WRUE951

Yup, I’ve often wondered if turning ‘location services’ off actually does what they claim. I generally turn off location services only to find laterit turned on, and not by me…. Hmmm

Last night i was tuned into one of the busy GMRS ch's in my community and caught conversion of two guys having a serious conversation about some Baofeng portable radios having mini WiFi chips in their circuits, claiming these could be used for various things such as spying. I just chuckled it off as two idiots talking $hit, but then one of them claimed to be a Navy Pilot.. And the two were dead serous about the conversion. Hmm,,, Today, i caught myself thinking about that all day long. WTF Just throwing this out there guys..

Depends.. Lots of good legal FCC approved GMRS radios out there, i use the Maxons. And there are lots of FCC non-approved for GMRS radios out there such as the Baofeng's and the Motorola XTL5000s...... Personality i prefer to follow the rules. If you are one that wants to stay FCC compliant, perhaps you may refine your question to best radio to use that is FCC compliant, then take if from there. Good Luck.

sounds like you need to do some testing...provided you have a decent line of sight from your Antenna, you should be able to get out as far as the eye can see... what is the antenna SWR?

i had that garble effect when i had antenna mounted on a rear tire mount in my jeep. Moved it to the front right cowel and worked awesome..

Im running a Diamond 40Amp Power supply mounted in a 36"x48" cabinet. My repeater radios are also in this same cabinet where i have placed a wireless SensorPush temperature monitor set at 90 Degrees. I also have two AirPlate venation fans (one exhaust one push fan) mounted on top and bottom of the cabinet and set to come on at 80 Degrees. The ventilation fans do kick in once in while, the temperature monitor never has went to alarm.. This is all mounted in my garage where the temp stays at 70-80 degrees.

Bridgecomm GMRS Repeaters are basically two Commercial Maxon 8402A Radios crammed into a single rack mount chassis. They use Maxon's ACC-810/N, Programming Software with some minor proprietary changes. The Maxon's 8402A's are pretty decent radios.. I'm running two of them for my repeater and get a lot better performance then the Wouxun KG-1000's i had. I'm using Windows 11 for the programing software but it also works on Windows 10, not sure if they have an IOS version.. If you want to save about half the cost of the Bridgecom, build your own out of the two Maxon 8402A's.. RFwiz.com has a pretty decent price on these radios.. I bought my programming software ($35 bucks) but have since seen the software free on a few Ham sites. I'm getting 70 miles easy with these radios and coiuld only get about 40 with the Wouxuns. If you go with either the Bridgecomm or the Maxons you'll be happy.

Simplex is like a talk back repeater.. When you broadcast, your transmission is recorded by the Simplex controller then re-transmitted a few seconds after you end your transmission. So actually there are two exact transmissions, and yes - you do need to get accosted to the talkback... Simplex can be set up with one radio and one antenna, A Duplexer is not needed. Since you would hear your recorded transmission this in sense would be a way to test your transmission.. EcoStation can be set up for simplex or duplex and you don't need a controller since your computer would provide that.. I knew someone awhile back that used a Latnex simplex controller and a handheld radio connected to a base antenna, it worked pretty good.. Simplex repeaters are easy to set up and a good way to learn repeaters.

* Ecostation can be set up for either a Simplex or a Duplex Repeater using 'ONE' Radio.. I have not done this but there are YouTube Videos calming good results.. I use RigBlaster for my I.D.er which knows when radio traffic is present.. It works great.. I actually use it for a voice I.D.er with my repeater name. you can make thet MP3 file with this tool.. https://speechgen.io * The RigBlaster is a controller for your Radio I.D. Voice are Code * I use this for my remote power by phone, works great https://www.gallagheraviationllc.com/SwitcheOn-2-Channel-15-Amp-Remote-Power-Control_p_153.html * you can also remote power with an HTML version.. A friend of my used this one and it works great as well. http://www.ambery.com/ip-p4.html

You could do that with Ecostation software and a RIGBlaster Controller. In fact, Ecostation could also serve as your Simplex repeater. Ecostation is free to use for 30 days and i think about $20 if you purchase.

more positive comments will overrule a negative comment. So carry on..

i recently got a pair of Maxon's MP-4424 Handhelds. These are the same radio's many cities/counties use for their public service functions. They are extremely durable/tough radios even water proof and FCC compliant for GMRS. You do have to program these radios but the process is pretty simple with the Maxon software. These handheld will run circles around any Wouxun's and cost for them is not much higher than the Wouxuns.. The waiting period for mine was 3 months but i understand RFwiz hs them in stock now..

we do a lot of camping and never leave without our GMRS radios behind. They are useful for many things, We use them for navigating our 37' 5th wheel into camping spots, kayaking out in the lakes and streams, fishing reports from other boaters on the lakes, hiking & bicycling the trails, very very handing in areas without cell service and every once in a while enjoy conversations with other RVer's on the road. the later doesn't happen too often but it does. I also map our journey routes out on a KML layer on Google Earth which tells me where available open repeaters are and access info..

I find the map pretty much useless most of the time. For personal use I download repeater sites for my uses and create a Google Earth KMZ layer. When I’m traveling. I can bring up Google Earth on my tablet or phone and get access info for needed repeater sites on the fly. This is a whole lot easier than the map provided here and more versatile as well.

if you intend to use the 935G a lot outdoors, you'll get frustrated really quick with the display. Just the slightest sunlight will wash out the display making it pretty much impossible to view... The S88G seems to be a lot better for outdoor use. However i will say, the 936G is a nice handheld. I can easily git repeaters 20-25 miles.

