MarkInTampa

I was on Home Depots web site and stumbled upon 30ft aluminum telescopic flag poles yesterday. Figured if they can handle the wind loading of a 3'X5' flag without guy wires it should handle my GP-6 antenna also without guy wires. I also live in Florida where we have these things called hurricanes and would like the option to be able to be able to drop the height of the antenna if need be. Anybody try one of these?

Thanks. The company I'm doing some contract work for is a bonding company that took over a now defunct multi site DOT contractor that went under. Once we finish up some existing jobs the doors will be closed in 18 months or so. There is a onsite 120ft tower that had a 15 mile or so point to point microwave doing T1 service to a old remote office as well as having a repeater on 452.xxx. The microwave stuff is still there but hasn't been used in 10+ years and the remote site is long gone and they haven't put a radio in a vehicle in 5+ years. I turned the repeater off 3 months ago and nobody has even noticed or complained that I'm aware of. Thought it would be cool to take it over or convert to GMRS but I know time on the tower is limited so figured it's just not worth the effort.

Stupid question.. is a LMR license transferrable to a new user? If a company I work for decided to ditch LMR for cellular could I take over the repeater and transfer the license to my name or maintain the current license and just set it up for me and my buddies?

I picked up the simplex repeater and decided to give my HT's a test for range this morning before installing the new mast to check how much height will weigh in once installed. I need to get my base antenna mounted higher, have a 35ft mast but haven't had a chance to put it up yet. Home setup KG1000+, Comet GP-6 antenna approx 13ft off the ground, Argent Data ADS-SR1 Simplex repeater. HT 1 is a Wouxun KG-935G (non plus, direct conversion) tested with the stock and a Nagoya NA-771G antenna HT 2 is a TYT MD-380 superhet with a kinda stubby and a NA-771 clone style antenna - both came in the box with the radio Also used a Wouxun hand mic for both the HT's Drove over to a park 1.2 miles away... Both radios worked fine with the shorter antennas so moved on Drove to another park 2.5 miles away with a bit of a hill between the base station and the park... The TYT with the longer antenna was a bit noisy but readable in the car, the Wouxun could key with the Nagoya but audio chopped in and out. Outside of the car on the picnic bench the KG-935 could key the repeater on the shorter antenna but no audio at all when held close to my head not using the hand mic. When held out at a distance with the hand mic audio would chop in and out. With the Nagoya near my head without a hand mic audio was dirty but readable. When held out a bit with the hand mic it was fine. The MD-380's short antenna worked but was dirty when near my head without a hand mic but when held out with a hand mic it was clean. The long antenna worked fine near the head without a hand mic or exteded with a hand mic. Strange results, I expected a bit better out of the 935G with it's longer factory antenna and a brand name hi gain one but it does to the job. I do have a 2nd 935G but didn't bring it with me for testing. I guess it could be the direct conversion vs superhet but don't know. It should be interesting to retest with the antenna up another 25ft at the base.

A few of the GMRS repeaters around here are XPR or Quantar's that are capable of DMR or P25 but the digital modes are off. I just thought it was a pretty cool little repeater that has ethernet port for IP multi-site connectivity, built in battery backup, etc. Being a new product, from a pretty reputable company with a lot of nice features but only 25/10 watts I'd still guess it sells for over $1500 but I can't find pricing. A bit pricy for GMRS and there are a lot of better options around. I was under the assumption when I replied to the post about it the OP thought it was DMR only ("Then I saw this and started to get excited but it's DMR") and just wanted to let him know it was capable of analog. Didn't mean to start a war, gortex2 has been the source of a lot of good info and value his opinion.

Who says you have to use or enable DMR if it supports analog?

That repeater looks pretty cool. Can't find anything about the price of it but did find this nugget of knowledge from the website.... The HR65X can operate in analog mode, DMR mode, or dynamic mixed digital/analog mode, which automatically switches between analog and digital based on the call it receives.

I was told by one vendor the FTM400 was discontinued because of the chip shortage. Another vendor told me it was discontinued because it was a "bit old" having come out in 2013 and they were getting ready to introduce a new model. This was a few months ago between the announcement of the FTM400 being discontinued and the FTM500 coming out. Guess it might have been a bit of both - hard to source chips for an existing model and easier chips to source for a new one.

Strange... I've got the same three radios

I'll assume it will become another tool (or toy depends on how you look at it) to play with. Kinda like my NanoVNA - great tool for the money to have around but only gets used every other month or so. The same will be probably be true for the simplex repeater but when I want to test something it would be nice to have around.

I'll run a PL tone but don't plan to leave it setup for more than a hour or two at a time. Main plan is to use it on the base station and drive over to the park and test my HT's. I've got three different brand of HT's and stubby, normal, clone Nagoya, real Nagoya, and N9TAX Slim Jim antenna's for them. Want to test them for range and audio quality then move to another park a bit further away until everything is out of range. Once done testing I'll remove it. Just wanted a way to test things in the field without assistance.

One of the repeaters near me also does this - but the ID/Announcement I timed to around 30 seconds. Starts off with a welcome message, followed by a message about their GMRS-Live website and then both are repeated in Spanish. Sorry, duplicate post. I can edit it but not delete.

