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Just for fun, someone should contact BuyTwoWayRadios.com, the largest distributor of Wouxun GMRS Radios in the United States, and ask THEM what the official GMRS Road/Travel channel is now...... Get ready to hear heads explode... ..You're welcome..

Marc, all opinions are welcomed. I think the main point about your experience is VHF radio is great, BUT it’s line-of-sight so if you’re out of range you’re basically screwed. UHF radio is no different. At 20 miles that’s a lot of distance to cover. Thinking about it I’m surprised that nobody came looking for you after a day not reporting back in. At least you didn’t mention it. In an emergency people should try to keep track of each other in their group. At least checkin with others and if you don’t hear anything a plan to find out why.

@Music2Me one thing you can do is to check your radio against another radio. If I understand correctly, your key concern is determining if you have a defective radio, and if so, you want to be proactive in getting it replaced. Does this sum it up? Suggestion: Get your hands on another current generation radio (same model or higher quality) that you can use as a test transmitter source. Set this Tx radio to a frequency/channel you are authorized to operate on that is shared with your 935G. Set your receive radio to the same frequency. Test every CTCSS and DCS code on your transmit radio. Using your receive radio, scan for the codes that your transmitter is sending. Scan upwards and downwards to confirm the receiver stops reliably on the expected code. Start your test by using the same two codes that experienced your 935G picking up the 70cm repeater with. Then work through all the rest. So that you don’t burn out your test Tx radio, set its power to low. If you have a dummy load available, hook the Tx radio to the dummy load instead of an antenna. Doing this will still give your Rx radio a good usable signal, but at a level that simulates more real-world levels. As long as you are seeing 50% or more on the meter of your Rx radio you should be good to go. Keep track of which codes are reliably caught when scanning up and down and which ones are unreliable. If you end up with a high percentage of repeatable failures, then you may have found a justification for requesting a replacement, or for returning the radio and purchasing a different model. I hope this idea helps. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

True. The thread is getting away from the original goal. I think what is valuable is what people really did during an emergency that worked or didn't work. I specifically mentioned GMRS but it doesn't have to be strictly about it. I put it in the header since this is primary a GMRS forum so I figured it's more likely people will have experiences to share and recommendations on what if anything they would do different next time around. Cell service may not always be available so using a two-way radio is the next best option. However I don't want to give people the idea if cell service is working to ignore it in preference to using their radio. We have to be practical. For example Marc's story about be stranded 20 miles out at sea on a sand bar with a dead boat. It's fortunate he made a contact on his marine radio and got help. But lets say he had a sat-phone. He could have had help likely in a few hours.

This is a very good thread, and well worth our time, so I'll add my comments. There has been for some time now something called the 3-3-3 Plan, which in an emergency situation, everyone who agrees adheres to. Basically it advocates turning on your emergency radio for 3 minutes, every three hours, on channel-3. More info can be found here: https://radiofreeq.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/3-3-3-radio-plan-for-shtf-communications/ It's a more detailed read, so here is an excerpt of the best benefits of the plan: 1. Easy for everyone to remember the “Rule of Three”. 2. Conserves precious battery life for walkie talkies. 3. Gets everyone on the air at the same time. 4. Sets a schedule of 8 times per day to call each other. 5. Avoids impractical hourly schedules that can be a burden in real-life scenarios. 6. Enables the use of short transmissions for optimum success and security. 7. Three hours between contacts is enough time to rest in a survival situation. 8. A person can walk 8 miles in 3 hours, the practical distance limit of handheld radios over average terrain. 9. 3-3-3 is fully interoperable and compatible with the alternative 3-2-1 plan. "Channel 3 is CB-3, FRS-3, or MURS-3. CB, FRS, and MURS are the most common types of radios used by survivalists and preppers." FRS-3 is the same frequency as GMRS-3, so is available on GMRS radios. Could also include Marine-3. The site also mentions Ham national call freqs, since Ham doesn't have channel numbers. In summary, I think there is no need for us to reinvent the wheel trying to decide to use FRS-1, or GRMS-19 or 20, or CB-19, or whatever. If everyone agreed to the 3-3-3 plan, there would no need for all the back-and-forth discussion about what to do on what service and on what channel. Agreeing to this 3-3-3 emergency plan does not negate, promote or interfere with the GMRS channel 19 or 20 travel channel debate, IMO. Thomas ...

