axorlov

That would be an advantage of a radio-on-a-chip and any modern radio over an old brick 3170. They are much more power-efficient when receiving. What helps is a new Li-Ion battery off ebay. My 3170 is usually good for the whole day (12-14 hours) with moderate talking. I did not know the AA pack exists, even if it does it is not really an option. The current when transmit is significant, that alkaline batteries cannot sustain for long. That probably is a reason for strange display effects and malfunction.

Semantics, of course.... but FCC separates Private Land Mobile Service (than includes "Fixed Relay Station", Part 90.7 Definitions) and Personal Radio Services (that also include "Fixed Station", Part 95.303 Definitions) in it's all-famous CFR 47. https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?c=ecfr&tpl=/ecfrbrowse/Title47/47cfrv5_02.tpl However, I'm not a lawyer, and I do not even sleep with one on a regular basis.

I remember discussion of this topic on this board before the rule change in 2017. The gist was the same. For LMR +5MHz offset is mandated, but for GMRS there is nothing in the rules to clearly prohibit non-5MHz offset. It's impolite. If you use non-standard offset you are tying up two [commonly recognized] repeater channels instead of one. Now two guys, instead of one, are angry at you for the interference. If you do this in rural setting on your ranch, or in the woods, probably nobody would care.

Totally, steel parabolic dish could be used as a ground plane, if rotated horizontally. There is another option too. Discussed is 2m antenna, but 65cm antenna is even easier to build using this technique: http://w6nbc.com/articles/2016-03QSTdishslot.pdf

Isn't KG-805G a UHF-only radio? Or does it have ability to receive VHF too? I guess, you try and tell us, if you can receive 162 MHz.

Looking at this page: https://fccid.io/WVTWOUXUN16 I see that 467MHz channels are below 300mW and narrow-band. As it should be! Make sure you are testing on 462MHz channels and on wide-band. I did similar test with my equipment some years ago. I have Kenwood TK-3170 with a proper receiver, not the "radio-on-a-chip" kind. Antenna is stock 1/4 wave. 1. HT-HT, flat suburbia, almost no trees, 1-2 story buildings: 1 mile reliable, after that unpredictable. 2. HT-HT, flat field, no trees: 1.5 miles reliable, after that quickly drops to nothing. At 2 miles it's nothing. 3. HT-HT, dense coastal redwood forest: 0.5 miles is a max. You can go to 1 mile maybe if one HT is elevated on the edge of the canyon or something like this. 4. HT-HT, rocky canyons: unpredictable. Could be 1 mile, with no line of sight. Same HT with TK-880H mobile (40W), antenna 5/8 wave on a flat roof of SUV 5. HT-Mobile, flat suburbia, almost no trees, 1-2 story buildings: 4 miles reliable, after that unpredictable. 6. HT-Mobile, flat field, no trees: 5 miles reliable, after that quickly drops to nothing. However, if one of the points elevated, then range is much longer. Max range I had a chance to test with this combination was around 10 miles. 7. HT-Mobile, dense coastal redwood forest: 1.5 miles is a max. However, if you hike above the tree line with your HT, range becomes very long. I haven't been able to hike far enough from the parked car (maintaining LOS) to not have a somewhat reliable communication. 8. HT-Mobile, rocky canyons: unpredictable and surprisingly long range. My personal best - crystal clear voice at 2 miles (as crow flies) and 1200 feet of mountain range between HT and car. It was at Pinnacles park, car was at Chaparral parking (west side of the range) and I was at Old Pinnacles trailhead on the east side of the range, for those who know the place. Same HT with TK-880H mobile (40W), no-gain antenna 25' above ground: no sport to test. It covers pretty much the whole valley where I live. In some places there is a shadow from big buildings, but besides that it is mostly reliable with static at the range of 8 miles.

