Wireless speaker mic for my Ham mobile radio.

[Major146]

Wireless speaker mic for my Ham mobile radio.

I am trying come up with a way to use a wireless speaker mic with my mobile ham radio. I did find some that uses Bluetooth but the range looks to be under 30 feet and I need 100 meters (or 100 yards).

Motorola has one that does this but it looks like it will only work with there radios and they all seam to be HT’s, which defeats the purpose as you could just bring your HT with you.

The gain for the system I am trying to find would be instead of transmitting 4 to 5 wats with my HT I could use my mobile which is 50 wats and has a superior antenna on the car to aid in transmit and receive.

My Yaseu FTM-6000 has Bluetooth capability but only has a range of 30 feet.

I was wondering if someone makes a Bluetooth repeater that could be installed in my care that would receive the Bluetooth signal from my radio and repeat it on a UHF frequency that could be received by my HT and would also allow me to transmit back to the repeater and into my 50-wat radio for it to transmit it out. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

Check out Wireless Pacific X10DR. They are showing up cheap on e-bay etc.

 

[mmckenna]

X10DR MODELS

digital vehicular repeater alternative, X10DR long range wireless remote speaker microphone, RLN6551 DVRS VRS7000 Motorola Harris Futurecom

www.x10dr.com

Challenge will be interfacing that to an amateur radio. These products are aimed at public safety/commercial radio users, and those radios usually have interfaces on the back designed for adding accessories like this. You may need to get down and dirty inside the radio itself to find all the inputs/outputs you need to make that product work properly.

Other option is a radio with cross band repeat. There are some amateur dual band radios that will support that. Set it up so your hand held transmits into it and the radio retransmits on the other band with higher power.

Or, build your own with a Pyramid mobile extender.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

X10DR MODELS

digital vehicular repeater alternative, X10DR long range wireless remote speaker microphone, RLN6551 DVRS VRS7000 Motorola Harris Futurecom

www.x10dr.com

Challenge will be interfacing that to an amateur radio. These products are aimed at public safety/commercial radio users, and those radios usually have interfaces on the back designed for adding accessories like this. You may need to get down and dirty inside the radio itself to find all the inputs/outputs you need to make that product work properly.

Other option is a radio with cross band repeat. There are some amateur dual band radios that will support that. Set it up so your hand held transmits into it and the radio retransmits on the other band with higher power.

Or, build your own with a Pyramid mobile extender.

I have 3 of the Wireless Pacific X10DR. No more difficult to hook up than a Pyramid SVR200. TX audio, RX audio, PTT and COR . I think it may even have VOX on the RX audio side. You can also connect an antenna external to the vehicle for more range.

 

[mmckenna]

I have 3 of the Wireless Pacific X10DR. No more difficult to hook up than a Pyramid SVR200. TX audio, RX audio, PTT and COR . I think it may even have VOX on the RX audio side. You can also connect an antenna external to the vehicle for more range.

Yeah, I know someone who has one and really likes it. I might pick up a used one.

 

[Major146]

Thank you all for your input. I contact a vendor in the US and he thinks it is possible.

 

[Major146]

I have 3 of the Wireless Pacific X10DR. No more difficult to hook up than a Pyramid SVR200. TX audio, RX audio, PTT and COR . I think it may even have VOX on the RX audio side. You can also connect an antenna external to the vehicle for more range.

Did you have to make your own cable? I have been told that they do not make a connection cable for my radio (Yaseu FTM-600). But if I could get a wiring diagram of the pin outs on the microphone my FTM-6000 uses, I think I might be able to make my own. All I need is TX, PTT and then go to the back of the radio and get audio from the external speaker jack. I have searched the web but was unable to fine one that represents my FTM-6000. There were some that looked the same but were for other Yaseu radios. I was surprised to find out that Wireless Pacific does not make a Bluetooth version of the charger/cradle for the wireless speaker mic. Does any one have a diagram of the pin outs for the microphone on a FTM-6000?