I know of a couple of cases where this was definitely used as an argument. Had the person tested for an amateur or commercial license, or paid for a GMRS license, they would have had the radio issue enforced as an enhancement to the crime they were being prosecuted for. This is also why many police squad cars still have a version of (mostly Uniden models in my area) scanner mounted in their console or dash alongside their public safety radio. I also once had a detective ask me if he should carry his own FRS/GMRS (pre-2017) radio as many perps he dealt with were found with them. This led to the purchase of near field receivers, Optoelectronics and others that have been used for decades to detect strong RF signals during law enforcement investigations.

Check out my Anytone AT-779UV also sold as the Radioddity DB20-G: For about $99, 18 watts output for High Power GMRS channels and easily opened to transmit on Ham Tech 2 meters and 70cms.

I carry a inreach mini when I'm longlining (deckhand) out in the gulf of alaska. I use the freedom plan for $65 and unlimited texting and tracking and weather it's awesome. The boss is cool with us using the Sat phone but to be able to text at-will from almost anywhere is so nice.

I'm going to throw this out there. I did about a year ago and it was not well received, but I hope this audience is a bit more open-minded. Just my own personal opinion, the best solution that has zero reliance on any underlying system is 40-meter Amateur radio. There are extremely lightweight, compact, battery powered radios. You can get a small foldable/roll-up solar kit for unlimited use. The antenna is just a piece of wire that only need to be a few feet off the ground. The best part is, depending on how high you make the antenna, you can talk everywhere from 1 to 10,000 miles. You are going to get help day or night and can actually talk to someone for health and welfare as well as status updates. I know we're a GMRS forum and there is some good advice on the satcom stuff, too... but I feel like they have dependencies that are failure points.

I have not checked every tone, but I did tone-scan about 10 transmitting tones; especially the one that wasn't picking up from the repeater. These of course were on GMRS simplex on low power. The daughter is getting some great experience. She did well, helping me out!! call sign and all. I will check even more tomorrow. I even tried both channels. KG-935 has dual channels. I am wondering, since this radio is a GMRS Tx/Rx only, if something is going on when it's in the VFO mode when I'm Rx on the 70cm band when this is happening. Unfortunately, my other HT's are just some Midland 1000's, so I can't check that out on them. Too bad I wasn't able to key up those guys to ask. Guess it is time to go get some HAM. I was even wondering if there was another repeater out there with that 151.4 Rx tone on same Freq out there that wasn't listed. Shout out again for all help with me. Thanks everyone.

For those that venture into the wilderness of Washington State or Oregon, there are many people that carry FRS/GMRS radios (pre-2017), or GMRS only radios. This also includes Coast Guard and military that may have been issued Garmin Rino's of several different models. Along the Olympic Peninsula, Garmin Rino's are carried by many Search and Rescue Team personnel, with some non public safety (volunteers) using Motorola Trbo series radios. This allows for two types of radio, that both have the capability of GPS function (Rino built in as radio/GPS, and Trbo radio sending data location on one time slot and voice on the other to a Trbonet dispatch console). For FRS use, Channel 1 is most often monitored, with remote listening posts receiving everything above the noise floor, wth the exception of ISM band 900MHz frequency hopping radios. If I were going into rural ares of these two states, I would have a FRS/GMRS radio set to FRS Channel 1 if I got into trouble and lacked cell phone coverage. Amateur radio and a list of local repeaters would also be include.....but after the satphones and Garmin InReach tethered to my cell phone.

Given it's a mobile antenna, rather than a handheld, and an swr that high, I lean more toward either a ground plane issue or a short in the cable. Handhelds are definitely wonky with handheld antennas (again, ground plane), but it shouldnt matter for a mobile antenna; it should be getting it's ground plane via the mount, not the ht.

Mbrun.....Yes, that is exactly what I am trying to figure out. I do have another HT. That sounds like a great idea. I do not know why I did not even think of that. I was so focused on this repeater and code, I guess. I will do that now and keep you'll posted. Thanks million. and thanks to all that were pitching ideas and checks for me also. Great community on here!!

It looks like they have a net on Tuesday nights at 2000. You might listen in on that to see what they say. I'm not much help, I'm afraid. Sorry about that.

