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That guy is a clown, but let me explain what he is saying - since "some people" have a real problem grasping the underlaying message because it is not spelled-out literally enough for their defective brains to process. If you go online (in this forum for example, other forums, YouTube comments, reddit, etc) "some people" teach us that if you ever transmit without an antenna, for any length of time, ever, in any way, it will destroy, or at a minimum damage your radio - No ifs, ands or butts: push button with no antenna = destroyed radio. That video, and the video demonstrating the same thing on an HT (both videos use the "cheap Chinese junk"/CCR radios), show that the common lore of "push button no antenna = dead radio" is not necessarily true. The video does not suggest that people try it, or make a habit of doing it, it specifically says to NOT do it. The video simply demonstrates that the common internet lore spread by "experts", has at least a few exceptions. But unfortunately "some people" interpret the video as "he says you should always use your radio with no antenna" - which, if they actually watched the video and understand the English language, they would understand that is not what was said or even inferred. Both the "experts" and "some people" have come out of the wood-work in the comments on both videos explaining all the reasons, exceptions, etc, why neither of the test radios were damaged - all proving the point that they are trying to disprove. Also, FYI, it seems that it is "some people" that seem to be upset/most angry about the video - claiming fraud, trick editing, other fairy-tales, which is very entertaining - its as though their worlds just fell apart.

I have to agree, and I believe whole heartedly, that it is indeed a money thing. While the hardware platform on which the radios are based technically is built to serve the needs in many markets, in many countries, the cost of custom firmware, government regulations and certifications for the ultimate market can be costly. If the market is small, or the potential customer’s expenditure willingness is minimal, corners get cut, more compromises occur. I don’t consider Wouxun radios cheap, I don’t consider them to be expensive, and I don’t necessarily consider some of them polished either. What I can presume however is that products that sell for less are less polished, have limited capability, and likely will not perform as well higher priced units. Similarly, I would expect if I paid more I would get more. Call me old fashioned. The programming weakness of the BF, Midlands and other brands is well known and documented on this forum. Many don’t come here until they have made a purchase however. They purchase low or on sizzle and end up being disappointed and wonder why. I have to admit I have chuckled quite a few times when I read some messages. In 2020 when I made the decision to purchase my first repeater capable GMRS HT, I made a personal decision to purchase a KG-805G. I was pleased then, and still am pleased with that purchase. But I also concluded quickly that I wanted more. WIth that I reconciled that I would likely need to pay more. I knew that if I bought down, I am not supporting future efforts to get more of what I want. While some on this forum have taughted the 935G as providing a really good user experience (and I agree that it does) I still desire a radio with an even better user experience. I know to achieve this that there is cost involved. But if there are not sufficient numbers of consumers willing to pay to get it, we live with what the masses will buy. Bottom line. There is no technical limitation that prevents a manufacturer from making, or any consumer from owning, a radio that at can accommodate a large quantity of fully usable configurable memory channels in a FCC Part 95 compliant radio. They and we both just need to be willing to pay for it. Fortunately, at least manufacturer, Wouxun, has made it possible throughout there whole GMRS lineup to fully configure every memory channel available in the model. This ranges from a minimum of 128 on the KG-805G, to 256 on the 905 to 999 on the KG-935G, KG-1000G and KG-UV9G models. Since they have set themselves aside in this regard, I would expect they would do the same on any future models that may come to market as well. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

@MichaelLAX Why yes; yes you can.

