Fun times dealing with the equestrian centerâs radio net. For the director of the equestrian center - who is here on a work visa, doesnât have a car, and uses one from the equestrian center to take home - they just a few days ago retired a 1985 Chevrolet Chevette she had been using previously, and replaced it with a 2015 Chevrolet Sonic transferred over from one of my employerâs other companies. The Chevette did not have a radio installed in it, but they decided that the Sonic does need one. I donât know if youâve ever looked at the interior of a Sonic, but there really isnât space for any sort of add ons in the interior. It could be installed on the center console on the passenger side and leave room to open the glove compartment, but I really donât like the idea of having her look way down and to the right to see the radio if she has to switch channels and such, especially as sheâs not a particularly fantastic driver to begin with. Even though we sell radios to the equestrian center at a much lower cost than we would for commercial customers, the owner of the equestrian center rejected that idea on cost, as she already knows she can buy TK-860 or TK-880 radios from us for substantially less. So, it looks like itâs going to be a Kenwood TK-880 (mobile radio to the left) mounted on the dash. Which, I donât like doing dash mounts because I think it looks sloppy and I like my work to be professional, but itâs ultimately her call.
Honestly, I never saw any need to install a radio in her car... even the company which used it previously never saw a need to. So the owner says, âWell, she might drive it to eventsâ. But never has she (the director) ever shown any interest in driving herself to those... if theyâre taking the bus, she much prefers that, as she pretty much has a work center there which was made by taking some seats out of the bus and installing a small desk. Otherwise, sheâd ride with someone else, even when given the opportunity to take a newer vehicle, and even when offered someone to act as her personal driver. Sheâs not into driving, and sheâs not going to be now. But I lost that argument.
The equestrian center uses an organizational GMRS license which they had originally obtained in 1984 and have maintained since; thus, it was grandfathered in when the FCC stopped issuing organizational licenses in 1987. Originally, they had used the Motorola MR-355R (bottom left) and MR-356R blister pack radios. Problem is, they were buying these things at whatever big box retailers everyone else was buying them at, so we ended up with hordes of unlicensed users getting on the equestrian center repeater (thereâs also a sorry saga of how GMRS users were screwed out of exclusivity on Channels 15 - 22 on account of squatters who bought the 22 channel âhybridâ radios en masse and completely ignored the blurb on the packaging which stated use of those channels required a GMRS license).
When I was given charge of the equestrian centerâs radio net, I changed a lot of things. First, I limited who accessed the repeater. Crew and barn leads, admin staff, etc. Everyone working under the leads could use simplex, as they were never a far enough distance from each other to require a repeater. So, we were initially going to use BaoFeng BF-888S radios for the crew members who werenât accessing the repeater, but we had difficulty finding a seller who could guarantee the radios they sold us had the FCC ID on them (a legal requirement in the US for operating transmitting on any service outside of Part 97 rules). We found one who could guarantee it if we bought the BaoFeng GT-1 (second from the left on the bottom row), which is internally the same as the BF-888S, but uses a different battery and case. For the crew leads, barn leads, admin staff, and those who were going to access the repeater, we went with the B-Tech (BaoFeng) UV-82C (not pictured), which is a commercial Part 90 type accepted variant of the UV-82 series radios. The dual watch feature also allows them to monitor both the repeater and their internal crew simplex net simultaneously without having to go into scan mode.
As the blister pack radios used a standardized list of CTCSS and DCS tones, I changed the repeater to split tones, with separate DCS tones for the transmit and receive side, and also used a mixture of non-standard and inverted DCS tones throughout the entire equestrian center net. So while someone running a police scanner or radio on carrier squelch can still hear our traffic, they wonât be able to talk to us or interrupt us with the blister pack radios, Midland radios, etc., as we had problems both with people intentionally getting on our repeater and also those running simplex who âcoincidentallyâ used the same frequencies and DPL tones which we did. Once the FCC co-banded all of the FRS simplex and GMRS frequencies in 2017, we were left powerless to do anything about it (not that we really could before... the FCC was always pretty lax on their enforcement when it came to GMRS). If we run into a matter of getting disrupted by someone who successfully finds our DPL tones, then I have the means to require the radioâs PTT-ID to be on an approved list to trip the repeater.
