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You are absolutely correct. A technique that I and others have used is to leave the factory programming intact, including the factory repeater channel combinations. Then add a range of pre-configured repeater pairs or your own for all standard repeater pairs. (For example, my radios have the standard 30 channels assignments from the factory, plus 8 channels preconfigured for each of the 8 possible repeater pairs. They are labelled 550A through 550H all the way up to 725A through 725H). Using this pattern I can, on the fly, dedicate any of those preconfigured pairs to a valid repeater by assigning the tones and naming the channel in the field. So far that has worked very well for me. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

OffRoaderX, You sound like one of my favorite youtube hobos. I am his favorite youtube watcher, he told me so. He also has a calibrated couch. Good advice, by the way. Unless nerding out on building antennas is your "thing" let someone else do the work and enjoy offroading.

There are actually 22 GMRS frequencies. How did you even pass the FCC GMRS exam?

It is not hard to program... but like you I had a friend help me tune the duplexer in... I did purchase a programing cable from https://www.theantennafarm.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=75_77_1224_1225&products_id=6553 and you will see it plugs into the Mic jack of the radio and USB port of PC... The tricky thing is picking correct USB comm port and I used an old XP and had no issues... PM if you need some help. MacJack

He does indeed sound like him. Even sounds like he is in to off-road vehicles as well. Weird ?

That sounds as though there is too much drop in voltage when transmitting.

I have a use a VXR-7000 with duplexer inside. Set my radio for repeater at 10 watts and 20 watts as you not need or want to push high output. Got it on ebay for $500. Well worth looking at. MacJack

The factory most likely tests their antennas with a laboratory grade VNA. Here is a photo I just took using a calibrated NanoVNA to check one of my 144-520MHz HT antennas. Not bad at all. I can tell you that the results changed, but insignificantly, between holding the VNA vertical, horizontal, standing it on a table, laying it flat on a wooden table, laying it flat on wooden table with the antenna overhanging the edge of the table, and when touching and not touching the chassis ground of the VNA. When comparing HT antenna performance, the best comparison of antennas is not going to be it’s SWR, but relative difference in signal strength at some given far field distance using some given amount of input power. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

I guess you won't mind if I sit in the chair next to you at the doctors office and pass some gas, then? LMAO..... Sorry, poor analogy but it seemed funny at the moment...

Foil HVAC tape available at any hardware or home improvement store. Sticks like crazy, handles weather just fine, and electrically conductive. Like JohnE says, great for ground plane on fiberglass or other non-conductive surfaces. I used to patch a slightly over-size antenna mount hole on an aluminum roofed utility trailer. Still going strong many years later.

So I just got into gmrs like a couple months ago. Today I got curious and looked up the Ham test. I started going through the practice questions? Or testing pool I guess, and basically knew all of the first 20ish. Seemed to be just basic electrical stuff and common sense. Obviously I would imagine there is ham specific stuff like frequency and specs. Should it be easily passable with a little studying one of the test prep books?

Hey Howie, welcome. Unfortunately, we don't publish specific repeater information in the public forums, to prevent unlicensed users from abusing the service. I can tell you that between the "Maps" feature and the directory, it looks like there are potentially several that serve your area. If you haven't created an account on www.mygmrs.com, you will need to in order to access the directory. It is a separate login from the forums. Once,you are logged in, look at the "Maps" and search the directory, include the whole state and sort by city. You should be able to see the same repeaters that I do.