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Ah, yes. Corey will have lots to add here as his dealings have gone much further. Long story short, the guy is a nutcase and I had to ban him from myGMRS after constant nonsense. It started with him trying to list dozens of fake repeaters claiming he has hundreds of repeaters he was going to personally finance and put up all over the country for everyone to use for a fee. Needless to say, he lives in a trailer in the middle of nowhere and everything he said was a lie. Don't send any money whatever you do! If you're going to waste perfectly good cash, at least go spend it in our store so you get something in return, and not empty promises.

Everyone in your immediate family would all use the same call sign. You all have to ID with the call sign every 15 minutes of conversation and at the end of the conversation, regardless of the duration. You can add additional identifiers if you would like. An example would be, everyone in my family would use ABCD123, but I may ID my station as ABCD123-ALPHA. My wife would ID as ABCD123-OMEGA. My son could be ABCD123-BETA. Again, the add-on ID is optional... but legal. For what it's worth, no one in my family uses add-ons. We all just use ABCD123 and call each other by name.

A legend in his own mind, a super hero to all GMRS users and radio extraordinaire guys nuts, I trolled him for about a year, I know more about this guy than he does himself. Mr. Becker Just so you know who I am, I'm a 66 year old individual who spent most of my working life (over 30 years) within the two-way radio communications field as a dealer, service center, tower owner, designer and mobile data public safety systems provider. Plus I have also applied for and was granted more licenses by FCC than you will probably ever be in your life time William R Howell, GMRS License Call Sign: WQYX489 CEO, USGMRS Repeater & Users Group Association

The 221 is a rock solid performer. I have many of them in SAR and also for GMRS. Other than one display that went bad on a 4 wheeler they seem to tick away.

Radio looks good man, I'd say look for a used one on eBay, might be cheaper, but if money is no concern, 175 isn't that bad... in fact, is not bad at all considering how expensive LMR gear is these days. G.

I have no doubt the radio will meet your needs. ICOM builds a solid product. I suspect you could do a little better on price if you looked at other similar quality radios, like: Motorola, Vertex Standard (now Motorola) and Kenwood. But, it is new and you know the radio. So, as long as you can program it, or get it programmed, I don't see any issues. However, the radio, while Part-90 certified, is not Part-95 certified. So, if you care about things like that, well this won't meet your needs. On the other hand... Well, that's up to you

Hello Welcome to the group

Welcome to the group!

I'm not trying to endorse any specific battery, and I am not affiliated with the company in any way, but I have had very good luck in the past with Rayovac brand alkaline batteries. I can usually find them at MUCH cheaper prices than the Energizer or Duracell brands, and they work every bit as well. This statement is based on my experience and opinion. As always, YMMV.

Tip... Make sure any radios you will not be using on a regular basis can run on Alkaline (or lithium) batteries. Then store two or three sets of batteries with, BUT NOT IN, the radios and tag each set with the date. Never leave batteries in or connected to a radio you will not be using in a regular basis. Also, make sure everyone knows how to install and change the batteries. Then, once year replace one set of batteries (choose the oldest set if they are not all the same age) with a fresh set and use the, now surplus batteries, in some non-essential device. BTW, Although virtually all even half-decent radios come with rechargeable batteries, many, like the Baofengs, have optional packs that can hold alkaline batteries.

Im using a headache rack to mount antennas on my ford Superduty. The GMRS antenna is mounted on the top center of the rack. It is a unity gain (6") nmo mount on a 6"x6"x1/16 plate. Also on the headache rack are co-phase 4' firestick 5/8 wave antennas. They are 5'6" apart and mounted on plates 4 inches behind the rack. Both antennas are completely exposed to each other. The rack is bonded to the bed with 4 8ga stranded coper wires. The rack is also bonded to cab with 4 8ga stranded copper. I am also running a 30 mHz low filter on the system before it splits to co-phase. This brought swr down to 1.1.

No problem Elkhunter, or should I call you Elmer J Fudd (Sorry its the Icon lol.) While I like the reliability of Motorola products, the prices of software, and the fact that older units required special equipment to program them, kinda turned me off of motorola for anything other than the repeater. Because of that, I have been used Kenwood 380/880 radios. The nice thing is that they all use the same software and they are all set up exactly the same. Basically, my trucks mobile radio is keyed the same as my brothers portable, and my mothers mobile.

Ok, after a little bit of playing with the FPP, I figured it out. First you need to follow all the steps to enable FPP, this includes remove a resister and enabling FPP through the software. to enter FPP, press and hold "D" while the radio boots up, you should see "Self Prog" Press Mon, then you can select the group/channel you wish to program (I believe D switches between channel and group) Press B and it will let you scroll through the band. Pressing A switches your step size for faster scrolling Enter your RX frequency Press B and youll get RSX ----- This is where you put your tone info in. Pressing MON or SCAN switches between CTCSS and DCS, the right hand up and down arrows should change the tone number. Press B and you have your TX frequency, enter that in and press B TSX is your input code, enter the same way you did RSX and press B Few more options pressing B to accept till it gets back to the group/channel screen and your all done.