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I'm sure 8180 owners and experts will chime in, but for now: The "H" means high power, 45W in case of 8180. From programming standpoint 8180H and 8180 should be identical. "K" - I have no clue, but with my Kenwood 3170 "K" is a regular one, and "K4" is with 12-key keypad. I would follow the advice and chose 8180H if your radio on hand is 8180H-K. Safe download - now this is a longshot these days! hamfiles.co.uk considered to be reliable. I just download from the radiosoftware.ru, I like to live dangerously. Kenwood software for Windows works in Win10. I personally have KPG-49D and KPG-101D working fine. Firmware update does not seem to be required (with my 880 and 3170).

Yes, propagation in the mountains surprised me many times. I grew up and got my first Ham callsign in the rolling hills area, and was always skeptical of "wife's tales" about how far UHF can go in the mountain region. When me and family started to actively use GMRS in California, in Sierra Nevada with it's granite cliffs, sharp mountain ridges and not dense forestation, these wife's tales became a reality. Important is that knife-edge and other diffraction-reflection modes are a reliable modes, repeatable day after a day, unlike some other methods of propagation.

Case and size are very different. Leixen is roughly 4 times smaller in volume than TK-880. Button layout may look alike, just like between Motorola and Kenwood mobiles. Kenwood and Leixen radios are generations, and worlds apart. They are as similar as elephant and elephant slug are similar. Just look at the service manual for 880 and pictures of inside of Leixen on the internet. As an owner of TK-880 you should have service manual, download it from here (for V2.0): http://www.repeater-builder.com/kenwood/pdfs/tk-880-svc-man-rev-e.pdf

Leixen 898 is not a clone of TK-880, not even close. Radios are totally unrelated. Cable might work, though. The software is KPG-49d, as mentioned already in this thread, versions 4.x are for Windows, work just fine in Win10 X64 with USB-to-serial adapter. I have 4.02.

Hey, go recalibrate your body! Health is first, family is second, and everything else (including posting on silly forums) is a distant 100th.

95:335(a): (a) Exceptions. Under certain exceptions, non-certified Personal Radio Service transmitters, or transmitters certified for use in the land mobile radio services may be operated. Any such exceptions applicable to stations in a Personal Radio Service are set forth in the subpart governing that specific service. See e.g., §§ 95.735 and 95.1735. "Under certain exceptions", and 95.735 is related to radio control, and 95.1735 does not exist. Ambiguous wording - is not even close. Thanks for the effort of contacting them and getting clarification. Often, the practice of the enforcement tramples the letter of the law.

Insight into HT antennas is simple: - measuring length is meaningless; however, in general, the longer the better; - measuring SWR is meaningless; - to measure the efficiency of HT antenna you must use field strength meter and calibrated human body + calibrated human hand.

Hey, MacJack Congrats to you and your granddaughter for your Ham tickets. It's a lot of fun! With APRS specifically, when I just started to dip into digital and APRS, years ago, messing around with the SMSGTE, I got a sudden call (yes, on my phone!) from ham in the nearby area congratulating me with figuring out digital stuff. Weirded me out back than, but now I think it was cool! And I think, I annoyed him with my test packets too.

As a regular user of APRS on Ham band I have to chime in. The point of limited channels is very valid. Where I live, apparently some people already using GMRS/FRS channel for data telemetry. It's only mildly annoying now, but should everyone start using APRS (or other data) it's going to be detrimental to voice operations. APRS depends on a network of digipeaters, to be reliable and useful. I do not see it's to happen to GMRS ever in my lifetime. The new reserved data channel for FRS/GMRS? Yes!!! Where do I sign up. It could be one of the low power 467.xxx MHz channels or it could be a whole new 12KHz channel dedicated by FCC. Fat chance...

OP really-really-really needs to read this: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/95.1763 and this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Mobile_Radio_Service#Frequency_assignments Being new to this and all...

You're hearing FRS, very likely. And FRS can be used for business or anything. It's legal.

Generally, true, GMRS s line of sight. But I can see there are some taller, steeper hills around your location. You may have path around instead of path over. You would need to experiment, as suggested already. Also, if both stations are fixed locations, simple corner reflector may help a lot, or other directional antenna.

My first and current GMRS HTs are Kenwood TK-3170 and it's brother 3173. Out of four I had one died, other three are soldering on for 6 years, with who knows for how long before I bought them on ebay.

Alcalines cannot sustain the high current needed for transmission at full power. Extended period of communication on AA cells - forget about it. They are only good for receiving/monitoring and for one (short) press off PTT.

I did not know that DC-grounded antennas exist for UHF frequencies. I thought it's more of a feature of how matching is done on HF antennas. Anyway, the article and discussion is about hit from lightning. It's wrong to assume that lightning could possibly be "forced into shield" (quote from the article). If lightning tastes your cable it would not matter at all if the center conductor DC-grounded or not. However DC-ground antennas offer free and reliable relief from static buildup.

Can't say anything about 890, but also noticed the scarcity of 880 and 8180 on ebay. Looks like police and fire across US all moved to P25 and the bug dump of old analog radios dried off.

Very likely, mburn was referring to this one: https://shop.mygmrs.com/collections/repeaters-and-accessories/products/retevis-rt97-gmrs-repeater-5w Proper repeaters usually cost arm, both legs, and a firstborn. You can roll your own, and you may save money (but also, may not), however you'd need to invest in studying and experimenting. This one, in the link above, is much cheaper. But also you'd need consider limitations. For a campsite far from urban RF noise, with antenna up on the telescopic pole, it probably will do great.

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Browning BR-6140 is very short, does not require radials or ground plane, may reach repeater from the inside of the house.

There are only eight high-power channels, seven 5W channels and seven 0.5W channels. Any half-decent radio can scan them all quickly. And from your mobile you can't legally use 467.xxx5 (because 0.5W), so why to worry about them. If there is an open repeater in vicinity, it's most likely will be on 462.675 with tone 141.3.

Awesome man! Great airgun porn. The 1322 could be little hard to pump for a girl, no? I have blisters on both palms after 100 pellets from 1322.

You may want to search this forum in regards of using LMR-400 with the repeater setup. Works fine for regular station, not very suitable for repeater.

The build looks really good so far. I have few questions: 1. Is it 1322, 1377 1740 or 2240 in the second picture? What do you use it for? I use mine (1322 and 2240, both in pistol form) to shoot paper in my very long garage. 15m - olympic pistol range, yo! 2. What do you do with your 10/12m mobile? Working when stuck in traffic? When camping? SSB, CW, data? Honest question, I'm genuinely curious.

I had a problem logging in yesterday, but figured out, it'll resolve. SW releases are bad, HW releases are worse, and HW+SW releases are hell. Thanks for looking after the forums, Rich.

OMG, these videos are so great. And the rugged but handsome look... I'll be in my bunk.