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Perhaps I should obtain a technician and general class ticket after all. That way you get both HF and FM and only need to purchase one radio. I am not interested in digital over the Internet communications. That just seems so millennial. I wouldn't know an iPad from an ink pad and have never even owned a cell phone (no cell towers in my valley).

Topic locked for the greater good.

Just stopping in to say hi! I just got licensed and got my Wuoxun KG-805G radio programmed (correctly I think) using CHIRP. Haven't heard any chatter on the simplex channels or on the only repeater listed as in my area. I'm thinking of getting my ham license this summer, but my wife is 100% not technical, so I'm hoping to find some other GMRS users in our area.

Hey folks! I know I said I was going to wait a few days... possibly a week... before my GMRS-50X1 features review, but I spent hours using this radio today and I had a great time. I figured I would just go ahead and get it out there. For the features review, I am going to start with the Cons this time. Since the quasi-tech review ended with the focus on the negatives, I would like to end this review with a positive vibe. Please keep in mind, this is purely opinion based after using the radio. There are tons of features... I am only going to cover what I believe would be the most common/popular to use among most people. Cons - 1.) While talking simplex to a station that is closer than 2 miles, I had to use low power, NFM and turn the mic gain down to 1. If not, the person I was talking to complained about audio clipping and audible popping sounds. After 2 miles, I could turn the mic gain back up and use WB FM. 2.) The display is going to be both in the Pros and Cons section. As some are aware, I daily drive a Jeep Wrangler. For at least 50% of the year, my Jeep has no roof and no doors. That fact brought out a big drawback for me. The display has no means of adjusting the brightness. Regardless of what I did, while the sun was out and the roof and doors were off, the display was 100% washed out. I literally could not tell the radio was on by looking at the display. At first, I put the soft top on, and the display was still heavily washed out, but was usable. I had to put on my top and my doors with 20% light transmission tint on the windows, before the display was good to use. Another drawback for the display is, there is a lot of very useful information in a tiny little spot. It takes a bit of focus to look at the display and get a feel for exactly what is going on. This is not good if you are driving and want to make a quick change. I found that I had to pull over to be safe while making minor adjustments. 2.) They advertise that it has NOAA radio built-in, but it really doesn't. The VFO covers a frequency spectrum that includes those frequencies. Not a big deal, but it is up to you to manually tune to those channels and save them to memory. 3.) You can't add new GMRS saved channels that are capable of transmitting. On my iCom, I have multiple saved channels for channel 15, for example. One with no DPL, one with tone coding and one with digital coding. Depending on who I am with or the group I am talking with, I need to use different values. With the BTech radio, I will have to manually change it every time. I am assuming this is so they could get FCC type approval. 4.) You can't transmit in VFO mode, at all, not even on GMRS frequencies. This was probably needed for FCC type approval. Still a drag that you can't manually dial to a GMRS frequency and use it. 5.) There are a lot of unneeded features and unusable functions that are locked out. Seems pointless to even have them because they will likely add a lot of confusion to new operators. Examples are Remote Stun which remotely disables transmitting and Remote Kill remotely disables transmit and receive. These are typically repeater management features that a typical GMRS mobile user just doesn't need. While the aforementioned features are present and function, there are a ton of other repeater related functions that are still in the menu, but you can't change them. It almost seems like they took a shortcut and used UV-50Xx software and just tweaked it for this radio. Pros - 1.) Range.... My son and I ran a field test today; both simplex and repeater use. Anyone who has read my quasi-technical opinion review, knows I was less than impress with what I saw. That said, going from my BTech mobile to my son's HT inside his car, we easily talked 5.5 miles in rough terrain and while I was on the blind side of a hill, 100 feet+ below the top of a hill and there were lots of trees, buildings, etc. between us. I was pretty impressed that we got that range with my son's radio "inside" his car, while driving, and he was using an HT that has a maximum power of 8 watts. That was more than twice as far as the results we had with another brand mobile I own... using the same HT. Once we were out of simplex range, we switched to a local repeater. I am 22 miles from the repeater as the crow flies. I was using low power (2.5w) WB FM. My son was 19 miles away from the repeater using the HT, on full power and WB FM. My son gave me the the same signal report as others. He said there was some noise on low power, but when I switched to medium power (18w) I was full quite and great audio quality. Given the RF signal quality I observed with analyzing tools, I am seriously shocked. 2.) While the display washed out very easily by the sun light, the display colors are extremely flexible, allowing the user to adjust the color contrast, making it easier to read as well as using font color to further segment the many items displayed on the screen. 3.) The owners manual states that the device has a 50% duty cycle. There is no power level specified, but I assume in low power. My son and I talked for more than 30 minutes, with most of my transmit time being at medium power and at about 35-40% duty cycle. During our conversation my son reported that there was no noticeable deviation of carrier or modulation. My receive quality stayed great the whole time as well. 4.) The radio only draws 3.5 amps while using the radio at full power, with the cooling fan running. The radio came with large gauge power wires. They are not labeled, but they measure about 2mm. They are likely 14 gauge, rated for 15 amps. That's a plus, as you are less likely to have voltage drop over the length of the wire and the fuse will pop long before the wires become a fire risk. 5.) While its not very useful for most cars/trucks, it does receive commercial FM Radio. This is great feature for vehicles that don't have a radio, such as ATV's, older work trucks, construction equipment, etc. 6.) You are able to monitor up to 4 frequencies and/or channels at once. The ability to mix monitoring VFO and Memory channels can be pretty handy. 7.) A cool feature that this radio has is, you can sync the displays in pairs of two. This can be a pretty neat feature. I set display A (top left) and display B (bottom left) to be in sync. This means when I change the channel on Channel A, channel B changes as well. The inverse also occurs. This allows a user to do things like have the channel Name displayed and the frequency displayed at the same time. You don't have to guess where you are if you are using channel names. 8.) This unit displays the DPL code and method on the screen. This is awesome, because you don't have to guess if your DPL is set or to what value. Its right there to read. 9.) This unit has a feature that is getting more popular; DPL scanning. If there is a group that is using DPL and you want to be part of the conversation, you can have the radio scan tone squelch and DCS values while the other station is transmitting and the radio will detect the value that the group is using. Indifferent - Something that is not really a pro or con... since we can only transmit on the hard-coded GMRS channels, 225 additional memory channels does not make a lot of sense to me. I'm sure some will love it. With the exception of programming the WX channels, I likely wont use any more than that. Summary - Quasi-tech review aside, if you are willing to tolerate some of the technology shortcomings I noticed in my radio (noted in another thread), for a low cost radio, this can be a lot of fun to play with. Sadly, the display washout is a deal-breaker for me, personally. However, I think I am in the minority there. In short, I am not going to recommend or condemn the radio. It's not for me, even with all the cool features. That said, I leave it to you to use my two threads as a tool to make an informed decision. I'm just 1 guy with one radio... but there it is. Thanks, Spaz

