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Yep, Marc is right. Unfortunately my experience with more power is even bleaker than Marc's experience, b/c for me, going from 5 to 50 on GMRS netted zero additional miles, yep, you heard that right: nada, zip, zero.... which pretty much proves what Marc's post stated: "If your in a bad spot, it won't matter how much power you're running." May I ask what is it that you're trying to do? A Base to Mobile? Base to Portable? Mobile to Portable? Portable to Portable? Also, for whatever is worth, as a former Baofeng addict, always running on Baofeng budgets, etc, always mesmerized by their fancy color screens and pretty LEDs, etc; I had to get out of that trend of thought and buy higher quality (with no color screens, nor fancy and useless bells and whistles) commercial grade Vertex Standard radios, which draw rings around the BTech stuff where it matters: in the RF performance department... with tighter receivers (key factor) that won't desense in high RF environments, which nowadays is pretty much anywhere near a city larger than 500 souls population.... G.

You noted you want to keep your power as low as possible. Just curious what the reason is. I agree that the difference between 10 and 15 watts is negligible (+1.75 dB). Most users (including me) can barely notice a doubling of transmit power (5W to 10W, or +3 dB), even if the user is noisy; they may start to notice a difference if you quadrupled your power (5W to 20W, or +6 dB increase). I always try and improve things by +9-10 dB to make a noticeable difference. While 9 dB can be attained going from 5W to 40W in one shot, you likely have a good reason for not going there. So get this 9-10 dB from a combination of things - maybe increase power slightly and improve antenna gain slightly. Maybe go from 5W to 20W (+6 dB), and use a yagi that **has 3 dB greater gain** than your current antenna. That gets you 9 dB total. Your cable loss is like -1.2 dB (cable plus connector losses). You could halve this to -0.5 dB using better cable (e.g., LMR400 cable), but the cost is high for little gain, considering you are aiming for 9-10 dB overall. If possible, change antenna height/position to eliminate close-in obstructions (buildings, trees). This can give you 6-9 dB in one shot in some cases. Finally - if the radio has a "Wideband/Narrowband" setting, make sure you operate "Wideband" or "Wide" if operating through the vast majority of repeaters. This alone can gain you +3 dB of effective improvement, particularly if you are already weak. Also - if you have a SWR or watt meter, or know somebody who does, make sure the antenna system is performing. Also - make sure you are not trying to use a UHF amateur radio antenna designed for 440-450 MHz, for 462/467 MHz. Some amateur antennas work great on both, but most don't. Sorry for all the math. We use dB because the values can be easily added and subtracted; easy math for my simple and lazy mind.

Agreed. On field testing, mobile to mobile, bumping the power from 5 watts to 50 watts only netted an additional 1/4 mile. That's it. The only time I can see any benefit to boosting power is in a flat-out life or death emergency and you are trying to increase the odds of someone/anyone hearing you. And even then, if your in a bad spot, it wont matter how much power you're running.

No, they're built better than that. Look inside the radio and you'll see a well-built double conversion receiver architecture. These perform much better than the RF-frontend-on-a-chip Baofengs. Don't jump to the Baofeng conclusion without looking at internal photos. A radio with a frequency range below 450 MHz cannot receive Part 95 type acceptance due to 95.1761(c ).

True. Even on my radios with 50 watt settings i rarely run that power level. I certainly dont feel "undergunned" running my 25 watt PM400. Even on that radio i typically run on "low" power which i have programed as 5 watts. Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

Why so much power? Do you really know how much power you actually need? Blasting the airwaves with more power than you need should be avoided. Maybe a quality gain antenna properly installed and that 5.1 watt radio will do the job. anything more would just be noise for other users.

Thanks for the help guys, I appreciate the advice and help with this. I can say that the receive side of the radio is fine to me. I'll have to try my yagi and 15' of Belden-7807A, RF200 outside and see how it performs.

It takes a KPG-46. Here is the one I bought, and the seller I bought it from: https://www.ebay.com/itm/USB-Kenwood-Programming-Cable-TK-780-TK-880-KPG-46p/152618254912?hash=item2388c1c240:g:JnkAAOSwytJaBd~n I've programmed TK-880s, TK-780 and TK-981s with it. Works perfectly. BlueMax49ers stands behind his cables, too. If you ever decide to get a TK-981 (which I recommend because there are some on ebay now for about the same price as TK-880s) and avail yourself of the 900 MHz repeaters that are in your area, that software and cable will program them too. There is also a really good network of GMRS repeaters in your area, which I'm sure you are already aware.

5.1 watt is good on UHF, they only preform at anything close to 8 watts on VHF,