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

Did you have to make your own cable? I have been told that they do not make a connection cable for my radio (Yaseu FTM-600). But if I could get a wiring diagram of the pin outs on the microphone my FTM-6000 uses, I think I might be able to make my own. All I need is TX, PTT and then go to the back of the radio and get audio from the external speaker jack. I have searched the web but was unable to fine one that represents my FTM-6000. There were some that looked the same but were for other Yaseu radios. I was surprised to find out that Wireless Pacific does not make a Bluetooth version of the charger/cradle for the wireless speaker mic. Does any one have a diagram of the pin outs for the microphone on a FTM-6000?

I got 3 of the PW X10DR's. I intend to use two of them in a system I am putting together for our cars. I ended up buying a pair of generic, pig tail, factory cables for them from their distributor, (because I am lazy), but they are pricey. It is simply a DB connector and some wires. The details for connection at the X10DR's are on the internet. Mine are the early version . As far as your radio you are pretty much wiring like you described, Shop around for a used set, and perhaps you will get cables. There are some entirely bluetooth mikes out there but the range is poor and you don't have external antenna options. If you want real range, like a mile or more, a Pyramid SVR200 V or U and a portable are the way to go.

 

[Major146]

I am working on a new approach to this problem and have stumbled upon mobile radios with a repeater function. If I can make this work, we can still use our simplex radio frequency but add a 5.0 offset frequency, incorporate that into the mobile repeater and now we have what would be a long-range speaker/microphone. We would still have the option of using our radios simplex but once the mobile repeater car gets to the site all could move to the second channel for the repeater. The radio I have found is under $100. From amazon (TYT TH-8600 Dual Band VHF/UHF 144-148MHz/420-450MHz Mini Mobile Transceiver) and is 40 watts in UHF mode.

It would be nectary to have constant power to the repeater radio, but I have solved that problem already. I have a sealed lead acid battery mounted under my passenger side seat to power my emergency roof light. This battery is linked to the charging system of the car threw a voltage sensitive solenoid which knows when the alternator is running and only allows the auxiliary battery to be connected to the car battery when the car is running so it can be charged, otherwise it is isolates it from the main car battery and cannot accidentally drain the main car battery. The length of time it stays working will depend on the amount of usage and the size of the auxiliary battery. I presently have a 7amp there but plan on increasing it to 20amp. As a side note the 7amp battery kept my emergency roof light going for just under 7 hours once.

Even with an additional battery, solenoid, radio and antenna the whole thing should be doable for under$250. If I do the work myself. What do you think?

 

[mmckenna]

If this is going to be 'in-band', in other words, the link to the portable from the car is in the same band as the band used by the mobile to reach the repeater:
The limited spectrum you have with a single amateur radio band may be a challenge. You'll need to consider filtering, low power and a -lot- of antenna separation. Much better to do this 'out of band'.

This is a challenge on the LMR side when doing in-band, and companies like Pyramid sell filters to address this. Often the antennas are well separated and purposely use inefficient antennas for the mobile repeater. There was even some dedicated 17xMHz frequencies set aside to handle this sort of stuff for public safety users in the 15xMHz range. Usually they prefer to do a second band to prevent issues.

If it was me, I'd keep it on another band.
I'd also use something like an old Motorola GM-300 low power or CDM-750 set to low power. The LMR radios are easier to do the audio/PTT/COR interface on. Usually its all on the plug on the rear of the radio exactly for this purpose.

 

[Major146]

The parts are supposed to be here today. Once I have set it up and tried it on the bench I will report the results here.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

I am working on a new approach to this problem and have stumbled upon mobile radios with a repeater function. If I can make this work, we can still use our simplex radio frequency but add a 5.0 offset frequency, incorporate that into the mobile repeater and now we have what would be a long-range speaker/microphone. We would still have the option of using our radios simplex but once the mobile repeater car gets to the site all could move to the second channel for the repeater. The radio I have found is under $100. From amazon (TYT TH-8600 Dual Band VHF/UHF 144-148MHz/420-450MHz Mini Mobile Transceiver) and is 40 watts in UHF mode.

