Review first MURS mobile radio

[Lscott]

 

[Radioguy7268]

A 2 watt mobile for $369. I guess it has a market... if you like to scan.

[wayoverthere]

16 minutes ago, Radioguy7268 said:

A 2 watt mobile for $369. I guess it has a market... if you like to scan.

Those that really want something license free, but better sound quality than cb? Maybe they'll find a niche with truckers to talk to the crews at Walmart when they make their drops?

[MichaelLAX]

[deleted by poster]

[tweiss3]

5 hours ago, wayoverthere said:

Those that really want something license free, but better sound quality than cb? Maybe they'll find a niche with truckers to talk to the crews at Walmart when they make their drops?

But isn't that now a moot point with CB going gaining FM (plus being allowed 4W and more chances for skip)?

[generalpain]

29 minutes ago, tweiss3 said:

But isn't that now a moot point with CB going gaining FM (plus being allowed 4W and more chances for skip)?

If you are willing to wait for the manufacturers to design a radio and get it certified by the FCC, yes.  I suspect we're looking at a couple of years before a radio that's legal for FM CB is available for sale in the US.

[wayoverthere]

2 hours ago, generalpain said:

If you are willing to wait for the manufacturers to design a radio and get it certified by the FCC, yes.  I suspect we're looking at a couple of years before a radio that's legal for FM CB is available for sale in the US.

Good point.

I do wonder how long it will take manufacturers to jump on new capability....who will be first to take the plunge? That said though, I wonder how far off some of the stuff they're selling on Amazon as 10 and 12 meter ham radios actually is from meeting the new standard...could it be just a few software/firmware tweaks to get the power level and frequency range in line?

[Radioguy7268]

Just the other day I was setting up some rental radios on a MURS channel. I had some constant chatter on some of the frequencies from a nearby construction site. One of them was a Crane operation - who kept getting stepped on by a Paving Contractor. Not sure I'd want to run MURS or similar job site "dot" freq's for a Crane operation... but that's just me.

MURS in my area is pretty well used. Not nearly to the point of congestion, but keeping it Simplex keeps out the worst offenders.

Longer range CB sounds nice - but who wants a 4 ft. telescopic antenna for their portables?

[WRNA236]

[deleted]

[MichaelLAX]

Now if my $99 Anytone AT-779UV a/k/a Radioddity DB-20G could only transmit MURS in addition to GMRS, 2 meters and 70 cms! 

Quote

Here come a bunch of 50 watts radios on MURS.  "But CPS let me do it!"

Thanks for the tip! And the cite to the Free Radio Forum!

[wayoverthere]

5 hours ago, WRNA236 said:

 

Thing is a mobile MURS radio would probably find a market but why not make it small?  Like an Anytone Smart/Albrecht AE-6110 sized radio.

I would guess it boils down to being easy to do with existing hardware and be first to that market, rather than developing something from scratch.

Repurposing existing hardware with firmware tweaks seems to be wouxun's thing, really, and they seem reasonably willing to modify an existing product to a vendor's specs, probably with a minimum order quantity. It seems like buytwowayradios and bettersaferradio both have pretty much one-off wouxun products, no?

No disagreement that making it small would make sense, though the remote head capability the 980/1000 chassis brings is something rarely found in the smaller radios, and may make the actual size of the unit less of an issue since you can stash most of it in the trunk or under a seat.

[mbrun]

If you are willing to wait for the manufacturers to design a radio and get it certified by the FCC, yes.  I suspect we're looking at a couple of years before a radio that's legal for FM CB is available for sale in the US.

I doubt it will be a long time before we see them based on my current knowledge. My understanding is that the radios already exist and are in use in Europe. The FCC ruling I believe merely opens the doors for some of the existing radios being manufactured to be certified and sold in the US. In effect, I see radios receiving dual certification for use on both sides of the pond. If my interpretation of the current state of things is correct, US and UK residents could take their radios across the pond and operate legally.


Michael
WRHS965
KE8PLM

[WRMH343]

The nice thing about the 980/1000 chassis is the wide receive capability.  It can listen to airband, 6m/2m/70cm ham, GMRS, NOAA, Marine, non-digital LMR, etc.  That said, it is a little sad, knowing that the chassis can do a full 50w, but it's limited due to the MURS regulation. 

[wayoverthere]

2 hours ago, WRMH343 said:

The nice thing about the 980/1000 chassis is the wide receive capability.  It can listen to airband, 6m/2m/70cm ham, GMRS, NOAA, Marine, non-digital LMR, etc.  That said, it is a little sad, knowing that the chassis can do a full 50w, but it's limited due to the MURS regulation. 

Interesting that they'll allow dual certification with gmrs, and other services requiring certification, but murs specifically disallows certification for any of the other part 95 services. Otherwise, gmrs/Murs in one radio would be a no brainer.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/95.2761

[Lscott]

1 hour ago, wayoverthere said:

Otherwise, gmrs/Murs in one radio would be a no brainer.

Actually FRS/MURS would be a better fit. Just have to use a fixed mount antenna. Most of the channels on FRS are already 2 watts. All the MURS channels are also 2 watts. Both services are license free provided one uses FCC certified radios. This would give the average everyday user up to 27 channels split between FRS and MURS.