For the riding instructors, we felt that perhaps something more durable was in order after one of the GT-1s broke. Initially, I took of the Motorola HT750s (second from the right on the bottom row) from the rental side of our business and loaned them to the equestrian center until we could figure out something more permanent. The permanent solution came when I happened across some Kenwood TK-350s (center of the bottom row) which were sitting in a bin and pretty much unwanted. So, after finding batteries for them, I was allowed to take those and donate them to the equestrian center. I actually had to lean how to use DOS in order to program them. Surprisingly, only one ended up preferring the HT750 over the Kenwoods. In the end - since she rents a room from and lives with me - I purchased one at cost from the business and donated it so that she could continue using one.
All the way to the right on the bottom row is one of my Kenwood TK-3180s, which I use both for the equestrian centerâs GMRS net as well as the LMR radio net at my regular job. I was using one with the 16 key DTMF keypad (and the Tactical Features Set), but the owner of the equestrian center wants all radios labeled... while crew radios will tyically have only a number, the equestrian instructors wanted their names to be displayed on the radios they were issued, and I was instructed to do the same with mine. The running joke with it is, when weâre doing fundraising events (the equestrian program is a registered nonprofit), tours of the equestrian center, or other events, then husbands can try claiming they were only looking at the nametags on the radio to try remembering our names when their wives catch them staring at our asses. Since the DTMF keypad didnât leave space for a label, I took one with the four button keypad and used that.
GMRS is regulated under Part 95E and requires a Part 95E radio. However, due to a lack of viable Part 95E radio options, many users have taken to using Part 90 LMR radios, as many of the UHF models cover GMRS frequencies. For example, the Motorola HT750 can be programmed with frequencies from 403Â -470 MHz, and GMRS (as well as FRS) is a collection of 22 frequencies in the 462 and 467 MHz range. The use of Part 90 radios in GMRS plays fast and loose with the law, but acts in the spirit of the law, even if not the letter of it. The FCC has acknowledged the practice and has been leaving it alone, but they havenât actually given approval to do that. To that end, we ensure that all radios are Part 90 (or Part 95E, as some employees have bought their own radios).
Which of course brings us to other problems in dealing with the radio net. A number of licensed GMRS users are quite upset about our use of a repeater on GMRS, especially given a lack of viable ones in the area. Some have identified the tower and have threatened to report us to the FCC (to which we tell them to go right ahead, as our use of that frequency is 100% on the up and up), some have tried to get us to make it a public use repeater (and typically suggest we use travel tone).
Then, of course, a number of the male employees - not content with the little GT-1 radios - always want something more âbadassâ. So I had one come up to me asking me if I could program his radio to the equestrian center net, and he hands me a BaoFeng UV-5R and told me the equestrian center owner gave her approval. Problem is, the FCC ID on that one - 2AJGM-UV5R - only shows Part 15 certification for 134 - 174 MHz and 400 - 470 MHz. So, outside of Part 97 (ham radio) use, itâs only legal as a receiver and scanner in those band splits. The ones which donât have an FCC ID arenât even legal for that. Had another one come to me with what looked like a Kenwood TK-3207... great 16 channel UHF radio, and the TK-2000/3000 series are becoming one of the mainstays of our rental service. When I removed the battery, it showed the model as TK-3000, but there was no FCC ID on it, so I asked him where heâd gotten it from. He said his brother used it for his business and had some extras. Just out of curiosity, I tried programming it with the KPG-137D programming software and was unable to. So I asked the brother where heâd gotten it from. He said he bought it off of Ebay. When I searched Ebay, I found a bunch of TK-2000/TK-3000 series radios from a seller out of China. So I installed KPG-137D on another computer and this time used the serial number for the UK/European version, and it successfully programmed the radio. All fine and dandy, but I gave it back to him and told him itâs not a legal radio for use in the US without an FCC ID being present.
I swear, I wear too many hats sometimes.
