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I think there should be a renewal component to registration. I know of a listing of about 20...and I'm not sure if even one of them is on the air. Some people list them to try to keep others from using the channel and others list them...well as the dream of owning a repeater. I don't like that 2% of people are making the resource inaccurate.

Ditto what @marcspaz said. And, I'd ask, what is your use case? Do you have a portable you want more power output from? Are you talking simplex to one station, or many? Are you using a repeater? Another thing to consider is the receiver. If you hook up a cheap radio, with a low quality receiver, to a 50 watt amp you will have a giant alligator... Big mouth, tiny ears. You will probably not hear 1/2 the people responding to you, and the half you do hear, you would probably hear without the amp. Honestly, if you really need the power, you would probably be better off looking for a good quality 40 or 50 watt mobile radio. Personally, I would look at a used piece of commercial equipment - you will get a much better receiver than any mass-market Part95 certified radio. . You will easily find plenty of Part-90 radios, and if you care about certification, Part-95 radios are also available. This topic is commonly addressed on the MyGMRS forum. Search through the threads for Kenwood, Icom, Motorola, and Vertex to see what might work for you.

Any UHF amplifier that covers up to 470 MHz should be fine. However, there are some really big warnings I have about using an amplifier. First, on the 462 MHz and 467 MHz main channels, 50 watts is the legal limit for mobiles, repeaters and base stations. Fixed stations are limited to 15 watts. (A Fixed station is defined as a station at a fixed location that directly communicates with other fixed stations only.) Second, on the 462 MHz interstitial channels (the channels between the main channels) stations are limited to an effective radiated power (ERP) of 5 watts, witch means the final power amplifier (PA) will likely need to have much less than 5 watts of output power. This applies to mobiles, hand-helds, portables and base stations. Then, to make things even more complicated, on the 467 MHz interstitial channels, stations are limited to an effective radiated power (ERP) of 0.5 watts, witch means the PA will likely need to have much less than 0.5 watts of output power. So, be very careful on what frequencies you opt to use an amp on. Frankly, I wouldn't spend the money, I would just get a new radio. Quality UHF amplifiers are much more expensive than a radio that runs up to 50 watts.

I now have learned and used all of the letters except Q,X,Y and Z. Those come tomorrow. I can send at 10 wpm and receive at about five with a character speed of 15 wpm. I don't thing that's too bad for only six days of study. But there is a problem however. Every time I use the letter 'V' (...-) The first few minutes of Beethoven's Symphony no. 5 goes through my head for the next half hour.

As a fellow developer I know prod issues can be a giant PITA! Thanks for the quick response and resolution.

I disagree. On a rental it is much, much easier. Simply drill through the roof and headliner, and run the wire through. Easy peasy.

For using it for amatuer use? Yeah sure. Im not advocating freebanding here. The GMRS btech will run you 55 dollars. When the FCC starts to care about other things let me know. If they truly cared they could roll out to the california desert and write enough citations to fund the FCC for a year, in one day. Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

More like 24 vs 150. While that may not be a big deal for you to drop 150 dollars to test out a new hobby others may not be in the same financial position. I must have the best luck ever when it comes to cheap radios then. Ive got a pile of their HTs and a couple of their mobiles. No radio failures. I have had 2 batteries fail out of probably 15 or so batteries. One of my original UV5Rs has been riding around on my motorcycle handlebars for about 5 years now, exposed to off highway use, vibrations, rain, sun, ice, its been completely ejected a few times taking spills on dirt roads at 30 or 40 mph after being a little airborne on the bike. Looks awful with faded buttons and rusted wrist strap attachment and screws but still functions and gets good audio reports. Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

Ignore the Baofeng hate. Instead of trying to get the 82C to do what you want legally you can always get the BTECH GMRSV1 (a UV82 certified for GMRS use) and do what you are seeking. [offtopic]Some folks have large amounts of money to dump into their hobbies others do not. I have to balance a limited income across multiple things I like to do including Jeeps, Shooting competitively, radios, motorcycles, ect and without the Baofengs on the market I probably wouldn't even be in the radio hobby because there's no way I was going to dump 150 dollars into a handheld radio to come to find out it didn't do what I wanted to do with radio spectrum, or be something I would enjoy to mess with. My initial UV-5R got my foot in the door to take the test and that one radio turned into a pile of radios including some Japanese radios that I don't even use regularly anymore and now live on my workbench[/offtopic]