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Price, absolutely. Unfortunately, once their radios start to cope with the best of the best, price will be similar, so it won't be CCR anymore. They can do it b/c you are talking about employees being paid several thousands of dollars a month, vs employees being paid, if that, several thousands a year. So, the cost of living hasn't caught up there, yet, but it will eventually happen, and maybe the Baofengs will still be around, maybe not, but there will be the same thing as Japanese in the 70s-80s... however, I think that was a different situation than what we are in right now. Feels like in the 70s/80s the US failed to embrace the mass producing ideas they put into practice when Japan was rebuilt after WW2... Its hard to compete against someone who steals your tech and packages it and sells it for 1/100th of the price... G.

Check the cover of the manual. The manual for the 935 has 56 menu items. The 935 is not the same radio as the 905. The manual for the 905 has 35 menu items. As others have told you, you’re looking at the wrong manual.

The most simple way to troubleshoot a repeater is to start with the basics. If you can, follow OffroaderX's suggestion and set up a simplex mobile radio (or temporarily reprogram the repeater as a simplex base - disable the repeat function). Connect the "base" radio directly to the antenna - forget about the duplexer for now. Get a helper to take a radio out to the current 5 mile edge of the system range. Test the transmit function to a distant mobile. You should get the same range (assuming power level is the same as the repeater). If your range increases - need to look at the duplexer and cabling. Now test receive function from that distant mobile. You should be able to receive from a similar distance as you could transmit to. If your receive range improves from what you saw with the repeater - you need to take a look at the duplexer and cabling. I have seen more bad cables than I've seen bad duplexers. Your story about the system working well with the other previous antenna makes me wonder if you were using the same duplexer and cables for that setup. Have you measured VSWR for the antenna system? Do you have the ability to sweep the antenna? That Harvest antenna is tunable - was it set for GMRS when you ordered it? What frequency was it supposed to be set to? Don't just guess at what's wrong. Measure & test so that you know what is working and what seems to introduce trouble when you add it to the mix.

That guy on youtube lives on a hill and has perfect line of site to the repeater 69 miles away - meaning there is nothing between him and it. I'm pretty sure he's explained that in pretty much every video. And as The Spaz ^ says, if you programmed it wrong, it doesnt matter if you're standing right next to it.

right? the wording for 95E is a bit clearer, too contrary to what they say their understanding is, the definitions of "interconnected" and "non-interconnected" in that FCC opinion seem to hinge on whether you can receive telephone calls from the publicly switched telephone network or not....which would seem to make even DSL without telephone service meet the "non interconnected" definition (and therefore good to go).

You can't go by what you "hear". There is a repeater near me that has 15-20 people monitoring the machine from around 0730 in the morning until 2100 at night, but may never say a word. Sometimes none of us talk to each other for days. Then there are people like me. My base station is always on and monitoring all if the GMRS frequencies. Even if I'm not home, my wife, son or mother in-law could all answer an emergency call.

It should leave deep scars!!

That is an awesome idea. Unforunately im in Washington County. We have decent repeater coverage in the surrounding area thanks to the work and graciousness of a few individuals.

You know, there is no ERP limit with mobile radios. It would be fun to build a crazy stacked beam array and see how range improves with 50w and 14 or 15 dB of directional gain.

And what type of antenna might "That guy" be using. Stick a GMRS band YAGI (beam) antenna pointing at the repeater and I'm sure signals can improve. After all, Amateurs with high-gain yagis mounted on hand-held sticks have used 5W handhelds to work SATELLITES (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio_satellite#FM_satellites) and possibly even the ISS (260 miles)

I learned how to setup and program my radio from watching some old YouTube videos posted from some old guy who looks like GI Joe.

