Thursday 4 August 2011

Radios - Can You hear Me?

The use of bike-to-bike radios during rider trainng really only 'took off' after the introduction of CBT.

Since then, radios have improved from the 49MHz sets first used (with a range of about 100 metres line of sight - great when you have one trainee in front, three behind, and the traffic lights change as the convoy is half-way through . . . ) to the widespread availability of the 'PMR446' systems.

Also, there are more 'professional' GMRS radios available (the PMR sets are often little more than 'toys', although there are some more substatial systems on the market, such as the Kenwood systems).

Unfortunately, there is a minor hitch in that those professional and PMR radios have channels that aren't compatible!

However, if you're in the situation where you need to pair-up one of each, it is possible to set the channels to get them talking (and listening).

One example set up is for the TH-3101 (GMRS) <> UBZ-LJ8 (PMR446)


Channel 1 Ch 1 <>  Group Mode 10
Channel 3 Ch 3 <>  Group Mode 13
Channel 5 Ch 4 <>  Group Mode 17
Channel 6 Ch 2 <>  Group Mode 18
Channel 7 Ch 7 <>  Group Mode 19
Channel 8 Ch 5 <>  Group Mode 7
Channel 10 Ch 8 <>  Group Mode 15
Channel 12 Ch 6 <>  Group Mode 6

 
NB
The GMRS typically has 15 GMRS channels with channel scan and 121 sub-channels/privacy codes (38 conventional QT codes and 83 DQT codes).
PMR has 8 channels, usually with 38 mode codes per channel.


.

No comments: