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I tell you.. it better not leak.

Yup, legally the repeater is operated by the individual who holds the license. I doubt that clubownership matters.

Very thorough! Nice job.

Semantics. Yes, anyone can pay for it and do the work of maintaining it, but a single individual has to be the licensee/operator of record.

Hello all. I'm new to this forum but hoping someone can help with using Chirp to program a Baofeng F22. The latest version (5) for mac doesn't list this model in the Baofeng section. Is there another model from Baofeng or another vendor that someone has used? Thanks in advance!

Google tried.

Yep! I recall ham friends who visited Texas saying that they used 2m (VHF) simplex out there the way we used repeaters in South Carolina. They said due to the flat terrain, you would hear more people chatting away on simplex in places they were, than you did on repeaters in SC. While UHF would likely still have shorter range in those places, it probably would do well at 50W and running gain antennas on base and mobile.

350 some odd repeaters strong in Texas.. Texas has big beers too,, OP needs to stick with the smaller bottles

Our ham club operates a GMRS repeater on our tower and is maintained through club resources. Yes, it is licensed through a club member holding both licenses. So, stating a club cannot operate and maintain a GMRS repeater is incorrect. The licensee is the owner of record and responsible to the FCC but it's a ham club operated repeater.

Fair enough.

GMRS repeaters have to be operated by an individual licensee, unlike amateur radio repeaters which can be owned and operated by a club or other entity. That means the cost and work can't be spread across numerous individuals as it can with ham repeaters. Most people who go to the expense and effort of installing a GMRS repeater do it to support a specific activity, such as operating a ranch or other business, keeping contact with family members, etc. There are a number of altruists who put up a GMRS repeater for use by the general public, but that's a small minority. Ham clubs can maintain a little tighter control over the use of their repeaters because the license is harder to get and because there are literally thousands of frequencies across several bands they can utilize, so it's not so easy for some random idiot to find the repeater and jump on it. Hence the existence of GMRS repeater clubs. They won't tell you the tones unless you belong to the club and if necessary, they can notify all the club members and change the tone. Sure, it will cost you a little to join, but operating a repeater isn't free, and you will have access to a lot more repeaters as long as you behave in accordance with their rules.

Well I'm getting setup for the big swap out. Getting the Comet CA712EFC ready for deployment. Wrapped the area where the antenna joins with self fusing tape. And then marine grade heat shrink with the adhesive lining on the inside. Then wrapped the N connector after wrenching it tight with the self fusing tape. And then the heat shrink tubing again. Put silicon where the aluminum tube joins the ground plane area before I put the mounting tube on. Pretty stiff stuff. I guess that's why they call it hard line. And the completed assembly. Should be going up sometime this week.

Well, I'm not sure if you know this. But it's a fairly new repeater that's only been out for a year and they actually have been upgrading it. The no tone is an upgrade from the original which had no option for that at all. It also didn't have a squelch which is essential to a no tone system. So most likely the software hasn't been caught up yet. And it's not like they gave you the function and no way to activate it. It's a small annoyance to deal with while they are putting more thought into the machine to give it more features than when you bought it originally. When I got mine there was no squelch, no DCS, no microphone to talk into only program, it didn't have a no tone option and a few other small things. The menu system was still cluttered with another versions options which did nothing in this version and they cleaned that up. So my machine has had nice upgrades while you look at it as a basic machine because that's where they were in the ongoing development of this repeater.

I may actually leave it that way. I'd just never heard a repeater that didn't do it, so I was afraid maybe something was wrong with the repeater. It tested out okay, though, so I figured it was just a quirk of the design. Stealthy actually has some advantages for a portable unit. I don't want every random yoyo in the park scanning for the tone and jumping on my repeater.

That's true. As I said, it's not the end of the world. It just irks me that I can't do everything in one step via the software. I don't know much about software design, but it seems to me that it wouldn't have been very difficult to make it possible to do it in the program.

Maybe they don’t need them? Maybe they don’t want them? When I’m hunting or running cattle in Texas I hear more simplex then I’ve ever heard in any state. It’s pretty much none stop. However, ever piece of lease land, hunting club, or ranch ect I’ve been on has there own small repeater that usually covers the acreage very well. So they do have repeaters but i think some of the answer is, they don’t feel the need to chit chat with strangers on the radio. From what I see in general gmrs is used in Texas for what it was designed for.

You can get a microphone with a speaker for the H3. Put the clip right near your ear and you can use the mic too. It also has a VOX headset you can use if you are in need of communication regularly.

Not sure how flat Texas is but simplex might work pretty well for most. And wide range repeaters cost a lot of money to install and keep running. You could volunteer your money and time and put one up for the masses to use.

There are more repeaters in Texas than mygmrs.com depicts on the map. If you become a member of the Texas GMRS Repeater Club you would have access to a bunch more repeaters throughout the State.

You do know this is a beta radio, correct? It is a hot mess. Unless you like testing out unfinished products (some of us do), return it and get something that is more finished. It uses a different chipset than the standard H3. They should have picked a different model designation, it is only loosely related to the original H3. What firmware are you using? This apparently was corrected in FW 1.19 but would not surprise me if it broke in a later FW. Each release has broken something. The latest as of 4/21/2025 is 1.23 which was released 4/18/2025 and the 7th update in a month.

So I have a question. Why haven't you put one up?

Because instead of being a pillar of the community and putting up a repeater, they go online and complain about there not being enough repeaters for them to use.

So I have a question. Why does Texas not enough repeaters? Texas is a big state and has lots of land.

So I have a question. Why does Texas not anougg repeaters? Texas is a big state and has lots of land.

So that's great. You can program the repeater with no tone just how you wanted it. So you can't do it through the program, big deal. How many times do you plan on doing this? It's generally set it up once and walk away. Only in the very beginning do you play with everything. After you get it the way you like you'll rarely ever touch programming again.