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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.

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.

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.

It's not a double or triple key press. Just press the bottom button, on the side below the PTT, which is the SK2 button. You press it once and the flashlight turns on. You press it again and the flashlight starts strobing. You push it again and the flashlight turns off. Push it again and the flashlight turns on again, starting the whole cycle over again. Here's the description in the manual - page 21: 6.7 This function is very useful for night illumination. To turn it on press MON; push it again, the flash light will be strobe; push it again: it will turn off. I don't know if there is a way to restore to factory defaults.

Thank you! The holidays got me away from responding, so I’ll give your suggestions a try. Heard someone on a net out in Tulsa last night (Wednesday around 9pm), but there was no clear call sign or club identification to know which one that is. It showed up as Repeater 20, which doesn’t exist except on my new mobile.

Roadrunner Beep. Beep Beep!

They will work fine.

You can use that cable but will need one for each radio. I assume your using the mid power model. You can find the plugs and pins cheaper and spin your own cable. All you need is PTT, COR, Discriminator, Ground and Mic Hi. In the end depending on what your doing its 3 wires to each radio. (RX Radio - COR, GND and RX Discriminator, TX Radio - GND, PTT and Mic) Pinout for the Accessory Connector 1 SPKR+ 2 INT SPKR+ 3 SPKR- 4 DIGITAL GND 5 BUSY 6 BUS+ 7 I/O 8 8 I/O 5 9 EMERGENCY 10 ANALOG GND 11 FIL AUD OUT 12 AUX RX IN2 13 MIC IN 14 SW B+ 15 IGNITION 16 I/O 2 17 LH RESET 18 BUS- 19 SCI RX DATA 20 I/O 4 21 I/O 3 22 RSSI OUT 23 EXTERNAL MIC IN 24 AUX TX IN2 25 UNIV IO OUT

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. ?

?

I use them when I am using my radio near water.

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.

Beep. ?

Used P25 radios are expensive. I can buy 2 or 3 NXDN radios for what some people want for just 1 P25 radio. I'm still looking for an affordable TK-5220 VHF P25. I have 2 of the UHF TK-5320's and 1 of the TK-5220's now that didn't break the bank. In general LMR VHF radios are selling for more than the UHF models. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/254-tk-5320-1jpg/

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.

This appears to be fixed!

Hams are cheap. They will complain about the cost of the BT remote mic, $150, then go out and spend $10K on a fancy HF rig they use for nothing else but contest work. ?

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.

I can understand why some people seem to be put off by Ham radio. It's more of a technical hobby and attracts these type of people. When you have a group like that it's inevitable there will be egos and attitudes on display. It seems to be associated often with people in technical areas. You should sit in some engineering design review meetings if you think the on air stuff is brutal! Hams are also very protective of their "turf". When you consider how much spectrum they have free access to and allowed power they have a lot to loose if the FCC gets a bug up their back side. That's not counting the commercial interests that look at Ham radio spectrum as "easy picking" when they petition the FCC for spectrum for their new service they want to roll out. It's basically a non stop assault. The ARRL even has a special spectrum defense fund, and people, dedicated to just this issue. I agree with your point about GMRS being a middle ground. It's low pressure and the only cost of entry is a cheap radio and $35 for the license. No tests, CW etc. thus nothing to brag about or try to use as a right of passage. Other than the frequent questions about antennas, coax and installation/programming issues one can "buy a box" and setup a functioning system fairly quickly. GMRS is far friendlier for non technical people to use. MURS isn't that popular since not many are aware of it and the lack of extensive equipment to use. Not having access to repeaters doesn't help either. I'm going to guess many people who do use it are employing old Part 90 VHF radios reprogrammed to meet the frequency and bandwidth requirements. I'll also wager those radios are running more than the allowed 2 watts, likely in the 5 watt range since that's typical for Part 90 VHF HT's. CB radio seems to have gotten a bit better since the 70's and early 80's. Even so some people won't turn on the CB if they have their little kids in the car. No licenses, no accountability and mostly no FCC enforcement are mainly responsible for the present state of CB radio. If people aren't careful GMRS could end up the same way.

