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I'm pleased to announce a new feature available on the forums: a new classifieds system! Premium Members can post a listing for radios, repeaters, antennas, and more that they are selling or want to buy. All members can view and purchase items from the seller, a Premium Membership is only required to post advertisements. Purchases are handled between the buyer and seller directly at this time, but we might expand this in the future to handle payments similar to how eBay and PayPal work. There are no commissions since we are not handling the payments on behalf of the parties. If you are a Premium Member, you will see a blue "Submit an advert" button on the Classifieds page. Click on this button and select the category to list your ad under. Listings are active for 21 days for free (less the cost of membership) and can be renewed if the item is still available. You also have the ability to set up shipping options for the buyer, and can paste the tracking number for the shipment once you've completed a sale.

While the RT97 and the MXR10 are very different, I don't see any real difference between the RT97S and the MXR10 besides the custom case and button placement. Both have the DB-9 port, both have a metal custom case, and both are preset for GMRS frequencies out of the box (and FCC certified for GMRS). We worked with Retevis to add the DB9 port to allow hooking up an external controller, for linking or IDing purposes. I see that's in this model, and I wonder if they kept those features intact. I'd be willing to bet it's the same guts as the RT97S, which are different from the original RT97. If you care to open it up, it's just 4 Allen screws that are retained by a spring to prevent them from falling out. Retevis and Midland use the same manufacturer, but Retevis does not make these themselves. They are produced by another factory.

Thank you for all of the input. The main reason for my original question was to verify that Roger Beeps are not the new EMP in the radio world. I understand and respect that some like it and others hate it, but thankfully it’s still a free Country that we can still make our own choices. I personally don’t care if I use the Roger Beep or not on this persons repeater. It just so happened that the particular radio that I was using for my very first interaction on GMRS had the Roger Beep enabled. I don’t mind turning it off. I just don’t like someone, who by the way is just another user not the owner of the repeater, feeding me a line of B.S. for the sake of getting me to disable it. If I wanted to be manipulated by people spoon feeding me crap I’d get into politics. I will say that after listening to repeater traffic for the past few weeks that I somewhat like the Roger Beep for the sake of knowing when the transmission is complete. There are a few people that keep their radio keyed while they’re thinking and many times when that happens several other people try to key up. I am in the process of getting my own repeater up and running due to the fact that there are none in my immediate area. (The repeater that I currently access is just barely in range.) And when I do set it up I’m going to use my Roger Beep. I’m looking forward to the first person telling me that I need to shut it off so as not to ruin the repeater. And as far as gay truck drivers looking to meet up because of my Roger Beep……. Well, thats why we have German Shepherds. I will provide public access to my repeater because I’m generally a nice guy. If people boycott my repeater because I use a Roger Beep; I really don’t care. The main reason for my repeater is for family communication.

Without getting into the debate on Part 90 vs 95 figured I'd list some basic Repeaters for UHF that would be good base units if your shopping for new. Low Power RT97 - List Price - $536 (Sale Price - $371.99) - https://www.retevis.com/rt97-portable-gmrs-repeater-mobile-repeater#A9150CX1 Midland MRX10 - List Price - $ 459.00 - https://midlandusa.com/products/midland-mxr10-repeater Mid Power Bridgecomm BCR-40U - List Price $1499.00 - https://www.bridgecomsystems.com/collections/amateur-radio-repeaters/products/bcr-40u ICOM FR6300H - List Price $1819.00 - https://theantennafarm.com/shop-by-categories/radios/repeater-systems/uhf-repeaters/11680-icom-fr6300h-detail Kenwood NXR-810K - List Price - $1770.00 - https://theantennafarm.com/shop-by-categories/radios/repeater-systems/uhf-repeaters/9640-kenwood-nxr-810k-detail Motorola SLR5700 - List Price $ 3700.00 - https://theantennafarm.com/shop-by-categories/radios/repeater-systems/uhf-repeaters/9581-motorola-slr5700-detail To be noted none of the mid power repeaters come with a duplexer. That will tac on another $300 and up depending on what you purchase. Granted there are many UHF part 90 repeaters used on the market that can be had for way less money than above but wanted to list new prices. If your searching online and someone is advertising a GR1225 on GMRS for $1000 I'd think twice. For mid power I have no experience with the Bridgecomm or the new NRX (however have many of the older Kenwood) units. Just wanted to put some info in one location. The low power units are nice because they basically work out of the box. I also realize the prices on the mid power units look high when your comparing to some of the CCR world but they will outlast pretty much all the home brewed stuff as they are built to do what they are. Some used older stuff that can be had reasonably are the Vertex VXR Series, Motorola GR1225, Motorola MTR2000, Motorola Quantar, Kenwood TKR850, Midland Base Tech II (Was a solid unit), ICOM FR4000 and the Motorola XPR series.

