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I went outside with my longer 771 antennas on 3 of my radios(AR-5RM, BF-F8HP Pro, and UV-K61) and the 3" antenna on my UV-5R and the longer antennas hit about 5 or 6 of the programmed repeaters, the UV-5R hit about 3 which I think is still pretty good for being in the 'burbs and miles away from the White Tanks. I can't wait to give 6M a try with the RT-880. If I could get 15 or 20 miles Simplex I'd be happy since 6M should skip a bit and not have to totally be Line of Sight like VHF/UHF is. I'm so glad I got my HAM Tech. License. This opens up a lot more Frequencies to play with vs GMRS/MURS.

Good job getting that all configured! And congratulations on your new call sign KM7BVY.

There are a lot of variables to take into account. But it doesn't surprise me about you having a weak signal with an HT inside the house. Metal buildings, metal roofs, old wood lath and plaster walls with chicken wire, bad electric wiring, etc can play havoc on radio signals. And the cheap Amazon LED light bulbs can be very noisy too.

I guess I've got everything programmed properly. I was getting automated returns from some of the local Repeaters and I even got a call back from a YL that said I had a weak signal with a lot of static, go figure, I'm using my BF-F8HP Pro from inside the house. I'm sure it's only pushing 5 or so watts. At least the HAM Repeaters are in operation, no deal for the Shaw Butte GMRS Repeater, it's still down and out.

I checked and everything was ok. I'm going to try to make my first contact. KM7BVY Over and Out. 73's.

30 Mile LOS requires a 600 ft elevation approx. Pretty sure that's not going to happen with him. 100' which is reasonable is still only about 12-15 miles.

Thanks guys. I guess I will have to work on getting my tower taller.

Yes that chart can definitely confuse people. It shows both 1.00 MHz and 1.6 MHz split for the 1.25m/220 MHz band.

Yes GMRS Live has been shut down and also why you can't download the software anymore. If you really do not care about the FCC rules then you can always try and get an Allstar node with a UHF SA818 radio to work for GMRS. But good luck with that one since Allstar Link and Allmon3 are written specifically for use on amateur bands. You are overcomplicating things and also are going to spend more money than needed. Just go with a single repeater along with a good commercial antenna. And get the antenna up as high as you can get it. Also make sure to use quality coax to connect the repeater and antenna.

Thanks....I probably should have read the submission date on the FCC site. My attention span continiues to diminish.... G

There is now an H-8 version 3 out there now that has airband and bluetooth programming like the H3. I recently bought one. It is nice to have the extra power, and the larger kepad is nice at times. But the H-8 still does not have a usb-c programming connection like the H3. It also does not have the two PTT buttons like the H3 has. Sometimes I like the larger design and sometimes the smaller H3 is more convenient. So I like and find both to be useful. Oh and I was also able to wireless transfer my codeplug in the H-3 into the H-8 very quickly and easily.

He only just submitted it 12 hours ago. The electrons haven’t cooled down yet.

I have fun running various OS's in a VM. I haven't had any luck getting Mac OS X Sequoia VM to work yet, kernel panics. Sierra seems to run OK. I use Tumbleweed when on the Internet, like now.

You’re right. 1.25 meter is 1.600 MHz. It can get really confusing. Here’s a link to a chart that makes it even more confusing: https://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Offset

So, .600MHz, got it. It's odd that 1.25M is +/-1.600MHz, at least to me it is. I need to go double check my 2M off-sets.

Did the Commission ever respond to this, or even acknowlege it?

Every once in a while you may stumble across an "odd split" repeater frequency, rare but they are out there. If you end up getting some commercial grade radios the programming is a bit different. For those they don't assume any kind of offset. You have to enter in BOTH the discrete transmit and receive frequencies. None of mine have any entries for an "assumed" offset, unlike many Ham grade radios. https://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Offset

We know, but you told us that you didn’t need to be told about the FCC rules.

It’s frequency based. For VHF such as 2 meters it’s actually 0.600 MHz offset and it can be either plus or minus. For UHF such as GMRS or 70 cm it’s 5.00 MHz and for the ham frequencies it can be plus or minus, but for GMRS the FCC put the repeater input frequencies in the regs. The frequency that’s given is always the frequency that the repeater transmits and your radio receives. For the frequency your radio transmits you apply the offset. You uplink (transmit) to the repeater and you downlink (receive) from the repeater. You really will pick it up. You’re doing great. It’s just that the fire hose is so big right now. Edited to add: most of the better ham radios automatically select the correct offset value based on frequency, but sometimes you have to override the direction.

I noticed while programing some Repeater Channels into my radios that in 2M it's +/- 6MHz, 1.25M is -1.6MHz(didn't see any +1.6MHz on the list) and 70cm(kind of like GMRS) is +5MHz. So RX(transmit to the Repeater) is the frequency that's given then you off-set that by the given MHz for your TX frequency. Do I have that right? Of all the radio stuff Repeaters has to be the one thing that I have trouble with in regards to TX an RX. TX will ALWAYS be the one with the off-set, + or - whatever it is and RX is the listed Frequency. I think I've got my head wrapped around it. Also, just to add, "Uplink" is the Freq. I TX(send) to the Repeater and "Downlink" is the Freq or RX the Repeater sends back to me. If they'd just say RX or TX instead of Uplink and Downlink it'd be a lot simpler for me to understand but I think I've got it.

I don't know about the F8HP Pro, but with some Baofeng radios, the channels in CHIRP will be grouped according to where you assign them in the channel number sequence. For example, the UV-17 Pro GPS has 10 banks of 100 channels each. Everything in slots 1-100 will be assigned to Bank 1, everything in 101-200 will be assigned to Bank 2, etc. It may be the same with your radio.

We all want to pay $30 for $150 worth of radio! If you don’t like digital, we ate not holding our breath waiting for you to use it!

They shut down. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuKoknU2ewg

OK, the Radtel 880 is back on the list. I found out you can program it via USB-C and they include a programming cable so no need for that "fancy" cable. I also like that you screw in the HF antenna instead of it being a 3.5mm plug like the TK-11 has. It'll still be a couple 3 weeks before funds become available so I can watch more YouTubes and do more research. In the mean time Thanks for all the replies. 73's

Understandable. The goal was finding a spot where those that want to use digital voice have a "home", and not impact those who are happy with analog FM. The proposed changes allows those who want to continue to use FM won't notice a difference. The manufactures would have a choice which grade of radio they want to provide. For example right now in the EU one can buy cheap simple analog only PMR446 radios, or spend more money and buy one with digital functions too. There isn't any reason to force manufacturers to sell only the more expensive combo analog/digital models. The market place will take care of that if the demand is there.