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I have played around with the companding option in my commercial radios I use on GMRS. I end up turning the compander off after a while because of the issues it causes. The companding feature does work as advertised to help clean up the audio SNR. The companded audio has a "processed" quality to it and I don't mind that. The problem is it requires ALL radios talking to each other to also be using companding in order to sound right. It's an all or nothing type deal. Radios that don't compress their transmitted audio will sound muffled and distorted when heard out of companded radios. The expander in the receiver expands audio that wasn't compressed originally and blows it apart and sounds like 'expletive'. The compander is best left disabled when you have a mix of radios that do and don't compand their audio. Motorola includes a low level expander (LLE) option in their top tier radios. When using LLE, the transmit audio is not compressed, only the received audio is expanded by a small amount. It gives the audio a very slightly "fuzzy" quality to it under some conditions. Overall if a radio has companding capability, the radio needs to include the option to disable the compander. The compander feature should be OFF by default. The Motorola Talkabout FRS bubble packs use companding. Motorola calls this feature "X-Pand". The compander is always enabled and with no option to disable it. With Motorola's VHF and UHF business radios, the Business Bubble Packs as I like to call them also compand audio on narrow bandwidth channels with no option to disable the compander. People who have complained about bad receive audio quality out of the Motorola Talkabout FRS bubble packs are really complaining about the effects of the compander on the received audio, especially when hearing radios that don't compress their transmit audio because they don't have companding. Motorola could greatly improve the Talkabout FRS bubble packs by simply adding the option to disable the compander. My wife (g/f at the time) and I had a pair of Motorola Talkabout 250 FRS bubble packs in the early days of FRS. The Talkabout 250 was one of the early 14-channel FRS bubble packs from Motorola. It was one of the first models to push their "X-Pand" audio companding feature. Motorola added X-Pand to all of their analog radios back then. Motorola's top tier radios have the ability to enable or disable companding on a per channel basis. With Motorola's FRS bubble packs and their business bubble packs, the compander is always enabled. The Talkabout 250 had LOUD audio for hearing them in noisy environments which I liked but the companded audio sounded like 'expletive'. The radios aggressively companded the audio by over-compressing the transmitted audio and over-expanding the received audio. The companded audio quality was so bad and to the point that basic functionality of the radio was impaired. The radio was almost unusable with radios that don't compand their audio. It was THAT bad. Reducing the expansion ratio in the expander part of the companding system would have helped a lot. Wikipedia article on companding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companding

Get outside. Hang up slim jim off the tree or fence or anything. Repeat the test.

So true... I miss read his post thinking he did not have his HT set up for repeater.... Thanks for correcting me, will read better next time. Jack EDIT: I reread this post and it started with "listening to repeaters with non-repeater radio". One thing is clear, I did not know his radio was FRS/GMRS capable. I have to go deeper than what question is asking. I have a lot to learn from this lesson... Thanks.

This is a topic I haven't seen discussed very much. I've been testing a huge pile of used battery packs accumulated from purchasing used radios. Two main types I have are Lithium Ion and Nickel Metal Hydride. They range in capacity from 2000 mAh to 1480 mAh for the Lithium type and 1800 mAh to 1200 mAh for the Nickel type. I don't want to have anything to do with the old Nickel Cadmium types. All the sellers that include battery packs typically state the packs are in unknown condition, meaning they have no idea of the remaining usable capacity. Because of that I usually don't consider it of any extra value in evaluating the sellers price for a used radio. If I get a good one I consider myself lucky. The testing was done using an electronic load, which has a built-in battery test function. I found about 40 to 50 percent of the packs tested at 80 percent or better of the specified rating that appears on the battery case. The rest were at 60 percent to a low of 23 percent, basically good for a quick radio test or just junk status. Typically the accepted value of anything below 80 percent of new the pack is considered EOL, end of life, and should be replaced. While that's OK for business use it gets expensive for hobby uses. For me at least I have an idea of how much use I can expect to get out of a given pack. I marked the measured capacity in mAh's on the pack, the percent of the nameplate rating and the test date on each pack I have. So given a fair number of people use HT's how many really have evaluated their "fleet" of battery packs? I know some of the more advance chargers can "recondition" packs and test them for usable capacity. I see all sorts of sellers of OEM battery packs on eBay, typically very expensive, and far more economical battery packs sold as "unbranded" and direct replacements for the OEM ones. The better prices of course are from the Chinese sellers, or from US importers of Chinese battery packs. I have read stories where it's not uncommon to buy one of these cheap battery packs and discover later they "don't seem to have the capacity" claimed on the case. However without some quantitative testing it's just an opinion. So has anybody done their own testing and found a seller that has a good price and the battery packs really do meet the specified ratings and are reliable? You might have the best radio manufactured, but if the battery pack is crap, dies just when you need it, what good is the radio?

