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Oh, great, now I have to get a Jeep… ?

This appears to be a decent price for an antenna that some of you have spoken well about. The MXTA26 is on sale for $40 instead of the MSRP of $60 and if you order two and enter code “2SHIPSFREE” shipping is free. I ordered two. https://midlandusa.com/products/micromobile-mxta26-6db-gain-whip-antenna?utm_medium=email&utm_source=attentive&externalId=NnCfu

The MXTA26 is what I use on my Jeep.. It replaced a Tram.

Well, I am NOT going for the short answer. And this reminds me of something said about ham radio operators. I there were 2 ham operators in a city, that city would have 3 ham clubs so each of them belonged to a club that the other one didn't. That being said. I fully agree with what has already been said. Problem is that these groups are the self appointed types that have little to no outside support and do little to support government entities. Reason I say that is simple, if they were working FOR some agency, the agency would provide them the ability to communicate. If they have setup shop on GMRS, then they are one step removed from ham radio and wanted to go their own way and not deal with hams either. Which brings about the second possible cure that will never work due to mentality. And that is SHARED resources. One big repeater that multiple groups use for communications. And if you run a community repeater controller that is multi-PL enabled, then they don't even hear each other talking. We did this for YEARS in the LMR business. Put a few high profile repeaters up that were setup as community repeaters and sold air time on those repeaters. Not real common any more but it was effective. But we are back to the problem of getting people to SHARE. And that is where you are gonna get stuck. The third way to begin to deal with it is system design with limits on coverage area in mind. Directional antenna systems, down tilt, decreased power (which ALWAYS pisses people off when you mention it) and getting the system owners and users to spend money for real radio people to design and install their systems. Problem here is again money. Ham radio is by far the cheapiest way to communicate for SAR and similar groups. You are using repeaters that are typically owned by others, the license are cheap and the radios are just as cheap. But unless it's YOUR ham repeater, you can't have exclusive use of it. GMRS does get you a bit closer, has no test to pass and can be a cheap. But again, if it's not YOUR repeater, no exclusive use. So they spend as little as possible to put up as much repeater as they can so they have exclusive use of it. And I know that's how they treat it because if they were sharing use with other groups, we wouldn't be having this discussion. Actual designed and implemented systems that are tailored to cover a specific area are expensive. Not so much the hardware as the design of it. That requires knowledge that a typical GMRS operator frankly doesn't posses. And that's not a dig on GMRS operators,,, it's just a fact. So by the time you pay for all the design and increased cost for the antenna system you could have dropped 500 bucks and gotten a LMR license and been done with it. Then you have exclusive use of your own repeater pair and can do what ever you want. But they are too cheap to pony up the 500 bucks for coordination and a license fee. You are NOT gonna get more frequencies for GMRS. And license holders have equal access to the allocated frequencies. And contrary to popular belief, putting up a repeater with a different PL or DPL on the same frequency is NOT purposeful interference. By putting a different PL on it, you have shown effort to mitigate interference and you have just as much right to use that repeater pair as the other guy does. Now this of course requires that the other repeater is closed access. But at that point, you are left with no other choice. So letters to the FCC are pointless.

Both rock-stars! I had a 98 2dr 1500 and currently have a 2020 1500 Rebel.

B&H photo also has it on sale but with free shipping if you spend 10 extra bux. Midland's website wanted $11 to ship it to my zipcode. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1542037-REG/midland_micromobile_mxta26_6db_gain.html

Good question! I have a 98 Dodge pickup truck and a 2006 4Runner. They both just keep working and they run really quietly. .

That is a great price. I have to say, out of the 2 dozen plus antennas I tested on my Jeep, the MXTA26 and the Tram 1/4 wave are the only 2 I kept. That Midland antenna has more measurable gain than another antenna I tried that advertised 9dB gain.

About 5 minutes into the segment:

To my knowledge, ALL the MXT micro-mobiles support repeater usage (I have an MXT-115 -- it has repeater capability; it does not have added memory channels, so if one has to access two repeaters on the same frequency, one will have to remember what tones are currently assigned to that frequency/channel). Go to Midland's web site, find the radio of interest, and download the PDF manual. Note that the 115/275 units are NFM only (ie; FRS bandwidth, not GMRS (wide) FM bandwidth). I believe the top-end models had a firmware update that permits selecting bandwidth (again, check the manual).

My first and favorite radio I got for GMRS was a XTS3000. I went ahead and customized it with a neat "toxic/radioactive" (lol radio) scheme. Might not be Part95 but I'd believe we should put a old radio to use than to just have it end up as waste!

A little googling and I answered my own question. Thx