As an unashamed ham/GMRS user, one thing I hear a lot that clearly differentiates ham radio from GMRS is the idea that old hams will make it a point of updating everyone, whether it's on HF or VHF/UHF repeaters, about their health status and that of their spouses. Strokes, heart attacks, oozing wounds, various surgeries, the entire spectrum of medical issues, are covered ad nauseum. GMRS doesn't normally include that kind of conversation. It can get depressing.

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I call BULLSHIT - just another Sad-HAM disguised as a GMRS user. YOUR radio YOUR choice - if the sad-HAM control freaks dont like it, they can change the channel.. HOWEVER - as you mentioned, if the repeater owner requests that you not use a roger-beep on his repeater, then following the wishes of the equipment owner who's equipment you are using would be the polite thing to do, IMO..

How far do you want it to work and what power levels are you using ? Ideally you want 20-25' vertical separation for good isolation. The closer they are the less isolation you get. In the end its almost always cheaper to buy a duplexer than run 2 antenna lines and antenna's. In the LMR world antenna's can be closer but are normally filtered to limit the exposure of each other. On one of our SAR sites we have a DB404 10' below the RX DB408. The receive multi-coupler has not only pass cavities but also notch for the TX channels. The TX combiner has pass cavities for the TX channel only. There is no noticeable decense on the system. But the combiners and multi-coupler cost more than most of you spend on a vehicle.

Oh man! I'm going to start having to go through my bucket-o-HTs!

Anybody is allowed on GMRS. Even youtube influenzers are allowed, least hams. Anybody who has a new squeaky scratchy $35 bill in their pocket is allowed.

I've pealed off the Mylar on a bunch of magnet mounts. A good replacement is using some of the aluminum duck tape you can buy at the home improvement store. It sticks like crazy and is easy to trim off using a sharp blade. Also being aluminum it helps couple the antenna to the metal roof.

I would be right in the intersection of all of the circles. I haven't used CB in years. The last time was when I had to do a lot of business travel for the company and drove to customer sites. The van, I had at the time, looked like something out of the X-Files with the antennas on it. It was fun hearing the truckers on 19 make comments about it as I drove by. I even had a guy driving in circles around it in a parking lot as I came out of a carry out pizza joint one day. Turned out it was a fellow Ham. He couldn't figure out what the small square horizontal loop was for. I explained it was for 2 meter sideband. At the time I had a Icom IC-706MKIIG rig in the van which did FM,AM and sideband on 6M, 2M and 70cm. https://www.icomamerica.com/en/products/amateur/hf/706/specifications.aspx https://www.m2inc.com/FG2MHOLOOP

Just like people who buy an expensive luxury vehicle and when it comes time to replace the tires buy nearly the cheapest ones they can find. Life is full of examples of this sort of things. Hams are no different.

I thought about this thread last night. I'm guessing (only a guess), that he isn't missing anything. I think what he is seeing on the radio is the CW ID broadcasting with no tone, and therefore he won't hear it with the receive tone programmed. This is how my repeater is programmed. He isn't missing someone coming back to him, or other chatter. The reason I think this, he hears the tone squelch when he contacts the repeater.

Your point ? I said in the past I was a ham, and for many years. Just because I'm a ham doesn't mean anything. Its a service I use for a specific purpose. GMRS was never the place to be a "ham" until as of late. That's what this thread was started about. But some folks as your self can't understand the difference between the services. And as reference the ham came to me because I maintain many public safety and business license and am in the FCC system daily doing updates. You do realize some folks actually have paying careers in RF right ?

