MarkInTampa
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Posts posted by MarkInTampa
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1 hour ago, WRYZ926 said:
I checked and there is not any recalls for my 2023 Escape. There is only one customer satisfaction notice to have the driver's side seat belt buckle replaced.
I know there were recalls for earlier Escapes along with the Bronco Sport and Mavericks for over charging. I don't remember if that was for all of them or certain models/engines. I have the 2.0L Ecoboost in my Escape.
I just checked and it seems the over charging recall is for the hybrid versions.
One should never see 15 volts on charging IF the vehicle is a daily driver. Unless you are only taking short drives daily. Newer vehicles have to be driven at least half an hour to fully charge the battery under normal use. If you are seeing 15 volts all of the time on a daily driver then definitely get it into the dealer.
The wife's 2023 Bronco Sport (with the 2.0 engine) overcharge recall was just a notice but stated to wait to be contacted for further information as parts become avalible. Dang thing has has had at least 5 recalls so far. My 2015 RAV4 has had one - for aftermarket batteries possibly being to tall and hitting the hood. Not real keen on Ford at the moment.
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Any chance you have a Ford Bronco Sport? My wife's just got a recall notice for premature battery failure do to overcharging. We replaced the battery in her car a week before the recall notice came out. Don't know if the same recall affects the post above mine as the Bronco Sport and Escape are based on the same platform.
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2 hours ago, GrouserPad said:
I just got one of these antennas and the paperwork with it does not show it covering 467 MHz. Think it cut off at 465mhz. Has me wondering if maybe the newer gp9nc antennas aren’t purpose built for gmrs….anybody know? Ordered from engineering and their online showed it covering to 470mhz. . . Then my paperwork that came with my gp9nc said ham only. Ugh ? Wish I had an antenna analyzer to check it before I put this thing up.
The advertisement for the GP-9NC shows it as a GMRS antenna and covers 460-470MHz. The GP-9 and GP-9N (no C at the end) are ham only. The letter "C" is Comet's designation for the commercial band (kinda where GMRS resides) - not ham. The letter "N" means it has a "Type N" connector and the straight GP-9 is ham only with a SO-239 connector. When I got mine, the bag it came in said it was GP-9N and they put on a tiny sticker with the letter "C" at the end of it. My guess is they didn't want to print up new packaging to add a letter. I don't remember what paperwork it came with though (ham or GMRS) but I didn't have to tune it.
- GrouserPad, WRYZ926, Jaay and 1 other
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20 hours ago, WRUU653 said:
Most of the hams I know are also GMRS users. It’s about fifty fifty on which license they got first. Some like me got their GMRS, got the bug and decided to expand. Others had their ham and I think saw value being inclusive for people in their own family, friends and community that aren’t interested in getting an amateur radio license. It isn’t two teams, it’s two tools.
A few of the guys around here I know of on GMRS, myself included, were hams 20+ years ago and for one reason or another let our licenses lapse. Moving, kids, work, life, whatever got in the way. We got into GMRS to get back into radio. We all got our ham licenses back after playing around with GMRS for awhile as well. Most of us hang still hang around on GMRS but a few disappeared into the depths of ham never to be heard on GMRS again.
Every now and then there are also CB radio guys that get into GMRS I've heard around here. Usually one guy get into GMRS, 5 of his friends on CB will follow. They are big into GMRS for awhile but after 6 months or so only 2 of the 6 are still around.
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In looking through my ID-5100 options (as well as the Icom software) I don't think split DTCS tones are supported. The dang radio supports almost all other combos like DTCS/Nomal tone as well as split Tone/Tone Squelch like what you want to do with DTCS (in the menu as "Tone(T)/TSQL(R)") but no option for DTCS to do the same thing. I don't see a way to do it in the Icom software either. Just leave DTCS/Tone off on receive and you should be fine.
I suppose if you really want to test it with both transmit and receive DTCS, you could setup the radio with the repeater setup in two memory channels. One for TX with the TX DTCS tone, the other for RX configured with the RX DTCS tone. Load up one channel in one VFO and the other on the 2nd VFO. Unless you are getting traffic other than the repeater bugging you, RX DTCS isn't needed but at least you can test it both directions.