How much do you pay for Iridium satellite network monthly access?

I would think you would be able to hit at least one of the SA area repeaters, the guys have quite a network there. I'm using a Comet 712EFC base antenna tuned for GMRS and it seems to be great. The closest repeater to me is Austin 725 at about 20 miles. Can't hit that one but I can skip over that one to the repeater NW of Austin at 40+miles.

@Sshannon If I were to guess, I would say it might be based on the minimum voltage needed for the radio to work. Given that they said it should be close to 8 amps (46w +/-) at full power and it has a 55% efficiency rating, the math would work out to 11.5vdc. That kind of makes sense... most 12vdc systems run on as little as 11.0vdc and max out at about 15vdc. So, you may be on to something there.

I wish I could answer that question accurately. Very little information about the radio that was given to me. As you noted, I'm not sure it matters either way, based on the math you shared.

As mentioned by many, this seems to be an age old topic. If you do a general search, you'll find that 462.675 with a CTCSS of 141.3 has, for many years now, a general status of a "GMRS Travel Channel". That said, just because such a designation exists, doesn't mean anybody is going to do anything to support it/the idea to make it useful to travelers. It's kinda like the old CB Channel 9 thing which was suppose to be for emergencies and for a time back in the CB boom, many police departments monitored Channel 9 and some even had a CB radio in their squad cars. That said, it wasn't a universal buy in on the part of law enforcement nationally. Current era, I don't see law enforcement, especially in these times, getting money to purchase GMRS equipment even for the dispatch centers, let alone police vehicles. Even in Amateur radio, 146.5200 (VHF) and to a lesser extent 446.0000 (UHF) have been considered 'calling/emergency' frequencies, but with the exception of some geographical areas, these frequencies are rarely monitored routinely and so are of little use to a traveler. Indeed, if I were traveling , I'd prefer HF in the vehicle for a variety of reasons, not just emergencies. To be sure, I'm not opposed to the general concept, really I'm not. I just think it isn't practical in the bigger picture. However again, you or (some other interested entity) can designate a GMRS traveler channel which, as previously noted, has sort of been done, but it doesn't mean anyone will support it to the point where it actually serves a useful purpose. Just an opinion...

Yea, my VHF radio at home doesn't like my 1W APRS beacon that is 28' away from the base station antenna (144.39MHz to 147.27MHz). Though, looking at the sites for some local P25 P2 systems, they have frequencies as close as 0.275MHz, however, appropriate TX combiners and filters/cavities it wouldn't be an issue at all. I read somewhere that P25P2 was supposed to be FDMA (true 6.25 individual channels), but ended up TDMA, which is still ok since it is a 6.25 equivalent. I believe NXDN is the only true FDMA 6.25 mode available, and works well for the railroads, but it's not common on the public safety side (my school district uses it on VHF for the busses). As far as TETRA having 4 paths on one frequency, it does, but it is also TDMA in a 25k frequency, so basically 2 DMR stacked next to each other in 1 frequency. Long and short of it, I don't think DMR as we know it is going away. If they stopped acknowledging it as a 6.25 equivalent, then they would have to shut down P25 as well, and that won't happen.

Well at least Midland's Customer Service is quick and responsive. The only radios that accept any programming are the "premium" MXT400 and 500 units. Doesn't look like the 575 will be programmable, either, but at least that will have wideband baked in. From Midland Customer Support: I really want to like the 575 or even my 275 if I could expand it's capability a bit. I really like the clean installation of the integrated mic. *Sigh* Looks like I am going to have to figure out how to get a KG-1000G mounted cleanly in my truck...

Getting an answer to your problem is included in your membership fee; wanting to know "how it works" will cost you extra! ? Few facts, broad descriptions of your happening, so let me try to restate what I think you are asking, so that I can better answer your question: You have your Wouxun KG-935G set to monitor (receive) an Amateur Radio Ham repeater in the 70 cm band with a tone set for receive (Tone A). You could consistently hear this repeater for one week. Suddenly, last weekend, you could no longer hear the Ham repeater, so you changed your receive tone to a different tone (Tone B ) and now you can hear this repeater again. You asked a friend to monitor this 70 cm repeater frequency with Tone A and they report that they can hear this Ham repeater. Possible reasons for this result (I am assuming there is no hardware problem with your 935): 1) The administrators of this repeater changed their tone to receive their repeater to Tone B; and then afterwards added back Tone A as well. 2) There are two Ham repeaters on this 70 cm frequency and your friend can only hear the one that uses Tone A and coincidentally when you listen, only the Tone B repeater is transmitting. In any event, just eliminate any tone frequency to receive, which will allow you to receive any and all transmissions within your range on that frequency (repeater output and/or simplex) and report back your results.

