Is the TX4x4 club the last to use Citizens Band?

dreadlocks

Well-known member
Get em all licensed up if you guys have expanded beyond bubble pack FRS radios.. we have to defend our public bands or else some lobbyist with unlimited money is gonna try to take em from us.. part of that is being a responsible adult and obtaining licenses to not only be legal but to keep it ours.. if we wild west GMRS and dont enforce anything, its gonna become the next CB.. and not in the good way.

then you guys can blast tons of watts on the proper channels and wont be interfering with anyone elses legitimate uses... Midland's been cranking out some great Mobile GMRS setups w/full repeater support, just bought one for xmas for my brother..

Ive had some wheelers using my repeater input frequency for simplex once way out in the mountains.. that was annoying as ********, as they stomped on my usage for a few hours while they were in range.. IMO that group were being bad citizens just like ************** who dont stay on the trail and leave litter/trash all over the place.. improperly using up public resources because they thought the rules are not applicable to them.. they hadda been using Baofengs or something like that because no off the shelf FRS radio would had even TX on that freq.
 

MOguy

Explorer
Ive had some wheelers using my repeater input frequency for simplex once way out in the mountains.. that was annoying as ****, as they stomped on my usage for a few hours while they were in range.. IMO that group were being bad citizens just like ************** who dont stay on the trail and leave litter/trash all over the place.. improperly using up public resources because they thought the rules are not applicable to them.

I bet most were clueless about what they were doing about the radio issue and still are, maybe only one or two new wat they were doing was wrong.

I know what you are saying. When I got my little handheld I had no idea about licensing. The guy in the group (who is licensed) sent me a link, I bought one we had lunch and he programmed it. I gave that one to my kid and got another. I had another friend, who is also licensed, set the radio so we can flip between 2 and 4, nothing else is programmed or at least in a manner I understand or will use. The group I run with uses them. Some have hams and are licensed many aren't.

I would assume many that buy these Baofengs are clueless. In my experience it is those that are licensed making the problem worse. We all wanted better comms. They provided the solution, a link to a radio on amazon. I didn't even understand the licensee issue until I had a conversation in this forum.
 
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dreadlocks

Well-known member
ayup.. those wheelers probably just pulled up a list of GMRS frequencies and then decided to use repeater inputs since they figured nobody else would be using em.. listening to em they had a drone and were out to get instagram shots or something stupid.

it sucked because my son had rode his bike way down the mountain and got way further from camp than he shoulda ever gone.. got a couple miles away PDQ thanks to gravity, he radioed that he was trying to get back up the mountain but was exhausted, momma bear was upset her cub ventured so far off.. I hopped in my truck and kept in contact while I went and picked him and his bike up.. along the way he kept cutting out and I had to make him repeat himself a few times.. I noticed my radio was RX but not keying up so I dropped my privacy tone and heard those ****************** talking.. I didnt have a tone decoder on me so I couldn't figure out how to yell at em for interfering w/my rescue operation.. luckily my truck had a 50W mobile so I stomped all over them trying to get em to change, only to hear em complain about having dropouts but not getting the hint to change to another freq.

Son was fine, but when your in the middle of a panic attack involving your children and some idiot is making communications harder it made me extremely bitter about the subject.. sorry if I came off as I was attacking you or your group, was not my intention.. just a lil passionate about this stuff, and interfering with critical comms is like the worst offence a radio operator can make, being clueless is a piss poor excuse..
 

MOguy

Explorer
ayup.. those wheelers probably just pulled up a list of GMRS frequencies and then decided to use repeater inputs since they figured nobody else would be using em.. listening to em they had a drone and were out to get instagram shots or something stupid.

it sucked because my son had rode his bike way down the mountain and got way further from camp than he shoulda ever gone.. got a couple miles away PDQ thanks to gravity, he radioed that he was trying to get back up the mountain but was exhausted, momma bear was upset her cub ventured so far off.. I hopped in my truck and kept in contact while I went and picked him and his bike up.. along the way he kept cutting out and I had to make him repeat himself a few times.. I noticed my radio was RX but not keying up so I dropped my privacy tone and heard those ****************** talking.. I didnt have a tone decoder on me so I couldn't figure out how to yell at em for interfering w/my rescue operation.. luckily my truck had a 50W mobile so I stomped all over them trying to get em to change, only to hear em complain about having dropouts but not getting the hint to change to another freq.

Son was fine, but when your in the middle of a panic attack involving your children and some idiot is making communications harder it made me extremely bitter about the subject.. sorry if I came off as I was attacking you or your group, was not my intention.. just a lil passionate about this stuff, and interfering with critical comms is like the worst offence a radio operator can make, being clueless is a piss poor excuse..


That sucks. If we stay on 2 and 4 (FRS) even though we are pushing more power will we or could we screw things up (like your situation above) for others?
 

dreadlocks

Well-known member
those are okay for Simplex up to 5W, if you got the 4W bao's you'd be totally Kosher in my view if you held licenses and know how to operate your radios properly... GMRS Users like my self cant even use type certified radios yet, so I cant cast stones at others not using certified radios as long as care is taken to stick w/the plan and rules.. although I'd prefer it if there were more legit reasons for using something as capable as a fully unlocked dual band chinese radio than they are cheap.. I actually have a technical reason, not a financial reason.. as soon as I can buy handhelds w/repeater support I will start switching em over to off the shelf certified units.. but my truck will always be uncertified because I'm not installing two radios when one will do the job.