FYI: Here's a snip of the tone settings in the Icom software. Notice there is a option (and column) to split repeater tones but not DTCS (doesn't even have a column to show the possibility).
And the tone options:
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7 hours ago, WRUE951 said:
i did a duplicate filter and it did show some but not a lot. Check the highlights on the coordinates.
Help me in trying to figure out your list. One of the call signs in my area you have listed show nine repeaters and that is a lot! If I look on the MyGMRS map, it only shows two with that callsign/username and both are at the same basic location. If I look in advanced, it shows the same two, even with stale and offline enabled (for the one or two frequencies I checked anyway that aren't on the map, map doesn't show stale/offline repeaters). Six of them by your list coordinates are on the same property. The other three (again by coordinates) show about 1 mile away from the other six in the middle of the ocean. I'm assuming when he placed the pin on the map it was close enough, the guy is a block or so from the ocean. He only runs (or did, haven't heard it for awhile) one small Retivis repeater up around 40ft on 650 but did play around a year or so ago with a simplex repeater on a different frequency at the same location. Although MyGMRS does show two, only one is/was accurate - not nine. Where did the other seven come from?
Six of the locations listed in your pdf...
The two listed on the current MyGMRS map with his callsign/username...
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2 minutes ago, WRUE951 said:
listing what is reported on MYGMRS.. As of of this morning
It doesn't mean it's real or correct.
- gortex2 and TrikeRadio
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Take what's reported as repeaters with a grain of salt. One of the multi repeater sites you have on your list in my area is just plain fantasy. Your listing shows 9 repeaters for the call when there is actually only one low power network (maybe why it shows so many repeaters) hotspot that he runs on rare occasion.
There is on the other hand another guy that your list shows has 4 but has 6 repeaters. All of them are stand alone (not linked), on different frequencies (but same tones) and cover most of the west coast of Florida from Bradenton to Naples (around 120 miles spaced around 20-25 miles apart) and a few of them are quite strong. It's kinda nice to be able to drive the I-75 route south of Tampa and have reliable repeaters along the way.
At least that's what I know of in my area, others I'm sure are different.
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I have a few scan groups setup, something like this:
All GMRS - all GMRS channels
GMRS Repeaters - My primary group, GMRS repeaters listed at least twice. Labeled and accessible repeaters and again with a 141.3 tone out for when band conditions are ripe and a few others that are on the same frequency but different tone with tone squelch.
GMRS/FRS/MURS - Just what it shows. Haven't used in years but it's there
MISC - Usually runs on the second VFO and scans at the same time as the primary. It has a few ham frequencies, ISS (space station) and (what I use it for most) a few of my local GMRS repeater INPUT frequencies. By monitoring the input the same time as output I can listen to hear if a user is within simplex range of me, if there is interference on the input or if there is someone trying to access the repeater but is out of range or not configured right on their end (happens more often that you would think)
HAM - a few local ham repeaters around me. Hardly ever used
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11 hours ago, GrouserPad said:
Dang man. I’ve had 3 new neighbors move near me who replaced the old timers. None of them want to share numbers, or be neighborly at all. Absolutely odd af to me. But I guess that’s the difference in 15 years as I’m the old man on the block at mid 40’s and all these kids work from home and never leave their house. Thought it would be good to get to know them since there around all the time but nope. They have zero ability to be a neighbor whatsoever. Don’t even look up to wave when I pull in the driveway. Weird generation. Can’t believe their parents brought them up to become that way. Neighbor block watch around here can’t work when the neighbors don’t want to know your name.
When I bought my house, I went to the neighbors on both sides of me and introduced myself and asked to exchange telephone info in case of emergency. One neighbor was cool, the other was a jerk (in 10 years I don't think I spoke more than 2 sentences to him) and told me "I'm not comfortable giving you my number". Fast forward a few years, I come home from work there are fire trucks in his front yard and they are getting ready to take out his front door with a battering ram due to an alarm. They ask if I have a way to contact him, told them I didn't and they ram down his front door. He pulled up maybe 30 seconds later. He went to the store, left something cooking on the stove that burnt and set off the smoke alarm. Karma in action.
