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As much as I like the BF-F8HP Pro (in many ways, "it's my baby"), I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that it isn't type certified for operation on GMRS frequencies (or any other frequencies outside of the Part 97 amateur bands). It does have the most complete feature set of any of the Baofeng analog models, though. If you're just listening, you can set "SK Disable" to "PTT" and the radio will not transmit, either from the radio itself or from an accessory microphone. Of course, if you eventually get an amateur license you can just re-enable PTT.

Congratulations! The Retevis RT95 is a clone of the Anytone AT-778, a model that I do not have any experience with; but I am sure many others here do, so good luck!

IP67 also keeps out dust and dirt, not just water.

How close are these to Avondale: Base & Meridian State Wildlife Area https://pota.app/#/park/US-11982 Table Mesa BLM Recreation Management Area https://pota.app/#/park/US-11975 Lost Dutchman State Park https://pota.app/#/park/US-1061

Ahh, ok. Now I know why it wasn't on the list. Oh well, I can still have some fun outdoors when it gets cooler here with the RT95. Thanks.

Did my initial set up on the radio with HAM channels. Had to do the "unlock" for Mode2 to get 70cm to take. Still getting use to all the buttons and stuff. All in all it's working. I put one of my 771 BNC antennas on it(I have a PL259 to BNC adapter on the radio so I can change out antennas quickly) and did a test on medium power(don't want to burn up the antenna) and from my Man Cave I hit a couple repeaters so on the Yagi or the 17" Dual Band(when I get it tomorrow) it should have plenty of range when it's outside to hit all the repeaters in my area. The radio is a lot smaller than I thought it'd be. Almost makes me want to install it in my truck, LOL. I have the BTech 20v2 GMRS radio in it now so I'll just use the RT95 as a portable radio. Works well with one of my smaller 300w solar power stations too, should run the radio for quite a while off of a charge and I can always plug in a small solar panel to it to keep it charged up. Anyway, just wanted to share with ya'll. Thanks.

Local or regional parks do not qualify. Only State and Federal. It looks like the closest qualified park nearest to you is the [see my next post]

Thanks for the link. Friendship Park in Avondale, AZ isn't listed so I guess no one has activated it yet or maybe it's just too small of a local park to qualify.

Don't give up, maybe he'll get you next time.

https://pota.app/#/map

When I get back home in about a week, I'll sweep a Midland MXTA 51 and TE Connectivity/Laird/Antenex/Antenna Specialist A450 antennae and see how they perform. I don't own nor will I ever buy any non-professional quality two-way radio product so I won't be comparing a Tram 1126 B antenna.

Well, I live in the middle of a desert so.........probably not. There's a few small Parks in my area, not sure if there even on the POTA map or not. I need to get a book or something to show me all of them. I'll try to find one on Amazon.

Anywhere within the borders of each designated park! Adds interesting considerations to your enjoyment. I am still looking to do my first activation once my knee heals a bit more!

Yes, each park has a designator. You don’t need to worry about the coordinates, just give the designator. And if you do a “park to park”, record the designator of the other person’s park.

220 MHz activity in OK?! Interesting! Simplex in addition to repeaters?

Do you need an IP67 rating? Unless you engage in activities where such a spec would be meaningful, the RA89 would be yet another HH an apparently you already have a lot of those.

Don't they have special designations for each Park? It's not just GPS coordinators is it?

That's bonkers, man. Thanks for the explanation! Out of curiosity...what are you using Starlink for in your truck?

Thanks for posting your results. Your results are close to what my two 2x4SR antennas showed when tested on the 1.25m band. I have not hooked up my KG-XS20H to either antenna to test yet as there is not any 1.25m activity in my area.

Same here. I have the QYT ham version of the same radio and I ended up using it as a dedicated 1.25 meter unit. I did leave 2m and 70cm frequencies on it and I put some of my favorites on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th displays. If you're fine with doing something like that, it's a good unit for the price. The ham version does a full 25 watts on 1.25 meters (mine actually does 27) whereas most other tri-band radios do ~5 watts on 1.25m. The only other tri-band radio I'm aware of that outputs 25 watts on 1.25m is the Anytone AT-5888UV III, which is what I eventually settled upon for my mobile. I will say the little QYT radio has good audio both tx and rx. There's nothing wrong with it exactly, but it's very inexpensive ($89 IIRC) and as such has some limitations. In a GMRS application, I think they'd be less significant but still perhaps a bit limiting.

We did not hear the noise when the repeater was off. We got it on 20 and 22 when we tested. Didn't try any of the other lower power channels. Only had the one repeater to play with. I toyed with squelch from 0-3 didn't seem to make a difference, the noise was always able to break the squelch We couldn't "make" it happen, sometimes it would be just a few seconds. Another it went on for more than a minute. All in all we had 6 hand held radios of various makes, a truck based radio. The tone didn't appear when we would scan all the GMRS, MURS,etc frequencies save for the current repeater channel

As a side note some people have commented the CA-2x4SR will match well on the Ham 1.25M band. I just ran an SWR sweep to see for myself. Added the graph results to what I had posted before. The results for 2M/MURS/Ham 1.25M/Ham 70cm/GMRS is here. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/615-ca-2x4srjpg/?context=new I have to try this out, the 1.25M band sweep, on the nearly identical Diamond NR240CA antenna. I already have it for 2M/MURS/Ham 70cm/GMRS. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/613-nr240ca-roof-rack-mount-swr-and-photojpg/?context=new

Yes, on my Pofung P15-UV, a direct clone of the Radioddity GM-30 (and Baofeng UV-15Pro) and locked to GMRS, Menu 41 is the SYNC function and works like you describe. On my Baofeng UV-13Pro, the Ham Radio that also transmits on GMRS out of the box, it is Menu 42 and works like you describe. Note: my Pofung has firmware V06.03.006 My UV-13Pro V06.01.014

On the Baofeng GM15 pro SYNC is option #42 in the menu. SYNC can simplify the display screen by showing the top “Main” line A in channel name format…..then below displays the same Channel’s frequency in the B line From the Baofeng GM15 pro manual

The picture didn't show the 2 GPS Pucks either. So in that truck I had 4 APX8500 multiband radios, 1 Sierra Wireless LTE Modem and a Lowband radio. So technically 5 radios. My new truck has the same radios but have glass mount wifi, LTE and GPS antennas due to spacing on the roof. Waiting on a new cap and will have my Starrlink and some other antennas on that and most likely move my lowband to a ball mount. What reason. Beacuse I can. . But in reality they are for my job. In my volunteer life we run multiple radios for SAR (VHF, UHF, 700/800) and can have up to 4 radios in an officers vehicle. Most just run a VHF and UHF. Public safety is all over on the east coast so not one radio will do all. Even our multibands are nice but if dispatch is calling me on UHF trunking I can't hear a user on VHF calling command. So multiband only gives us the ability to have more options. Doesn't fix the need of a tool for each job.