There are 1659 repeaters listed at myGMRS.com and assuming that 20% are inactive and or otherwise not on line, that still leaves 1328 repeaters. How many of those are WB versus NB? I would submit that most of them are surplus WB "legacy" repeaters. Many owners have a ton of money invested in them, so if GMRS were required to go NB only, I'd bet that many of them would simply pull the plug, thus impoverishing the utility of the service.

Okay... here are the X50a readings. They are pretty good considering the antenna was designed as an amateur radio repeater antenna. In the 462 range. http://fiveguysracing.com/marc/HAM-GMRS/x50a_on_GMRS/x50a_GMRS_Simplex_SWR.jpg In the 467 range. http://fiveguysracing.com/marc/HAM-GMRS/x50a_on_GMRS/x50a_GMRS_Repeater_SWR.jpg

Multiple post hit the nail on the head. I am working on the general ticket now. Boy just researching the antennas is giving me a headache. As an early birthday gift I got to choose a radio. So as I type this I am listening to the FT991a. Why that radio? 2 fold, 1 all band so I can utilize my tech fully. SSB, data, SSTV yada yada. 2. all band (HF)... so I can grow a bit without having to blow tons of money on another radio immediately. There just so many aspects to amateur radio then just calling CQ randomly. There are a million things to learn and do. Gmrs is great...2m is much more fun. From personal experience. The one thing that doesn't have to really do with the radio directly that amateur radio has over GMRS (for the most part) is the community. It is small but omg... never met a better bunch of people. Most will share advice, experience and even gear to get you on the air.