- WRTC928, GrouserPad and TrikeRadio
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32 minutes ago, WRYZ926 said:
At least they are using their radios and practicing for when an actual emergency does happen. Radios are like firearms, people buy them "just in case" and never actually use them or practice with them.
I'm actually amazed at how well it's done. Each radio group (a-n or something like that) has around 10 users and a group leader for those groups. They pre-check in the group leaders first before the net starts to make sure they are there, start the net and start check-ins starting with radio/user Alpha-1, Alpha-2, etc to the end of the group, ask for relays and then proceed to the next group. Very organized, especially for non licensed users. Some ham nets could learn a thing or two from them.
- WRYZ926, GreggInFL and GrouserPad
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One of the retirement communities 20 miles south of me (Sun City Center) has some kind of FRS/GMRS emergency network thing on simplex they do every Wednesday morning. Net control starts the net with a preamble of what it is, a website for more information and his GMRS call sign. About all I can hear is net control and their security patrol, everyone else I assume are FRS (like I said, 20 miles away but net control hits me full scale). The users are assigned radios and a id, something like Alpha 1-20, Bravo 1-20, etc and they go through the check in procedure including asking for relays. At the end of the net, they sign off with their GMRS callsign, that's about the only time it's used.
- SteveShannon, WRYZ926 and WRTC928
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54 minutes ago, Socalgmrs said:
The REAL fun for me is what I’m doing while using gmrs. It’s not the distance I can get or the strangers I can meet. As far as 100-200miles, it Pretty common for me. Happens every single day, rain or shine for my self and every gmrs operator in the valley. 100miles is nothing and over 200miles for most operators 365 days a year. No special weather required. Again it’s all about line of sight. I highly recommend to all, get out and do fun stuff. There is more to life than gmrs radio.
Just for fun...
Here's the coverage maps of a location near you. First example is assuming a 9db antenna, 50watt radio and a 50ft mast. Second example would be a 5watt HT with a 3db HT antenna.
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It was down in yesterday morning when I saw this post, back up in the afternoon. The FCC data base is and has been SLOW for a long time. I just looked up my call and it took 11 seconds. I ran a query of all active licensed GMRS users in my town (92 of of them) and it took 10 seconds. Weird.
Edited:
Just for fun I ran a query for all new GMRS licenses sorted by Grant Date in the last 1 year. Left off Call Sign, Name and FRN from screenshot. 28 in total. What I found odd is that we normally see 2-4 new licenses a month. Only 2 so far this year.
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I picked up a VGC VR-N7500 50 watt mobile a few years ago just for grins for use as a base station. No display, no mic and everything runs via a app on a Android device and Bluetooth. What is kinda cool (and why I bought the radio) was that you could allow others on the internet with permission and app installed access to the radio, kinda like Zellow. So I setup a spare tablet connected on internet and the radio, installed the app on my phone and was able to access my favorite GMRS repeater from anywhere and it was cheap - like $150 or so, it's hard to find ANY 50 watt mobile for that price.
I could have setup multiple users, but I don't own the repeater I had the radio programmed to. IT WASN'T MY REPEATER to do so. I don't think a repeater owner would be very happy to find out his repeater is now a "networked repeater" without his knowledge. I just thought it was cool to be able to use for myself. Used it for a week or so and it worked great. The radio now sits on the shelf unused, I just hated the interface and never really used the radio remotely.
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Setup the radio for the Bartow repeater (462.725 141.3 tone). Easy to reach from Lakeland even with a HT and is one of the more dominate repeaters in the area. On Tuesday nights at 7:00 there is a net you are welcome to check into with around 30-35 folks checking in a week. Have fun!
- SteveShannon, WRUU653 and WSHJ950
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I used to run a Argent ADS-SR1 Simplex Repeater ($90 + $7 for cable) that has both programmable CW-ID or Voice-ID connected to a cheapie HT on 1watt to inject the ID every 10 minutes into the repeater. After configuring the controller, I setup the HT receive to listen on some random unused VHF frequency (after configuring, don't really need the input anymore) to keep the front end of the HT from being overloaded by the repeater and the output of the HT set to the repeaters input frequency. Worked like a champ.
