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Thanks for the info, i am getting close to being confident in passing the technician license, so thats one step closer, but my wife isnt too excited about being a "radio dork"....LOL i would likely have better luck trying to skip 11m to her truck cb than getting her to get any sort of ham ticket...

There’s always the National Traffic System. https://www.arrl.org/nts Volunteers relay messages from point to point every day. It doesn’t get much use these days but we have a daily net designed to accept and deliver traffic. There’s also WinLink, which many of us use and which works like email for hams.

Well what the hell, I’ll jump in. I had a very good experience with BTWR customer service. I had a KG-Q10H and the last call icon didn’t work. I sent it back to them and they replaced it. They were pleasant and quick, my replacement was in the mail before I knew they received the one I sent back. They treated me great! The warranty is good for a year. I feel if you’re going to have an issue it’s likely going to show up before the warranty expires. At least this has been my experience. As for my Wouxun radios I have six, three or four are out warranty and continue to work.

Yeah, thats the sort of thing that actually got me looking into radios, was the rapid radios ads on my local talk radio, thinking hmmm... that could come in very handy having long range comms for an emergency....but then find out that they all use LTE, so its kinda pointless in a situation where a cell phone wouldnt work.... for context on this, my wife is an over the road trucker, so having long distance comms for us is vital.... especially considering that any given truck load that she hauls "could" put her right in the path of a blizzard, hurricane or tornado... Still havent found a viable/reliable setup past cell phones for these types of situations unfortunately...

I can’t speak for the Admiral, but to me choosing “Scan for Tones” from the menu seems automatic. I don’t know how much more automatic it could be.

Can't argue with an Admiral!

For GMRS... 100% agree.

CW - "Continuous Wave" - Basically... Morse code

I get those all the time, I usually just "X" them out.

I was joking with the digital mode thing since they said "off-grid communications" (although Rapid Consulting's "nationwide radio" uses LTE which does feel like cheating), but on the topic - I've talked to a couple of local hams on a club repeater and they were all about it. It's not their main thing, but they had lots of recommendations if I ever wanted to get into it. Seems like there's quite a few Fusion repeaters around here but they also told me I could just set up a Pi Star hotspot and run whatever I wanted.

Well, you can always get you one of these..

I agree, but I don't see another way to remain within GMRS, unless you use two antennas and mount them like a dipole and only use 1/2W. I have a trunked P25 P1 "site" in my living room where the CC is 0.05MHz below the VC, RX antennas are pointed up, and TX antennas are left and right away from each other. Works well, but it's only putting out 0.1W. In theory, its a $7+M idea that would likely just become space junk before it is used.

Finding something that is going to be more than 5-6m/18-20 feet tall at a decent price is gong to be a challenge. Giga Parts has a tripod with 18 ft telescoping pole for $199. https://www.gigaparts.com/intellitron-am-2509ex-18-ft-telescopic-fiberglass-mast-with-tripod-stand.html

I'm a member there as well, and I sometimes get a little salty when people do that. I tell them to be Elmer, not Mr. Magoo. I do get good information sometimes, but I often have to sift through some trash. With regard to the Linux forums, the Ubuntu forum is usually helpful. I mostly avoid the others.

Cue the "that's not real radio" SadHam comments!

An oldie but a goodie. That one's been hammered to death by the Hams, both Happy and Sad over the last couple of years. Yeah, with EchoLink or DMR/C4FM, etc., et al, I can talk thousands of miles on my handheld. But I prefer the old school nothing between me and the other guy than the ether...

yup, that matches my experience too.

You are around 4 miles from one of the strongest repeaters in the area on 462.675Mhz with a 50 mile radius. I used to be able to hit it from Pensacola on occasion. Channel 6 is only 12.5kHz away (462.6875Mhz). If the repeater is running wide band, running slightly off frequency, your receive is off or sensitivity/selectivity sucks, etc.. it could sneak through. Is the id the same as the repeater on 462.675?

why would I want to get any of these? more relevantly, what's it to you? you work for BTWR or just a fan of that store? speaking of the KG-935G - BTWR did a botched job on its NOAA channel, so they later release the KG-935Plus, but not as an exchange, but an full price upgrade. I know, I have both of these radios clearly, BTWR, and you, apparently, think that they are a monopoly. They ain't! But if a lot of their customer base does indeed believe that they are, yet another solid reason for me to go elsewhere.

Will have to look at that when I can get on a PC. It may be the version that only works with a paid account, or they may have put the free one back since I last looked (been some months). not that it matters much with them killing the pc version off later this month.

Ok, let us know what those other options are for getting a new KG-1000G or KG-935G.. or 805G ....

No, but I will go to vendors who try to help even with a radio is out of guarantee. I have had good experiences so far with BetterSafeRadio and their latest KG-UV9GX+ looks rather sexy (see here: https://bettersaferadio.com/wouxun-kg-uv9gx-plus-gmrs-radio-shtf-scanner). And there are other vendors and distributors out there. There are always options even if BTWR think that they are irreplaceable

Or.... Both kinds of Music, Country and Western.

When my old club put a repeater up, it cost over $7M. I doubt we would pull that kind of money together on crowd-fund... but it's fun to joke about. I wouldn't put a mobile duplexer in orbit. That would be a disaster waiting to happen.

Radio-Dork term for Morse-Code.