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Here's what I've found so far. With Motorola, they are proprietary in their programming software. Do a quick search on Chirp, nothing shows there. You can official buy a subscription to the software direct from Moto but for the cost you could buy a new radio set up for GMRS, no programming needed. Not to mention, you would need a computer running NOTHING newer than Win 8 to run the software. Too many hurdles, headaches and work arounds for me. I contacted usedradios.com and luckily caught them before finishing my radio. They did some additional programming for me (no charge) and it shipped today. This is going to be a simple base station unit and I don't need to be making changes to the programmed "channels" or frequencies. If I do, I'll eat the cost and time to ship it back to them and have them take care of it. Looking back (hindsight is 20/20) I wish I would have gone with a Kenwood. It seems that programming for that is much simpler. Oh well, for what I have into the Motorola, my intended use and it is a solid radio, it should work fine. It shows up on Saturday. I'll post and update after I get it connected and on the air.

When trimming a mobile antenna for the lowest reflected power I use a trick learned many years ago. At some point additional trimming will cause the reflected power to start to increase. The whip is beginning to be too short at this point. When unsure if you have reached the ideal length, I temporarily make the whip a little bit longer by adding a small piece of wire to the top of the whip where the little ball is attached. A short piece of solder works great. Wrap a couple of turns around the whip and extend the solder past the ball on the end about a quarter of an inch. Measure the reflected power/swr. If it improves or stays about the same stop any additional trimming. You are about as good as you can get it. If adding a small amount of solder causes the swr/reflected to go back up then you are on the right track. Continue trimming a small amount at a time. If removing a sixteenth of an inch from the whip fails to make any improvement then stop. Probably as good as you can get it.

Measure twice, cut once. A lot of antennas have a little slop at the base which allows the antenna to be made longer. Take a reading with the antenna fully seated in the base then another as you raise the antenna about a 1/4 inch in the base. see which way the SWR changes. That will tell you if you need to lengthen or shorten the antenna. If shortening, cut off about 1/4inch increments and work from there.

Do not install any version newer than R06.12.05. The newer versions only allow NB (12.5) programming without a Motorola issued EID which allows WB (20 & 25 kHz). You want 20 kHz for GMRS and 25 kHz for ham in both VHF High and UHF. Tons of details to be found on RR and the batboard.

I have a Gen Ham ticket already but been out of the practice for several years. I'm a bit rusty on the repeater lingo and just wasn't sure how the GMRS repeaters worked, or if the same. Thanks.

Glad to help. It's definitely been a learning curve for me too. there's a ton of useful info here to digest (and helpful people) that's applicable to more than just gmrs, if the interest takes you that direction. One thing I will give btech credit for is at least getting instructions translated (or wholly rewritten) to reasonable English compared to what you get with the average baofeng stuff.

Hi Jerry, I own the Fort Pierce repeater which covers the Port St. Lucie area very well and with a good base station you should be able to get to West Palm Beach. For your house, you would need a UHF base station antenna outside as high as you can practically get it (ideally on your roof if that's possible). Elevation is the key to getting better range. For a base radio, you can use a mobile radio and a power supply hooked up to the antenna. Some form of lightning protection for the coax that comes from the antenna is advised, especially in Florida. There are Polyphaser surge suppressors that you can buy which will protect the radio from a surge in the coax caused by a nearby strike. For your mother's house, depending on where she's located she might be able to use a handheld radio which would be good for mobility, but you'd have to try it out and see. I'm not sure if you have a GMRS license yet, but a license would cover yourself plus your immediate family members which includes your mother, so there's only once license to purchase from the FCC. Once you have a license you can register for the main myGMRS.com website and you'll see the frequency and PL tone information needed to program your radios to the Fort Pierce repeater, and you can try it out. I actually put up this repeater for my elderly aunt and uncle who live on the island. Their cell service isn't great and they have become stubborn and don't like to evacuate when there's a hurricane. I wanted a way to reach them by radio, or a way for them to call others for help if they ever need to. I live in NJ so I have linked that repeater over the Internet which allows me to talk to them when I'm not in the area.

Here's a little info specific to the gmrs v1 : https://www.miklor.com/BTGMRS/BTGMRS-FAQ.php#TransmitterReceiver And the main info page: https://www.miklor.com/BTGMRS/ Looks like the menu item you want will be named r-ctcs...that either needs to match the repeater's output tone, or be set to none/off to hear the repeater (the tones are effectively a filter; the MONI button bypasses that filter).

From experience the best way to tune your antenna is when it is installed in its final location. Near by metal objects, height above ground etc. tend to affect the antenna. It might not be that convenient but you’ll know the match won’t change because you move the antenna location.