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I haven’t noticed much of a change in Kenwood equipment availability. If nothing else I think used radio prices have dropped a bit. There a a lot of analog radios available. About Hytera radios, I’m on the lookout for a PT850 in the 405-475 band split. This is a digital radio for TETRA. https://hytera-europe.com/media/Hytera_PT580P_EN_004T_110117_v3-min.pdf Yeah, it sort of looks like an Anytone D878 with a hard-on. Oh well, many of their other HT’s have the same antenna placement. Designer I’ll bet got a bone-ous for the idea. I’ve seen a few for other band spilts. The radios are usually from the EU or China. TETRA is basically not used in North America. With the tariff on most imports it makes these expensive, or just unobtainable.

It is the responsibility of the repeater-owner to keep their repeater info up to date.. That said, many forget or die and their repeater entries never get updated again. When viewing the repeater list(s) you can omit "stale" entries so the old/never been touched ones dont show.

Does anyone check to see if the repeaters are actually operating? I've seen some listed yet they have never been online.

@jfelter welcome to GMRS. Lots of fun and good info here. A little drama once in a while but don't let that run you off. There's a lot of good people here.

Here is where I got mine (unfortunately not free) https://quality2wayradios.com/store/vertex-standard-ce59-software There are some listings floating around the web as well, some cost for access ("vertex radio group" is one), some not.

Yup, this ^.

I don't know whereabouts you are in Arizona, but the majority of major metropolitan police forces are encrypting their radio traffic. I'd check before I spent any money on a radio to scan.

I had the same issue. AFAIK the feature just does not function. Hopefully this and the squelch tail will be addressed in a firmware update.

You only add repeaters you own! Use Favorites for marking existing ones you're interested in. (This is a common newbie mistake, so putting it here for others that may see it.)

On grounding in general. When water pipes were either galvanized or copper, it wasn't uncommon to ground your houses electrical system to that. In a lot of cases here the meter is located in the parkway an the pipes ran underground for a fair distance. So grounding wasn't an issue. But, the use of plastic/non conductive materials has resulted in some older homes being repiped and loosing their earth ground. Regardless of what material you use for grounding it's simply wiser to use copper grounds rods driven to the depth required by local codes. Another thought, it's probably better to ground your radio equipment separately from your 120 VAC system.

I have to concur that line of sight makes a huge difference. I live on a peninsula that sticks out far enough into the pacific ocean that I can pick up a repeater in Chula Vista, Ca. That's pretty close to 200 miles. It isn't always happening, but some times. It actually took me a bit of detective work to figure out where it was. I was flat amazed. But, I sit on top of a hill and there are no obstructions between me and the repeater. I have that repeater programmed just the novelty of it.

I just acquired a VX-4207-7-45 from an old school bus my dad use to work on 20 years ago. He passed away a few years ago and I just recently had the opportunity to snag this radio from the bus. I'd like to reprogram it for GMRS or something. where can I find the programing software?

Click on “My Repeaters” in the menu, then click “Add Repeater.”

I think the title says it all.

I just thought I would stop by and post a quick hello since I am new to this. I got my radio all installed and got my license from the FCC. Now it time to play and have fun here in the wet western Washington (Puyallup).

And we are using encryption on some of the Talk Groups.

Pulled up the repeater page for 725SHAWBUTE, and there's a comment there from another user a month or so ago about the repeater being down. Looks like they've had interference issues with a business repeater in the past, and someone causing issues as well, between the comments and the thread below. https://forums.mygmrs.com/topic/7946-soooo-rip-shawbute-i-guess/ Edit: saw him weigh in on the other thread, so maybe @nokones has some more recent info on status of the local repeaters?

That would be fantastic, Steve. Generous as usual. Thank you. Let me get the software up and running and I'll check back.

Gregg, I would be happy to help put together a codeplug for you/with you. You can listen to DMR on amateur radio.

You're lucky because you can use encryption too. Keeps the scanner kiddies away.

You need a codeplug specifically configured for your DM-32 and the DMR repeaters in your area. Since the DM-32 is relatively new and each radio's codeplug is different (except for OpenGD77, which are interchangeable), you need to contact some Ham or Ham Club in your area that has a DM-32 and has written a codeplug. When I was "younger" I used to look forward to these challenges to help strangers; now not so much, especially for radios that I have little or no respect for.

Got it. Thanks.

Here is a bit of audio from the testing on 8/29/25. BOBGMRSRADIORANGETESTS(EDITED).mp3.e56741ddf04e15cbf25a7008b3a045de.mp3

In the DMR mode the Part 90 Industrial/Business Radio Service