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"I’ve never once had to had an upgrade to firmware offered on any radio ever. Fixed it for you. At least Midland put out upgrades.

When you create your next account, you should change your name to AntiSocialgmrs.

Does anyone know where to find one? Midland is out of stock and so is everyone else. My radio recently had an issue where it lost the split tone on a repeater I regularly use and It couldn't be fixed from the radio menu. I tried a couple of 3rd-party cables with no success. I even tried rewiring those cables and wasted a bunch of RJ-45 connectors with no joy. I borrowed a Midland cable and fixed the issue in two minutes, but had to return the cable to its owner. I have another 3rd-party cable on the way, but am not optimistic. Ideas?

Learned Elmers Are Really NIce - he was describing you amd MarcSpaz Steve!

Skywave propagation is a trip. Just messing around with WSPR, the sweet spot for me, in terms of signal strength is roughly between 800-1500km. Anything farther away gets weaker with distance, anything closer just passes right overhead. Of course, there are tons of variables here, and I'm working QRP, too.

Simplex Or transmitting into a repeater is exactly the same. Some research into bands and vhf and uhf is in order however lower frequencies like the 150s where murs is goes further if all other things are equal. I know a 2w Murs HT goes about 2Xs as far as a 5w gmrs HT.

HTs on the amateur bands are basically limited to VHF (6m, 2m, 1.25m) and UHF (70cm), so not really any different than GMRS (UHF). Mode (FM) and power levels are basically the same as well. It basically comes down to the things you already mentioned, like terrain, as well as antennas, availability of repeaters, etc. In my area there are a handful of GMRS repeaters, but there is at least one ham repeater in almost every city in my county alone. YMMV

Amateur radio spans almost the entirety of the RF spectrum, and LW, MW, and HF propagation are vastly different from VHF, UHF, and other much higher frequency band propagation. GMRS uses 65cm, which is very close to amateur 70cm. For those, propagation will be virtually identical; UHF 70cm and UHF 65cm GMRS will be identical. GMRS doesn't extend into VHF. Amateur radio has bands in 2m and 6m that can be described as VHF. VHF requires bigger antennas than UHF for similar gain characteristics. VHF suffers less from attenuation by foliage. But UHF is a little better at getting through walls. Both are "line of sight." Amateur offers 10m (a lot like CB propagation -- pretty long range during periods of high sunspot activity, line of sight at other times). Amateur offers 20m, 40m, 80m, 160m. These are the bands people use to talk all over the world, but they're subject to seasonal changes, day/night changes, sunspot activity, and so on. Not entirely reliable. You're probably asking about 2m/70cm amateur vs GMRS. And again, there, 70cm vs GMRS there's no practical propagation difference. 2m vs GMRS there can be some advantages to 2m if you have comparable gain antennas, which will be bigger. But the advantages are subtle.

As others have said, ham UHF vs GMRS, you won't notice a difference with HTs. VHF high (2m) will get a bit further under normal conditions. VHF low (6m, 50MHz) gets to the point that an adequate antenna is the issue for HTs. It will act the same as 2m without atmospheric propagation helping, but when propagation is open, there are thousands of stories of talking across the USA on only 5w.

High Frequency (HF) amateur bands have the greatest range, but propagation can vary. Yesterday I was easily able to talk to a ham many hundreds of miles away (Butte, MT to Chelan, WA), but at the same time I could not hear a ham who was thirty miles away in Anaconda, MT because our signals were passing over each other’s heads. GMRS has no range advantage over amateur UHF. Neither does amateur UHF have a range advantage over GMRS. Their ranges are practically identical. But, there are many times more amateur repeaters than there are GMRS repeaters and unlike GMRS the amateur repeaters may be linked together in networks. On Saturday I used my 70 cm handheld and talked to a repeater 30-40 miles away which was linked to a worldwide net at the time.

If I could find someone about 5 miles north of my location willing to host a repeater site, I could likely scrape up the cash to get it done. I don't think it would meet the goal if I did it where I am. These are small, rural communities in a low-income area. One has about 2,500 residents and the other (where I am) has about 350.

