much ALL Michigan public safety departments converted over to a statewide trunked system. While my old GRE scanner is trunking capable -- the state put all law enforcement talk groups into encrypted mode... Animal control and the city zoo might be in-the-clear, but who cares about them? The only thing still appearing on non-trunked frequencies is some fire dispatch... I suspect because they are relying upon volunteers who had to provide their own "alert scanners", and the departments don't want to issue them trunked/encrypted hand-helds. Basically my expensive scanner (GRE PS-500 as I recall, $480 in 2010, GRE is defunct but the competition was the Uniden HomePatrol-2) has turned into a $30 weather alert box (Midland WR120), waiting for NOAA alert signals...

I would like to introduce your printer to my paper shredder... Keying up an HT in the same room causes the shredder to cycle (for whatever time-out period it has to ensure paper has cleared the blades). And in the 80s or 90s, I recall tales (may be urban legends, though I was living in the South Bay at the time) of newer model cars getting disabled on CA highway 17 (now I-880). Seems there was one mountain pass on the route that aligned with either a radar site or microwave relay towers... RF bursts were essentially doing the equivalent of an EMP on some of the poorer shielded engine management systems of those cars.

A (short-term) store&forward system, with the bird regenerating packets between receive and transmit... {Just commenting -- no analysis intended) Figuring out how to program it into a radio might be interesting (it likely won't be of use in the repeater-list of units with a "nearest repeaters" function unless one is mid-ocean ? ). I've not configured any D-STAR contacts into the regular channels of my systems.

Not clear if this happens when you are just sitting in one spot, or only when on the road. If only when on-the-road, I'd be tempted to say some sort of static build-up (St. Elmo's fire, corona discharge) on the antenna from wind. If so, possibly fitting a conductive rubber ground strap or two under the rear end (they are meant to bounce on the road, grounding out the vehicle; no idea of where to find them, only that I have seen them in the past). Also ensure the antenna base is on a truly grounded mounting point (if a DVM on resistance mode doesn't show near 0 Ohms when bridging antenna base and battery negative you may need to add grounding straps around the mounts to actual body ground... might help the SWR too, an antenna that long should be tunable for lower SWR. 1.8:1 is almost into the realms of badly tuned rubber ducks).

36 mile to a hill top repeater (the OP did state "uphill") seems a rather short distance for tropo-ducting to be significant. A 400ft tower, from sea level, gives a horizon of 24 miles. http://www.ringbell.co.uk/info/hdist.htm Put the repeater (even with a short tower) on top of a 1000ft peak and the horizon is 38 miles (and if you account for radio refraction, probably a mile or two more). I'd expect tropo-ducting to be much more "over the horizon" (I remember summers when Detroit TV stations were coming into Grand Rapids -- back in the 70s). Hmmm, "country foliage" transpiration could be a factor -- much change in humidity as the day changes to night. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303882023_Force_of_Atmospheric_Humidity_on_UHF_Radio_Signal

Well, yeah -- bought for the GMRS-V1, MURS-V1, and now GMRS-V2... But all of those allow for front-panel control of CTCSS/DCS too. I've got old (Pre-2017 unification) Midland (three power levels, one too high for FRS-only spec) and Motorola (has repeater capability) units that now fall into the GMRS realm with more front-panel control. I just can't see folks buying "FRS" rigs just because they are "commercial" grade -- when it takes 50% more $$ to be able to configure them, vs other "bubble-pack" FRS units whose rechargeable battery packs can be swapped with AA cells if needed.

Can you identify the repeater (so that others might look it up)? What radio are you using? If you /disable/ all tone squelch and just monitor, do you hear any traffic on the repeater? Are you using a duplex channel, or might you be on a simplex channel (Personally, I abhor that, with the FRS/GMRS merged channel list, many makers have made duplex mode "channels 23-30" rather than the industry (part 90, part 97, probably part 80) standard of toggling repeater offset ON/OFF in a single "channel" designation (DMR and similar refer to it as "talk-around" when turning OFF the repeater offset)).

Sounds like a couch potato that's beginning to rot ? {Nothing personal -- could almost describe me... except the couch [and half the living room] still has miscellaneous boxes of junk filling it from when I moved in... Don't know what a recliner equivalent to a couch potato would be called... recliner cabbage?) General addendum: Appears that setting up CTCSS/DCS requires use of computer (and the programming cable sells for half the price of a pair of these); no on-the-fly changes to tone (or even regular squelch level).

That could be anything -- 462MHz isn't really affected by ionosphere changes (which is why HF bands tend to get better on lower frequencies as the night goes on). Wild hypothesis: the repeater is exposed to sunlight and high temperatures during the day, which is causing a deterioration of the repeater output signal. As it cools off in the darkness, the signal improves. Maybe the duplexer is getting detuned, maybe it has some sort of rollback in the finals based upon temperature...

Though based upon where various B&M chains seem to think I'm located (Walmart, Lowes, etc. I think Google Maps is the source)... My ISP seems to report me as Portland (MI), 25 miles away (as the RF flies) from my actual location and halfway to Lansing.