Does anyone have an approved and official list of the equipment that can be used to commit or facilitaed criminal acts? I want to do things correctly. Asking for a friend

Seriously dude, you're going to damage yourself if you keep getting this stressed over a forum chat. In the section you nicely bolded and underlined, I wasn't actually asking a question, just setting up a scenario. Since you apparently can't conceive beyond the explicit, I will lay it out further. The club uses the tones as they are intended, as a noise filter to restrict received transmissions to those sent with the appropriate code. By adding only a tx tone to a preset channel, yes my fellow club members would hear me. I would, however, still be receiving all traffic on ch 4. By editing the name on preset ch. 4, I now have to remember that ch 4 = "club" and that it has a tx tone enabled. While that works, it still doesn't do what I was hoping, which is to leave preset ch 4 as is and "clone" it somewhere else in my channel list with the name "club" and both tx and rx tones enabled. The VERY NEXT sentence in my original post says that from a practical perspective, I really don't care. My whole point was that most native radio programming schemes offer far fewer configurable TX/RX channels than their advertising leads one to believe. I don't care about brands, etc., I was seeking to understand if there was a technical limitation that causes this to be true for many radios. The more astute and altruistic responses on this thread confirmed my suspicion that in fact, there isn't necessarily a technical limitation, but rather an unwillingness by OEMs and VARs to spend money on bespoke GMRS firmware and software. I hope this helps you sleep better. Thank you for granting me permission to ask additional questions. I have to say I didn't know it was up to you to bestow this entitlement.

One of the first two things I do when looking at a radio model I don't presently own, typically the commercial versions, is find the manufacture's brochure for it and then look to see if the programming software with cable is available. The brochure answers most of the questions one might have about number of memory channels, power and other features of interest. It's better than trying to ask people on forums like this while trying to figure out if radio fits with your operating requirements. Also if I can't get the programming software I have ZERO interest in the radio regardless of how good it looks. If I can't program it then it's just a paper weight.

I just sent you a message. Kenwood TK-3140's can be had for the same price as the GM-30, and in my opinion works much better. You loose front panel programming, but lets be honest, with some good thinking, and the ability to program up to 250 channels, its not an issue by any means.

It's not a hardware limitation. It's just the radio's programming software and firmware. A company see's they can make a few bucks selling an inexpensive GMRS radio so they give some firmware programmer a job to hack the current code, for one of their cheap Ham versions, enough to pass the FCC's certification requirements. Most likely they didn't want to spend much time and money on it, just do it quick and cheap. That's particular true if they don't see a huge market for the end product. They are not looking to make the radio highly customizable.

Not only do you necrobump the thread, but you do it by spewing this horseshit. A BpBr filter is nothing but a notch cavity with a anti-resonance reactance across it to improve close in pass. This will give a "band pass" with notches high and low from it in most designs. As you get further away from the pass frequency, past the notches, you'll see the pass band loss decrease. At 10-20 MHz away the band pass the match will be poor and the notch will be almost non-existent; 6 dB at best. This repeater doesn't have a duplexer on it, it's fed from a window filter on receive and transmit goes into a combiner which is a number of true bandpass filters all feeding the same antenna. Here's what the transmitter sees https://gallery.keekles.org/d/31221-1/chan+04+to+antenna.gif You can see the RX filters here http://gallery.keekles.org/d/31182-1/dual+filters.gif And with the RF pre-amp, this is an old (circa 1990) bipolar pre-amp with poor input match (-10 dB). This shows how important input match is. http://gallery.keekles.org/d/31185-1/Filters+with+pre-amp.gif The TX and RX antenna have over 45 dB of isolation between them. This was measured as part of the system commissioning. This issue is one of _ON_FREQUENCY_ interference. There is nothing that can be filtered. https://flscg.org/2021/05/tampa-gmrs-interference/

This thread just made my week. You see, I, like OP here have done the exact same thing to a few radios over the years. Then, to make it even more interesting, I paused the movie I was watching, and took this picture. I watch this movie at times, as I began my professional career working on ICBM's and now have worked in radio for a long time. Just an interesting coincidence, but made me laugh. Easy solution for the other/better half, buy her another radio, now you have two that are freebanded, enjoy.

Its not really a 'hack' as much as it is putting the radio back to its natural state - the way Xenu intended. The video that I watched has a warning about not being able to UNdo it, in the info/description.

I heard a rumor that this video was made specifically to disprove comments that a few "experts" in this very forum seem to regurgitate on almost a daily basis. But, probably just a rumor..

The only people responsible for people who try this are the people that try this.

