Welcome!

[gortex2]

Welcome. What is Central VA > 

[WRVX846]

Central Virginia - Charlottesville.  

[JDINKELBACH]

Hello all, newbie checking in from SoCal WRPI973

Mostly highway and off-road use, no base yet.

[WRQH837]

Hi,

New to GMRS. I have KG-905G's with all their accessories x2. The wife and I wanted a form of communication besides cell phones, just in case, you know, an earthquake, etc. happens. We're in East County San Diego. I asked for access to the ECOM repeaters in my area, just in case, you know, zombies, etc.  We did a quick test and we can get around 2.5 miles with the Nagoya antennas. I do not have a base station yet, but I was thinking of a Wouxan KG-XS20G Plus to start. Maybe a 1000G depending on finances. 

Frank 

 

Edit - Oh, I wanted to add - thanks to NotARubicon, your videos helped me with my purchases. Thanks, man! 

[bd348]

6 hours ago, WRQH837 said:

Hi,

 I have KG-905G's with all their accessories x2.

I do not have a base station yet, but I was thinking of a Wouxan KG-XS20G Plus to start. Maybe a 1000G depending on finances.

You can also use a handheld for a base station.  Add a thin coax adapter going to thick coax going to a base station antenna near a window or up in the attic, and also add a plugin speaker microphone.  This allows you to place the antenna in a position which works and move the handheld to the desk, and the speaker microphone allows you to talk without tugging the handheld against the coax.  5 watts with a 3dbd antenna from a second story window gets me 30 miles to a repeater, no problem.  You may have to move the antenna a few inches here or there for best reception.  And you can use this antenna with a base unit later.  The only thing is if you use this heavily then it will be worth getting a base radio so you are not wearing out the handheld battery all the time.

[BoxCar]

My suggestion is to use a 20-25W mobile for the base station. You can find a 15A power supply on Amazon that will provide all the power you need. If you get a mobile that has a cigarette lighter plug, then a mag mount antenna is all you need for moving the radio to your car in case of SHTF. A higher power radio doesn't buy you much more than a stronger signal in the same coverage area as the lower powered one, so don't think high power. more range. It just isn't so.

[WRQH837]

Excellent advice! Thanks!

[Tomdubya]

Hey all..

New to GMRS here in Southern Oregon...

Running a Midland MXT500...been monitoring for awhile, but haven't yet pushed the button...kinda want to know what I'm doing first.

Tom W

WRPK775

 

[WRUU653]

Welcome @Tomdubya . There’s a good group of helpful knowledgeable people here.

[SteveShannon]

6 hours ago, Tomdubya said:

Hey all..

New to GMRS here in Southern Oregon...

Running a Midland MXT500...been monitoring for awhile, but haven't yet pushed the button...kinda want to know what I'm doing first.

Tom W

WRPK775

 

Welcome!  A great way to learn is by listening to scheduled nets and then, when you’re comfortable, join in. 
You’ll do just as well as we all did. 

[WRWE511]

Hello- new guy from South Jersey, I picked up a handheld for Jeep trips, camping, hiking and more, Ive been reading your forums and learning a bunch. I think I get the generally idea of how repeaters work (tones and whatnot) but havent quite figured out how to make it work for me. Maybe Im too far away to use my local one which seems to be 7.5 miles away with an advertised range up to 50 miles. I don't know. I have alot more to learn. Looking forward to getting all this figured out and being capable of joining in the conversations here.

 

PS- my new handheld is is a Rugged Radio GMR2. Ive read they are similar to other entry level handhelds out there but cost a little bit more. If there is a better radio id appreciate the tips as my kids will be needing to upgrade their Walki Talkies and of course Id like the best bang for my buck. Thanks

[SteveShannon]

@WRWE511- Welcome!

Drive closer and see if you can hit it.  

If you haven't already, clear out the receiver tone for your radio.  That will allow you to hear all transmissions on the repeater frequency.

Do you hear it when you just listen without any set tones?

[WRWE511]

I don't know how to clear out receiver tone yet. I have been experimenting with it and there are three settings that I think are related. They are all currently turned off. Does that mean its cleared out now? I have set all of them to 146.2 and I was hearing what sounded like Morris code every hour on  the 45 past the hour consistently. I was assuming that was the repeater identifying itself. There is also a travel tone advertised as 141.3 but haven't heard anything with that tone set into the three listed below.

 

T- CDC

R- CDC

C- CDC

 

The repeater frequency is 462.675 MHz. I can enter that into the radio but then I cant transmit until i switch into a simple number station such as Repeater station 20 for example but I dont know what frequency that is. So Im wondering if I have to set the frequency to the actual station and assign it to that station. Not really sure what Im doing but I no longer get the Morris code. I have been picking up my kids school transmissions on channel 22 (not repeater station I dont think) which is kind of strange but interesting. haha

 

Thanks for the reply!

