Gear Information Collection

[Yuxi]

Collected here will be posts of importance to those with an interest in gear.

If you feel you have something of use to contribute, please PM me with it.

[Yuxi]

Useful gear links

*If you wish for me to add a link to the below, please Private Message me a brief but meaningful description of the website’s contents, and a URL link.
-Without the description, I will ignore the link you send.
-For retailers, link those you know to be of good service, if you have had bad experiences, feel free to note that.

Reference
Description: Daily user updated forum for military photos covering all eras of history.
N.B.: These guys are assholes towards airsofters.
www.militaryphotos.net

Description: Useful reference website for American Special Operation Forces gear, particularly US Navy SEAL gear.
www.specwargear.com

Description: Japanese gear collector team. Great photo references of US gear.
www.special-warfare.net

Description: British run forum for primarily those interested in American Special Operation Forces gear.
N.B. These guys are very anal about airsoft, the word can not be mentioned on their website.
http://wannabe.ipbhost.com


Retailers
Description: Good American based retailer for contemporary tactical gear.
www.optactical.com

Description: Good Canadian based website run my a member of this forum. If you want to support Canadian gear retailers, please, do buy from him.
www.oneshottactical.com

Description: American based retailer with a very large collection of goods.
www.copsplus.com

Description: Canadian based website, gear for good prices on gear produced by Phantom/Pantac
www.1337tactical.com

Description: Canadian seller (Huang) of well priced Chinese copies of airsoft gear.
www.airsoftcanada.com/showthread.php?t=55473

Dave's Surplus and Tactical
Description: Vancouver based retailer. Carries a variety for name brand products (propper, 5.11, hsgi ect.). Excellent customer service.
Link: www.dstactical.com


Manufacturers
Description: Major American gear provider for the US military, and producer of the CIRAS armor series.
www.eagleindustries.com

Description: American gear manufacturer, often copies of Eagle and geared towards the civilian market.
www.blackhawk.com

Description: Provider of very high end military equipment, notably to US Navy SEALs.
www.londonbridgetrading.com

Description: American manufacturer of US infantry equipment.
http://secure.specialtydefense.com/c...sds/index.html

[Yuxi]

From Madmorbius: UHF RAdio Users - Compatibility Information

Originally Posted by MadMorbius

Well, I wasn't sure where to post this, but I figured Gear was as good a place as any.

Recently, a lot of people have begun moving away from 2 watt FRS / GMRS radios and using 5-6 watt UHF Radios tuned to the FRS / GMRS frequency range.

ONE, THIS IS ZERO, WAIT ONE, OVER!

NOTICE : If you disagree with using 5 or 6 watt transmitters on the FRS or GMRS bands, or want to challenge the legalities, or are deathly afraid that the police will drop out of the ethosphere and bust you for using overpowered radios, please STOP READING HERE. I'm well aware of the legalities, and frankly that is outside of this discussion.

That being said, below you'll find an article I published on the WP boards describing all the frequency mappings for FRS / GMRS radios and the associated CTCSS settings for compatibility with non UHF players using standard FRS / GMRS subchannels. Note that some of the information in the article was compiled from the public domain. As such, I do not take responsilbity for the accuracy of any information provided, excepting that I can personally attest to the accuracy of the GMRS radio frequencies provided. Furthermore, I do not present this article as an original work, as it has been stated that several portions were compiled from the public domain.

ONE, THIS IS ZERO, SEND, OVER!

* * *

Below is the frequency table for Motorola's talkabout series of FRS and GMRS radios, as they relate to programmable frequencies for UHF radios. I though that given the increasing use of high-end radios, this might be useful:

Motorola Talkabout Cannels

Ch Service Frequency

1 GMRS/FRS 462.5625
2 GMRS/FRS 462.5875
3 GMRS/FRS 462.6125
4 GMRS/FRS 462.6375
5 GMRS/FRS 462.6625
6 GMRS/FRS 462.6875
7 GMRS/FRS 462.7125
8 FRS 467.5625
9 FRS 467.5875
10 FRS 467.6125
11 FRS 467.6375
12 FRS 467.6625
13 FRS 467.6875
14 FRS 467.7125
15 GMRS 462.5500
16 A GMRS 462.5750
17 GMRS 462.6000
18 B GMRS 462.6250
19 GMRS 462.6500
20 C GMRS 462.6750
21 GMRS 462.7000
22 GMRS 462.7250


About "Sub Channels"

CTCSS (Continuous Tone Controlled Squelch System) is an advanced sub-coding system that allows segmentation of a main channel. When you transmit using CTCSS you are transmitting on one of the main FRS or GMRS channels but you are transmitting an inaudible tone that controls the squelch. To understand how this works think of squelch as a gate that opens only under certain conditions. When it is opened your radio allows the signal to be received and you hear the transmission. Normally, squelch is a gate that is activated by signal strength - the signal must be strong enough or the gate (squelch) won't open. In CTCSS squelch is controlled by an inaudible sub-tone - without the proper sub tone the gate (squelch) won't open regardless of signal strength.

An FRS or GMRS radio equipped with CTCSS allows it's squelch to be broken (allows an incoming signal to be heard) only when it receives a special low frequency tone transmitted by another FRS on the same subchannel. To use CTCSS sub-channels you would set two FRS radio's, equipped with CTCSS, to the same channel and same sub-channel. This way both radios would be transmitting the same low frequency tone when transmitting and looking for the same low frequency tone when receiving.

CTCSS is a useful feature when you only want to hear from a certain radio or group of radios and not everyone else since your radio's squelch will only open when it receives the sub-frequency assigned to the sub-channel you are on. This will stop you from hearing other transmissions on the same channel and/or same channel with different sub-channel.

It is important to note that CTCSS does not provide you with privacy - all it does is eliminate the number of signals your radio will allow you to hear! Your transmission can be received/overheard by any other FRS radios on the same channel - Once your signal is on the air, the signal is fair game to be received by other FRS radios, GMRS radios or scanners. Additionaly, any UHF radio tuned to the "parent" frequency, and not subscribing to the CTCSS, will overhear any transmission sent on that channel. The UHF set's transmissions will be ignored by the recieving FRS or GMRS radio however, unless the corresponding CTCSS code is activated on the UHF set.

Amateur radios operating in the GMRS or FRS frequency range can be configured to use CTCSS "Sub Channels" by configuring the CTCSS tone frequency.

The following is a list of sub-channel CTCSS frequencies:

Code Freq (Hz)
1 67.0
2 71.9
3 74.4
4 77.0
5 79.7
6 82.5
7 85.4
8 88.5
9 91.5
10 94.8
11 97.4
12 100.0
13 103.5
14 107.2
15 110.9
16 114.8
17 118.8
18 123.0
19 127.3
20 131.8
21 136.5
22 141.3
23 146.2
24 151.4
25 156.7
26 162.2
27 167.9
28 173.8
29 179.9
30 186.2
31 192.8
32 203.5
33 210.7
34 218.1
35 225.7
36 233.6
37 241.8
38 250.3



Putting it all together

So, if you are using a UHF radio configured to access the 462-468Mhz band for FRS / GMRS access, and you've been directed to use FRS channel 14-21, you would set your transeiver to 467.7125 with CTCSS tone 136.5.


Hope this helps.