I don't often use Windows, but when I do (for codeplug CPS software programming), I drink lots of beer to get into the proper spirit!! ? Try following this link to the Miklor guide to USB Cable Drivers

So I am curious as to why there are such limitations to programming GMRS radios. In the vast preponderance of brands and models, programming custom channels is limited to a SMALL defined block of repeater channels. Most allow you to change the name and CTCSS/DCS on a simplex channel but not to create a custom simplex channel. For instance, my club likes to use GMRS simplex channel 4 (462.63750) with CTCSS 85.3. I'd love to create a channel on my radio that is named "CLUB" and has those settings. For almost all the radios I've looked at, i'd need to go into the programming and rename CH 4 "CLUB" and add my CTCSS codes, thereby losing the generic CH 4. I'd have to keep entering and deleting the CTCSS codes anytime I wanted to use CH4 with non club members. From a practical perspective, I don't really care since I pretty much only use the radio for club functions and occasional other stuff, so no big deal. I'm just really curious why the programmable "slots" on GMRS radios are so limited. The same is largely true for repeater pairs. Many radios advertise they have 500 channels. When you go into the programming, you quickly find that only a very few allow transmit, the rest are receive only. WHY??? What is the limiting factor? Please, don't go on a rant about FCC type certs, i just want to understand the mechanics of it. I freely admit that I am not an engineer or technical guru

Thank you for that information. So, if I can hold my radio in my hand, I can transmit on Channel 8-14: I think it is historical as well: before 2017 only FRS radios could transmit on these channels at 0.5 watts, and in the 2017 reorganization, GMRS licensees gained these privileges as well.

Buy Two Way Radios Blog "This entry was posted in Articles, Mobile Radios, Midland and tagged GMRS, handheld, mobile GMRS radio, channels 8-14, interstitial channels on March 10, 2021 by Rick."

@Mikeam I'm a new guy to all of this GMRS stuff, but here's why the KG-1000g or any other non-handheld GMRS can't transmit on channels 8 - 14: "The popular answer provided in these venues commonly focuses on the wattage limitation imposed by the FCC on these channels. The typical line of reasoning is that these channels have a one half watt transmit limit, and high powered mobile radios simply can't reduce their power to such a low level, so therefore they can't transmit on those channels legally. While the wattage theory does make some sense, and the inability to go below one watt may indeed be the case with some mobile radios, this answer is not actually correct. The real reason can be easily found within the FCC rules for GMRS. Specifically, the rule in Part 95, Subpart E which limits the frequencies commonly assigned to channels 8-14 to hand-held radios only. Here is the applicable section (from § 95.1763 GMRS channels): (d) 467 MHz interstitial channels. Only hand-held portable units may transmit on these 7 channels. The channel center frequencies are: 467.5675, 467.5875, 467.6125, 467.6375, 467.6625, 467.6875, and 467.7125 MHz. Those channel center frequencies are the seven frequencies assigned to GMRS channels 8-14. In other words, only handheld GMRS radios can transmit on channels 8-14 because, well, you can only transmit on channels 8-14 with a handheld GMRS radio. Yep, because the FCC said so. That's all it is. And there you go."

Received the legit Motorola brochure and documents sent to my work email account, but still no pricing. I foresee buying as many XPR7550e radios as possible to keep consistent radios in use a while longer, until APX transition takes place. With the current supply chain issues with receiving product from Motorola, unless these are very cheap and available (made in USA or possibly Mexico if they can get them over the border fast enough), these won't hit the streets for a while. Not holding my breathe.

That's MR DUDE to you! And when you ask me for advice about the Radioddity DB20-G, that I do own (the clone Anytone AT-779UV), my answer will be: And here's an early Christmas gift to you:

Radioddity GM-30 right now, contemplating a DB-20G in near future. Also thinking about a used Moto or Kenwood to use as a base station, but reality is I just don't use GMRS that much. I enjoy it when I do and there seems to be a growing user base here in VA. Again, my point here was not to bash any particular radio or GMRS in general, just to try and understand whether there were specific technical or cost issues at play. I tend to agree with those who have noted its mostly a cost and speed to market issue for manufacturers not wanting to develop custom features for the GMRS world. Obviously at higher price points, the feature sets become richer.

