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The rules only specify the allowed repeater input and output frequencies. It says nothing about they have to always be a fixed 5MHz separation but it is the typical case.

I recorded Christmas wishes from a new friend in South Africa. We chatted 12,700+ km / 7,900+ miles via HF radio. I apologize for the audio sync problems. I rushed last minute to record a conversation with Lyle, which led to me having some issues with the radio display feed being frozen and the time sync between voice and video being off. I will record another one later, after I fix my video codec issue, but I really wanted to share it anyway. Merry Christmas everyone.

Glad you got it figure out, but its weird that it runs fine on my Windows 10 machine AND on Windows 11-ARM running on my Mac in Parallels without having to futz with any of the compatibility settings.. I hate Windows...

First, welcome in to the world of radio. It's a lot of fun, you can meet some very interesting people, and as you have already seen, the airwaves (especially repeaters), can be infested with troublemakers. The moderator on the roundtable you were on made the mistake of engaging the troublemaker by issuing "several warnings to stop acting up". This rarely works, the reason being that troublemakers are difficult to locate and they thrive on the attention. They love disrupting communications, and the more people complain, the more they do it. The only way to get them to stop is to ignore them completely, and not even mention the fact that they are making trouble. This comes hard to a lot of people. I've heard troublemakers on roundtables and nets for years on both amateur radio and GMRS, and as a moderator (net control) for some of them myself, it frustrates me to no end when people (especially moderators who should know better) engage them and try to talk them out of making trouble. Taking repeaters off the air when they are being jammed is a necessary evil with linked repeater systems to protect the rest of the users from jammers. Finding troublemakers is a very painstaking, time-consuming process, and it's only possible when the troublemaker is transmitting. And once they're located, there is not much, probably nothing, the FCC or anyone else will do unless it involves jamming of critical communications like law enforcement, emergency services, commercial users, etc. Don't give up though. Listen in, chime in when you can. It's always great when new people get involved. By the way, here's a fun fact, 62 years ago, I was born in the city you live in.

I agree with the other responses. There is nothing in the rules that state you must use 5MHz splits. Unusual frequency splits as well as mixed split tones are a great way to keep the trolls away. I'm pretty sure the 5MHz split was borrowed from other popular UHF based services and is considered best practice. Standards help avoid mistakenly causing harmful interference. It also helps companies build standardized hardware for maximum compatibility.

I don't see any entry in the software where one may enter short text/call sign for display. You may have to go into the Windows device manager, find the COM device being used by the radio, and manually change it to be COM1. At least for the Wouxun software, which seems to lock on COM1 and ghost any selection choices. CHIRP might be able to use whatever COM# the cable was assigned by Windows, but you will have to track that down.

I just purchased the BTEC GMRS PRO today online, even though I have plenty of radios that I could use. Sure, they maybe not be typed accepted, but the FCC hasn't fined users for uncertified radio, unless there was something seriously wrong with a particular radio and the operator failed to correct the problem. Anyway, I don't need to start a back-and-forth discussion on whether I just misinterpreted the R&Rs or I'm completely wrong. I'm sure manufacturers or vendors would need bank loan to pay fine if the FCC caught them selling PART 90 OR 97 to operate in 95 territories. To all who have or read my post, Happy Holidays!

My son figured it out. He actually went to buytwowayradios site and read the help info. I had to change a compatibility setting to Windows 8, in the Wouxun software.

Although not in the rules it should be followed. Some follow the rules but some do not. My guess is he is trying to keep CCR/Pre defined radios off the repeater.

Nice! Merry Christmas! ?

Thank you for sharing this. Merry Christmas! ?

I am on again off again in my support of the League. Hobby radio in it's entirety needs some level of representation at a government level. They do that. I question their support for ARES, although it's not at the level it was. And don't get me wrong, ARES is important if it's done right. Orange vests, a bandolier of radios and a lightbar on your POV is NOT doing it right. But when that was all the rage, the League never really officially said to cut out the nonsense. Which made them somewhat complicit in the wackerism. That fad seems to have come and gone and it's a good thing to be rid of. And for those that feel they weren't supporting it, the stupid badges that many of the wackers carried had ARRL right on them. At a minimum the League could have told them NO. Hell Ohio State University was trying to copyright THE. And I believe they let them. The League no doubt has a copy write on ARRL. All that being said, ham radio and the members of it are not what they once were. And yes, the articles in QST and even the stuff in the Handbook show that loss of technical knowledge. The articles are NOT what they were. But they are something to get you interested enough to research the topics more and maybe implement something you read about. But some of it, like the dumb umbrella antenna (reminds me of the folks with the antenna towers on their hats at Hamvention) article was truly lame and an indication they need more people writing technical articles for the magazine. I am gonna send them my money once a year. Well, I will pay them at Hamvention, but I am not gonna be one of those that donates my house and gear to them in my Will.

Well right now it's Motorola and now Kenwood is following their lead with the software you need to use their new NX-5000, 3000 and 1000 series radios. The new Kenwood radios look great, but then they had to bugger it all up with their crappy software licensing business model. That's why I'm staying away from those new models until such time as somebody figures out how to crack the software and eliminate the Internet activation and single PC use lock stupidity.

https://www.walmart.com/search?q=murs radio&typeahead=murs Well it seems if you drag it to files it turns it into a webloc, or at least it did for me but not if I drag it straight to text. It didn't matter which browser I used... I also was annoyed and I did it ?

I recently wrote an article on this very topic. You can find it here: http://ogdenarc.org/downloads/Transmission Lines - Setting the Record Stright.pdf Included in this article I also cover connectors which for GMRS should be an important consideration. I've also attached it here. 1225397544_TransmissionLines-SettingtheRecordStright.pdf