One of the repeaters near me also does this - but the ID/Announcement I timed to around 30 seconds. Starts off with a welcome message, followed by a message about their GMRS-Live website and then both are repeated in Spanish.

It's a bit of a of a haul for you but Perry has a pretty active GMRS club and repeater with weekly nets on Thursday if I remember right. Don't know of any other clubs between Tampa and them. They do have a really strong repeater on 725 that I can tag every now and then from Brandon area 165 miles away when conditions are right. Bartow also has a pretty active informal GMRS group as well. As far as repeaters (not clubs) I'd assume the Tampa 575, 700 and maybe the Clearwater 600 repeaters should be accessible from Brooksville as I hear people from that area on them quite often. Brooksville is 40 miles as the crow flies from me so there may be others closer to you that I haven't heard but doesn't mean they don't exist.

Thanks for the info. Looks like a better simplex repeater than the Surecom, the reseller is in the states and they have the proper cable for my radio where the Surecom didn't and I'd have to make one. Just placed my order. Thanks again.

I'm looking at picking up a Surecom SR-112 simplex repeater controller (https://www.surecom.com.hk/product-page/surecom-sr-112-simplex-repeater-controller) just for giggles. Just wanted something that I can use to test my radio and antenna's range by myself by driving around between my base and mobile and this looks like it might do the trick. Anybody have one or can recommend something similar? Reviews on this one are all over the place.

I've got one. It's a solidly built antenna but hardly use it. SWR is kinda high for the simplex channels (1.77/1) but is a bit better (1.3/1) on repeater input channels. I've also hot a N9TAX SlimJim that costs about the same and adds a bar of signal on receive over the J-Pole at the same height so tend to use it more than the KB9VBR.

Would what I call "trade speak" be considered coded illegal communication? Example, if I call out to my buddy Joe and ask if he has any "Red Raychem's" would that be considered coded? Most folks wouldn't have a clue I just asked Joe for Raychem (manufacture) F-81 RG58 (come in a red clip, RG59 come in blue) connectors. I could see how the phrase "Red Raychem" could refer to lots of things, possibly even drugs, if you were not in the trade and even then only if you use Raychem products. Just wondering...

Anybody ever try a WaveNode watt meter? They claim 5% accuracy. It has USB interface to the computer with software that does some neat things if you want to use it and also has a programable SWR protection relay. It's been on my wish list for awhile but would love to hear from somebody who has used them before. https://wavenodedevelop.com/

FYI - I've had a page on how to program the Maxtrac using the DOS software under Windows 10 using DosBox in my bookmarks for awhile. More or less a step by step guide on setting up DosBox to use old Motorola software for the Maxtrac but should be applicable to most of the other old Motorola DOS software as well. https://www.nv9p.com/blog/program-maxtrac-with-dosbox

My grandfather had a couple of fully stocked tube testers that he had at a few local drug stores in the mid 60's to 70's. He had them sitting in his garage for 10 years and gave them to me when I was 14 or so in the early 80's. I just wanted the cabinets so tore out the guts and tossed them. I was into audio and guitar so kept the 12AX7, EL84, 6L6GT tubes and the like but tossed the rest. 90% of the tubes were for tube type TV's that didn't really have any value at the time.

I ran by the local CB shop last October that is part of a truck stop to see if they had a 50ft antenna cable and the guy asked what it was for. Told him GMRS and he said "oh, ham radio". He didn't have a clue as to what GMRS is.

I was searching for programming software for commercial radios last week and found a site called Radiosoftware.online (https://https://radiosoftware.online/) that seems to have a vast collection of programming software for most of the manufactures and models. Only problem is it's a $155 annual fee to use it with no monthly or single download fee option available or offered. Have no idea if they are legit or not, maybe someone here can chime in. You can browse the site first to see if they have what you are looking for, you just can't download it without a subscription.

Let's make it a SWR scan on 4 antennas. Picked up a MFJ 1868 Discone antenna that is supposed to do TX/RX from 50mhz to 1.3Ghz at 200 watts more for a scanning antenna than GMRS but had to run a sweep on it anyway since it could TX on GMRS. Discones are really weird. Looks like a sine wave from 420mhz to 470mhz but SWR never get above 1.6 to 1.

I had my ham license back in 1996 but let it expire. Doing a search on my old callsign (still unassigned) shows it was issued in 1996, expired in 2006 and cancelled by FCC 2008. I didn't remember anything about a FRN when I got my license or if it even existed. When I got my GMRS license in Oct, the FCC site said something about a existing FRN in my name but was tied to a email address from my old dial up provider, phone that doesn't exist anymore and a address long gone but let me create a new one so I guess I now have two FRN's. I clicked on the link you provided and searched my last name and it shows the FRN RegDate was 5/22/2001 (when I wasn't even active anymore) and the same RegDate for my dad who got his license a year or so after me in another state. If I had to guess, FRN wasn't really a thing until 2001 and they moved everyone over to that system but I could be or am probably wrong....