I posted a similar complaint recently and was told that the Wouxen radios allow more custom transmit channels. More money but could be worth it.

I haven't had much luck finding it again, but I ran across something once that implied that limiting the user configurable transmit channels (a la Btech) made for quicker certification. That, combined with what @Lscott mentioned about manufacturers repurposing other hardware to meet minimum requirements (both user and certification) with minimal time invested, and here we are. It does seem that some manufacturers are responsive to user input (retevis comes to mind), while others build to vendor specifications, and input from knowledgeable vendors is priceless (wouxun, via buytwowayradios and bettersaferradio).

Then you have the local PD's officers and detectives using modified Ham radios while doing surveillance operations. They operate on non licensed police frequencies for the above reasons, the criminals don't know which frequencies are being used, thus likely aren't monitoring, and the detectives can switch in seconds. Many years ago I was siting with a ground of friends for dinner at a local restaurant. I saw two uniformed police officers enter and sit down. Both had their Motorola brick radios and switched on. One of the officers had an easily identified Yeasu FT-50 sitting on the table as well. I seriously doubt he was playing Ham Radio while on break. Was the radio modified? Don't know. But it got me researching and discovered it wasn't that uncommon for the police to use "free-banded" Ham radios for "private" communications that aren't monitored by dispatch.

As for the “rough estimate” on putting it together... Based on the price of two KG-1000 radios, and the other parts needed, as described above, you would be into such a build for at around $1000-$1200, depending on several factors. Using the Retevis RT-97, you would probably be into it for $500-$700, again depending upon the cost of an antenna and the feedline you use. Having many decades of hands-on experience with radios/repeaters of many types (I am not a professional), I don’t personally see the value of the RT-97 for most users of GMRS. Yes, it is basically everything in a box, just add an antenna, but the inherent inefficiency of such a device, at the price point, is difficult for me to see value. As an alternative option, I have built two GMRS repeaters in recent months for fun, using older commercial mobile radios, just as you would do with the KG-1000. The cost of the build for each repeater (minus antenna, feedline and power supply) was about $350. That cost includes two 40 watt radios (Maxon SM-4450), an ID-O-Matic controller, a 6 cavity mobile duplexer, and the required coax jumpers, 12v. cooling fan and thermal switch, and miscellaneous wire/connectors. That’s pretty decent if you compare that cost to just two KG-1000 radios @ $740. This is not for everyone, as there are a lot of other factors that go into a build like I did (mostly, the requirement to program old radios in DOS or early versions of Windows, and also some useful equipment to align/tune components). I chose the Maxon SM-4450 specifically due to the ease of making the necessary connections (if you want more info on this, I would be happy to share...only one solder connection needed, all others are done using Dupont connectors). But it is still a cost effective option, if you have the means, or know someone who can. I will be offering my builds up for sale at some hamfests this spring, since I don’t need them for myself, so maybe someone in your area is as geeky as I am. Check out local hamfests. You might find some good options there.

It's a very easy thing to do. Pressing the V/M button as you power on the radio allows you to select the frequency range of the radio from a list of four or five options. Of course, once the radio is modified, it nullifies the Part 95e certification until you return it to its original configuration. That doesn't matter to some, but it may matter to others.

I think you can unlock that DB-20G to TX on the 2M and 70cm bands with some shenanigans, so it could double as your GMRS and HAM radio.

Noise that changes due to engine RPM is a common issue in other types of radio installation as well. Noise suppressors can help, and it was common to use them with AM Citizen's Band radio, think "Convoy" days. This applies now as well, even with FM radio. Here is a link for Crutchfield, the seller of car stereo equipment, which discusses how to mitigate this problem. https://www.crutchfield.com/S-YvooC7Rfvdw/learn/learningcenter/car/noise_suppressors_installation_guide.html

I greatly enjoyed reading this post and I love hearing about your military experiences. But I have to agree with OffroadX that people are responsible for their own actions, especially when it comes to emulating someone on the internet. There are far more authoritative warnings against transmitting into an infinite impedance than the examples his two videos show.

