My Journey begins on Narrowband?

[GeauxGreddy]

As the title says, I have entered the domain of GMRS. My spot in the corner of mom's basement has been secured and the chicken nuggies are warming in the oven.  My license has been received from my overlords at the FCC and I have been accepted by the very knowledgeable and fine people of MyGMRS.  Thank you for having me.

I have wired up my Midland MXT400 and dropped the stubby little antenna that came with it on the bumper of my 1997 Jeep TJ (arguably the greatest offroad vehicle ever produced by man).  I'm sure the ground plane is next to zero, my SWR is probably 5.83 repeating 3, and my radio will be fried within a month or two.  That said....

Do I turn ON or OFF narrowband for channels 1-8? 

Likely only to be used to hear a sweaty middle aged individual standing feet away saying, "little more driver...little more... no too much driver...." or someone else calling for help further along the trail because they stuck their rig in a hole filled with mud.  Midland has pre-selected narrowband to "provide optimum communication and spectrum efficiency with both FRS and GMRS radios".  Which sounds very fancy.  But, I can turn it off if it isn't as fancy as it seems and I seem to remember watching a video somewhere at sometime about narrowband on midland radios being the devil.

TIA

Greddy

 

 

[Raybestos]

Though in theory it shouldn't be this way, performance of a given radio on Narrowband vs Wideband can vary by make, model, and in some cases, individual radios.  Personally, I program all of my GMRS radios for Wideband on channels 1 thru 7, and the eight repeater and/or 50W simplex channels.  Channels 8-14 are I believe, hardwired for Narrowband per FCC regulations.

Hopefully, OffRoader X will reply as he has a metric ton more experience in the off-road world than I.

[SteveShannon]

9 minutes ago, GeauxGreddy said:

As the title says, I have entered the domain of GMRS. My spot in the corner of mom's basement has been secured and the chicken nuggies are warming in the oven.  My license has been received from my overlords at the FCC and I have been accepted by the very knowledgeable and fine people of MyGMRS.  Thank you for having me.

I have wired up my Midland MXT400 and dropped the stubby little antenna that came with it on the bumper of my 1997 Jeep TJ (arguably the greatest offroad vehicle ever produced by man).  I'm sure the ground plane is next to zero, my SWR is probably 5.83 repeating 3, and my radio will be fried within a month or two.  That said....

Do I turn ON or OFF narrowband for channels 1-8? 

Likely only to be used to hear a sweaty middle aged individual standing feet away saying, "little more driver...little more... no too much driver...." or someone else calling for help further along the trail because they stuck their rig in a hole filled with mud.  Midland has pre-selected narrowband to "provide optimum communication and spectrum efficiency with both FRS and GMRS radios".  Which sounds very fancy.  But, I can turn it off if it isn't as fancy as it seems and I seem to remember watching a video somewhere at sometime about narrowband on midland radios being the devil.

TIA

Greddy

 

 

1-7 are authorized for 20 kHz 

8-14 are authorized for 12.5 kHz 

15-30 are authorized for 20 kHz  

 

[Socalgmrs]

Narrow only on 8-14.  

[amaff]

Depends who you're talking to. Talking to other people w GMRS radios? Leave it wideband, that's how they're likely setup too (unless they're using some of those weirdo ones that don't).
If you're talking to people with FRS radios, set it to narrowband.

 

Which is to say, you want the radios on both ends to match bandwidth.

[kidphc]

Think you need the programming cable and to be on later firmwares to flip to wideband. Don't have the radio so couldn't be exact. Hopefully, some one will chime in.


The TJ 4.0l where awesome till you tried to jam on 35". Then it got pricey.. I think a CJ with a v8 swap is more fun and to the nature of jeeps. Although my land cruiser might not be set up for rock crawling (old 100 series) she is damn comfortable on the highway and off trail. All my friend's jeeps (even my dad's jku) beat the snot out of me traveling to the trailhead and on the trail as I get older even more so.

Most mobile radios can deal with high swr so as long as you have some ground plane, or have a ngp antenna and didn't botch the install you should be fine.

All the years, off trailing, fire roads and such. Never heard a peep on 2m/70cm calling or on gmrs for emergencies. We'll except for kids on frs in the neighborhood.

Has to do with the trails around here being sparse and I wouldn't call it technical, unless oversteering between trees is your thing. Orv parks are a bit different.

No one even responds, when I am following aarl wilderness protocols. Most of the gmrs/frs usage near trails that is heard for me at least, are parents calling their kids or the occasional spotter screaming driver, driver side, driver side...omg....

Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

[GeauxGreddy]

4 minutes ago, amaff said:

Depends who you're talking to. Talking to other people w GMRS radios? Leave it wideband, that's how they're likely setup too (unless they're using some of those one offs that don't).
If you're talking to people with FRS radios, set it to narrowband.

 

Which is to say, you want the radios on both ends to match bandwidth.

Good question.  I think its probably a mix of the two.   Not sure of what that mixture ratio may be.

[WRXB215]

4 minutes ago, GeauxGreddy said:

Not sure of what that mixture ratio may be.

If there is at least one FRS radio in the group, set all to narrow. If there are NO FRS radios in the group, set all to wide.

Edited August 1 by WRXB215
Added info.

[amaff]

Just now, WRXB215 said:

If there is just one FRS radio in the group, set all to narrow. If there are NO FRS radios in the group, set all to wide.

basically this, yes.

 

[GeauxGreddy]

13 minutes ago, kidphc said:

Think you need the programming cable and to be on later firmwares to flip to wideband. Don't have the radio so couldn't be exact. Hopefully, some one will chime in.