I know I personally made a comment about sharing channels with kids... but the was me just being a smart aleck. I actually think it would be a great idea. I'm a dad and a grandfather, so i understand wanting to keep the kids engaged and having fun. It's a family friendly radio service by design. That said... with young people being among our most vulnerable, i would keep an ear open. My amateur radio club did something similar, hosting a Kids Night net every week, on Saturday. We have our kids and grandchildren get on the radio and talk to each other. They have a great time. Some of them like it so much that they are studying to get their license.

The Trailblazer I drive has virtually no dash mounting options and the floor console mounting would have been hitting my legs or whomever was in the passenger seat if I mounted it there. That and having to take my eyes off the road more than I would like to adjust volume or change the channel, etc. almost had me ordering the MXT275. But I discovered the Kenwood KRK-10 remote conversion kit for the TK-8180. I was lucky enough to find a listing on Ebay that had the TK-8180 with the KRK-10 kit together for a good price (Still less than what the MXT275 would have cost so I grabbed it.) and popped it in the Trailblazer. The main unit sits under the passenger seat which make the run to power fairly easy since the Trailblazer fuse panel is under the rear seat. The last piece I added to this was 16 key mic that Kenwood offered. Well it was a clone of the TK-686 mic. It's keys can be programmed for any function that is available on the front panel. It did not take long for muscle memory to kick in and now I can change/adjust anything I want and my eyes never leave the road for more than an instant IF I want to verify the change on the display.

I am barely 3 weeks into GMRS and as impressed as I am with the performance of the GMRS radio over my prior use of CB MANY years ago, I am even more impressed with the community! Between the help I have gotten on these forums and the suggestions I have gotten while talking on the radio, I now have a system that FAR exceeds my initial expectations. So to everyone here and on the air: THANK YOU! Note to self: Try to leave well enough alone for now. Enjoy what you have before you "over tinker..."

Marc et all: I think you just boosted the gain on my motivation.

LoL yea, looks that way. With what I do for a living, I actually type truncated a lot (talking about log files, databases, etc.). My phone constantly changes correctly spelled words to other words it thinks I mean. I dont proofread enough and I keep sending messages I don't mean. An example.. a friend asked me if I wanted to buy a bicycle he was selling. I replied that I was to fat to ride a bike, but my phone changed it to I was to gay to ride a bike. Needless to say, my friend was very confused.

Using an old computer switching power supply likely won't work. First they are electrically noisy and will kill your receiver sensitivity. Second the designs use one of the low voltage outputs for regulation, 5 VDC - 3.3 VDC - ???, while the rest float around a bit. If the regulated output isn't loaded down enough it may not even start. We use a number of off the shelf switching power supplies where I work for some industrial controls. I have one right now in my office loaded down with a fat power resistor on the 5 VDC rail just to get the thing to turn on so I can use the other outputs for testing a project. About using it to charge a lead acid battery may not work well, if at all, since the high voltage outputs are a "nominal" 12 VDC on the computer power supply. You need around 13.5 VDC to 13.8 VDC to charge a "12 VDC" lead acid battery. Then there is the different charge stages to keep from damaging the battery, bulk - absorption - float, which is normally done by a smart charger. There is a bit of a difference between liquid filled, gell cell and AGM lead acid types on the charge and float voltages to content with.

Yup. I have some friends that have either the Ham Tech or GMRS license and are looking at getting the other one. For the $70 and good or 10 years why not get the GMRS license IMHO.

Exact same reason I have both GMRS and ham (technician) licenses. Emergency and vacation comms with the family, and ham for me to branch out further. All good, IMHO. Cheers, Ken WRFC318 / K0RVW

Yep, I read the manual and watched some video tutorials. CHIRP is just faster for me.