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Gawd I hate politicians!!!! They tell me what radios i can use. The tell me what guns i can own (i know, not for this forum) But damnit, I dont hurt people I dont tell people what to think. Why cant Politicans just leave me alone!, Ok, thxank you for letting me vent! If thes dialog is innapropiate for this forum. PLEASE DELETE IT.

Roger that. GMRS-Chat has more traffic, although it's not restricted to licensed users and doesn't go out on RF. I find that at times the NWI GMRS Repeater channel gets really busy. And it's restricted to licensed users.

Then, at 60 mph, what mic were you using? My truck has 4 mics. 6 meter, 11 meter (cb) 2 meter / 70cm Gmrs

Good luck for whenever you take the test for tech licenses.

Throw a lot of salt in it. Make radio waves great again!

Omni's fall into a similar issue. While there are some dual-band 2m/70cm vertical antennas that cover from 440-470 MHz, the gain is very low. As gain increases, the bandwidth narrows and so does the takeoff angle, impacting sensitivity between stations with elevation difference. So, if you have the expendable income, you can test it. However, don't be surprised if the lower gain of a broad band antenna doesn't help much. I have to agree with RCM on getting two service-dedicated Larsen welded Yagis. That's going to be your best bet, relating to both performance and price.

Used-radios has them cheaper, and they will program it for you: https://used-radios.com/products/icom-ic-f221-mobile-radio-series

Searching that page: both Montana and Idaho have laws 'pending' in their legislatures but cities in both states have their own hands-free laws. And, as Downs said, "Y'all are assuming the cops even know the ins and outs of these laws.", there's a chance you'd have to argue with an officer even if you were on a two-way radio that's exempt from the law... the officer might not know. Arguing with a cop can turn a good day bad in a hurry.

No critique needed. This looks like a great solution for your particular installation. ...and even fairly in-expensive. As for the radials being longer than the calculated length, keep in mind that an NMO feed point is elevated up from the plane level, thus the plane surface area will need to be slightly longer. Follow Laird's directions.

Ohio is trying to sneak in a law that essentially only lets the cops text and drive (and wreck and kill you).

I wouldn't recommend doing this. The signals on the ribbon cable are very likely logic signals, some anyway, that have sharp rise and fall times thus a high frequency content. Extending the ribbon cable would be the equivalent of a transmission line. If the line was not terminated in the proper impedance at each end then you get reflections. Those appear as high frequency ringing on the logic level transition edges. The voltages can ring above the supply and below ground which can result in damage to the chips on the boards if they exceed the max spec values. Additionally the ringing will look like extra logic transitions further confusing the logic on the boards. Once in my younger days I tried to use the expansion slot on the back of my then new TRS-80, it ran between 2 to 3 MHz, using a 2 to 3 foot long un-terminated ribbon cable to the solder less breadboard. I wanted to try experimenting with some computer controlled hardware. The computer wouldn't even boot to the built-in BASIC interpreter until I removed the cable. Lucky nothing was damaged. Lesson learned.

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

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.

But it's important to realize when it's not practical to pay for more selectivity. Good commercial handhelds have enough selectivity to allow full-duplex operation by one operator, with a few feet of antenna separation. Good mobiles do better than that. If that's not enough desense protection, there's other issues at play. There's no improvement to be made if there isn't an issue, so it's just wasted money and/or lost functionality. CCRs work just fine as transceivers for 99% of the population. Yes, they don't work in the busy RF environments found at an enthusiast's base station, a command post, or when working near other operators on different in-band channels. They're cheap, show people what the hobby can offer, and include a lot of features (like FPP and ridiculous channel capacity) that new operators need to find their niche within the hobby and understand what parameters need to be configured to operate cleanly on someone else's system. And when they break (probably due to a novice operator blowing out the finals or dropping it), it's not a big investment being lost. They exist in the market for a reason: because they do work, unlike what the topic's title implies. They wouldn't sell if they didn't. It's important to understand their limitations, but they're not as severe as you're making it out to be.

Anyone using a Bridgecom Repeater (and duplexer) for GMRS? I have some resources coming and was considering putting up a repeater. (I have a good location for it. Not where I live, but family on hilltop overlooking the city.). I was thinking about going the amateur 1.25m (220) route at first, but now considering GMRS as it’ll likely get more use and would be open to some of the folks I have in mind (mainly family). I plan on having it completely open for public access. Bridgecom just caught my eye and was curious if anyone is using one of their repeater/duplexer products. I have a BCH-220 (1.25m) HT from Bridgecom and if that’s any indication, then their repeater/duplexer products should be good as well. Their customer support also seems to be very responsive. Thanks...

I completely forgot about this post. The repeater was sold for the asking price and is now sitting on a mountain top tower in Oregon...

I have TK-3170, three of them. Repeater splits, tones, groups, scan, flexible assignment of all buttons. Just as flexible as TK-880 or maybe even more. For models without the 0-9 keypad DTMF tones may me programmed as selectable from menu assigned to one of the 6 available buttons. If it is important to you, 3170 is Part 95A radio, do not know about 3180. 3170 is significantly bigger and heavier than Baofengs, looks like 3180 is even taller.