Does the FTM-300 actually /receive/ and produce audio for one band while the other band is transmitting? The only units I've seen that can do that have not only dual receivers, but separate antenna connections for each (and are usually things like HF/6m on one antenna, 2m/70cm on a separate (my TS-2000 does have two HF/6m connectors [only one can be selected at a time] and separate 2m & 70cm connectors -- being fed to a diplexer for a dual-band antenna to be installed; I still think one can not do V/U without having transmit cut out the other band). Normally the radio will cut out the receive circuit when PTT, to avoid feeding the "massive" signal into the sensitive receiver inputs. https://www.amsat.org/tag/doppler/ A bit old, and partly involved with the HF birds though VHF/UHF does get lightly mentioned. Doppler is dependent upon the rate of change in distance between transmitter and receiver and is, I believe, proportional to the frequency. So, relatively speaking, if the bird is moving directly toward/away from you, doppler will be greatest (standing on the station platform as an express zooms through the station). Minimal change in distance, minimal doppler effect (standing on a roof in the center of the village while the express is taking a rail line that arcs around the perimeter). The speed of the express is the same in both cases <G>

Based upon a download of the user manual, it sounds like you first need to have "Function" programmed (using programming software) into one of the front panel keys (see page six), and then THAT programmed button can be used to assign other functions to the microphone keypad. However, the manual doesn't really explain "how" this is done. The service manual doesn't list "function" as a programmable choice. It just has

FYI: the three dots on the top right of posts... If the post is yours, the dots should give you an Edit entry, so you can go back and make changes to a post, rather than making a follow-up just to state the correct text. For the actual matter... I presume "split CTCSS" means one needs to send one particular PL* tone to get into the repeater, but the repeater sends using a different PL tone. Have you had listeners try using rigs with NO PL tone configured -- that would let anything transmitted by the repeater get through. Otherwise, I'd first verify you are /sending/ the correct tone by testing simplex settings with another receiver. Then have someone who claims to have a functional setting for that repeater try to contact you (start with no PL tone, again, so anything gets through). Then set receive PL tone. * Yes, I know Motorola's "Private Line" nomenclature is anything but... but PL is much faster to type then CTCSS ?

Remember that what is now MURS 4 and 5 were originally "color dot" BUSINESS BAND frequencies. Licensed (business service) radios were permitted 5W. Putting up repeaters on those channels could have led to lots of interference reports.

No input attenuator? or selectable pre-amp? (Well, probably not found on strictly VHF/UHF FM rigs, though the manual for the Icom ID-5100 does have an attenuator somehow linked to the squelch control dial and the ID-52 and Kenwood TH-D74 hand-helds have switchable ones) You aren't getting mine -- even though it currently only shares a 4-band OCFD with a newer TS-590. If the cancer doesn't get me I may eventually put up the 2m/70cm 1/4wave ground plane antenna. It wasn't exactly cheap even back in 2010 when new ($1700) [the 590 was $1750 in 2015

I doubt there are many (if any) malevolent types just sitting around scanning Amateur and GMRS frequencies (if really complete, add marine and aviation radios on small boats/planes) just to hear call signs, look up the owner on the FCC, and then travel to some address (which may be a few states away) in the hopes of snagging stuff from a temporarily unoccupied home. As others have stated, such a person is more likely to be sitting in front of a computer doing random searches, perhaps based upon addresses in nearby neighborhoods to find candidate targets.

The long discontinued Kenwood TS-2000 SAT mode, while not automatic, did have linked Tx/Rx splits (over multiple bands) so that varying one frequency would vary the other (and with the option for inverse tracking, if the bird had an inverting transponder).

Read the documentation... It should all provide the needed specifications. However... From Jackery web page, and a downloaded BTech manual, Google doesn't find "Ocean" "20W" "GMRS". Wouxun KG-XS20G and Retevis RA25, RB86 show up -- and their cheap manuals only list voltage, not current draw Explorer 240: "lighter jack" standard 12V @ 10A (and if that is really 12V, it means even less power since a running vehicle produces 13.8V) GMRS-50x1 (I'm presuming; that's what shows for Btech 50W): 13.8V +/- 15% (11.73-15.87 -- note that a 12V output is on the margin if their is any dipping/loss in cables/etc.) 20A Peak! Which is TWICE the capability of that 10A jack/socket! RA25 manual doesn't even mention how the power-supply is to be connected, but as the illustrations show a "lighter" plug, one may assume it is rated for 10A max. RB86 manual specifies "direct to battery" (as with many high-draw radio gear). 20W out hypothetically means a bit under half the draw of a 50W unit, so might be usable on a 10A lighter socket (20W/50W => 0.4 * 20A => 8A -- more than a 7A socket, so stick with 10A). KG-XS20G manual specifies a 15A fuse (so right there you have a risk of blowing the Explorer 240 10A socket -- fuses are supposed to protect the upstream from overloads by equipment) and mentions that the power source should be capable of 20A+. But then goes on to mention that the 12V "power adapter" works in a 10A socket (in particular, they specify the socket should have a 10A fuse). Also claim a "typical" draw is 4.5A (but don't mention surge peaks -- which may be twice the "typical")

The mere name indicates that it is optimized for Amateur 2m and 70cm bands. MURS is at 151 [channels 1-3] & 154 [channels 4-5], and GMRS is at 462 [1-7, 15-22 simplex], 467 [8-14, 15-22 Repeater/aka 23-30]