[SteveShannon]

36 minutes ago, WRWE511 said:

I don't know how to clear out receiver tone yet. I have been experimenting with it and there are three settings that I think are related. They are all currently turned off. Does that mean its cleared out now? I have set all of them to 146.2 and I was hearing what sounded like Morris code every hour on  the 45 past the hour consistently. I was assuming that was the repeater identifying itself. There is also a travel tone advertised as 141.3 but haven't heard anything with that tone set into the three listed below.

 

T- CDC

R- CDC

C- CDC

 

The repeater frequency is 462.675 MHz. I can enter that into the radio but then I cant transmit until i switch into a simple number station such as Repeater station 20 for example but I dont know what frequency that is. So Im wondering if I have to set the frequency to the actual station and assign it to that station. Not really sure what Im doing but I no longer get the Morris code. I have been picking up my kids school transmissions on channel 22 (not repeater station I dont think) which is kind of strange but interesting. haha

 

Thanks for the reply!

I went and looked at the manual for the Rugged Radio GMR2.  It's a nice looking radio.

It looks like it only has the 30 preset channels.  That's not the end of the world, but it makes it impossible to program multiple repeaters on the same frequency. Fortunately you can set custom, receive only channels.

So, your repeater is on 462.675 MHz.  That's already programmed into your radio as channel 20RP with the correct offset for transmit, so it will automatically transmit on 467.675 MHz.  So, all you have to do is set the correct tone for transmit.

If you're hearing the the repeater ID itself (and it certainly sounds like you are!) then you either have the tone cleared out or you are set to the correct tone. Based strictly on looking at the manual for five whole minutes, C-CDC, R-CDC, and T-CDC appear confusing.  It appears, based on the third column, that the only entries for each are either "OFF", a CTCSS value, or a DCS value. I don't know if that means that both tones are set the same if you put a value in C-CDC, but that you can use different (so called "split tones") if you put different values into R-CDC and T-CDC.

When you were hearing the ID, your receive value must have been correct. Setting them to 146.2 Hz might easily be why you no longer hear it.  Try changing all three to "OFF" to see if you hear the Morse Code ID again.  Then you can experiment with the R-CDC value to see what happens, but it would be horribly slow if you have to change it and wait another hour.  Some radios have the ability to scan for a tone so you could determine what tone is being transmitted by the repeater.  I didn't see that in the manual.

What you can to though is set several of the receive only channels to that same frequency but with different tones to see which tone works. It's still slow. The best way is to find out from the owner what the tones are.

 

 

 

[JayWRWA569FlagstaffAZ]

Hi Fellas!

New GMRS guy here from Northern Arizona.

Call sign WRWA569

Running a Baofeng GMRS-9r

[SteveShannon]

2 minutes ago, JayWRWA569FlagstaffAZ said:

Hi Fellas!

New GMRS guy here from Northern Arizona.

Call sign WRWA569

Running a Baofeng GMRS-9r

Welcome!

[WRUU653]

Welcome 

On 2/18/2023 at 10:10 AM, JayWRWA569FlagstaffAZ said:

New GMRS guy here from Northern Arizona.

Call sign WRWA569

Welcome Jay, we have friends in Flagstaff… nice place. 

[WRWG626]

Hey everyone! Name is Stan from Champaign, IL. I've been a ham (K9SWX) for many years but just got my GMRS license (WRWG626) this week. I have ordered the Wouxun KG-916 HT and I'm looking forward to checking out a new-to-me radio service. Thanks!

[SteveShannon]

15 minutes ago, WRWG626 said:

Hey everyone! Name is Stan from Champaign, IL. I've been a ham (K9SWX) for many years but just got my GMRS license (WRWG626) this week. I have ordered the Wouxun KG-916 HT and I'm looking forward to checking out a new-to-me radio service. Thanks!

Welcome, Stan! I hope you enjoy it here.

[WRUU653]

2 hours ago, WRWG626 said:

Hey everyone! Name is Stan from Champaign, IL. I've been a ham (K9SWX) for many years but just got my GMRS license (WRWG626) this week. I have ordered the Wouxun KG-916 HT and I'm looking forward to checking out a new-to-me radio service. Thanks!

Welcome, Stan. Lucky call sign you ended up with, it rolls nicely

[BoxCar]

I'll add my welcome as well. WRCM737, K4BJW

[WRWG626]

1 hour ago, WRUU653 said:

Welcome, Stan. Lucky call sign you ended up with, it rolls nicely

Yeah it's easy to memorize for sure. At least I didn't get one ending in 666!

[H8SPVMT]

On 1/21/2023 at 7:49 AM, WRVX846 said:

Central Virginia - Charlottesville.  

Should do well there.  A good repeater located in the area that I have used from time to time when wheeling thru the mountains just southwest from there.

Welcome!

[FlatTop]

I was always told to first spend the most money you can on the best antenna you can get or build and focus on the transceiver second.  

[SteveShannon]

3 hours ago, JoCoBrian said:

I was always told to first spend the most money you can on the best antenna you can get or build and focus on the transceiver second.  

It’s like speakers for an audio system.