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The only true test is a dummy load on your meter and verify you see high power into the dummy load. If its 25 +/- 10% then you can dig into antenna system but without a true known level its hard to know if its the radio or the meter.

I would take the reviewer's results with a grain of salt. Nothing against them (and call me jaded if you want), but I also wouldn't put it past the companies making sure the units going out to be reviewed are "healthy" examples, compared to what gets shipped to the average buyer.

Good info, didn't see that before on the SWR meter manual. Came across a Gadget Talk review from a year ago, he put the DB25G on a dummy load at high power and it only came through at max ~15 watts. I feel a little better after watching that review. But then again, Notarubicon measured his unit... let me rephrase... ran the DB25G on a dummy load and it came through at just under 25 watts. Hmmmm. I guess I'll just have to spend the $$ on a 50W dummy load so I'll be able to sleep at night again.

I remember back in the day 675 was only for emergencies as stated as a condition on the license. Also, the GMRS licenses were issued with mobile call signs, mine was KG something (three letters and four numbers). Somewhere during one of the periods of the renewal processes mine was changed to my current license WQJT335. I also remember back in the mid 70s that Orange County React was very active on CB channel 9 and used 675 as an intercomm link amongst all the React Monitors. I can't remember the guy's name now that had a scanner and cb store on Euclid in Anaheim he owned one of the first mountain top GMRS repeaters on Santiago. I believe it was the 675 repeater that React used. I think his name was Bob Neal. He was very instrumental in promoting radio communications as a hobby. If it wasn't for him I may not have gotten knee deep into this hobby with the scanners, CB radios, and now GMRS. I never got the HAM bug for some reason and today I still don't and probably never will. I bought a ton of scanner crystals from him for my Regency ACT 10 channel scanner before Radio Shack came out with the synthesized scanner or was it Bearcat that had the first synthesized scanner? I've had my GMRS license since the mid 90s and dabbled in mostly simplex use. Before I moved from Northen California 4 years ago, a friend owned a repeater on a mountain top and gave me permission to use it. I never really did use it although, I did programmed the channel in my company car and maybe used it a couple of times. It wasn't until I moved to Arizona, I noticed that GMRS was very active and most of the repeaters were either restricted or closed systems for Club members. So, I decided that I better join so I can get in on using the repeaters and the fun. I'm glad that I did. Now, I have several mobiles, a bunch of portables, and now a repeater station. I guess, I am infested with the GMRS bug and I hope there is no cure for it.

Nothing of metal that would effect the SWR, the antenna is mounted in my attic. Wood frame. foam insulation, asphalt roof tiles. I can live with 1.17 - 1.20. I'll throw on the last 2 ferrites and see what happens. I wouldn't think that I'd be losing that many watts from a 35' LMR400 cable, but who knows? It's reading a full 5 watts on the lower power frequencies.

Several sizes of stick-on steel discs

You should be fine. There are also vacuum mounts or peel and stick steel discs that the magnetic mount will stick to.

Just wanted to let everyone know of the great experience I've had with this antenna. I've used GMRS on and off for years (previously had a license years ago). I've tried MANY antenna as a base antenna, and never found anything that performed well for my particular situation. I live in a valley, mountains on 3 sides (Alabama mountains, so not huge), and my city and the closest repeater are on the other side of the mountain. My elevation is roughly 700ft, and the closest repeater (21 miles away) is at 755ft. The mountain between peaks at around 1211ft. After many iterations of different antenna, I could never hear the repeater, much less be able to key it. With the Diamond X50C2, I can hit the repeater from home! Added bonus - it's multi-band, so it will also work on MURS frequencies (I really wanted this since VHF does better than UHF over mountains). The antenna is pretty wide-banded (advertised as 145-162 and 445-469, but has acceptable SWR outside of this, specifically HAM 2M and 70cm), and right at 5' tall, so it's not a monster antenna. I highly recommend this antenna!

are you sure you are using the correct channel "pair"? Its not just "the frequency".

Yes. It is listed in public search results for a license in the ULS.

However, if you want a different callsign it is possible to cancel your existing license and get another. There was a guy on here just the other day who has done that four or five times.