I dont think it's working LMAO

I would recomend playing around with the Baofeng Handheld UVB9R to get an idea for your needs.. You can pick these up on Amazon for about $25-$40. They are not necessary legal for GMRS use but everyone and their uncle use them..

i had a KG1000 repeater set up and was getting roughly 45 miles talking into 9 Mile Canyon, however i could not reach a friend in Lone Pine. Last Dec i switched the KG1000's out with a pair of Maxon 8402A Radios and have no problem hitting a friend in Long Pine, 85 miles north of me.. The Maxon's are 40W radios but for some reason they talk a lot better than the KG1000.. I'm using a Hustler G6-450-3 Antenna with LMR400 45' run antenna to duplexer. BTW, The Maxon's are comparable in cost than the KG1000 and seem to be a lot better radio

the jumper between radios allow the two radios to 'handshake' with each other when used as a repeater. The two radios need this handshake communication to allow both radios to work together. the jumpers come with the KG1000 Duty cycle is basically how long a radio can transmit before damage or a shut down happens.. When i had my KG1000 repeater set up, i never experienced issues with duty cycle. I had my KG1000's in a cabinet with a temperature controlled fan set up.. The KG1000 and the Maxons have protective circuits which shuts down the radios if they overheat.. I'v never had that happen. I started out with an XLT duplexer tuned for the GMRS band, cost was around $150. Later on i went with a Sinclair that was close to $800.. The loss between the two as barely .1 DB... The XLT Duplexer works great and i recomend just going that route... The XLT is available on Ebay or Amazon and at a better price than buytwowayradios. One area you dont want to fudge on is your coax cable.. Use a good LMR 200 or 400 coax and get some decent connectors. I use crimp-ons with the proper tool for installing them.. .

I really didn't have any operating issues when i had my KG1000 radios set up for repeater.. Never had a duty cycle issue with them, they would talk pretty much all day with no issues. I was getting 45 mies with KG1000.. The cat 5 jumper you refer to comes with the radio's and your duplexer is going to be required no mater what radios you use, although some one box repeaters have them built into their box and some require additional money to incoprate them.. Either way, you are still paying for the duplexer. I'm not against specific built repeaters, i went that route too and for the most part ended up with Ebay junk.. Programing some of them, if not most of them can be a time consuming adventure and re-turning the duplexers seemed to be needed on every radio.. For most people getting started with GMRS, i think the KG1000 would satisfy them. I agree there are other options and cheaper... The Maxon's i just set up are pretty much the same cost as the KG1000 but a much better radio. I would recomend anyone to go with the Maxon vs. KG1000 as the cost is pretty much the same... The point with the used radio path, most of them require a much broader knowledge base to set them up and get them running, that can be frustrating for the new guy trying to get a repeater going.. I think it's funny here, some of the experts here cleary started out with Wuuxun radios, talked them up like they were the best thing on the planet. Well, they are defiantly not the best, they're just o.k.

To my knowledge, the easiest radios to build a repeater (in terms of programing them) are the Wouxun KG1000 and the Maxon 8200A's. Using either radio is relatively straight forward.. You would place a jumper between the two radios, take the high side antenna coax output into the high side input of the duplexer, the low side antenna coax output into the low side input of the duplexer and the duplexer to the antenna. That's it.. attached is a quick diagram showing the connection concept.. Programing wold be based on the radio.. The Wouxun can be programed via the hand mic, the Maxon via simple software. Typical Repeater config.pdf

There are 4 GMRS repeaters (one of them mine) here in the Mojave desert i reside. Two of these repeaters (not mine) are on a 4500' peak that has awesome line of site in all directions. I've conversed one those two repeaters 85-90 miles away. Not Bad... My repeater has good coverage at 240 degrees and i'v had conversation at 65 miles north... I keep my repeater open (no pl's) so it seems to get more traffic than the other 3.. I think the key, if you want traffic on your repeater, leave it open.. (no pl's).

i have a very good friend in Torrance, he is a retired Motorola Engineer.. All of their 'one' package repeater radios are two radios bundled into a single chassis. Now they don't physically shove two radios into the chassis but rather the boards themself's. Based on his professional knowledge, he says all repeater manufactures do the same.. He is the one that advised me to go with two Maxon 8200A's.... And i really did save $1,000 doing so over the Bridgecomm. The Maxon's are 10 watts shy of the Wouxun KG1000, (which i had) but they actually get better coverage. I'm getting about 65-70 miles here in the Mojave desert vs. the roughly 40 miles with the Wouxun. And by the way, programing the two Maxons is pretty much identical to the Bridgecomm.... I'm thinking they use the same programing software with a few minor changes for Bridgecomm As far as technical knowledge to get the one chassis vs two radios fired up, there really is no difference other than the need to have a separate Power Supply and a jumper to tie the two radios togethe with the two radio scenario. Programming is gong to be required either way you go and will pretty much be the same steps. The Wouxun KG1000 doesn't need software, they can be programmed from the Mic and done in less than 1 minute...

A pair of brand new Maxon's 8402's radio's, programing cable, software and tether cable can be had for about $800 bucks.. Same radio used in the Bridgecomm for half the cost. Maxon's are very nice commercial radios falling right with Motorola as far as quality ad operation goes.. Maxons are extremely easy to program. Multec Communications has some great deals on commercial radios.