Before the 2017 FRS/GMRS radio changes, there was a push to use FRS Channel 1 as a calling/emergency channel by many, old RadioReference forum threads mention this, and along the Washington northwest coastline, there was some traction on this. Especially when my situation took place. Another aspect in my case was the merchant marine community, and the use of radio silence clocks. This helped preserve the battery in my Garmin Rino, and a remote listening station with direction finding capability provided a vector. The helo flew that vector and when my Rino was in range of their Rino radio (Search and Rescue had a lot of them), my location began to show up on their map display. Attached is a screen shot f a radio silence clock, and description.....many of these of different look and manufacture are on board vessels used in commercial shipping and Coast Guard vessels.

Appreciate the hood info, will be looking at those. I honestly just bought mine for the purposes of reviewing it, was never planning on keeping it, I’m more than happy enough with my KG-1000G to want or need to buy anything else.

Yeah, I'm also VERY skeptical running adjacent channels at 6.25KHz bandwidth. Even the wider 12.5KHz I wouldn't believe either. Even Ham HT's with two pair of stations close to each other at a 25KHz channel separation doesn't work out too well either.

I’ll have to check my amps now as even though my MXT500 is installed on my tacoma I have it connected to a digital switch controller that measures amps, volts etc. I am only averaging 40 watts to the antenna as well. Rookie setup as I am new to this but figured I’d add some data

With actual killers walking the streets today, I'm sure lawyers have a field day with the radio laws and talking deals. The law seems written to licensee and "knowingly" using the radios to commit a crime...

@gortex2 Unfortunately, what you are saying about the Hams is all too common. I have seen some crap installs, gear not fired up and tested for 5 years or more, no one showing up for training. When they do show up, they will gab all day on the radio, but get mic shy when it comes to moving voice traffic. Almost none of them know how to align the parabolic antennas for the WLAN and even if they did, they wouldn't know how to troubleshoot if they don't link. Almost no packet/data experience at all. It's a struggle to get them to complete the headers on IC213 and IC214 forms correctly and use them. I am not going to name names, but I am part of 2 ARES/RACES groups. One of them exemplifies everything a well run ARES/RACES team should look like. The other team has 6 active members of which 3 are the EC and 2 AEC's. By active, I mean, show up twice a year for training. If I don't put a training session together, training for that group just doesn't happen, and I'm not the one who is supposed to be training people for that group. I pray the served agencies never call this second group, because they can't do anything. Myself and one other operator have amazing portable stations that can provide any service. I don't trust the gear in place at the served locations, nor does the other Ham... we both agree that if they ever call us, we are bringing our own gear and hoping the neighboring team can provide additional support before one or both of us pass out from exhaustion.

Haven't said much in here for a bit, so here's an update. Finally getting the remote operator position going for the house so I can connect to and operate all the radios and repeaters at the site from home. While this don't sound like a big thing, it's 23 radios and repeaters as of now and will only increase. These range from GMRS and ham repeater and multichannel radios (control stations) to HF rigs that have assigned antenna's that are band specific and filters for those bands so they can co-exist and operate at the same time. I can also monitor things like the tower lights, generator and door alarms from the house. Which is handy.

As long as the cell network is up and functional that would likely be your first bet to try. You likely have all your important numbers stored in your smart phone and just about everyone has one. After that it could be a number of different radio services. Ham. FRS. GMRS. MURS. CB radio. If your going to depend on radio to stay in-touch with friends and family I would recommend you have a plan worked out on what channels/frequency to use and when to use them, like a specific time. The time element would be important for handheld radios. The battery packs don't last forever. So if everyone agrees to monitor the prearranged frequency/channel at, lets say a quarter past the hour every hour, within a period of 10 minutes before and after the scheduled time it save battery capacity. You're not calling at times when nobody is likely to be monitoring.