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22 hours ago, MarkInTampa said:
I have a list of all legacy licenses by zip code if anyone wants it.
Just got back to my desktop from a cruise. Here's a link to legacy licenses. It lists the license holder by zip, state and city. The list is a few years old but does give you the callsign and you can use the FCC license search to see if it's still valid or expired. I keep it bookmarked just in case.
https://www.thepeters.org/grandfathered_gmrs.html -
16 minutes ago, Lscott said:
Likely they would complain anyway if it was just FM and some real chatty users had the other repeater keyed up for long periods.
True
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9 minutes ago, Lscott said:
One other course is if the repeater is located on a commercial, for rent, tower the owner of the tower may not want that repeater there if it's operating illegally.
If nothing else works then likely you may need to hijack the repeater unless it's locked down by the SU's, subscriber unit, electronic serial number or other access restriction method. It might not matter if the unauthorized traffic is encrypted or not from the hijacker. If it has to run encrypted chances are it's RC4, which is compatible with Motorola's enhanced privacy and other manufacture's 40 bit encryption.
I have my Kenwood NX-1300's enabled for it if I really need the feature.
https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/290-nx-1300duk5/?context=new
Some of the older Motorola radios have it enabled as a freebie on the HT's.
https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/261-motorola-xpr6550jpeg/?context=new
The idea is to use it enough to annoy the owner(s) to shut it down and move it. If the FCC isn't interested enough to do something about it they likely won't bother the people hijacking it either. While not ethical, and not legal to use DMR by the business or hijacking users, the FCC has invited the activity by their lack of rules enforcement.
Your choices and options are rather limited.
I have a Connect Systems CS800D DMR mobile sitting in a box I haven't had a chance to play with that supports Motorola encryption and passive timeslot and color code monitoring. Guess I could hook it up and try and mess with them, but not worth my time.
What is messed up is when there is a strong band opening, the Orlando 700 repeater users will complain about hearing DMR thinking it's coming from their repeater when it's coming from Tampa. The band doesn't open that strong very often though, maybe a few times a year.
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4 minutes ago, WRUU653 said:
This all reminds me of years back there was a company that if I’m remembering correctly had communications from their tractors on farms that sent digital info back to the tractor machinery company and illegally on GMRS frequencies. The FCC did take action.
I’m not saying it’s them but it was two years ago Midland got a wavier.
Not in this case. You can tell by the DMR headers it is running a Motorola system.
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17 minutes ago, Lscott said:
Hum.... If it's operating illegally then I suppose they really couldn't complain if it got hijacked by local GMRS users. If they did the FCC might take more of an interest in it and ask a lot of questions they would rather not answer. Their other choice is to shut it down and apply for a legitimate business frequency and move it there.
And SDR dongle with the decoding software, or one of those D878UV's using the digital monitor function, will show you all the color codes, slot numbers, talk groups and user ID's on the repeater. While the D878UV might not be that great of a radio the digital monitor feature is one of it's very useful one's for getting info on unknown DMR traffic.
It's encrypted DMR. About all you can see with SDR are the headers at start of tx and they are using GPS tracking and reporting but can't see the data. It showed up 2 years or so ago and drove a really strong GMRS repeater off the frequency. A few other GMRS repeaters have tried using the frequency only to give up after a few weeks and move to another frequency.
Trying to renew a long expired license
in Guest Forum
Posted
I have two FRN's. Got my ham license in 1996 and don't remember anything about FRN's. Don't think they existed, were required yet or if the club I tested at handled it all for me. I let my license lapse in 2006 and when went to get my GMRS license in 2022 I saw I already had an FRN that was registered in 2001 that I knew nothing about and had a old physical address from when I got my ham license. From what I understand, FRN's were not required prior to Dec 2001 for amateur radio so I assume the FCC created one for me based on my license details that was still valid at the time. I didn't know or care to figure out the issue so I just created a new FRN with the FCC. I got my ham license back with a new call, requested and got my old call back under my new FRN with the checkmark box clicked "expired license" as the reason. FCC didn't question any of it.