I have no idea how it could be destructive. I understand that “some people” find them annoying — that’s obvious from @gortex2‘s reply — but destructive? I don’t see how. I agree with you that the repeater owner definitely has the last say, but I also think there’s little to gain by joining a repeater and right away doing something that irritates many or most of the other users. I would listen to hear if others use roger beeps and then follow the community norm, just to keep the peace, especially if you hope to talk with any of them on the air.

The FCC keeps rejecting my application for a MURS license!

Is this for a base or a mobile? IF it's a mobile, you are gonna be restricted to RG-58 or possibly LMR240 due to the size and flexibility of the cable. For a base you certainly have other options, but again the length of the run is going to determine whats needed and your budget is gonna be the other determining factor. Running the NEEDED cable length and not going overboard and having a big coil of cable someplace is the best way to limit losses. So figure that out and get what's needed and not some fixed length of cable. The reason I mentioned budget. If youget 100 feet of LMR-900 cable. The cable will cost more than the radio did. Average price on that cable is 8.50 a FOOT. So, 850 bucks for 100 feet PLUS 100 bucks average for ONE connector.... you will need two. So the cable run would be a grand. Guessing that you aren't ready to drop a grand on a cable run for a GMRS base station. But maybe you are. Here's the rub with cable loss and the CB radio mentality when it comes to wattage. Professionals in the two way industry all use dB for figuring the stuff out. ANd the really important part is receiver sensitivity. Depending in the radio, you need between -118 and -116 dBm to open a receiver. Typically -112 to -110dBm to reach 12dB sinad and -105dBm for a full quieting signal. SO to go from a noisy signal to a strong signal you will need 6dB of change. In watts, that's going from 25 watts to 100 watts. But there are other factors like antenna gain that play into that. And an antenna with 6 dB of gain over an antenna that has zero gain is going to be a LOT less expensive than 100 feet of that LMR900 cable that was mentioned and have the same perceived effect. Sure you can put that sort of antenna up on top of the 1000 dollars in cable, and have a really good setup. But again, that's a TON of money to spend for GMRS radio base stations. I have a repeater running 50 watts into a combiner network that has 6dB of loss. With the cables and such in the building I get 18 watts going out of the building to the antenna. Antenna is 8dBi of gain, and is 180 feet in the air. Cable loss is 3dB due to the length. The repeater in certain directions talks 50 miles. So, does cable loss have an effect, sure. But it's NOT as much as you would think. But antenna height is obviously more important than cable loss. And I am running LDF5-50 hardline which has similar loss figured to the LMR900 that was mentioned. But my run is over 300 feet due to the routing of the cable from the building to the tower.

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.

I never thought about using Fixed Stations to connect two different Repeaters. If that's correct (I don't recall anything in the regulations that prohibits it) then you might as well use full duplex. Fixed Stations may transmit on both 462 MHz main channels and 467 MHz main channels, thus they could communicate in full-duplex. They are limited to lower power, but that helps with the technical challenges anyway, as you pointed out. The technical challenges you mention are the biggest challenges. [Repeater] <--- wired connection ---> [Fixed Station] ((((((RF)))))) [Fixed Station] <--- wired connection ---> [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..

Those are good questions that deserve to be tested in the real world. I sincerely hope you’re a ham as well because to me, that’s where the joy of being a ham emerges. (I’m sorry, I don’t remember if you said you were). I will say this. When I mount the ~15” Faux Nagoya (Tidradio 771 that came “free” with a Baofeng UV5R several years ago) on my Alinco DMR radio, and look at the difference in signal report from the 70 cm DMR repeater that’s 16 miles away, the S meter goes up by two S units. That’s 12 dB. I was completely surprised. Nothing else changed, but the antenna. I don’t have a 70 cm radio other than 5w handhelds to compare. But, using the longer antenna cost me nothing in terms of power usage. I’m not certain about RF exposure. And I agree about the bias against adding a few watts of power. There are obviously those who say 3dB makes no difference, but many times those same people are very critical of others for choosing a coax cable that has 3dB of loss. 3dB is 3dB, regardless of the direction. I would never turn down an extra few watts, all other things being equal (features, quality, etc.) iff my power budget supported it, but I wouldn’t trade the features I want, or quality without weighing the benefits.

Fairly sure this is it: https://www.miklor.com/COM/UV_Squelch.php

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.