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That’s just the way it is. FRS radios are toys and regulations allow unlicensed children to use them. Pitting us against each other will not help; it just exacerbates the frustration and resentment.

I'm so sorry you had to go through this. I hope you're ok.

Motorola XTS and XTL radios are LMR type radios used by many (if not most) government agencies from the mid-2000's or so up until 2015 or so (not exact dates, but thats the general range).. Out of the box they are cable of light encryption but are also capable of AES256 encryption as WRKC935 mentioned. They come in UHF and VHF versions and the UHF versions are fully capable of use on GMRS and many (many, MANY) people use these radios on GMRS. They are no longer manufactured but are sold used on ebay and many places sell refurbished units. The XTS is a handheld and the XTL is the high-powered (up to 110W) mobile version. Since those in this thread avoiding the conversion often take other threads off the rails without hesitation, I will be happy to answer any questions you have on this off-topic question.

If it was me a vaporized antenna would be considered damage. ?

Depending on terrain 55 miles isn't far at all for a tall antenna. UHF, even at low power, can go hundreds of miles as long as nothing interrupts the path.

I have heard people recommend standing on one’s roof to check for signal strength and see if increasing your antenna height may help. Depending on the pitch of your roof this could be helpful or precarious or both. You may want to give it a try to see if it helps. Glad to see the mystery resolved. ?

I’ve read stories about serious injuries being near a tree when struck by lightning. The heat generated by the current flow through the sap flashed it to steam. That resulted in the tree trunk exploding like a bomb. People ended up looking a voodoo doll from all of the wood shards sticking out of them.

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Not bragging, nut in 2005 had a bolt of lightning hit a 30 foot tall queen palm that it hit, found the ground to the lamp post in the driveway and blew shingles of the roof of the house. No fire thank god, but it looked like a backhoe dug a trench from the tree to the light. Blew the ground apart and opened it up. When I say ground I don't mean a wire, the lightning blew the ground apart.

A taller antenna will make more difference than raising your power.

I agree with both of you, sorry for the butt hurt, but is is what it is, Shannon is right, anything to divide is considered gold now a days.

I think you guys are correct. I am in Granby, which is about 55 miles or so from Garfield, where POSY is located. But I can still hear the traffic at work in Carthage, which is roughly 75 miles away from POSY. I'm surprised I can still receive the signal that far away, but like you say, it all depends on the antenna. My only other repeater experience is with the Joplin, MO repeater, and I can only receive and transmit on that repeater within a few miles of it; the Joplin repeater is on a 30' pole in the middle of town, though.

FYI: The first seven interstitials (462MHz) were GMRS frequencies before FRS ever existed. They were allowed up to 5W (HT power range) and (w)FM, and interchangeable antennas. They were available for use by any GMRS license -- the eight MAIN frequency pairs (simplex/repeater) were allowed up to 50W but... A GMRS license could only specify up to two such pairs. That restriction (of specifying which two pairs on the license) went away around 1999. FRS originally was only allowed 0.5W ERP, NFM, and fixed antenna on those frequencies, AND was permitted the 467MHz interstitials with the same limits. With the 2017 reorganization -- GMRS retained (w)FM and 5W power on the 462MHz interstitials, 50W power on the main (pairs), and gained access to the 467MHz interstitials at 0.5W ERP NFM. FRS was given access to the eight main 462MHz frequencies (but NOT the 467MHz repeater inputs), the 467MHz interstitials remained 0.5W NFM, but all other frequencies were boosted to 2W NFM (and fixed antenna). So... Prior to 2017 FRS had 14 frequencies, seven shared with GMRS. GMRS had 23 frequencies (when counting repeater inputs separately), seven shared with FRS. Under current regulations FRS has 22 frequencies ALL shared with GMRS; GMRS has 30 frequencies (again, when counting repeater inputs separately), 22 shared with FRS.

@Arveetek I would add some credence to @Sshannon’s thoughts about POSY. It matches the frequency you say you are hearing, it’s part of the linked network I posted above and it’s in the area of the state you mention. As @Sshannon mentioned, knowing where exactly you are would help in the diagnosis of what repeater but remember hight is king for distance. You can see the probability of line of site with this tool https://www.scadacore.com/tools/rf-path/rf-line-of-sight/

Did you ever go look at the interactive map? Different repeaters appear depending on zoom level. You never told us more specifically than SW Missouri. How far away is POSY? Repeaters are limited to 50 watts, same as your mobile radio, so I doubt that’s a real difference, but POSY could have a pretty tall antenna tower.

This may or may NOT be an issue with the specific user but instead the repeater. While MOST of the repeaters out there are setup correctly, both linked and stand alone repeaters, there are a few that have audio issues. I recently ran into one while traveling and got questioned about my audio quality. As soon as I got into the coverage area of the next repeater and changed the channel, the issue resolved. Now obviously I didn't make changes to my radio outside of changing the channel and later found out that specific repeater is known for hot receive audio into the system. Point is look carefully at the situation and make sure it's not something else before condemning the users radio. Yes, there are some out there that are running their audio too hot. But there are other causes.

Big electrical storm tonight. all coax disconnected and on the back porch. Let;s see if we can vaporize a fiberglass antenna again without any damage.