I agree with berkinet, I think you're fine with 1.7 SWR on 462MHz. Perfect is an enemy of good. There is another set of issues when trying to improve from 1.7 to 1.1: - Do you trust your meter; - Are your measurements consistent; - What is the setup, and how much of the effect the environment have on your measurements; - Is your feed line choked enough for 462 MHz (this is related to the question above) - it's not trivial, btw; And there are more and more...

Here is a simple calculator for RF exposure: http://hintlink.com/power_density.htm For 15W at 462MHz safe distance seem to be little more than 4ft. More info here: https://transition.fcc.gov/bureaus/oet/info/documents/bulletins/oet65/oet65b.pdf

Glad to hear that!

"People are akin to sausages - what they are stuffed with, they keep on carrying inside" - said some dude long time ago. It is very important to be factually correct, when putting together explanatory educational post. The gain factor, the dB measure are touted around often, it is not an unimportant detail. And I did not object to explanations and analogies.

Marc, I applaud the effort, but you've got the "gain" thing incorrect. Gain is a relative measure: something over the reference. And decibel is a logarithmic unit. "my antenna has 1db gain" translated to English means "intensity of the field created by my antenna is 1.26 times higher than the intensity of the field created by <what exactly???>". 0 dB = no gain over whatever reference you are using 1 dBi = 1 decibel over isotropic antenna ("i" is for isotropic) 1 dBd = 1 decibel over half-wave dipole ("d" is for dipole) Half-wave dipole has 2.15 dBi gain, that is 2.15 dB over isotropic antenna, and the intensity field is shaped like doughnut Quarter-wave monopole over ideal ground has 2.15 dBi gain, and the field is shaped like the upper half of the doughnut 1/2-wave and 1/4-wave antennas often called "no gain" or "unity gain" because they have 0 dBd gain (who might have thought...). Manufacturers and resellers may specify dBd or dBi. When they just specify dB it is better to assume that dBi is stated.

What Jones said, and also, how do you know that no audio is transmitted? What is your test setup? Power supply? What antenna connected, how it is mounted? What do you use to listen? Check and recheck PL/DPL settings on transmitting and receiving radios. If you simply listen to HT that is sitting on the same bench with 880 connected to antenna, it is very likely that your HT is overloaded. Ask somebody to walk away 300ft with this HT and repeat the test.

For the "Ver 2.0" of the radio,you are looking for a file called E613.zip. It has the latest firmware for the TK-880 and TK-880-H. The MD5 checksum of the E613.zip is: ad6b253bff6f04d424538b5eb8cdaf83.The MD5 of the T780K_18.hex inside is: d62f3b4f5ad5dbfbf1442c7a576ab513. The fpro.exe should be a part of your KPG49D install. I do not remember how to use it, it was years ago, but it was very straightforward.

Make sure you do not drill through the reinforcing beam under the roof sheet metal. Pull headliner a little or/and pull out the interior light that might be near the proposed spot to check for the right location for drilling.

Welcome! And on this cheerful note, the downer: GTX1000 does not seem to be repeater-capable. I do not own one, can't confirm myself, just looked at the reviews on Midland website. People mention it can't talk to repeaters. The frequency you see in the repeater listing is a repeater output, i.e. the frequency that repeater uses to repeat what it hears on the repeater input frequency. On GMRS the input frequency is 5MHz higher than the output. I.e. if you see repeater frequency listed as 462.550 MHz, the input will be 467.550 MHz. Your radio must be capable to switch between 467.xxx MHz for transmission and 462.xxx MHz for reception. As opposed to simplex operation, when you and your friend receive and transmit in turns on the same 462.xxx MHz frequency.

Not sure about 8180, but KPG-49D (for 880) and KPG-101 (for 3170) work fine on Windows 10-x64.

My understanding is that you still need duplexer (or notch filter) on the receiving antenna, or you need to separate antennas by hundreds of feet, or you're risking to burn something in the receiver. Now, cheap ebay duplexer on the receiving side combined with some degree of separation (25 feet, 50 feet?) may be on option? I don't know, just thinking out loud.