This allows the user to pick which band works better under the current conditions without carrying two radios or having to pick one over the other, and maybe getting poor results because it was the wrong choice. There is a reason why dual band VHF/UHF radios are so popular in the Ham world for example.

[wayoverthere]

1 hour ago, Lscott said:

Actually FRS/MURS would be a better fit. Just have to use a fixed mount antenna. Most of the channels on FRS are already 2 watts. All the MURS channels are also 2 watts. Both services are license free provided one uses FCC certified radios. This would give the average everyday user up to 27 channels split between FRS and MURS.

This allows the user to pick which band works better under the current conditions without carrying two radios or having to pick one over the other, and maybe getting poor results because it was the wrong choice. There is a reason why dual band VHF/UHF radios are so popular in the Ham world for example.

Good point(s). I'm just still a little boggled why they felt the need to throw that limitation of no combining anything with murs.

Edited August 30, 2021 by wayoverthere
Fixed autocorrect fail

[Lscott]

3 minutes ago, wayoverthere said:

Good point(s). I'm just still a little bigger why they felt the need to throw that limitation of no combining anything with murs.

In general the FCC doesn't like combing different services together. In the case of FRS and GMRS they had already screwed that up years ago by allowing the marketing of dual service FRS/GMRS radios. Almost NOBODY ever got the GMRS license when purchasing those combo bubble-pack radios. The FCC had to throw in the towel and make what was already common practice legal by changing the rules back in 2017/2018. Then they could wash their hand of any enforcement issues.

[pcradio]

Its a waste of hardware and resource to need so many radios to accomplish what is a simple software setting. Make a big warning appear when you turn on 2/70 or other bands. Installing three radios in the truck is just silly and wasteful. The FCC needs to do better on this front.

[MichaelLAX]

9 minutes ago, pcradio said:

Its a waste of hardware and resource to need so many radios to accomplish what is a simple software setting. Make a big warning appear when you turn on 2/70 or other bands. Installing three radios in the truck is just silly and wasteful. The FCC needs to do better on this front.

Your Retevis Ra-25 can do GMRS and MURS and 2 meters and 70 cm. 

[pcradio]

3 hours ago, MichaelLAX said:

Your Retevis Ra-25 can do GMRS and MURS and 2 meters and 70 cm. 

Correct, but I just saying that more radio should do the same and it not be a big deal about "part 95 yadda".

[Lscott]

5 hours ago, pcradio said:

Its a waste of hardware and resource to need so many radios to accomplish what is a simple software setting. Make a big warning appear when you turn on 2/70 or other bands. Installing three radios in the truck is just silly and wasteful. The FCC needs to do better on this front.

Yeah, I suppose one could simply buy a cheap Chinese dual band radio that does Ham 2M, MURS, VHF marine, VHF railroad, VHF NOAA weather channels etc. frequencies, then it can also do the Ham 70cm band, various government and public safety UHF frequencies, UHF FRS, UHF GMRS, UHF business band frequencies etc. for $25 through Amazon. Of course the people who buy it won’t know, or care, about the difference between a megahertz or millimeter. That happened with those combo FRS/GMRS radio a few years ago. They included clear instructions that a license was required to use channels above 14. Nobody cared and nobody bothered to get the license either. With your suggestion nobody is going to be dissuade by a warning tone, message etc. They’re going to press that PTT button all the same as proven by past experience.

At least by requiring different radios the potential for mass interference is reduce because the hardware, along with the firmware, limits the operation to a particular service. As long as people act stupidly, or irresponsibly, you get these government regulations. Is it efficient? No. But that isn’t the aim of the regulations either.

[gman1971]

I think the Motorola DTR radios are a far better option than that overpriced CCR POS... You can buy two used DTR700 for that if you look around in eBay.

DTR radios: License free, full digital, secure FHSS transmissions, with real privacy keys, and range to boot, certainly more than that turd. 

G.

[gman1971]

The Alan Multi is a 27mhz radio FM/AM capable, which is basically a Midland 75-820/822 walkie that has the FM hardware enabled on it. Its a really nice radio... And FM in 27mhz for one on one comms is certainly better than AM, but has no tone squelch, which is a major letdown, IMO, and then, considering that CB is utterly crowded, especially if you walk up any decent size hill, and then, even FM doesn't really help you much there either. Heck, I can hear skip on my 75-820 from all over the country, including Mexico...

G.

[Lscott]

6 hours ago, gman1971 said:

I think the Motorola DTR radios are a far better option than that overpriced CCR POS... You can buy two used DTR700 for that if you look around in eBay.

DTR radios: License free, full digital, secure FHSS transmissions, with real privacy keys, and range to boot, certainly more than that turd. 

G.

I've looked briefly at those. I might consider getting one or two if I can find a super good deal just to experiment with them. I don't have any 900 MHz radios. I looked at the Kenwood TK-481's but the radio's internal IF filters kill the signal once you drop below the upper band limit. To make them really functional they need to be replaced. Second, you need a utility to put in the real frequencies since the FCC requires the use of channel numbers I believe. Not convenient for Ham use.

https://www.qsl.net/kb9mwr/projects/900mhz/plan.html

I noticed there is a code plug hack to modify the XPR6550 800 MHz radios. I think I can find those fairly cheap. 

[WRNA236]

[deleted]