It would be nectary to have constant power to the repeater radio, but I have solved that problem already. I have a sealed lead acid battery mounted under my passenger side seat to power my emergency roof light. This battery is linked to the charging system of the car threw a voltage sensitive solenoid which knows when the alternator is running and only allows the auxiliary battery to be connected to the car battery when the car is running so it can be charged, otherwise it is isolates it from the main car battery and cannot accidentally drain the main car battery. The length of time it stays working will depend on the amount of usage and the size of the auxiliary battery. I presently have a 7amp there but plan on increasing it to 20amp. As a side note the 7amp battery kept my emergency roof light going for just under 7 hours once.

Even with an additional battery, solenoid, radio and antenna the whole thing should be doable for under$250. If I do the work myself. What do you think?

I think the only way that TYT radio will work is cross band V/U or U/V simplex. I am confused as you originally were looking for a way to extend coverage of a mobile to/from some portable mike or such. If you are looking for a wide area mobile repeater, you will need an in band duplex radio made for that purpose, with a duplexer fitted, or a simplex repeater which can be an ordinary radio plus a controller $50 to $150 option.

 

[Major146]

I think the only way that TYT radio will work is cross band V/U or U/V simplex. I am confused as you originally were looking for a way to extend coverage of a mobile to/from some portable mike or such. If you are looking for a wide area mobile repeater, you will need an in band duplex radio made for that purpose, with a duplexer fitted, or a simplex repeater which can be an ordinary radio plus a controller $50 to $150 option.

You are correct. I was misunderstanding what I read on the web. I now realize I have a lot more research to do. Stating with learning a lot more about repeaters and the hardware that goes along with them.

 

[Major146]

OP here. I ran into some speed bumps for the construction of this cheap repeater. I have the two Baofengs programed. The interface cord will be here Saturday along with the power amp and another mag mount antenna. First speed bump I ran into is how to power the two radios and the power amp. The power amp is not going to have any problems running off my auxiliary battery but the batteries in the two Baofengs are Li-lon and I know that LI-lin batteries and automobile alternators do not like each other. My auxiliary battery is a sealed lead acid 7amp and is only connected to the car charging system when the car is running because I have a voltage sensitive solenoid between it and my cranking battery and alternator. This way when I am using my accessories with the car off, I do not draw any power from the battery that I depend on to start my car. I think the fix for the Li-Lim battery problem is to replace them with Battery Eliminators. This way the radios will only draw power from the main battery when the car is running and then the auxiliary battery when the car is off and I will not have any Li-lim/alternator problems. The next problem is how to keep the power amp cool when it is in use. I am still working on this. A fan is the obvious solution but that leads to the question of how big does it need to be and where is the best place to put it. Then to add to the equation how much power draw will all this equipment have and what size battery needs to take the place of my present 7amp one? For antennas I am going to try to put one receive on the corner of the roof near the passenger door and the transmit antenna on the opposite rear corner. I have a Ford explorer so the roof is fairly large. This Saturday I have a bunch of stuff to do and the rest of this project may have to wait until Tuesday. If anyone has any suggestions as to the construction of this down and dirty cheep repeater, please chime in. I am all ears.

 

[Major146]

OP here. I did get some time today to try out most of the parts that came in today and nothing worked like the merchants advertised. So, this attempt is getting the boot and except for the parts I already had the rest will be going back to Amazon. “And now for my next trick” After more pondering, surfing the internet and viewing hours of YouTube. My next (never say die) attempt will include A TYT TH-9800 X-band mobile radio and a TYT UV8000d 10 wat portable. Total price for both is about $270.

The 9800 will handle the repeating and the 8000 will act as a remote microphone that will allow me to move a long distance from my car and still have access to the mobile radio in my car which acts as a repeater/transmitter to access local repeaters or other portables. I do not think there will be any way to change channels via my HT but I do not see this as a problem.

I can use 146.52 to transmit to the TYT TH-9800 mobile and it will retransmit my signal on UHF to other HT’s or some local repeater imputes like 449.000 (BARA) or whatever I set on the output of the 9800. Only need one antenna, I can access power for the mobile radio off my auxiliary battery and I am legal to transmit on both channels. I will be adding a fan for the transceiver and will eventually be increasing the size of my auxiliary battery. I hope to have everything connected by mid-week. Anyone see any flaws in this plan?

