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Just signed up earlier today, and wanted to offer my hellos. Many many moons ago I dabbled in CB (those moons were in the late 80's), and for a little while held a class three radiotelephone operators license (which I think is now a general radiotelephone operator license) as part of broadcast classes I took in high school. Through most of that time I had an interest in obtaining an amateur radio license, but never could get proficient enough to morse to pass the novice test. I recently caught the bug again, and decided to actually jump in with both feet. Just got my GMRS call sign, and was kind of taken back at the current cost compared to what it was the last time I looked at it; and am going to start prepping for the amateur technicians license soon. (hooray for no code test!) My only radio at the moment is a Baofeng UV-5R, and still just has the stock antenna. There isn't much GMRS activity around me (at least that I can pick up with the stock antenna), but I have been enjoying monitoring some of the 2m, and 70cm traffic around me, and hope to stumble across a few more GMRS users to make contact with soon. If anyone has any recommendations for a good antenna for the UV-5R to use with GMRS, or a good 2m/70cm antenna for when I to get that license, I would appreciate the info. I've been out of radio for so long it's all a bit overwhelming.