Need a scanner that can transmit on grms

[Sparticus414]

Hello!

I’m a late bloomer to radio. My dad had a cb when I was a kid and I loved them. and now my kids are interested in walkee talkies and it kind of relit all this interest. I’ve gotten my grms license and am starting on my ham radio license studying.

I’ve been looking for about a month for a mobile transceiver that has the same capilities, or most, of the uniden trunktracker v but that can also transmit on the grms band. My budget would be around the cost of the trunktracker but if I could find one cheaper that would keep me out of hot water with my better half

Any help is very much appreciated.

 

[clbsquared]

A quad band Harris or Motorola radio would do the trick. At a few thousand dollars. But then you're looking at a divorce.

 

[N8IAA]

Zip, zero, zilch. No such animal. No ham transceivers either that incorporate scanners with trunking ability. Separate radio for each.
Larry

 

[UPMan]

Scanners don't transmit. You are going to have to get two different devices.

 

[jonwienke]

Separate devices will cost less.and work better. Get a scanner to scan, and a separate GMRS radio to transmit.

 

[Sparticus414]

A quad band Harris or Motorola radio would do the trick. At a few thousand dollars. But then you're looking at a divorce.

LOL that’s what I’m afraid of .

Second question, has anyone successfully built this using SDR’s and if so, how happy were you with the outcome?

 

[intuity]

LOL that’s what I’m afraid of .

Second question, has anyone successfully built this using SDR’s and if so, how happy were you with the outcome?

If by 'built', you mean crufted together the multi-layered software with all of the associated kludges, put together something approximating an antenna, and smothered all of the above onto a computer (or RPi) and topped all of that off with one or more RTL2832U-based SDRs, then yes.

If by 'built' you mean assembled either a kit-based SDR device off of (fl)eBay, performed a dizzying deep-dive into the world of GNURadio and FPGA-based software, then yes.

If by 'built', you mean learned your lessons, bit the bullet and bought a -real- SDR (say, like the Ettus USRP) and then reperformed said deep-dive, landed on your face while on a detour to the world of OpenBTS, found yourself in an accidental (and nearly very costly) encounter with some very annoyed RF engineers wearing nice polos with a blue and white logo, then yes.

But, if you mean nothing of the above, you may find Unitrunker and DSDPlus to be more your speed - grab a RTL2832U dongle off Amazon (there's a link around here somewhere that I think RR benefits something from, not sure - anyone ?) and there's a wealth of info on getting Unitrunker to talk nicely to it and get your tinbox crackling with the deliciously robotic sounds you so seek

Happy hunting, welcome to the forums - for what you paid for your GMRS license, you could have a handful of those dongles and a RPi - js



Am I happy with the outcome? It depends on the tensors of your 'happiness' metric, really. Am I happy that for less than the cost of that GMRS license and a few hours of some creative swearing, I can approximate the functionality of a much more expensive purpose-built standalone device, to a degree which I find satisfactory, so I can casually eavesdrop on our public servants? Pleased as punch.

Am I satisfied with the end result, to the point which would prevent me from pining over the casual ease and simplicity of a HP2 or TRX-2 to the extent that I would disable my autosearches on eBay for used P25 phase 2 capable scanners in a non-stratospheric price range? Good lord, no.... Portability and simplicity will trump geek cred every time in my world

 

[wtp]

sparticus

why does it have to do both ?

 

[Sparticus414]

If by 'built', you mean crufted together the multi-layered software with all of the associated kludges, put together something approximating an antenna, and smothered all of the above onto a computer (or RPi) and topped all of that off with one or more RTL2832U-based SDRs, then yes.

If by 'built' you mean assembled either a kit-based SDR device off of (fl)eBay, performed a dizzying deep-dive into the world of GNURadio and FPGA-based software, then yes.

If by 'built', you mean learned your lessons, bit the bullet and bought a -real- SDR (say, like the Ettus USRP) and then reperformed said deep-dive, landed on your face while on a detour to the world of OpenBTS, found yourself in an accidental (and nearly very costly) encounter with some very annoyed RF engineers wearing nice polos with a blue and white logo, then yes.