Sounds like an urban legend intended to frighten people away from using roger beeps. How about this? If you use a roger beep, just tell people it’s a Quindar tone used to turning on your remote relay stations. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quindar_tones ?

You find out real quick just how serious people are about it when the repeater owner starts asking for money from the users to pay for it all. Not surprisingly most of the interest fades fast at that point.

Since I have little to no knowledge of what is best for a repeater. I initially used what I could find that was "gmrs tuned". Optek UH-2401. Now after many forums search's I find that maybe a Dipole might be better. If a person tried to look for the best universal direction output, best gain, and working on antenna altitude, but may not be able to fix that much. Are my assumptions from my reading even close to reasonable? If I had the money, ASP705K might be the best answer. DB420-B May be next best. DB408-B Then this. DB404-B Then this. Compared to the radiated energy of a Optek UH-2401 like antennas. Am I missing ground plane / grounding complications? Other things I am too stupid to know? Keep in mind altitude is not an option more that 20'9" change to 33'2" mast. Hills North and South. My assumption is DB404-B in elliptical layout should be better than Optek UH-2401 like antennas. Is this reasonable understanding? Thank you, Royce

I recently started with GMRS and bought a UV-9G. I thought I set it up right using CHIRP, but I still haven't been able to communicate with anyone. Can some one help me? Does anyone know of a club in New York City?

It's all working now but I didn't use Chirp. As I was leaving for work I saw that I had recieved the bluetooth adapter to program the radio with a phone app that I had ordered. Using the adapter and the app on my phone I was able to take off the recieve tone and update the radio. I can now connect to the repeater. I just connected to Chirp and now I can see the settings in Chirp. I did not have the Tone Mode set to Cross, now it is.

OK, you are NOT going to get enough physical separation of the antenna's to get it to work correctly. So that's the FIRST problem. Second issue is you are using radios that due to their size have little to no filtering. If the thing was to talk more than 100 yards, you would be doing good. And your 'power robbing' duplexers are the ONLY way it could possibly work. Let me run this down in real numbers in a manner that will make sense. And the ONLY way you could POSSIBLY get it to work. If you can get the antenna's 20 feet apart on a vertical plane. Meaning one antenna 20 feet directly above the other then you will get about 15 to 20 dB of isolation. For every 20 feet increase you can add 10 dB to that. You need 80 to 90 dB of isolation for a repeater to work correctly. So if you can place the top antenna 200 or so feet above the other one, then you have enough isolation. Of course the bottom antenna that you are transmitting on is at ground level, and the receive antenna is 200 feet in the air so it will hear ok, but not be able to talk very far. Second issues is unless you dump a bunch of money into 7/8 hard line (with 1.5 dB of loss per 100 foot length) the loss on the receive side is going to be higher than the loss of a 'power robbing' duplexer. But it's STILL a portable with poor shielding, so the transmit RF is still gonna get in the radio and screw with the repeater function and desense the receiver in that hand held. You could of course run a 200 foot linking cable down the side of the 200 foot tower linking the radios together, but that will pick up a ton of static and electrical noise and cause other problems. Bottom line is this, you have never seen this work because it don't. ANd no amount of screwing with it is gonna get it to work. If you have a spot that has 1000 feet of elevation over the area you are wanting to cover and you have a repeater, move the thing. Install a LOW GAIN antenna, I would say 3dBi MAX. Reason is that an antena with gain is NOT an amplifier. If can't increase the signal level through amplification so it does it by concentrating the radiation pattern. A unity gain antenna has a pattern that looks basically like a donut from the side. A gain antenna flattens that donut on a vertical plane. So the pattern goes up and down in equal amounts. If you get too much UP then the area under the antenna has no coverage. Which does you no good.

Like anything, it's a mixed bag. The folks I've talked to on the local GMRS repeaters have all been pleasant. I got my ham license not long ago and discovered a good community there too locally. Many of the local GMRS users and the repeater owners also have ham licenses and I found out I work with quite a few hams as well. As for MURS, I don't think there is as much a community around it, but I found that it is useful for outdoor simplex comms in the woods away from town where you won't find the band busy with business users. However, in the next town over there's a group running a bunch of linked repeaters on GMRS requiring paid membership and the impression I get from the outside is that they would put the sad hams to shame.