The easiest and quickest improvement would be a better HT antenna, look at the 771G from buytwowayradio.com. https://www.buytwowayradios.com/nagoya-na-771g.html Its tuned for GMRS and its almost twice as long as the stock antenna. I tried it on the 805G and a 82HP. the next step up would be looking at an external antenna. I use a mag mount on a metal desk indoors, some use a pizza pan as a ground plain. I'm also the trying out the Ed Fong GMRS tuned 3ft PVC pipe antenna. I also also have his roll-up dual band. good luck and 73

Doing a run on your license I see your in Pinellas County. Seems their FD and EMS pagers are telemetry based and are licensed between 460 and 463. Neighboring Hillsborough has several telemetry systems in 460's as well, including DMR repeaters in the 462/467 range very close to GMRS. That doesn't include all of the DMR repeaters in BOTH county's which could also be UHF band. Any of these could be the cause of your interference.

1. Exists, called search button.2. Who cares, really. Those who do, they use search button. CLOSED vs open, linking, and tying resource with the same stuff??? No one owes nothing to nobody. 3. Search button! Also, consider that no one owes nothing to nobody and does not have to disclose, advertise, publish or invite to anything. 4. Audio feeds are up to owners. Or listeners. No one owes anyth... but let's not repeat that again. And the best part tonight: who is going to be a classifying body? How it is going to be created? The edict from the King? The Thunderdome fight? The communal vote? Who gets to vote? Why is this guy's vote is equal to that guy's vote? What if I don't agree, am I still wrong?

Could be a large multitude of things, from a new traffic signal to a cable box to an invisible fence. You best bet would be to get a 70cm yagi and do some foxhunting. See if you can find the offending item, within reason. If you get close but have issues pinpointing it, you can pickup a TinySA and try to locate it by frequency and db level.

You might try an Arrow beam made for the 70cm/440 ham band. They make some very high gain antennas. I have the moon bounce portable beam that I bought for my 2m/440 ham rig. You may find other models are better suited to your situation. I'm sure there are other makes as well. I guess the main point is that there is a lot more available for Ham 440MHz than GMRS and the match is probably good enough or tunable. My 440 mag mount antennas match pretty good on GMRS but I'm not sure if the beams are more critical. So do a little home work first. Vince

You know, that may or may not be true that it will sound distorted. For 10 years I listened off and on to repeaters with my GXT1000. Actually still do. And yes at times the audio has sounded distorted, like someone was overdriving their equipment. But assuming they were all, or mostly all, using wide band equipment, it was rare that what I heard was truly objectionable distortion, perhaps only 5% of the time. Why? I theory that only a small percentage of folks actually speak up and/or so closely to the mic that they take achieve the full degree of wide-band deviation available to them. As a consequence, I theory that the average wide-band user is actually transmitting a deviation that is at or less than the narrow-band deviation, and thus the narrow band GTX1000 is happy as can be. Sounds like another radio experiment in the making. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

Hello, Well this is a lot to take in. so lets start with the hand held. At best your going to be limited to users within a mile. This also takes into account most of the bubble packs you hear have a PL or DPL programed on them so they will never hear you. I live in a condo and was lucky to get second floor with attic access. I run several commercial UHF and VHF antennas in the attic and am able to talk simplex 25 miles with other base users. As far as repeaters, I can work 11 from my house with my attic antenna and 50W radio. You can purchase a Motorola CDM1250 in the GMRS band for $100, Power supply for $50, a good mobile antenna in the GMRS band with mag mount $50 and a 16" round pizza pan $10. Try to get the antenna outside for best result. This would greatly increase the chances you will contact somebody simplex or finding a repeater you can access with humans using it. I am not going to lie this is exactly how I get into GMRS, a TYT UHF radio, laird antenna cut for 460-470 a pizza pan and recycled power supply, look at me now...

Thanks for posting the link. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

for the most part GMRS is not about talking to someone you dont know. Most GMRS users use it to talk to family or personal friends. This gets discussed monthly. If your looking to chat on a radio GMRS probably is not the best option.

Just to make sure you understand... all repeaters are privately owned and it is up to the owner to decide if, who and how people get access. Some may be “wide open” with no permission required, while others may indeed be private and only for the use of a family or small group of friends. So, when asking for permission, which is fine and proper, just keep in mind that the owner is under no obligation to even respond to your request. Though, it would be nice for them to at least send a note back saying, “no, but thanks for asking.” They do not have to.

Reynolds Wrap Heavy Duty aluminum foil. Ok, seriously, simple a/c cords do not usually present an RFI problem unless you have some devices that require a ground, but that are not grounded. Motors can be a source of noise. But, at the signal levels you are looking for, the frequencies you are listening to (uhf) and the use of FM rather than AM, your local environment is not likely to have a significant impact on your reception. The case where you might find problems would be trying to receive very weak “short wave” signals on a small radio with the built-in antenna. If you want better reception, the best thing you could do would be to setup an outdoor antenna, and the higher, the better. You do not need anything fancy or expensive, even a DIY 1/4 wave dipole would make a huge difference. (google for build a uhf antenna)

Ok, let's try to keep this in scale. If one were to renew for $70 the day before the new price went into effect. The total extent of the "damage" would be $3.50 per year over the 10 year life of the license. That is $ 0.0095 per day, $0.067 per week, or a whopping $0.29 a month.