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My station at home is "portable", Midland MXT-400 with a mag mount 1/4 wave on AC wall unit. Not attached to a fixed antenna and easily moved.

You make an interesting point. Also, many of us who have said “That’s only a 3 dB gain! You probably won’t notice it,” are the ones who get wound around the axle about a 3dB loss when someone picks a coax type and length with 3dB attenuation. And I’m sure I’ve done it myself. ?

I don't see the problem. Don't you want to keep them toasty warm?!?!? I mean, it's not like it's ionizing radiation...

Purely a guess here. But it would make sense that occupational use would be limited to work activity for 8 or less hours a day, with a small percentage of actual transmit time in that 8 hour period. The difference being with 'hobby use' is the guy that in 10 minutes will time out the repeater 2 times and will be well on his way to doing it a third time as the ten minute time passes. You know, the gas bags that will get on the local ham repeater and seem to never shut up. And again, speculating, that the SAR numbers for the radio's rated wattage over time allows it to be used SPARINGLY throughout the work day, but being a gabtastic hammie would possibly exceed the SAR numbers for that power level and exceed the total exposure limit over time. OF course the sticker is there same as the sticker on your lawn mower to NOT put your fingers under the deck while the mower is running. And not to use a push mower as a hedge trimmer, and all the rest of the dumb stuff we have warning labels for. To LIMIT liability. And while the 'don't be a dumbass' stickers are not gonna keep you from getting sued, they do show some level of effort to inform the user that a danger COULD exist if the product is used in a way that doesn't conform with the design of the product.

hahaha. I already did! Ordered the UV-9GX. what do you mean by ccr? A cheap radio till my good one gets here?

Thank you for this additional information; my plumber's plug should arrive towards the end of next week. And thank you for the heads up by PM: Instead of an "http" URL, the way to link a member is to type the "@" symbol and the first few letters of their screen name. A list will auto-generate and you can click on the correct name to insert into your message. @Newb How do you like your ICOM? What features does it have over your previous DB20-G?

Mmmmm saffron ?

Manufacturers only sell three kinds of GMRS radios: repeaters, mobile radios, and hand-held portable stations. The entire concept of fixed stations and base stations may have stopped meaning anything to anyone who doesn’t have a license that has been grandfathered since the FCC licensed stations at a specific location. Use your mobile station from your house. The FCC won’t know and doesn’t care.

I have switched from the small light weight radio shown in the first post to an iCOM IC f221-1 which is larger and heavier. I will post the simple mods I made that make it sturdier for the heavier radio. When you get your plug, note that I removed the nut and turned the top cap over as I couldn't see that the taper on the bottom side did any good and the flat side seemed to create more down force on the taper at the bottom of the stem.

I really don't understand that this keeps getting repeated over and over in GMRS-land. I'm new, so maybe I need to be schooled, but I've been reading stacks of antenna resources, and I started out with an engineer's education in fields and waves theory, and I just don't get this point! According to everything I understand, rf signal strength, all other things being equal, follows the same inverse square law that all electromagnetic fields do. This means that the distance at which signal strength drops off to unreadable levels increases proportional to the square root of any increase in power. So on a direct line between two antenna, assuming proportions of open air, obstructions, reflections, etc remain constant, doubling the power of a transmission provides more than 40% more range, quadrupling it provides twice the range, etc. Now, I can certainly understand providing a caution to new users that range isn't proportional to radiated power, because that's an easy mistake to make that will confuse a lot of newbs, but saying things like "Going from 5 watts to 8 watts is a relatively small increase in transmitted signal" that produces "very little difference in signal performance, all things being equal" when in fact a 60% increase in transmitted power results in more than 25% increased range, all things being equal, seems at best sloppy and at worst disingenuous. And people repeating it constantly across an en entire community seems... well, I won't say religious, but at least dogmatically ideological, anyway... What am I missing?

So...I had a longer post put together on mobile browser, all typed up, used ARRL's RF Exposure calculator, had a screenshot...and the forum said "NOPE!" and deleted the whole thing. The shorter version is that running the calculation using 5 watts, 33% duty cycle (5 min tx, 10 min rx), at 462.550mhz and 2.1dbi, it spit out a safe distance of just shy of a foot for controlled space (informed operator), and not quite 1.5 ft for uncontrolled (uninformed bystanders), though perhaps 2.1dbi is a little overestimating a rubber ducky. bumping up the power and/or duty cycle pushes the distance out further. IIRC, when i ran my calculations for my "shack", it was something like 3 ft at 50 watts, controlled, and either 4.5 or 6 uncontrolled, for UHF, and a bit more for VHF. Based on that, i read that "occupational use" disclaimer as the manufacturers' attempt (even if FCC forced) to ensure the operator is informed of the RF exposure involved, and can adjust their exposure accordingly, whether with less TX time, lower power, or moving the radio away via remote mics. i suspect many of the 5 watt limits came down to balancing allowable exposure with being able to keep a reasonable amount of talk time.

I use a Wouxun kg-935g (ht) connected to an Ed Fong GMRS antenna and I can hit a repeater 43 miles away. Remember that UHF works better in the evening to morning hours. You might be able to get into the repeater during that time. Notarubicon is an awesome resource to learn from. He's hilarious as well. I'd recommend watching his YouTube videos.