There are amateur only frequencies at the UHF range (not just HF). That frequency range is 420mhz - 450mhz. It's also referred to as the 70cm band. It seems to have very similar characteristics to the GMRS band as far as propogation, etc.

The interest in GMRS as a form of emergency communication here was sparked (not a pun) by the Camp Fire in Paradise, CA several years ago. That fire wiped out nearly the entire town in less than two hours. Utilities were all overhead, nothing underground. Within a few minutes, power, landline phones and cell service were all down. Paradise is an area with poor commercial radio or cell service on a good day. On that day, there was literally nothing to let the people know what was coming and how quickly it was moving. Nearly 100 people died. Last year, the Park Fire moved up a couple of ridges over and nearly wiped out the town of Cohasset. A repeater had been set up there a couple of years prior to that fire, and at least one resident told the repeater owner that he would have died had it not been for the information provided by his GMRS radio. Sometimes, there aren't any other forms of communication available.

Ameteur bands typically, due to the ionosphere being able to propogate the longer wavelength bands better than the UHF frequencies....with the right antennas and equipment you can communicate around the world on 5w with the 11m band.... *edit* can you tell i am studying to get a ham license?

Here is what I assume is a no brainer question for some. Given all things the same as far as terrain, radio, wattage, etc... Which would have more range in simplex, specifically HT comms, amateur bands or GMRS? The google machine is not giving me clear answers, plus I like bugging you fine people with my curiosities.

If a means of emergency communications is truly important, other members of the community should be willing to help pay to do it right.

I have actually thought about it. Unfortunately, my location is not ideal for what I would be attempting to accomplish. I would be trying to establish a means of emergency communication between two small communities about 10 miles apart in a rural area. Simplex on HT likely won't do it.

I agree with @WRKC935; you shouldn’t feel that way. Hopefully my answer didn’t contribute to you feeling that way. I hope you ask more questions and I hope someday you enjoy helping others here. There will always be those people who attempt to make themselves feel better by attempting to make someone else feel worse. @Socalgmrs is one of those people. He especially relishes trolling newcomers. You did nothing wrong! One of the features of the forum software is the ability to place other users on an ignore list. SocalGMRS is on my ignore list because I enjoy not seeing his trolling.

Don’t feel stupid. Ask your questions. There’s a great group of people here that are willing to help. A lot of this isn’t common sense knowledge and alot of the info online is hard to navigate for a newcomer.

In an effort to replicate "field conditions" I threw an Abbree tactical tape measure antenna into a tree in my yard about 15-20' up and connected it to the repeater with 40' of KMR400 coax. Unsurprisingly, the results were very terrain-dependent. To my S/SW, Red Hill blocks my signals pretty effectively and I get barely 1/2 mile. To my W/NW, where the hill only partially blocks me, I got a couple of miles. To the east, I was able to get 11 miles until I went down the far side of a ridge, and to the northeast I got 13. I wasn't able to test it to the southeast or due north because there are no convenient roads. Considering how little altitude I had, that's pretty good. If I were on top of Red Hill, I probably could get a good 15 miles in every direction. I plan to get a 25-30' push-up mast and a better antenna for my RV, which should give reasonably good range. If I can get a good location, it should allow us to make some pretty long trail rides and stay in contact.

I love reading the questions and answers. Keep asking! Welcome to the group! Best Regards!

You shouldn't feel that way at all. There are some here that seem to relish in making derogatory or incendiary comments for no apparent reason. They fail to remember that folks that are new to radio may still be learning about radio technology and inquire about things that folks with 30 plus years of experience just take for granted. So again, welcome to radio and try to enjoy it's benefits, but like everything else, remember you might run into some individuals that aren't as friendly about it as others.

Thank you so much for the info. This might be my last time asking a question on here. I feel kind of stupid asking questions that might seem like adding 1+1 to you guys.

Could've done without the last sentence. Seemed a little condescending but thanks anyway. Some people like learning the technical aspect of things. I'm one of those people. Sorry but I don't know what I don't know.

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