Which repeaters should I put into my hand held radio?

I used to have a "Hi dollar " HT" The IC-T90A and that thing was a pain to program manually, mainly due to the tiny screen and my poor vision. Also it did not last 3 years before it died and the 25 dollar UV5R is still going after 6 years on the original battery and it runs 14 hours a day as a public service monitor for the FD, I live in a fire prone area. battery usually lasts about 3 days before needing charging

 

Doesn't matter what the repeater is. Nobody's going to be on it anyway.

 

That animal already exists in a mobile version - it's called Icom ID-5100. Hope the HT is coming soon...

 

Just like a cell phone!

 

This issue has been solved by Icom in the ID-51A series radios and it's DR mode. If you goto http://www.dstarinfo.com/RepeaterDownloads.aspx and select the ID-51A radio and put in the zip code of the area that you want to travel in, you can download the repeater list for that area and store it to a file on the SD card that you use in the ID-51A radio. You can do this for as many areas as your SD card will hold and name them accordingly. The SD card will hold more data than you ever would need to store when it comes to repeaters. Now even though that web site is for DSTAR you can change the percentage of FM repeaters to a higher number so that you are getting FM analog repeaters and not just digital DSTAR repeaters. You can also edit the files that you have stored on the SD card with Microsoft Excel to add any repeaters that may not have come over in the download from dstarinfo.com.

When you travel to that area you just load the file for the area right off of the SD card in the radio and the GPS in the radio will organize them in the order nearest where your radio is currently located from the GPS coordinates. This was a huge selling point for me when it came to the ID-51A series radio and a few others.

I do this same thing with the ID-5100 and Icom IC-7100 although the 7100 doesn't have a built in GPS like the 51A and 5100. It's a way underrated or possibly unknown feature that many people don't realize is available.

My Kenwood TH-D74A has sort of a similar interface where you call pull up repeaters based on the GPS location of the radio.

 

KC3HJP, in your experience how accurate is the database on DStarInfo.com? I just purchased my ID-5100... in the process of learning, setting it up now...

Meaning - does it contain active ones only or all the junk of dead repeaters like RepeaterBook et al?

 

Hi Ervin, it seems to be pretty good. I travel a lot to a few of he surrounding states and I'll switch over to DR mode and scan the DR repeaters and I always hear a few active repeaters. The good think is that the DR mode is completely different than your normal stored memories so you can play around with any repeaters via the file that you pull into DR mode.

 

Thanks Curtis, sounds like I could use the DR mode while I'm figuring out which of the repeaters downloaded from RepeaterBook is actually working.

Makes me wonder if maybe the list on DStarInfo is somehow vetted by actual Icom radio users?

 

It's not perfect. The database had an old callsign for one of the local D-Star repeaters and that was enough to make it not work. I had to go into the software and manually change the callsign then update on the radio. That seemed to be an anomaly though.

 

When traveling I start with repeater book and use the available reference help from CHIRP if I'm programming an analog radio. For DMR I go to the DMR MARC website and look for DMR repeaters in the area I'm traveling to. And then I look for the Amareur Radio Club in the area online. Most of the time there is info on local active repeaters on their website. If you have time you can email the contacts for the club and they are usually very helpful in giving info on the local repeaters. As noted above. It is easy to write up a code plug for the travel and then put your local list back in the radio when you get home and if you are able to bring a laptop with you you can re-program while sipping some wine by the pool! If you are going to an austere environment you can just program what you can and put in some "roaming" channels so you can change freq and PL on the fly. Have fun!

 

I heard it once "repeaters are for cheaters".

FM simplex or nothing!!

 

Rich,
I think you missed my point
if you have dmr with the codeplug already installed with talkgroups and zones for your hotspot, you dont need anything more
you have all you need for your travels with your favorite talkgroups already programmed in it
there are literally hundreds of talk groups to choose from
this is/was my point for discussion purposes

go ahead and program all you want on the kenwood
fm is dead, almost like ham radio itself, folks are too arrogant on systems, if they dont like you, you are avoided like the plague
this is the real underlying problem with ham radio, there are too many jerks out there if you will
you answer them and they give you an attitude
that chases hams away

 

To each their own... Such comments as these are just another way of saying "If you don't think like I do, you suck."

Thankfully, the hobby is bigger than that.

 

Jeez, learn to take a joke.

 

There are several FUDs around here that are quite serious about it... But I'm new here and don't know them all by callsign.