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We need to be supportive of them coming out. It takes a huge amount of courage to face yourself and openly admit to who you are. That courage needs to be admired. Oh, wait... you are talking about pulling your radio and getting a different one. Nevermind. I was picturing the Village people all dancing around with the KSG1000 radios with Diana Ross singing her coming out song. Sorry.

Found it, the link: https://www.hamradio.me/antennas/ht-antenna-comparisons.html And the thread where Lscott brings it up, and our resident infulenzer is also quoted:

Perhaps it switched from English to Chinese? I turned off voice prompts on mine, I found them slightly annoying haha

Off tangent: The UV5R and SW-33 are truly a match made in heavens. When both are connected and used for <anything> it is a very good indication of youtube expert having no clue. And I have SW-33. It is not consistent. Most of the time it shows my grandma's birthday. And other times it shows completely random numbers. I can't trust it for anything.

Who actually listens to FM radio on a CCR anyway ? Is that a thing ?

I just REALLY DON'T need it. The chinese stuff are decent for the price, I just don't expect reliability over the long term, you know you get what you pay for. Not like I could not take mild steel and make the ground plate myself for the NANO VNA, which might be another project to add to the list. I have a different rabbit hole I am working on outside of the DXCommander antenna. Which is I was basically gifted by some of the local Gov/Commercial friends 4x CDM1250's. Need to acquire the cables, software and terminology, which looks like it could be a pain. Only because I know nothing about the radio or software. Still working on setting up my new to me Landcruiser. Really want to do a fun run to an ORV park with you and your son. Enough of me derailing the topic.

@kidphc I have one of the inexpensive surecom units and it is extremely close in accuracy to my very expensive commercial meters. I would use it with confidence.

I think because as you know it can be difficult to get a repeatable reliable number. Although watching Offroaderx/Notarubicon's videos on the surecom units I might pick one up for ht testing. He show cased one with a ground plate adapter. For the OP. Get a decent mag mount if using mobile you will get better range. If you are stationary, then a nice slim jim like N9Tax's (if you want pre built) thrown up a tree with a leader line will work. I made a fake blade antenna inside the house by using wiring track, fastening the slim jim (N9Tax's version) inside and stuck it to the wall inside. Connected to an Anytone 779UV i get reliable connections to a friend's repeater on a commercial site (approximately 6 miles, through rolling urban hills) . It wasn't doing it reliably with an HT and the 771g from indoors.

Yup, no WiFi - no Bluetooth, and lacking GPS. 3 things that might be important if you built a fleet around advanced feature stuff like Indoor Location or Enhanced GPS. Those chips are also missing now in the XPR3500e/3300e portables. The good news is that by dropping those features, they reduced the lead time to months instead of years. A recent customer order for some XPR radios shows a January 2023 expected ship date. The good news is that by getting the order in now, I have already beat the next 2 expected price increases.

Why would you say this?

Friendly reminder: measuring SWR on HT antenna is meaningless, no matter what youtube expert would say.

What channel are you trying to TX on? Some channels might be locked out to make the device part 95 compliant.

Create an account on myGMRS.com. Login and then go to the following URL (https://mygmrs.com/repeaters). Enter your search criteria to see repeaters. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM

If you mean by "bubble pack radio" the ones you see at the department store I would say no. The FCC changed the rules back a few years so combo GMRS and FRS radios are no longer legally sold, and a few I think did include repeater access. What you will find are likely FRS only radios which by law can't have repeater functions. I think your best bet is researching online specifically for GMRS radios, then look carefully at the spec's or get a copy of the operator's manual. Check to see if repeater setup or functionality is specifically mentioned and how it works. As you discovered some don't. One more thing if you want repeater access have you checked to see if there are any repeaters, and are operational, within a few miles of where you plan to operate? If not then repeater functions on the radio won't help you much. Any handheld radio you do get I would recommend it should have a removable antenna. This way you can use it while mobile with a simple 1/4 wave magnet mount on the roof, or switch to a better on-radio antenna. The range is severely reduced using the on-radio antenna while inside of a vehicle. Some people use a magnet mount on a cookie sheet for a ground plane to use inside the house for limited range, usually better than the on-radio antenna.

I would only opine that there is no magic that comes with a Technician license over GMRS. It's practically the same physics at play. I'm facing a different problem, but also physics related. I live in a dip that breaks LOS in the direction that I need coverage. GMRS focuses my solutions to the GMRS band, whereas the amateur solution spreads me over several bands, which equal more $ The only exception would be HF, which would do a better job at distance. Otherwise, I'm focused on doing GMRS really well as I can tune everything to be excellent at those frequencies.

Sorry to hear that. I'm not sure what your goals are, but I have been a Ham for close to 18 years and GMRS is a fantastic service that I use regularly. The thing about radio service is to use the proper service for the comms you are trying to have.

Omni's fall into a similar issue. While there are some dual-band 2m/70cm vertical antennas that cover from 440-470 MHz, the gain is very low. As gain increases, the bandwidth narrows and so does the takeoff angle, impacting sensitivity between stations with elevation difference. So, if you have the expendable income, you can test it. However, don't be surprised if the lower gain of a broad band antenna doesn't help much. I have to agree with RCM on getting two service-dedicated Larsen welded Yagis. That's going to be your best bet, relating to both performance and price.

Most UHF beams only have 15MHz to 20MHz of bandwidth they are usable for. You are not likely to find one that is going to cover 50MHz unless all of the elements and spacing are tunable (which I have never seen). That's more than double the typical bandwidth coverage.