Since I use my HT's (GMRS and dual band ham) on commercial roofs while I am on break from work and I work on a LOT of equipment with VFD's, I read the article. I have NEVER heard a VFD making noise on VHF or UHF. If I read the article correctly the VFD in question was Chinese JUNK AND incorrectly installed. All of the ones I see at work are Korean, Japanese or European. I have never come across any equipment using the Chinese JUNK in question. Despite this solid example, I think you are much more likely to find solar panel controllers making spurious RF than a VFD. There are numerous examples of solar panel controller manufacturers getting caught distributing crap.

@OffRoaderX I am by no means an authority on this, but this information may help. From what I found, it used to be against the rules, but it isn't any longer. 47 C.F.R. Part 95 Subpart A, specifically 95.131(a) stated "An individual may be licensed as the responsible party for only one GMRS system." Everything I have found suggests that the restriction on having only one GMRS license per individual was removed as part of the FCC's efforts to modernize the GMRS rules in September 2017, primarily to make it easier for families to use the service.

Menu 2 did the trick. Thank you for the video...Jon

Menu 4 is squelch

Check the derating curve for that dummy load. I have a 300W dry dummy load -- the derating curve gives it 4.5 minutes at 25W before needing a long cool-down. (It's only 1.5 minutes at 100W!) I have the DB20-G -- advertised as 20W but the manual states 18W for GMRS. A 15W Midland MXT115 actually reads almost a watt higher than the 13W I get on repeater (467MHz) channels. It does exceed 20W on 2m VHF, and is a bit stronger (13.5W?) on GMRS simplex (462MHz). NOTE: this is the second DB20-G; I returned the first one for the same low power output, but the replacement showed the same.

A good bidirectional watt meter can be very helpful for this purpose with the actual antenna connected.

I was getting on to say the same thing. It says so right in the user's manual. I have the same meter. surecom_sw_102_users_manual.pdf

Have you checked the MYGMRS map with “Stale” and “Offline” repeaters turned on?

Notice what kind of tape they're using... *thumbsup* Thanks again, S.S.

I’ve never tried these, and there are several out there. Here’s one: https://off-roadcomms.com/products/self-adhesive-magnetic-antenna-mount-plate

You had me at .45 ACP. ?

A lot of people have problems paying because of the software. I did too. I called the toll free number listed in ULS and a nice lady walked me through an alternate way to pay. Do that.

Welcome to the club!

I think I will try to connect into the 177 about mid or late February. Need the additional solar hours to recover the battery. The repeater has been popping on and off line as the battery is low. At least this year I can say it has been reliably coming back on-line. All prior years it went down and never came back up.

At our last ham club meeting we had a presentation about terrain assessment and antennas. The website https://www.heywhatsthat.com was brought up. You can put in your location your antenna height above ground and see how far you can "see". Because of my location, I can hit repeaters east of me with not much height but I found out I can put an antenna at 50 ft and still not go west.

Obviously Norton needs to relax.

Here is my goofy setup. The one radio on top of the power supply is my GMRS base station radio. The other two radios are for the GMRS repeater package. I am using a Laird 5dB Omni antenna with an EMR Duplexer using a LMR400 coax cable with a lightning Arrestor connected to earth ground at the electrical panel. I switched the Antenna between the Base Station Radio and the Repeater Package with an antenna switch. I have other radios for all my vehicles.

Not digging it atm. I think if their product blows up and most of the cool features are usable I might change from a 3 star to a 5. As of now, I am very meh about it. I should mention it did xmit at 5w as advertised and iirc my swr was around 1.2 with their antennea. Lastly they do not have a CS line. Sending them an email is the only option. This might have a lot to do with my displeasure now that I think about it.

No.. Although many hams do slum on GMRS in many areas, the main use for GMRS is utilitarian communication - ie; when off-roading and in a group, hiking, traveling with multiple vehicles, etc. Sadly, it sounds like in your area many of the rag-chewers have taken over.. But once you get out of reach of their basements, like out adventuring in the desert or mountains, all their noise goes away. I run a repeater, partially run another repeater which is one of the largest/most used in Southern California, and run a group - not only am i not a ham, most in the group are not hams either.

