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I hear DTMF tones all over Nebraska on MURS. I looked into it a year ago, and found out that several farms in the area use MURS for a remote monitoring and telemetry system for their crop irrigation systems and water wells. There is also at least one company making MURS remote alarm systems for farm buildings and gates. MURS is legal for all of those kinds of things, so that's likely what you're hearing. Most people using MURS for these types of operations do not even know what frequency or band they are using. All they know is that they purchased this wireless thing that lets them know back home when someone opens the pasture gate, and they have another wireless thing that tells them how many gallons per minute the pump is flowing.

You are mixing apples and oranges. A 32” UHF antenna is almost certainly a high gain antenna and requires a ground plane. A 15” UHF spike would more likely be a half wave, no ground plane antenna with low gain, probably 2.4 db or so. A quarter wave, unity gain spike at GMRS freqs is about 6” and requires a ground plane of about 6” in all directions. You easily find an NMO base adapter with trimmable radials. Personally, I’d put my first effort into the very low profile quarter wave option due to best survival of tree branches. Hint: read the full description and specs for each antenna to avoid inappropriate comparisons.

I just received mine and have had it a couple of days. Have compared it to the BTech GMRS-v1. This radio blows it away. RF performance is amazing and I can hit all of my local repeaters from inside my house. One of them almost 30 miles away. The circuitry is way superior to the radio on a chip unit. Wish the buttons were rubber instead of hard plastic. Screen viewing angle isn’t that great either. But the little cosmetic flaws aside it’s RF performance justifies the cost completely.