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Does anyone know if repeaters in the Roscommon/ Grayling area are linked to for instance Saginaw or Metro Detroit? A guy on Mackinac Island was able to come through on Mount Clemens or Detroit repeater recently and I'm curious what he was connected to. My brother is trying to figure out what repeater he might be able to use while in Roscommon.

Bummer, I believe I only have a mic jack in the back unlike a handhelds. Of course the manuals do nothing for me. Wondering if I just plug a mic cord between them or mic cord from 628/629....Hmm.

Yes, they need to be connected together. Surecom makes a couple of controllers (628 and 629) which might work. However, desense frequently occurs when trying to cobble together a repeater from two transceivers and you might want to run the transmitter at low power if you anticipate much use.

Repeaters are required to transmit the call sign at the end of a conversation and every 15 minutes while in use. Most don’t transmit their call every 15 minutes when not in use because that would be annoying to anyone who monitors the repeater. So, after a repeater has been on standby for awhile and someone tries it or kerchunks it, many repeaters will issue their call sign. As far as what inverse and normal means, DCS is a digital code rather than a tone like CTCSS. So it’s really a series of 1s and 0s. For instance 5 is normally 00000101. If you invert it, it’s 11111010. Often, DCS codes are expressed with either an N or an I as part of the code to denote whether it’s Normal or Inverted. If neither is included most of us assume N for Normal.

Hello gang. I've been playing with these a little while, enough to work them but new enough to venture neck deep. I am fooling around with building a repeater with two of these radios. I realize my connector and cable collect will expand. I have a 100W duplexer, two DB40-G radios in service (which will test my toy before purchasing more). I have an antennae which will work for this game. 1) Do they need to be connected together (mic wire, controller, etc...)? 2)Depending on the previous answer, what would be recommended? This is a fun project which is relatively low budget. Sorry that I have not added a clever sign off below but its coming.

The number of hams that I know that are also musicians is surprising to outsiders. There must be some kind of brain function that links the two.

The Queen is never wrong. Once we thought (s)he was, but she was mistaken!

Your loyalty will be remembered and rewarded when the day comes...

I was not trying to correct. I know nothing (can't even connect to a repeater without help). You are, "The Queen of GMRS". Love your content.

Welcome, 874! Looking forward to catching ya on the air. Plenty of folks here to help you grow your knowledge. Don't hesitate to ask a question. Welcome to the GMRS family!

Thanks for your help gents! I was able to hit the repeater last night on the Wouxun KGS-88G. I joined the repeaters weekly net to verify. The repeater's owner told me that the Baofeng radios have two separate lists of DCS codes, one is "inverted" (don't know what that means, yet) and the repeater uses the non-inverted code. I will test it out tonight on the local Skywatch net that uses the same repeater.

Hello everyone, I'm WSIW874 Troy, I live in Lewisburg. I'm extremely new to GMRS. I've only had my license for a week or two. I have 3 baofeng uv-5r radios that I have only monitored some of the ham repeaters in my area. That's the extent of my radio knowledge. I'm very willing to learn more.

I stand corrected and you are correct - I just realized the same thing with my KG-905G PLUS radio.. It seems there is some leeway in interpreting the FCCs rules on radios that do not have a full keypad.

I actually can transmit in FREQ mode on the Wouxun, not on the Baofeng.

No. It seems like these tones are just transmitted every 15 minutes. I just happened to coincide with my test.

Those will work just fine.

Um, yea, i was looking to see if those were still some of the better options out there or if there was anything better.

I just wish there weren’t 40 varieties of radios from them. It gets hard to figure out what’s different about all of them and which ones are newer. They have a dizzying amount of models.

"it was you...i learned it by watching you alright"

One would think, but I’ve had some Baofengs that just wouldn’t connect unless the width setting was aligned.

Thanks! I will stick with my RD-5R and DM-5R with memory chip upgrade modifications: I have all the batteries I need, except maybe a USB-C or two. They do Ham 2 meters and 440 MHz, GMRS and MURS and DMR.

You watched the wrong Youtube videos if you are only seeing stuff that is 2 or 3 years old. The high-end, QUALITY YouTubers review all new GMRS radios as soon as they are available .. ...just sayin...

I have recently come to appreciate NOAA weather alerts coming to my HT. I’m also looking to move up in my radio selection and I think this might be a good time to upgrade. i’ve watched a lot of YouTube videos and did some research but most of the information is 2 to 3 years old. What would be some recommendations for an GMRS HT that is somewhat water resistant and has the ability to receive NOAA weather alerts? BTECH GMRS PRO and Wouxun 935 plus seem to show promise.

Thank you very much!!