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Let’s not derail this thread. If the original poster wants to start a GMRS radio group, that is their right. If one individual is not blessed to have the discretionary resources for original equipment plus the ongoing operating and maintenance expenses for a repeater and a group of folks decide to share the expense of doing so, so be it. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

Recently we have begun holding the National GMRS Net once per month on the last Sunday of each month. This is due to reduced interest in holding a weekly net, and due to quickly running out of fresh topics to discuss. We will still link each regional hub together nationally each week during the same time period, but won't hold the net on the other weeks. Feel free to chat on Sunday evenings and make distant contacts during this time, but also please be mindful to not hog the repeater system so others can jump in there and participate as well.

I own the ham version, btech 25x4, and the colors do mean that the squelch broke on a given line (it did pick up something). I bought my unit a few years ago, so my firmware likely has bugs as the color of a line does not return to red if the transmission goes away. Note, the radio won't go looking at the other channels if you're actively receiving on a given one. Only when the one that it's tied up on goes away, will it then watch the other channels.

Current settings: rod length 8-3/4, 462.612 mhz @ 1.0 swr,...467.650 @ 2.44 mhz (my closest repeater). Gonna stop here for now (getting dark) until I get some more input on how to proceed

There is absolutely no reason they can not charge a monthly fee to help maintain equipment or cover tower lease fees. I know Attica repeater coverage is exceptional. In the past I had a group of folks that used my repeater and not official but we all pitched in for the electric and tower space. Its not free everywhere. Our SAR team pays $35.00 a month for electric at a site we use for 2 UHF repeaters and APRS. Money has to come from some place. My repeaters ae closed for this reason. I pay to maintain and put them up. You want free get your ham radio ticket and go use them.

Private company charges for use of its equipment! News at 11! You're not entitled to use somebody else's repeater, and it's quite reasonable to ask for money to offset construction and maintenance expenses. Sites aren't free, you know.

IF range was only determined by power then your range varies by the square root of the two powers. For example comparing 45 watts to 15 watts you get: sqrt(45/15) = 1.73 In other words your range should increase by a factor of 1.73 going to 45 watts verses 15 watts. There are other factors that will conspire to reduce this. You need to pay attention to the cable between the radio and the antenna mount. The RG-58 cable that’s typical used is fairly lossy at UHF. The loss can be compensated for by using a gain antenna. High gain antennas have their issues so they might not be a good fit for your application. If you mainly operate in very hilly or mountainous terrain a simple 1/4 wave antenna likely will work better. For flat open terrain a high gain antenna performs well. There are a few antennas that require no ground plane allowing more options on mounting locations. Some of the other forum members likely have some good recommendations for this type of antenna. A few people even keep more that one type in the vehicle and swap them out depending on operating requirements. Maybe a high gain one for use in a convoy while travailing on a highway then a short 1/4 wave for off road use.

From the looks of it, that is a "CB" radio SWR meter, designed to work in the 27 MHz band. While I don't know its specifications, I'd expect it would not work properly for GMRS frequencies.

Looks like it's listed as option 0 in the menu, on pg 21 (reading it in pdf from radioddity's site). The menu item is called "TMR", and you tell it which ones you want to monitor (a, b, c, and/or d), and then used the abcd button to cycle through the 4 lines and set each one to the channels/frequencies you want to monitor. If I understand it right, it treats whichever one you have selected as the "Main". I tend to set a channel I might want to transmit on on main. The setup and functionality seem similar to my btech 50x1, which makes sense because it the db25g looks to be based on the btech 25x2 and 25x4.