axorlov

Too often: that's rich from you On the other hand, the authorization does not show 11 KHz narrow band. Are these radios wide-band only? Maybe I spoke too early about Midland getting any better. LOL! Still better than just narrow-band.

The 575 is wide band! Cool! I spoke too early. Midland appears to be changing to the better. https://fccid.io/MMAMXT575

I, for one, would be excited. Are they truly wide band? Or is it just a blubber to ruffle up your your-tub audience?

And they will be wide-band, unlike Midlands. And with hundreds of programmable channels, unlike Midlands. Will not be new, though. It could be a stopper for some people.

Cables have loss. The bigger the loss along the run of the cable, the less signal goes out and comes in. Also, the more the loss the better the SWR. The longer the cable, the bigger the loss. Coax loss chart: https://www.w4rp.com/ref/coax.html Coax loss calculator: https://www.qsl.net/co8tw/Coax_Calculator.htm There are number of thread here discussing cables, loss, SWR, whatnot.

Exactly how JeepCrawler98 explained: reflection and refraction. This is how I receive off-air TV signal at my home. An this is my experience with mobile<->HT comms over mountain terrain. And this is when wattage starts to matter, because you want power in your reflected scattered signal.

Yes, it's certified for 95E. But devil is in the details. It is certified with 9KHz spectrum, LOL! They cannot find a few good radios from production that would pass with 11KHz! Narrow-narrow band for you here. Your regular Bu Yao Feng fascion.

Ebay sometimes has listings for radios that "blabla do not transmit". Or "wires cut cannot test blabla" but with clear photo of the front panel working fine. So, if you can locate something like this and look into the seller's eyes (fat chance on ebay) I'd go for it. Of course if the price is right.

SWR 1.7 is ok. Nothing to write home about, but not terrible. The difference between low and high power measuring usually (but not always) points to a crappy SWR meter. Surecom, right? I would not sweat over it too much.

You absolutely can use channel 16 for simplex. They do not own the air. If somebody does not need an access to this repeater system he is not required to pay anything.

Starlink is going to help with that. But yes, strange that rangers do not have offline maps. I'd expect them to have a paper topo maps of good quality too. These work when batteries are empty. Could be a dramatization by media.

Your dish mount should be grounded already. But if it is not grounded, you should ground it. Ideally to it's own ground rod with #4 wire (according to the code) or at least to something that's already grounded. That would not be by the code, but it will allow static electricity to discharge through something other than your radio. Static is generated in surprising amounts just from the wind.

Haha, sorry for the off tangent. But that bolded remark is very much needed, and this very thread is a proof of it. We have people here (we will not point fingers) who might go to Starbucks with the shiny macbook in hand and say: "Oh cool! I'll take my first bite at 8am, and then blabber till noon with no mask. Because noon is when I'm taking my next bite".

I say a little different thing. I say that there is no requirement that equipment for different services must be in a different rooms or separated anyhow. You can operate your TK-880-1 under Part 90 license and be station in LMR service, and then operate the same (or another one) TK-880-1 sitting on the same chair under Part 95e license and be a station in GMRS. Equipment itself can be foreign, when it is under jurisdiction of the foreign rules and laws. It is not related to physical separation of stations intended for different services. And regarding buying 3 radios, yes, that's the letter and the spirit of the law. Want to be clean in the eyes of the law, then buy three radios, because the terms of your license require that you operate within the rules. If you think you're above the rules, it's fine with me too, I'm not your mom or your neighbor or cop. Just do not mislead others, like Lscott pointed out above. I'm a little irritated by some people (we will not point fingers here) who suggest that it's perfectly ok to have GMRS<->Amateur communications when it's very clearly not allowed, or use 18W AT779UV on MURS.

There is no requirement that transmitters for different services were in different rooms or vehicles. "Station" is an equipment, not a location.

One fool can ask more questions than one hundred wise can answer, but I'll answer this: Specifically prohibited by 95.1733 (9). And I'm too lazy to look up an identical line in Part 97, but I'm sure it exists. Edit Ah, what the hell, here it is: 97.111 (b) and 97.113 (b)

Emailed you firmware that I use. You should remove your email addr from the post.

There are DTMF mics for Kenwood on ebay from China for around $20. I bought two, one of them quickly stopped working, another one is still good. The genuine Kenwood mic is bigger and heavier, but seems to be more reliable. Programming cheat sheet, meaning buttons on the front panel? We were chatting about possible options in this thread, on the second page: But it's mostly up to the user. Whatever you find good, convenient.

This is what is strange. I have a big zipfile with kenwood firmwares, there is no one with checksum 0ADE. The one I'm using has a checksum E613. Want to try it out?

What about the label on the back of your radio? Does it say "Ver 2.0" like here: If not, you have unversioned, or what is called "Ver 1.0" radio. The latest firmware for Ver 2.0 is E613, that's what I run in my radios. The latest for Ver 1.0 is E4B3. I have both firmwares (although I only have 2.0 radios). If you PM me with your email, I can send them to you. So, if I read you posts correctly, you can upload firmware with FPro when turn on the radio with the SCN down, correct? If yes, your cable and port are fine.

Or, read this: http://w6nbc.com/articles/2016-03QSTdishslot.pdf You would need to do some calculations to adapt the design to the 462MHz. And NanoVNA to properly tune the contraption. I will try this myself one day, too damn clever.

I think this kind of dish will not be an efficient reflector for the GMRS frequency (65cm). Too small for that. Too much trouble with marginal results, in my opinion. I would go with n4gix suggestion and use the angled pipe to mount antenna that does not require ground plane. Something like Browning BR-6140, or Diamond X50 or similar. I experimented myself with that kind of setup, but with 2.5GHz wifi, using USB wifi dongle. It certainly works with shorter wavelength, if you know where the focus point is and how to find direction. And if you do not, glue/tape a bunch of kitchen foil on the dish and use sunlight and a flat piece of cardbooard to find where the focus point is and how to aim the dish. Just be careful doing that. This old star in the sky together with the old dish in your hands will very quickly burn your eyes out if you are not careful.

And one more thing, important one! Disregard posts from idiots.

Start with steps outlined in Service Manual (http://www.repeater-builder.com/kenwood/pdfs/tk-880h-svc-man.pdf), Page 16. Basically, make sure that your COM port number is correct and KPG-49D and radio operate on the same serial port speed. The default should be 57600. Read the posts from WRAK968 in this thread to determine if you need to reflash the firmware. Remember, that firmware for v 1.0 and 2.0 are NOT interchangeable.

One of my TK-880 had a different (non-Kenwood) firmware, and required software called WinSJI to communicate with radio. I also used this software to flash the Kenwood firmware back. Maybe worth investigating. I think you confirmed that your cable is good and your PC is good, by communicating with other 2 radios. Edit: This what I've found: http://www.repeater-builder.com/kenwood/passport2conv.html