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Well, yes, but... Since that filter costs anywhere from 2x to 9x the price of the CCR it would be used with, the money would probably just be better spent of buying a decent radio in the first place. Which is, I think, the point everyone is trying to make anyway.

YES! There seems to be sort of an obsession with power on GMRS. People debate over the 35 watt or the 40 watt version of some radio, and replace decently functioning connectors with silver plated N-Connectors, usable COAX with LMR400, in search of a 1:1 SWR and 0db loss in the antenna line heading to some absurdly expensive antenna with infinite gain. Yet, it is rare that someone asks about a radio's audio quality, and virtually nobody ever asks about receiver sensitivity or selectivity, etc. I suspect this is something GMRS inherited from CB where power is king and people slap an amplifier on anything. Both transmit, and receive (seems nobody ever mentioned that you can amplify signal strength but not signal quality, and amplification of zero remains zero). I really would like to see more concern for a good sounding radio that can meet the user's defined communication needs, rather than the biggest and best. Dream on...

No it's not a sarcastic comment, just an observation. I've occasionally been guilty of the same thing, blaming lack of filtering or technical short comings on "intermod". I wanted to point out there are more reasons for poor selectivity or interference. Understanding what the underlying nature of the problem may suggest a possible solution or what radio specifications are really important. You soon learn that power isn't everything, and a bad or poor RX'er design can break a radio system. If you can't hear them what's the point? Looking at the typical manufacture's spec's for many radios most never mention the above points, and with analog radios specifically the image rejection. The ARRL lab does a fairly good job of testing radios when they publish a review. You have to dig through the test results for the info. The sad part is they can't test everything out there, and it could be months or even longer before they do a test and review, if ever, on a particular model. Most Ham radios have wide open RX front ends because people want to use them as cheap scanners. I use many of my radios that way, Ham and commercial. While that maybe appealing however that means a compromise in other areas. One reason why the commercial radios mostly perform better in high noise and RF heavy environments is the RX'er design. The radios are generally single band with just enough front end bandwidth to cover the commercial section of either the VHF or UHF band they were designed for and no more. The forum is a place here to trade information. I like to includes links in many of my posts for background that saves a lot of typing. Why repeat the same information when somebody else has already done the job, and likely a better a writer. For my day job I've had to write technical documentation on occasion including for a patent application for a project I worked on in addition to regular design work. People always comment about the crappy manuals that come with most CCR's, well take a crack at writing a better one and publish it. I can tell you writing technical documentation is a tedious, boring and mind numbing work. Now I understand why most engineers hate doing it.

Have fun everybody ... https://www.timesmicrowave.com/calculator/ Also, there's insertion loss on each connector, which you can find in the spec sheet, not to mention any losses with poor assembly. Oh, and if you're using UHF connectors like virtually all of the radios are, try re-seating the connector, because SO239/PL259 can't mate with enough consistency once you get to even VHF. They're called UHF connectors because when they were invented, UHF was 3-30 MHz.

As explained above, you do not need CTCSS/DCS, etc. on receive. Try setting the receive frequency to carrier squelch, I.e. No PL, No DCS.

It may just have been quiet time on the repeater. that tone is definitely CTCSS though. The Tucson thing is a giveaway that that repeater is linked to others, at least some of the time. there are a number of repeaters linked via the internet, and a weekly nationwide net via those links. there's more information on the linking and the nets here. on a side note, i almost slipped myself, and barely caught it before i clicked the post button, but a few of us are slipping on the not posting PL/CTCSS codes in the public forums. i edited it out of the quoted post. not sure if Ed can edit his guest post or if the mods will need to do it, though.

I understand where you are coming from. Let me share one of my favorite sayings, believed to be coined by Albert Einstein... Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe. While I don't know that he said it, the statement is still applicable to humans and our capacity to think. LoL It sounds like you're fortunate and have a knack for this stuff. Maybe the others that don't, Google gave them us.