First of all, great references, much reading ahead of me.
Secondly yes, we'd love to have a repeater. What do you have? I'll pay money
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- Thread starter SFROMAN
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Secondly yes, we'd love to have a repeater. What do you have? I'll pay money
Malleus
Far west of Siegen
I was going to say that!
Diff Kraken
SILVER Star
@emorth as a CLCC guy who's lurking here and might go to CRR... this amazon link posted earlier in this thread for the Midland GMRS bundle looks like an awesome set up.
Will this not really work with what we do in CLCC?
Are downsides that this radio can't hit most repeaters- and crowding of channels- is that right- anything else?
I really like the little stick antenna on the hood and the simplicity of a numbered channel. I also may have failed my HAM radio test... maybe twice. It's hard to pass that thing without studying- even with your crash course! And I feel the HAM test is pretty sciencey and hardcore for just pushing a button to talk to your buddy on the trail- or even to radio for help in an emergency...
Anyway, something like this appeals to me. Just wondering if it's worth buying or if I would be better served to retake my HAM test and use my baofeng that is already programmed with CLCC freqs? Welcome your thoughts...
Amazon product ASIN B07B2DZSTL
Will this not really work with what we do in CLCC?
Are downsides that this radio can't hit most repeaters- and crowding of channels- is that right- anything else?
I really like the little stick antenna on the hood and the simplicity of a numbered channel. I also may have failed my HAM radio test... maybe twice. It's hard to pass that thing without studying- even with your crash course! And I feel the HAM test is pretty sciencey and hardcore for just pushing a button to talk to your buddy on the trail- or even to radio for help in an emergency...
Anyway, something like this appeals to me. Just wondering if it's worth buying or if I would be better served to retake my HAM test and use my baofeng that is already programmed with CLCC freqs? Welcome your thoughts...
Amazon product ASIN B07B2DZSTL
SFROMAN
SILVER Star
- Thread starter
- #24
To be honest. I am in the same boat as you.
To me the midland GMRS package I posted above seams simple enough even for my novice butt.
The problem is that I want to have two radios. One for my tow rig and one for my trail rig and I don’t want to have GMRS only in the trail rig and ham only in the tow rig.
Since i now have both licenses I would prefer to get a Ham radio that also does GMRS that way I can always use both methods of communication.
Ham guy here and curious to learn more about CLCC's setup and chat sometime again with @emorth
but... completely agree, no reason for tests and complication to talk to your buddy on the trail. I think GMRS is headed in a good direction and in the next couple of years things there will be more clear simple options.
The people into the details will figure out tones, repeaters in different locations, etc. and the choice will be handheld or mobile with more real world reports of distance for each.
I know at least the Midland MTX275 and MTX575 ship with a 12V cigarette-style power supply line so they are easily mobile if you don't want to hardwire it.
Makes portability between vehicles super easy since the base can be stashed anywhere due to the mic being fully integrated with all the controls.
Don't know if that helps anyone's decision making but just wanted to throw that out there. For my purposes, the MTX275 coupled with a handheld ham works well.
Makes portability between vehicles super easy since the base can be stashed anywhere due to the mic being fully integrated with all the controls.
Don't know if that helps anyone's decision making but just wanted to throw that out there. For my purposes, the MTX275 coupled with a handheld ham works well.
Those Midlands look like great options. Easy to mount and use goes a long way. Hopefully the price will come down and I'm sure there will be more options as popularity increases.
I think a handheld ham looses much of the benefit of a ham radio. The higher power and external mounted antenna are big factors in the range. (handheld Baofeng on GMRS to me counts as GMRS not ham)
Agree 100%, a handheld ham is a very limited tool compared to the full benefits of a ham over FRS/GMRS. I mostly got licensed just so I can legally transmit on ham frequencies and the handheld is simply the cheapest way to do so. In the few instances I've been wheeling with others, it's proved sufficient but I'll disclose this is out west with much longer lines of sight than here on the east coast, and I knew we weren't likely to get terribly far from one another. So totally a YMMV thing.
As for using a ham on GMRS frequencies, besides the questionable legality of doing so, the one time I witnessed it, the ham wrecked havoc on the GMRS radios with all sorts of feedback. But that's beyond my limited radio knowledge!
Subscribed.
What is your application, field deployment or fixed installation or both? I have one in my house with a 12V power supply and one in a camo box with a battery box that we put on top of the mountain for fall crawl. @StaleAle has a spud gun we use to launch a rope over a tree to pull up the antenna.Secondly yes, we'd love to have a repeater. What do you have? I'll pay money
Price is about $300. That’s my cost, it’s a hobby, so no profit from fellow Mudders. The repeater is a Motorola GR300, commercial grade repeater.
I'd probably set it up in my enclosed trailer, so fixed. Possibly set it up in it's own box that I can disconnect from the fixed install and plop somewhere, but 95% of the time it'd be fixed.
How do you program that sucker, via RSS?
Flipping through the manual here:
Motorola GR300 User Manual - Page 1 of 42
GR300 - read user manual online or download in PDF format. Pages in total: 42.
manualsbrain.com
Diff Kraken
SILVER Star
@KliersLC @JohnVee I may know of a guy that has an old computer with chirp and the aforementioned programming For baeufong radios. Also, you can get fm stations on those radios to rock out on.
@emorth I too would like to discuss the repeater in a box. My hunt camp has zero coms and the repeater would be great. Potato gun is already there.
@emorth I too would like to discuss the repeater in a box. My hunt camp has zero coms and the repeater would be great. Potato gun is already there.
Yep. RSS software to program it and a RIB (Radio Interface Box) between the radio and computer.
The duplexer also has to be tuned to the operating frequencies. This is a manual process. 6 tuned cavities have to be tuned using a signal generator and a spectrum analyzer. The duplexer enables the repeater to use a single antenna to transmit and receive at the same time. Ideally, a single repeater frequency pair is used. We can push it a little and do 3 repeater frequency pairs as long as they are adjacent freqs. CLCC repeater freqs are Ch2 462.550 tx & 467.550 rx Ch4 462.575tx & 467.575rx, Ch6 462.600tx & 467.600rx. Will these freqs work for you?
In order to get the best coverage will you be able to park your trailer at a high location?
Signal generator and spectrum analyzer are a little bit above my pay grade. The computer stuff I got down though.
Let me do some more reading before I commit.
So, a question about the frequencies you chose. This is the gmrs range, but not the frs/gmrs channel frequencies. Why did you chose those specifically and not say 462.5625 and 462.5875?
Youre outside of 70cm band, so not ham, just curious.
I guess it's so that you can program radios to legally use the repeater without a ham license, but also not step on established frs/gmrs frequencies?
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