If your party has high powered mobiles and not all handhelds 5W or under, you should move up to channels 15-22.. those permit up to 50W of transmit power for license holders.

467 is FRS Channels 8-14 at half a watt, or GMRS duplex repeater inputs up to 50W.. you should stay off those entirely unless your actually working a repeater within range... the Midland radio I bought my brother for XMas dont even have simplex channels 8-14 because even at its lowest power setting its too much for those.
 
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MOguy

Explorer
those are okay for Simplex up to 5W, if you got the 4W bao's you'd be totally Kosher in my view if you held licenses and know how to operate your radios properly... GMRS Users like my self cant even use type certified radios yet, so I see absolutely no sin in others not using certified radios as long as care is taken to stick w/the plan and rules.

If your party has high powered mobiles and not all handhelds, you should move up to channels 15-22.. those permit up to 50W of transmit power for license holders.

467 is FRS Channels 8-14 at half a watt, or GMRS duplex repeater inputs up to 50W.. you should stay off those entirely unless your actually working a repeater within range... the Midland radio I bought my brother for XMas dont even have simplex channels 8-14 because even at its lowest power setting its too much for those.

FRS is up to two watts, isn't it? If not my little Walmart 2 watt radios aren't even legal.
 

dreadlocks

Well-known member
FRS is 2W Wideband on 1-7 and 15-22, and 0.5W Narrowband on 8-14.. your walmart radios should be certified, they are capping out the power at half a watt on those channels seamlessly for you.

Repeater inputs alternate between 8-14 and are wideband (kinda like 8.5-14.5), the lower power and narrowband allocation for those FRS channels is intended to isolate the repeater inputs as much as possible from FRS and other repeater inputs, all to provide the GMRS repeaters with the lowest noise floor possible.
 
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DaveInDenver

Middle Income Semi-Redneck
wont be interfering with anyone elses legitimate uses
You're talking about overstepping your license and operational interference. But another reason to avoid the junk Chinese brands is the amount of RF interference they produce. It's not unheard of that when you key up on 70cm you might open 2m repeaters with them, for example.

KA7OEI has an example of a really bad one:

This clipping was taken from the Jan 2020 ARRL QST about this subject.

clipping.jpg
 

dreadlocks

Well-known member
eek, hell all those Bao's look terrible next to the Kenwood.. at least my repeater and most repeaters wont key up w/out proper tone to avoid those interference spurs but yeah those spectrials scream chinese transceivers.. don't even need labels to see that.
 

MOguy

Explorer
eek, hell all those Bao's look terrible next to the Kenwood.. at least my repeater and most repeaters wont key up w/out proper tone to avoid those interference spurs but yeah those spectrials scream chinese transceivers.. don't even need labels to see that.
But they are better than a CB.
 

DaveInDenver

Middle Income Semi-Redneck
But they are better than a CB.
The one I linked that KA7OEI tested while operating at full power (25 watts) on 2m produced the same power in its 2rd harmonic as the fundamental. That would mean operating in the ham band you'd be producing the same strength signal at around 290MHz, which is just above the uplink frequencies the military uses for some of their satellites and into a chunk of spectrum the Air Forces uses for aircraft communication. That's not only poor (in fact illegal) operating practice that'll raise the FCC's interest but likely to get you a visit from your friendly military or affiliate outfit if you're within 100 miles range of something you shouldn't be. VHF and UHF are packed full of users close together and create havoc far beyond what any CB can. That's the problem operating those illegal radios without at least testing to make sure the one you have got all its filters the day it was slapped together for $1 by some Chinese labor camp prisoner, if it was ever even designed or tested at all well in the first place.
 
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MOguy

Explorer
The one I linked that KA7OEI tested while operating at full power (25 watts) on 2m produced the same power in its 2rd harmonic as the fundamental. That would mean operating in the ham band you'd be producing the same strength signal at around 290MHz, which is just above the uplink frequencies the military uses for some of their satellites and into a chunk of spectrum the Air Forces uses for aircraft communication. That's not only poor (in fact illegal) operating practice that'll raise the FCC's interest but likely to get you a visit from your friendly military or affiliate outfit if you're within 100 miles range of something you shouldn't be. VHF and UHF are packed full of users close together and create havoc far beyond what any CB can. That's the problem operating those illegal radios without at least testing to make sure the one you have got all its filters the day it was slapped together for $1 by some Chinese labor camp prisoner, if it was ever even designed or tested at all well in the first place.
We don't use ham.

I'm a DA civilian I work on a Military installation. Many I wheel with are Military or DA civilian. We're all using these radios and work on post and live on or around post.

If this truly is an issue I'm sure they will figure it out pretty quick.

The guy who passed out the handheld's, recommended which one for me to get and programed it is a retired Signal Officer.
 
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Red90

Adventurer
It won’t be long before these frequencies are all shut down a amateur operators are losing their licenses in droves.

CBP really should be seizing these radios at the border and charging the importers.
 

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