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The baofengs are not good for scanning. Does it but not well. If you want a real scanner for a vehicle then there are many options from uniden and other scanner manufacturers.

Has to be rugged and reliable. If it dies from dropping on a cement floor it’s useless.

The RT97 is ideal. Had one in my motorhome and would cover most camp grounds just fine with a decent antenna. The issue with the surecomm simplex repeaters is people understanding how they work and worse if they can hear both conversations. Save up and get the RT

3rd. I know I have posted this around before...but this is my "throw down" repeater. It was originally a "proof of concept" for my solar repeater, so it's not the prettiest of construction. Hike this up a mountain in a backpack..."throw it down"...walk away. Coverage for 15,20, 30 miles depending on height.

This is a very good use for the Retevis RT-97, which is an all in one repeater and duplexer. Add an antenna and cable and you have a small low power repeater.

Need an inexpensive cup holder mount for your small GMRS mobile? Try a 3" plumbers test plug. I got mine at Menards.

When shopping for an HT radio, what feature is most important to you?

No doubt, but there is an awful lot of discussion on the subject and it gets old having users tell engineers how wrong they are.

I ordered one of those GMRS charts from BTWR (no affiliate link) and found it in my mail box today. The nice mailperson had folded it in thirds. The shipper had not put a "DO NOT FOLD" stamp or label on the folder or even put a bit of cardboard to protect the chart. I'm now going to step outside an SCREAM.

That sums it up well ?

I have a baofeng uv5r (older, unrestricted) that we use as a scanner, though admittedly it doesn't scan quickly. That said, we only have maybe 8-10 channels programmed. Chirp had checkboxes on the settings tab to disable tx. For my LMR stuff, I used weird splits to dump any unintended key-ups on either gmrs ch 1 (which is just mess of kids kerchunking and pounding the call button on bubble pack radios here) or one of the murs channels.

Same tones as it was. I went up and "replaced" it in late May. I used a higher voltage panel and a better MPPT charge controller. The controller is rated for colder temperatures and I was able to program it to cut off the load at 12.0 volts instead of 11.2. It is also running a Laird 5/8 over 5/8 collinear antenna vs the roll up J-Pole. I saw no improvement in reception or transmission with the Laird but I have not done any extensive testing. When I removed the battery and power line from the "old" repeater a month or two later, when the ground was thawed. I found that the battery was at 12 volts still. I examined the power line and found it was broken internally. Corroded and failed. It is very likely the system failed in December due to that and not due to a frozen battery. Winter will be here in a few months and we shall see what happens this time. Feel free to use the repeater. It has seen very light use this summer.

Here is what I did if you don't want to spend the funds on a Reteveis. (Altho if I had a travel trailer the Reteveis with a extendable mass antenna would be my ideal setup.) Now this isn't a epic high power repeater but is self contained and deployable while out camping. Hoist it into a tree, or set it up on a hill. It has run a couple days with moderate traffic. Worked decent for when people ventured out from where we camped surrounded by hills. HT to HT at camp would not hit through the hill. Plopped this little box on the top and was able to bounce up and over the hit back to camp. Its just a Baofeng, Surecom and a HF box with some random connectors. Runs completely on their own batteries. As long as you understand the Surecom takes and rebroadcast your transmission and everyone remembers to give a few seconds for the transmission. Think maybe I am into it around 100 bucks give or take.

Great Poll. Hard to pick just one, as you really hit all of the major factors.

I guess the question is do you want a repeater that works or one that you can talk a mile from home with. That's the cost factor. All of my repeaters have at least $5000 into at minimum for hardline, antenna and repeater. All have 30-40 mile range. Can you do it cheaper yes but dont expect to talk all over with it. A good DB404 antenna will be $500 alone. Even my home GR500 (2 GM300 mobiles, rck and duplexer) was about $300 used. Thats a solid little repeater but then add the DB404 and 25' of 1/2" hardline, polyphasers and tripod mount on my roof and im well over $1500 and I can only get about 3 miles from home. Granted I'm not on a hill and the only reason for the one at home is to talk to my farm stuff.

With the rule changes in 2017, effective in 2018, business use of the frequencies is legal so long as they use FRS compliant radios. No call signs are required. Anybody who monitors the simplex channels will likely hear all sorts businesses on the air using them. Just have to deal with it.

I keep my Roger Beep on - when someone complains about it, I remind them that its my radio and nobody is forcing them to listen to me.

As long as you state your call sign first. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I was assuming you had a tower, and wanted the best of the best. Since you are talking about a simple push-up pole, I will have to agree with Radioguy7268 that the DB404 would be overkill, and might tend to overload the support pole when iced. The DB404 would survive the ice, but might not survive the fall to the ground when the pole snapped. My next best recommendation for you would be to look into a Comet CA-712EFC for about $150. Much lighter weight. With the money you save on the antenna, and since you are going about 120-150 feet for the coax run, I would take that saved money, and put it into an extremely low-loss coaxial cable such as LDF4-50A Heliax or similar. If you can save 3dB of loss in your coax cable, you will literally be doubling your power to the antenna. If you do decide to go with the Comet for GMRS, be sure to order the model with the "C" on the end. The popular CA-712EF is a Ham antenna tuned for 430-450 MHz. The one ending in "EFC" is the commercial version, tuned for 460-470 MHz.