But, if you mean nothing of the above, you may find Unitrunker and DSDPlus to be more your speed - grab a RTL2832U dongle off Amazon (there's a link around here somewhere that I think RR benefits something from, not sure - anyone ?) and there's a wealth of info on getting Unitrunker to talk nicely to it and get your tinbox crackling with the deliciously robotic sounds you so seek

Happy hunting, welcome to the forums - for what you paid for your GMRS license, you could have a handful of those dongles and a RPi - js



Am I happy with the outcome? It depends on the tensors of your 'happiness' metric, really. Am I happy that for less than the cost of that GMRS license and a few hours of some creative swearing, I can approximate the functionality of a much more expensive purpose-built standalone device, to a degree which I find satisfactory, so I can casually eavesdrop on our public servants? Pleased as punch.

Am I satisfied with the end result, to the point which would prevent me from pining over the casual ease and simplicity of a HP2 or TRX-2 to the extent that I would disable my autosearches on eBay for used P25 phase 2 capable scanners in a non-stratospheric price range? Good lord, no.... Portability and simplicity will trump geek cred every time in my world

Thank you so much for the great candid response! I actually do have 2 of said sdr’s I’ve been tinkering with but like I mentioned I’m just getting started . I can program in python and R so that prospect wasn’t too intimidating to me .. that is once I learn about all the radio specifics I’d be manipulating . I’ve gotten a couple Nagoya whips for them and I’ve been satisfied enough at my kitchen table but in my truck is another story. I think I’d prefer something more solid state but I like the idea of one unit which is why I was asking. That said it doesn’t have to be .

 

[intuity]

Speaking as a programmer myself, I found the conceptual foundation of the GNURadio suite easily understood, and with the use of the osmocom blocks and some reading, I have been able to successfully build some interesting toys to exercise my USRP, but outside of the well-manicured garden of popular-to-implement things like low-order QPSK stream modems, you may find yourself adrift and bewildered as I was in approaching things like a frequency inversion-based audio scrambler - as an example on the low complexity end of that spectrum - or in tackling P25 IMBE decoding in real-time while simultaneously de-muxing and demodulating PSK stream data without dragging bit timing, on the further end of that spectrum.

I say bewildered because before that point, my only exposure to FPGAs and ASICs had been as a consumer, not as a developer - and I rapidly hit the bottom of my knowledge about signal processing in any complexity other than basic sampling and quantization - the fact that I am familiar with the Nyquest-Shannon theorem is vastly more knowledge than I have about anything else in the field, I must admit.

So for that, I would suggest your best course of action would be above all else, remember that without a horse, a cart goes nowhere - and without a cart behind it, that horse will do no work of any substantive result - quite the opposite will occur... Instead of adrift and bewildered, you may find yourself chained to the rebellious and bucking stallion of possibilities, hanging on for dear life or sanity.

TL;DR: DSP is complex af, and it's a lot more fun to enjoy sh-t that works with a lil bit of effort.

Feel free to message me if I can help.

 

[Sparticus414]

I’ve done some very basic playing with Altera Stratix fpgas for work but nothing very complex. I may tinker a bit but before I get that far I’ll probably break down and buy something

Got my sights set right now on the bcd536hp. Looking for alternatives just to see what else is out there off brand but will likely end up with something like this thanks again for the offer. If I get far I might take you up on it.

 

[KC5AKB]

Ham Radio (dot) World | Amateur Radio Resources for Kids, Families, and Everyone Else!
We have a kids net on a local ham repeater
Run by a 9 year old and 11 year old they are becoming great operators. Google ham radio kids
It might be more than what your kids are looking for but if you
Have the bug help them study and get a lic also.

 

[KB7MIB]

I’ve been looking for about a month for a mobile transceiver that has the same capilities, or most, of the uniden trunktracker v but that can also transmit on the grms band. My budget would be around the cost of the trunktracker but if I could find one cheaper that would keep me out of hot water with my better half .

In the Australian market, Uniden has a couple of UHF CB's (their version of our GMRS) that include a UHF-only, analog conventional only scanner. (UH-015SX, UH-8080, and UH-9080 I believe are the three models. The 8080 and 9080 being the current sellers.)

I would like to see something similar here, that incorporates a GMRS mobile radio and a full featured but UHF-only (380-512 MHz maximum) digital trunktracker scanner in a manner similar to Amateur dual-band radios with the displays side-by-side or over-under.

A MURS mobile radio paired with a full featured but VHF-only (108-174 MHz maximum) digital trunktracker scanner would also be of interest to me.

John
Peoria, AZ