Ham newbie with mobile radio question

[Crom]

A little off-topic but I found a very useful function of cross-band repeat. I like listening to the Win System. However in San Diego County, the linked repeater is on Mt. Otay and is 70cm. The only radio I own is mounted in the truck, the Kenwood TM-V71A wired directly to my aux battery. However an elmer loaned me a 2m HT. While around the house the HT obviously can't tune to 70cm. So here is what I do... I configure my dual bander with A-side on 70cm tuned to the repeater, and the B-side on 144.910 (the x-band frequency for my area's band plan). The A-side is 25 or 50 Watt power, the B-sdie is at 5W. I reboot the radio into X-Band mode and with my HT tuned to 144.910 I can hear and x-mit to the Win system in my house. I use CTCSS to protect the 2M side of my mobile radio repeater. It works great!

 

[Mash5]

Crom, Just to keep things clear and for the sake of any that may be reading later. The consensus view is that what you are describing is not legal. The reason is that you are the control operator for your 8800 so when it retransmits the Win system that transmission need to be IDed somehow as coming from you but the 8800 does not have a provision to do that. The other three parts of the relay are all ok but that one where you are retransmitting the win system needs your ID. Apparently some other radios (kenwoods) have a way to superimpose a CW ID over the relay to make it legal.
I'm not saying you cant get away with it or even that you shouldn't do it, although I wouldn't personally. I just think anyone reading this thread and considering buying the 8800 for this feature should be aware of this legal issue.
All the best
KJ6EUO

 

[Mash5]

Crom, My apologies I see you are talking about the kenwood not the 8800. Carry on.

 

[nat]

How important or useful is it to monitor to frequencies at once?

 

[Crom]

What I usually do is tune one side to 146.52 (2M National Simplex) and the other side is usually set to scan. It scans many local repeaters in my area, and two Simplex channels as well (146.52 & 446.00). When scanning, I've programmed the radio to stop scanning when it detects a carrier and to not resume the scan until the carrier drops. This is useful to me because if two parties are engaged in conversation I can listen in and if I want to stop scan I will, or just wait for it to drop. The default behavior for my radio was to stop for 2 seconds and then resume scan.

One interesting thing about my radio is that when I store frequencies into memory (I think I have 1000 memory channels grouped into 10 groups of 100), it does not matter to the radio if one frequency is 70cm or 2M. When it scans it goes sequentially through all the channel numbers in that group, and it's fast! Before I bought my radio I thought switching bands was a laborious process, it's not, it's just software/firmware on some IC in the radio.

Another way I used the radio was to tune one side to the U.S. Forest Service frequency to monitor resource and personnel movements during Chariot fire we just had in San Diego County. The other side of the radio was set to scan. Because I had 146.52 in the scan group, if there were any local calls on 2M I would hopefully hear them...

I hope that helps. Also, if you haven't already, i'd recommend a trip to HRO store [or equivalent retailer] in your area where you can get hands on for all the radios and check them out.

:sombrero:

 

[robgendreau]

One other thing to consider is extended range scanning. As Crom pointed out, sometimes it's good to be able to scan frequencies you can't TX on, like public safety. And with some radios you can scan FRS, GMRS, marine and other stuff. It can be handy, for example, since you can just hand someone a FRS radio and tell them to contact you if need be.

Also, you can get cheap HT radios these days for less than $35 on Amazon. The Baofengs will monitor two channels in dual mode, including some commercial bands, weather, etc. At that price having one to monitor other channels isn't much of a burden. If traffic you are interested in comes on, you can always switch to your better radio (although those cheapos do a very good job themselves).

Rob

 

[1911]

How important or useful is it to monitor to frequencies at once?

Important? Not really. Useful? Yes, there are times when it is super nice to be able to keep one side always on your trail group simplex frequency, and have the other side to monitor base camp, a different trail group, NOAA weather channel, a local repeater, the national simplex calling frequency, an APRS beacon, etc.

 

[Mash5]

Monitoring more than one frequency can be done by any modern radio by way of scan. As Crom described, they can be set up to scan a small group of frequencies and as long as the group size is reasonably small, any of those frequencies that have a carrier come up will hold the radio. As the group gets bigger, the chance of missing the beginning of the conversation increases. With my 7900 with a group of 7 frequencies I can rarely even perceive that it was not on the frequency as it was keyed up. I also have a much larger Law enforcement group that may take 2 or 3 seconds to make a lap so on that one entire words may be missed at the beginning. The advantage of the 8800 as well as other duel receive duel banders is that you can have one frequency on one side that is always monitoring and that is always the one you key up when you hit the mic.