I have looked myself (at the last 10 years of enforcement), thats why I dont trust what you're saying.

Not that I dont trust you, or think you're making stuff up out of thin air, but i would love for you to share some actual facts about all these others this has happened to. Perhaps a link to the FCC enforcement database entry? Because as I'm sure you know, every time the FCC breathes down anyones neck, for any reason, by law, the FCC must publish that enforcement.

This makes me wonder, does the radio talk to the repeater about people? People talk about radios, so turnabout would be fair play!

In the case of the MXT115, if/when you are looking for more features and functions, an inexpensive upgrade is the Anytone AT779UV / Radioddity DB-20G / Retevis RA25 radio (each of these is the same as the others). For about $100, you get another small radio that puts out ~20W, offers narrow and wideband, repeater capable, and offers UHF and VHF receive capability. It can also be reconfigured so it will work on the 2m and 70cm ham bands, should you ever wish to pursue, or if you already have, a ham license. It also has a small, but useful, color display. On top of all that, it even comes with a "Fun" button on it! What more could you ask for? Okay, the "Fun" button is actually the "Function" button, but the word Function didn't fit on the small button.

What applies to ships at sea also applies to vehicles on the ground. Many years ago, after working on vehicle mounted radios for the military, I went to work for the oil industry, and radios aboard a fleet of ships. Well antenna gain issue cropped up often, as many think more gain means more "amplification" of receive signal, not realizing that it is also the radiation pattern impacting signal as BoxCar mentions. Very often, someone would place a 12 dB gain antenna on a small vessel and it had trouble talking to a larger vessel, even when in line of sight and close in distance. An isotropic antenna would radiate like a sphere, while a 3dB gain antenna may radiate like a doughnut, 6 db gain antenna like a pancake, a 9 dB antenna like a thick tortilla or naan bread, and a 12 dB antenna like an LP record. So, with a 12 dB gain antenna on a small vessel, and a 0-3 dB gain antenna on a large ship, the only reliable communication (due to height differences between vessels) is when the little one is bobbing around and the radiation (transmit for smaller vessel and receive for larger) match up. This is where height and a 0-6dB antenna are much more useful, as they both have transmit and receive patterns that can reach other stations. Power is also an issue, as more power in a more focused radiation pattern can mean more distance. Cars and fixed radio stations are impacted the same way. When it comes to wattage and a mobile radio, Part 90 radios in use by public safety, commercial use, and hobby use are often limited to about 50 watts. Motorola, Vertex, Icom, Kenwood, mobiles are often 25/40/50 watts. Attached is a lab kit for Radio over Internet Protocol, with a Motorola XPR4550 UHF 40 watt mobile shown. I used Motorola mobiles for GMRS, with my CDM1550LS+ at 50 watts. GMRS radios usually max out around 50 watts too. Radiation exposure specifications will usually specify 6 foot or so (sometimes less) of separation between people and antennas in the UHF range at 50 watts. 50 watts mobile, with RG-58, and the shorter run in a vehicle than up a high mounted fixed antenna will get you ten to twenty miles, depending on terrain and local conditions. I myself usually run about 10 to 20 watts mobile and have no problem hearing people, hitting repeaters ten miles away, and transmitting back. The radio tops out at 10 watts, my RG-58 cable run is about twelve feet, and I have a decent antenna on the trunk which acts as a good ground plane. If what you have works, then let that itch go to a basestation, or a handheld that can be taken when not in your vehicle. Glad to see someone else get further into this......GMRS has taken off over the past few years for sure.

You wont notice much difference between say, 20W and 50W in most scenarios, most of the time. The extra power might help penetrate through buildings and things like that, but, most of the time, on average, there is not a huge, if any difference. One example: Just recently I was testing a UHF mobile radio (XTL5000 for those interested) operating just above the GMRS frequencies. At about 90 miles, I was able to hit a repeater at 50Watts with a signal of about 3 out of 10 on the receiving end. Bumping the power up to 110W, made no audible difference in my signal strength or quality.