 

[krokus]

OP here. I did get some time today to try out most of the parts that came in today and nothing worked like the merchants advertised. So, this attempt is getting the boot and except for the parts I already had the rest will be going back to Amazon. “And now for my next trick” After more pondering, surfing the internet and viewing hours of YouTube. My next (never say die) attempt will include A TYT TH-9800 X-band mobile radio and a TYT UV8000d 10 wat portable. Total price for both is about $270.

The 9800 will handle the repeating and the 8000 will act as a remote microphone that will allow me to move a long distance from my car and still have access to the mobile radio in my car which acts as a repeater/transmitter to access local repeaters or other portables. I do not think there will be any way to change channels via my HT but I do not see this as a problem.

I can use 146.52 to transmit to the TYT TH-9800 mobile and it will retransmit my signal on UHF to other HT’s or some local repeater imputes like 449.000 (BARA) or whatever I set on the output of the 9800. Only need one antenna, I can access power for the mobile radio off my auxiliary battery and I am legal to transmit on both channels. I will be adding a fan for the transceiver and will eventually be increasing the size of my auxiliary battery. I hope to have everything connected by mid-week. Anyone see any flaws in this plan?

I highly suggest not using the national calling frequency. Almost any other simplex would be better, but check for which freqs are already in use in your area.

 

[Major146]

I highly suggest not using the national calling frequency. Almost any other simplex would be better, but check for which freqs are already in use in your area.

Thanks for pointing that out. I didn't make myself clear in my last post, but I was planning to only use this frequency for testing and then move somewhere else.

 

[KD7RJC]

This was what I did in order to my HT inside of my house to participate in a net on a particular repeater:



If I understand correctly, there are two problems with using cross-band repeat. First, if you're connected to a repeater then you're repeating the repeater without your own equipment identifying itself correctly. Second, you're running your mobile at 100+% duty cycle (ie, you're RX and TX the whole time the net is going on and this is going to have some negative implications for equipment service life (ie overheating and damaging something).

If you can configure your HT to Rx on one band and Tx on the other through the use of split-memory, then you can receive the repeater or other station directly on the HT, while using the other band to Tx from the HT to your mobile, which will cross-band echo your traffic but without cross-band echoing back the opposite direction. Since you're IDing your own transmissions you're also IDing for the purposes of echoing through the mobile.

In my particular case my FTM-500, as far as I can tell, cannot be configured for true unidirection (if I am incorrect on this, I'm all ears about how to use such a feature!). So to get around that I have it tuned on the repeater-band side to a frequency that has nothing to do with the repeater, so I don't hear the repeater on the mobile so it cannot pick it up and echo it back out the other band to the HT. I also don't use the repeater-input frequency simplex on this repeater-side, so that if another ham in my area is also on the net then their transmission isn't received by the mobile and echoed back.

The ham who owns the repeater I participated on in this instance gave his assent, he uses the term "Power Boost" for doing this. So long as you have enough Tx power to have your mobile receive from your HT then this should work.

I did configure transmit-timeout on the mobile too, in case something were to go awry it would stop transmitting after 2 or 3 minutes. Also the vehicle with the mobile is parked in the driveway (I did this because I don't have a base-station inside the house yet) so I could go out and turn the thing off if there was a problem.

 

[Major146]

Very close to what I have planned, I should have my version of this idea finished by the end of the weekend. When I do, I will report back here and let you know how or if it works.

 

[Major146]

I just reread your post and I don’t think you understand what I am trying to do and the way I am trying to do it. First, I have a mobile transceiver that has cross band capabilities built into it. On the repeater radio let’s call the receive frequency A and the transmit frequency B. Once programed correctly the cross-band transceiver will be on standby just listening to A. Once it hears a signal on A with the correct PL tone it will activate the other side of the transceiver and send whatever is coming in on A, the receive side, using B. Once the signal on the A side stops it will stop transmitting B. Then the person that originally transmitted on A to the transver/repeater will only hear whatever signal their radio is programed to hear presumably B.

The benefit being that I can use my 2-watt HT a good distanced from my car to transmit using 25 to 50 watts with a much better antenna. Just to soothe anyone’s concern I will also be placing a “busy channel lockout” on the transmit for both radios, thus preventing transmitting over someone that is already on the channel.