It depends a lot on construction; metal frame, radiant barrier, proximity to ductwork. Wood frame and basic shingles are going to block less than steel frame and/or foil backed radiant barrier insulation. Repeater location (or it's antenna height) will play into it as well. Mine are both indoors, and I can still get into repeaters up to 60 miles out, though they are on 3000 and 4000 foot elevation ridges around the valley.

SUPER long-time CBer. VERY long -time ham and yes, now repeater owning GMRSer. Besides just trying to be as cool as Randy, I wanted a way to be able to talk to my family without the internet or being at the mercy of some technocrat app like Facebook. After all, The Zuck shut even my messenger down that I use with my children that drive to school nearly 30 miles from home. Plus we live rural and cell coverage is just getting up to speed out here anyway. Only one of my sons got his hammy-ham license and my wife and daughter have no interest at all. They (The Facebook Police) would even look at or use AI to look at our private texts and shut My messenger down during elections, inauguration, J6, again as we (The US) began to support the proxy war in Ukraine and any time I mentioned the global warming coincidence AKA 'Died Suddenly'. Now, most the time they would reinstate me after a week or so but this time they permanently suspended my account. Long story short I needed or wanted a backup way I could communicate with non ham licensed family members that can't easily be shut down during your average TEOTWAWKI--SHTF event so now we use the encrypted Signal App and our family's GMRS repeater as a back up. Well of course when I am doing serious testing or just want to let down what's left of my hair, it's GMRS and also of course most my friends are experienced licensed ham radio operators and yes, we do indeed talk 'Radio' and about everything including ham radio and ham frequencies. IMO the best range tests should include and ongoing conversation to identify holes or lack of coverage. And yes, I am sure some of the jargon bleeds into our GMRS conversations but those are the guys that will recognize problems with the signal or give me the best reports and ideas on how to make improvements. The only real difference though that I think might stick out to GMRSers is our group tends to me a bit more anal about IDing to stay in compliance than most the other GMRS only users I know, not that we care though, it's just what we are used to. Like other hams, I don't feel I must give anyone an explanation per se but if this helps pure GMRS guys understand when and why I personally use GMRS then I will share. Now to find that Affiliate Link for the Mossberg Parts mat...

Roadrunner Beep. Beep Beep!

They will work fine.

I think I would down load a copy of all stored frequencies first and go ahead and do the reset on the radio. Be sure to save it all because it won't save any of the frequencies even the preloaded ones.

When I first got this radio I was testing the FM radio and hit the sk1 button longer than needed and set off the alarm... now there is a feature I could do without.

He did mention the SP button. It seems he programmed it to turn on the flashlight in addition to the MON button. But then he couldn’t program a button to turn off the flashlight (which would presumably be in addition to the MON button.) I also presume that additional presses on the SP button don’t toggle the flashlight through its three states, but maybe I am wrong about that. Steve

You are correct. He mentioned the SP button? Maybe just hitting wrong button? It’s a quick push instead of holding for MON. I tried leaving mine on and unplugged the battery and when I plug it back in it stayed off. ?

They’re included to attract first time buyers.

I myself have a collection of decent HTs, mobiles and HF radios that weren't cheap. And I have been known to McGuyver antennas out of coat hangers, wire salvaged from old extension cords, and PVC sprinkler pipe to save a few bucks.

This whole scenario played out for me recently. My employer has Aux Communications Service radio stations spread across the country. Everett, WA wanted money to buy a new Icom IC-7851 HF/50 MHz transceiver at around $13k. Because their two Yaesu FT-900A radios did not function. I had one of my radio technicians in Seattle check the Yaesu's out, and one needed the RF Gain knob cleaned with DeoxIt, while the other needed a new potentiometer that maybe cost $20 plus technician time in pay. These ACS stations are essentially corporate sponsored hobbyists that bring their amateur radio mindset to the equation. Not willing to repair an older radio, but wanting to spend a lot more corporate money on their hobby when they can get it to go through the bean counters (or under their "radar"). $13k versus some repair work. Now, would they have tried this had it been their own money, I have witnessed that as well. A co-worker of mine bought one of those Icom PCR-1000 computer controlled receivers. But, Icom ran ads that mentioned that if you wanted the world map paint job on the outer case, to contact them direct, and the cost would be $10k. Icom had several people that paid that price for a custom paint job on a $500 receiver. I bought the standard black cased unit and still use it to this day, even though SDR USB receivers are my go-to now.