The KG-1000G setup will have more output but a "real" repeater like the VXR7000 with only half the power, has much better (almost 2X) range - probably because the internal shielding which reduces desense, and the better/high-quality duplexer.. you COULD spend the extra money on a KG1000 setup for a better quality duplexer, but that gets costly. The Retevis outputs far less power than either setup, but gets about the same range as the KG1000 setup.. Roughly 30-40 miles to a mobile radio, even further to a base-radio.

Even moisture in the air causes attenuation of UHF signals.

"never" means "never" .. I reiterate what Mr Spaz says about speaking in absolutes.. This is one of the reasons why many people dont trust "online experts".. or, make fun of them.

Just as an update, sent my radio in last week. Received the tested replacement and I get 48.7 watts. So that’s much better now!

Quite simple…obstacles. Trees, homes, water towers, rolling hills. The repeater antenna is somewhere around 900’ higher in elevation than mine. If you connected my antenna to the repeater antenna with a string, it would pass through very few trees and likely very few or no buildings. In contrast, when talking simplex (mobile or HT to base), the signal needs to pass through many thousands of trees, homes commercial buildings other obstacles. You will hear over and over that GMRS is line so sight communications. This means if you have clear line of sight (i.e. your antennas can literally see one another) you can talk great distances. However, every obstacle you put between your transmit and receive antenna attenuates your signal and thus lessens your effective distance. The worst of these is the earth. Midland gets away with misleading advertising of ‘37 miles’ because they actually can go 37 miles…if both radios are in outer space where there are no obstacles. Hear on earth…typically 1/2-2 miles. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

I like your idea.

I see it as more analagous to CB channel 19. If I’m in traffic and curious as to why I’m not moving it would be cool, although not necessarily helpful, to call out on GMRS 19 and get a response if anyone was in range. I’m thinking simplex use here to another road user within a mile or two. My understanding is that 462.6750/141.3 was originally meant to be an open repeater initiative. That’s cool but not the same thing. In a real emergency I would pick up the phone. Radio use would be a last resort in an emergency. So for my simple minded vision of this it would be nice if there was a consensus. Channel 19 with no tones seems to make the most sense for on the road simplex use similar to how CBs were used. Yeah, there is the line A thing….

That reminds me, I need to get off my duff and upgrade to Extra before the fee goes active! ?

A little history on CB, the reason truckers picked 19 as their channel is 100% technology driven. CB radios go from channel 1 on 26.965 MHz, to channel 40 on 27.405 MHz. CB radio's and antennas are covering 440 KHz, which is actually a very large swath of spectrum. Because the frequency range is so large, its not affordable to make a CB perform equally on all frequencies. So, the radio and antenna is tuned for maximum performance in the frequency range center, which is 27.185 MHz... aka channel 19. A common issue with the CB is, you can get close to full legal power limit (4 watts am, 12.5 watts SSB) on the center frequency, but on channel 1 and channel 40, your power will be low and SWR will tend to be higher, causing more losses. Also, over the many decades of servicing CB's, I have seen as little as 1.5 watts on AM and 2.5 watts on SSB with a 2.5:1 SWR. Well, no such thing as repeaters for CB and if you wanted to get the maximum mobile to mobile range, you would pick the center frequency for the full 4w/12.5w and 1:1 SWR. That is literally the only reason why 19 became so popular for truckers.

Well I'll be darned, that Wikipedia article lists "Chanel 20" as: (7) National GMRS calling channel (CTCSS tone 141.3 Hz). How about that? ?

Don't assume the coverage shown on the map display in My GMRS is accurate. It's a generalization based on assumptions such a antenna height, efficiency and generally flat terrain. Software that uses more accurate Longley-Rice propagation models are very expensive and those do include terrain modeling showing coverage holes used by hills and ridges.