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Just an FYI, Baofeng has notified me that the mic extension cable is available. Soyou can mount the radio anywhere in your vehicleand just run the Mic cord to it. Link below. https://baofengtech.com/product/btech-5m-control-head-hand-mic-extension-cable-for-gmrs-50pro-male-to-female-shielded-16-4-ft/

well, my first guess, most vhf aircraft communictions, espeicaly commercial, is heavily monitored and recorded... My choice to have a somewhat private conversation with someone would be the lesser of the two..

That's OK. One other point to make. You don't really need a unique DMR ID to use DMR. FCC doesn't require it, and it's not a substitute for ID'ing using your call sign. So if you're not in the official database all anyone sees is garbage. Not to mention spoofing DMR ID's. Yeah people do that and since it's not illegal the FCC couldn't care less. For those than want to register and get a DMR ID this is the place. https://radioid.net/ I also have a NXDN ID too BTW through this site. I also believe people use their DMR ID as the digital ID for P25.

When all else fails, I generally "sniff" out the access tone, and go on the repeater and ask for permission.

You operate completely differently than I do but generally I don’t dismiss features that I don’t use that are important to others Put another way, I point out the limited Digital ID memory of the DM-32 for those whom the feature is important.

That's standard procedure for the military. We would always have at least one ground based forward air controller per brigade and usually had one per brigade combat team. And they used the low VHF band, 30 - 70 (88) MHz. IN the big Army units, the FAC's were always Air Force personnel. They always complained about living in the mud and muck with us ground pounders.

I have two D878UV's with it. Don't really use the feature. The problem is when scanning, which is what I usually do, when it stops it's so brief of a time that when I pick up the radio the info is gone. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/270-d878uv-model-1/ If I really want to read it I have to use the camera on the phone to catch it. Sort of misses the point.

You can’t miss a feature you don’t have. I use the screen’s showing of the caller’s Callsign all the time on my HT when I am not sitting at a desk with a pen and paper. One of the great benefits of digital!

I agree. When I bought my first DMR radio the fact that it could store 200,000 contacts seemed important. Since the I can count on three or four fingers how many times I have actually downloaded the list and loaded it into my radio. Of course within months 200,000 wasn’t enough, so the second time I chose to just load European and North America. Then just North America. Now, I don’t even bother.

Likely this. Aviation stuff is wildly expensive. I can definitely see them having 1 air-band radio, using that for unicom or tower frequencies, and then using GMRS or FRS for air-to-air comms. Slightly different use case, but Civil Air Patrol planes do something similar. Air-band for their aviation work, then air to air and air to ground (for SAR / other mission work) is VHF FM on their designated frequencies. (And can be configured as airborne repeaters, which is pretty rad).

My Kenwood commercial DMR radios can't download any digital ID data base, that's not their market goal, Amateur use. I don't miss it one bit. When one is running around with the radio in a pocket or on a belt, using a headset or speaker mic, I doubt anyone is going to yank it out to look at the display every time they hear something. That makes the builtin DMR database feature sort of pointless.

Not Boring at ALL ! Quite fun actually, especially for those of us who Don't have the real estate for Full size towers and hf antennas.

I can only speculate, but perhaps they reserve the air band radio for conversations with the tower and leave it tuned to that frequency. Chit chat on GMRS doesn’t affect that.

This begs the question, why bother using GMRS for aircraft to aircraft comms when you can just use the already installed VHF radios? When I've flown with my cousin in a group flights, that's how they did it. Other than the fact that other aircraft not having GMRS would then not be privy to your conversations?

A few months ago, and on ch. 16, I heard what appeared to be aircraft communicating here in the Phoenix Area talking about should they land at Sedona or Kingman for fuel.

I'm surprised that FR/GMRS does not have any altitude and power restrictions like Part 90 does. Part 90 restricts, or at one time restricted, the altitude not above 5,280 feet AGL and 10 watts.

The services that would be limited by FCC rule are the services that have height limits on antenna's. CB would be a good example. A CB antenna per the rules is limited to 50 feet AGL. So you couldn't use CB radios in an aircraft. Commercial radio under Part 90 would be another since at least repeater antenna's are both power and height limited per the issued license. GMRS really has no AGL restriction. The only thing in the rules regarding height is that if a mounting structure (tower) is over 200 feet that it be registered as an obstruction and properly lit within the guidelines of the FAA regulations for it's height. Ham radio is the same way. They aren't really height limited, they just need to follow the 'hazard to navigation' regulations that the FAA has for towers exceeding 200 feet in most area's and whatever regulation is imposed in area's around airports where there are additional restrictions.

I travel to Charleston a few times a year for work; probably my favorite location on the eastern seaboard. It is really surprising there are no repeaters there...most of the guys I know down there are the kind who would use them. Here in the DC area we have a big selection of powerful repeaters. Of the two I frequent the most, one is 30 miles away, the other 52 miles. I can talk on either from a handheld inside my home. I scan everything and we have far more GMRS than HAM traffic.

Thats cool stuff.

Range will be very good in an aircraft. We have a guy that flies a lot and we can talk to him for a long ways on 2m and 70cm. The range of 70cm will be pretty much the same as GMRS. We really get good range on the repeater while he is flying. The repeater antennas are at 900-950 feet on a 1000 foot tower. We are blessed to have access to the local radio station's backup tower.

It is perfectly legal to us GMRS radio in aircraft over the US and it's territories. I have talked to a friend of mine while in a private plane. I was mobile in Woodbridge Virginia and they were flying as far away as 47 miles from my location.

There you go…. I bet these guys get some good range…. …. &n

95.307…Operation of Personal Radio Service stations in any location outside of those described in the following paragraphs is not authorized by this part. (B)Aboard any vessel or aircraft registered in the United States. With the permission of the captain, while the vessel or aircraft is within or over the United States or its territories, U.S. territorial waters, or upon or over international waters. So, it appears it’s allowed.

There is an aerial acrobatic group that practices out here every Thursday and they use GMRS (or FRS) channel 6, and I've wondered the same thing... But haven't wondered enough to bother looking it up either.