Magnetic antenna on the roof will always be better than HT antenna inside the car. Ground plane required for most mobile verticals (there are exceptions, like 1/2 wave antennas), however, the roof of your car/truck is a ground plane. Magnetic mount couples with it capacitevly. I assume, the roof is steel, cause you're talking about magnetic mount. Good ground plane is anything more than 1/4 wave in all directions, and if it is bigger than 1 wavelength, it is close to ideal. P25 scanner would be in 400-800MHz range? I would not sweat about tri-band, because your 460MHz antenna will work beautifully as a receiving-only antenna for higher frequencies. If you plan to scan in 100-800MHz then dual-band will suffice.

But again, if kids are equipped with FRS radios, the they do not need to identify. The only rule is to not cause malicious interference, i.e. do not jam other people. To practice common courtesy, in other words. GRS-to-GMRS communications are perfectly legal. You may still research roof antenna for your V1. Because from inside the house the range will be abysmal. And if house is stucco, then forget it, it's pretty much a Faraday cage.

I like wideband. It sounds sweet and smells like victory. However, as was pointed before, GMRS will likely go narrowband because of attrition of available wideband radios, even without any regulatory effort. In what time, who knows, maybe another 20 years or so. I would think, just enabling DMR (or any digital? P25?) on existing channels, both FRS and GMRS, at existing power levels, will be ok solution. Like now we have to avoid interference to each other with analog, we will have to play nice together with digital.

To have DMR would be nice, but narrowbanding GMRS will not open new channels for digital. They are already in use by FRS analog.

If you want to actually listen what's going on yourself, without yet owning a rig or antenna, you can use resources like websdr.org. Bandplans are certainly followed. Youtube videos are only good to some extent.

FRS is HT<->HT (handhelds) communications. HTs are 2W max. GMRS is also HT<->HT, but also could be HT<->Base. HTs could be 5W, but they are bigger and heavier than FRS handhelds. You probably not going to get 2 miles range in town between handhelds. Half a mile is a realistic estimate. And if from inside the house, than even shorter. However, your GMRS base station at home may have 20ft antenna on the roof and 50W of power. That will easily allow HT<->Base across 2 miles on simplex. And people with HTs do not necessarily need GMRS license, because GMRS<->FRS is allowed on simplex. You can check on kids when they are outside, and kids can talk to others at home. You can assign a community frequency with PL if you have enough GMRS licensees in the neighborhood.

I think you guys (Ian and Mark) are reading too much in Russ' posts. It's all figure of speech, about regulatory bullet and our miserable lives, which we are almost out of. And the radioreference thread was fun to read! The whole proposal seemed to me as in: if it ain't broken fix it till it is. If somebody wants to go narrowband, because of interference on repeater input or lack of wideband gear or whatever the reason, feel free to do so, it's allowed today.

FRS is a Family Radio Service. As in: you buy the (part 95) radios, you blabber on them, no restrictions. Families use them on camping, fishing, hiking trips, on playgrounds, on county fairs, in shopping malls. Business can use FRS if it suites the needs, like if you are a construction guy on the top of the 5-story building tired of yelling silly at your crew below. Or you are an employee at the valet parking lot. Proper certified FRS radios have fixed antennas. Anyone can monitor and listen on FRS frequencies. Anyone can perfectly transmit on FRS frequencies using FRS radio, including HAM operators. Illegal radios exist and will always exist, just like illegal guns and illegal drugs. And illegal speeding. And illegal fishing. To require to end FRS or pay for FRS license because your operations are inconvenienced, is very wrong, even if you paid $70 for 10 years. Amateur operators (HAMs) are not vital for the national security. It's a hobby, just like knitting or cat grooming. Nuclear subs, healthy economy, transportation network, energy independence, free press, sane leadership are vital for national security. You know what else is vital - a clear head on top of every citizen's shoulders.