I do have the ability to program it, and I did hook it up to the laptop to see what that would look like, but didn't change anything.  The menu on the radio itself has a setting for nb on/off, just select that, turn the knob to on or off and hit select again.  If its on, the radio show nar and if its off, it shows nothing. 

I bet that landcruiser is a dream on the roads compared to a Jeep. I must say, my old girl isn't the most pleasant ride above 45 mph.  I also experienced the 35" tire tax, lol.  But, she's solid now, hasn't broken in 10 years since going to an 8.8, HP30, with Warn Alloys up front.  Knock on wood.

[nokones]

Most of the Jeepers normally buy FRS radios for their Trail Comm and the FRS radio channels are forced to narrowband emissions only. If a user is transmitting on a channel with wideband emissions most of the narrowband radios will receive the transmission either garbled, sound like it is over modulated, or missing syllables. Some of the super cheap FRS radios may receive the wideband emission with no problem at all because the receiver is real loosey goosey with very poor selectivity and sensitivity . This situation occurs more often then you think in large Jeep groups because some users just don't know what to do.

[OffRoaderX]

1 minute ago, nokones said:

If a user is transmitting on a channel with wideband emissions most of the narrowband radios will receive the transmission either garbled, sound like it is over modulated, or missing syllables. This situation occurs more often then you think in large Jeep groups...

Not to disagree with my esteemed colleague Mr. @nokones, but, i disagree..

I have led groups of up to hundreds (HUNDREDS) of Jeeps/trucks off-road, and a large majority of them use cheap/narrowband FRS radios, while many of us transmit on wideband at high power (because we can).. and never once has anyone complained about having trouble hearing/understanding what we are saying - and in tests I have done, it is usually rare for normal people (with untrained ears) to notice or hear any difference.

[nokones]

4 minutes ago, OffRoaderX said:

Not to disagree with my esteemed colleague Mr. @nokones, but, i disagree..

I have led groups of up to hundreds (HUNDREDS) of Jeeps/trucks off-road, and a large majority of them use cheap/narrowband FRS radios, while many of us transmit on wideband at high power (because we can).. and never once has anyone complained about having trouble hearing/understanding what we are saying - and in tests I have done, it is usually rare for normal people (with untrained ears) to notice or hear any difference.

It's a problem that we experience all the time in our groups but you're right most users don't know what they're hearing or not hearing. They just don't recognize the problem even if it bit them in the ear. Anyways, our groups are comprised of "Old People" from Sun City West and Sun City Grand and some may have better quality hearing aids then most.

[WRUU653]

@GeauxGreddy greatest presentation of a question ever 

For what it's worth I like em wide...

[WRXR255]

Im going to make some popcorn and nuke some Hot Pockets.

 

Im wideband all the way baby!

 

Rails are coming off.

[gortex2]

As said its all about use case. I've only used 1-7 to talk to folks with FRS radios as its low power and is really local to me.I have my repeaters narrowband as family has midland mobiles that only did narrowband. I do have a second bank with wideband if needed but not sure the last time I used it. 99% of my comms are to a jeep in front or behind me or a trail guide 50' away. 

[Lscott]

14 hours ago, WRXR255 said:

Im going to make some popcorn and nuke some Hot Pockets.

 

Im wideband all the way baby!

 

Rails are coming off.

From the movie Dr. Strangelove. Scene at the very end.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove

[Lscott]

14 hours ago, WRUU653 said:

@GeauxGreddy greatest presentation of a question ever 

For what it's worth I like em wide...

At the hips?

[kirk5056]

Program your radio to best communicate with your group.

I use the same channel (freq + PL filter) for many groups.  My Jeep/hunting groups is mostly GMRS so I use FM.  The golf cart group around my cottage is mostly FRS so I use NFM.

Both channels work with both groups BUT there can be less than perfect performance if the modulation does not match so I just avoid it by having the two channels programed in MY radio.

[nokones]

I run with five different Jeep group's and I have programmed their respective trail comm channels twice, one for narrowband and for wideband operations. Depending on who is the group leader for the group is and the bandwidth he/she is willing to use, I'm ready for it. I focus on the Group Leader's comm rather than the other Jeeps in the group.

Some of the group leaders that run wideband apparently don't care about the FRS radios that operate only on narrowband and some of the FRS users are having difficulty monitoring the wideband channel. Depending on the quality of the FRS radio they are using that will reflect the level of difficulty in receiving the wideband channel. It appears that some of the super cheap $20 FRS radios are not affected as much or not at all by the emissions mismatch.

Some of those group leaders that are reluctant to run narrowband channels for the FRS radio users in the group are mostly amateur radio hobbyists  "Sad Hams" of the group who won't accept using narrowband channels and obviously could care less about FRS/GMRS radios. They bring their POS HAM bullwanger radios with their 18 inch skinny antenna and think they are hot stuff and claim to know everything about radios.

 

[AdmiralCochrane]

Had to check my antenna.  Nope, just 12 inches.  The skinny 18 incher is in a box somewhere. Not sure I'm ready to bring my bullwanger out in public, I'm kinda shy.

[H8SPVMT]

Having not experienced the usage of GMRS as much as I would like I can say narrowband MXT400 works well with many other radio's I run with in a pack of about thirty.  My only issue is that I have to turn up the volume occasionally for the wideband signals.

It seems the new users in a pack might get excited and try to talk over others at times creating a mess with signals out in the woods and mountains but, other than that, everyone sounds clear as a bell in my Jeep.

It's still ladies to the right and men to the left, where I come from.