Uh... 500' of LMR on uhf is about 15db of loss. You'd have about no power at the end. 3db is a cut in half of power. A good repeater will use good cable. I just optimized an antenna and repeaters this week that is 275 high. Cable is 1 5/8 with a loss of .445. Sweeps show 1.2db of loss. 50 watts leaving duplexes with 8.1 db of gain. Thats basically a 7db gain in the system. The difference between public safety and critical infrastructure like this vs a hobby is money. Very few on this site would pay the cost of parts let alone tower crews cranes and such.

I would focus the duplexer first - i've had those inexpensive ones fail on me.. Try removing the duplexer, and if possible put the repeater in base-station/simplex mode and see how well it transmits and receives.

Sucks to hear you didn't have any luck. Not only does that suck, it's one of the many reasons why I have every type of personal radio service radio in my offroad vehicles. Are you sure you had repeaters programmed correctly? I have to say, on UHF with 5 watts I have talked direct to people from about 4,400 feet to the shoreline about 160 miles away. That said, you need to be sure that there are no other mountains/hills/etc. In the way. And also remember that the earth has a pretty sharp curve to it and UHF/GMRS is a line of sight service. If you have a poor performing radio, antenna, or if the current conditions don't support scatter or ducting, even at 4,500 feet, you will be limited to about 90 miles, even if everything is 100% perfect and zero obstruction to the horizon.

Yes and both your wife and your girlfriend will be able to hear the others conversation! ?

Whether that’s true or not, the purpose of this post was not to discuss the cost/benefit ratio of Ed Fong antennas, but to invite folks to attend a zoom presentation by Dr. Fong. Although I’m not the OP, I think we should respect the original poster’s hospitality.

Yes, it's called Faraday Cage. It is very difficult to fully prevent cables, body of the radio, grounding wires, your body, from radiating. The higher the frequency the harder the task. On UHF it is usually solved with a massive (and expensive) common mode current choke on the cable.

Exactly I like the fact just plainly speak and not sound like on Adam 12. So far everything gmrs is thumbs up like see more repeaters in Orange County or open respecters in general. But I can see the problem just opening them up too for free use. A pretty pickle.

§ 95.1751 GMRS station identification. Each GMRS station must be identified by transmission of its FCC-assigned call sign at the end of transmissions and at periodic intervals during transmissions except as provided in paragraph (c) of this section. A unit number may be included after the call sign in the identification. (a) The GMRS station call sign must be transmitted: (1) Following a single transmission or a series of transmissions; and, (2) After 15 minutes and at least once every 15 minutes thereafter during a series of transmissions lasting more than 15 minutes. The only etiquette on GMRS is to speak English like a normal person and dont be a dickhead. You can usually find local clubs through the use of your Googles machine or by monitoring your local GMRS channels to see who's out there. It is important to understand that GMRS is not ham, and most/many people use it only for specific communication needs, like talking to their group while off-roading, talking to partners when hiking, etc. Because of this you may not hear much when monitoring unless you are in a large population center.

Not only that but instead of "stale" repeaters they can be community confirmed to be working which might filter out some of the repeaters that are listed but do not exist.

The "stale repeater" function needs a little updating. Repeater owners will not update their repeaters even if they are online. One year seems fair for a repeater to go "stale". However there should be a button or toggle to let other users, who can hit the repeater, let mygmrs know the repeater is in fact still online. A good example is WRAL242 repeater in Troy, Tx. That repeater is online and I use it almost daily, but the owner has not updated it in a while. It does not show unless you toggle "Show stale repeaters". It would be convenient for people like me who know the repeater is online, to simply hit a button that says something along the lines of "this repeater is not stale" or "this repeater is online". Then it could be on the main map without having to sort through stale repeaters that may be offline. It may also get used more.

One thing I think many would like is an ignore feature where posts from ignored users would not show. The ability to edit your personal ignore list would be required so names could be taken off the list as well as being added.

My computer had the pdf as 905G manual.pdf. But when opened it just now (6-25-2022 @ 0800 hrs, it does show 935. Yes I could of made a mistake or maybe they are reading post to this forum and they want me to look bad (for asking about a affiliate link)