Beep. ?

The Quantar are rock solid units. Parts are still plentiful if you know where to look. Many systems are still in service with these. Our SAR simulcast uses these extensively.

Here's CHIRP for the Ceres 575 repeater in Modesto with a CTCSS Tone for Transmit but no Receive Tone: NOTE: On my version of CHIRP (CHIRP-Next 20230117), there is no CTCSS-> Cross is only needed for these permutations:

? Not sure if anyone will buy that.

If there was ever a place for the old Venn Diagrams we learned when we were kids, this would be the place. It would be fascinating to have everyone here draw their own diagram of GMRS, Ham, FRS, CB and MURS.

Sorry, Spectrum upload speeds suck!

Usually the roger beep is overdeviated and can nearly blow your eardrum out if you are using a bluetooth earpiece. I've had that a few times where I ripped that thing off my ear cause it hurt. MDC & FleetSync tones are much more subdued, as are courtesy tones, usually at 80% deviation or less, and much easier on the ears.

In my area, there is no GMRS community; my time on this forum is my closest thing to a GMRS community. There is a small community of hams and they’re completely different than the “clipboard and khakis“ crowd. I’ve found them to be very welcoming and easy going, but I also understand that may be different elsewhere. I’ve never been a CB user, other than non-licensed walkie-talkies fifty years ago. Find the group that you fit and enjoy.

The FCC keeps rejecting my application for a MURS license!

Somethings to keep in mind is that height above ground of an antenna has a huge effect on gain. Although gain patterns look pretty regular; gain is not. It can look like tendrils emanating in all kinds of directions. Here's an idealized picture from https://www.netxl.com/blog/networking/antenna-gain/: But here is a pattern generated from EZNec, an antenna simulation tool:

Theoretically radio waves would be radiated from a single point at exactly the same strength in all directions, forming a perfect sphere. That’s unity gain, or no real gain. However, in real life that sphere may take on other shapes, with more strength in a specific direction, or flattened at the top or bottom. But there’s just as much RF energy being emitted, so just like a water balloon, if you flatten it, the circumference becomes larger. That’s said to be gain in that direction. When there is gain in a direction, other directions suffer. Those may be directions that don’t matter. For instance, directly above or below the tower. The size and shape can be simulated using antenna simulation software or it may be estimated using past experience or it may be measured using a field strength meter. Most commercial antennas have some kind of published information.

No - it really couldn’t. A repeater works by transmitting while it receives. If you disconnect the receiver while it’s transmitting you prevent the repeater from repeating; it has nothing to transmit. Repeaters are only able to work because transmitters transmit on a completely different frequency from the receiver AND duplexers (or antenna locations) filter out the high power RF that is being transmitted to prevent it from entering the receiver and causing feedback or actual damage. The input stage of a receivers must be very sensitive to “hear” a signal at any distance. Being connected to the same feedline as a transmitter is like having a gun go off right next to your ear. Turning off a receiver after the transmitter has completed transmitting does nothing but prevent future use of the repeater.

Every repeater in a given state, for now. Later on I will add a zip code radius search so you can narrow it down further.

They wont be for sale until the 18th so nobody has one..... I have one, but i cant talk about it until the 18th..

I only have one problem with this video. He said it doesn't receive as well because it's a ROC. Not only that, he went on the say that every other type approved radio is better than the Midland, but did nothing to demonstrate that. I'm a little confused by this guy (and others I have seen) complaining about the Midland and others being a ROC instead of a superheterodyne. There are ROC systems that outperform some superheterodyne systems all day long and cost as much as $10,000 for amateur transceivers. Flex SDR is a great example. There are POS superheterodynes and POS ROCs. The style of tech shouldn't be automatically discounted as junk or awesome based on design style alone.