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"This is K9DOG. Can I get a signal report?"

Yup got that covered. That is what we do with our KG935G+ GMRS HT's they serve as mobile's for my wife and I and the KG805M take the same speaker/mic's. And yes we have mounts for them as well, works very well. Just looking to experiment with MURS. I like the fact that no one uses it around here. I have been scanning the MURS frequencies for a while and have not heard a peep on them. Plus we live on top of a hill with line of sight to most of the area we want to cover out to around ten miles including our small town about 4 miles. Theoretically it should work.

Basically, turn it on, select a channel, and push the button while you talk. As for additional programming, what does the User Manual have to say about that?

It sounds like he's looking for something that would function like a repeater, except be switchable from the handset that could be carried around wirelessly. There is an option to maybe do a wireless headset to the radio that might be sitting upstairs, but Bluetooth range is pretty limited. Maybe those Wi-Fi Zello radios that @OffRoaderX has reviewed lately would fit the bill better. With the exception that I don't think simplex would be an option with those, and would require using repeater on the Zello network.

Hello All. I finally put together a base station for the house. I'm using a Kenwood TK-880-1 purchased from ebay, a 30 amp power supply from ebay, about 30 feet of LMR-400 type cable and a Tram 1486 antenna tuned for the GMRS band. The power supply is a bit overkill as the max needed would be 8 amps for this radio. But I didn't want to have to replace it if I later upgrade to a higher power GMRS radio. Today I was able to make my first "radio test" to a repeater (WRPD520) about 21.5 miles away using the TK-880 on high power, about 19.5 watts, with 1.25 SWR.

If you are a Jeep enthusiast and love to drive around with your doors off, but hate that the road noise is so bad that you can't use your radio, I highly recommend getting an XTL5000 or another Motorola model that was designed for use by first responders and has noise cancelling microphone features. I have had a total of three XTL5000 radios and I have never realized there is a noise cancelling feature before this one. This feature absolutely rocks. With every mobile radio I have every owned, I could never drive around in a Jeep with the doors off because the tire hum and wind noise would make it so my voice was washed out. It made the radio unusable while the Jeep was in motion. I decided to mess around with the mic auto gain control and noise suppression. I found that I can have the roof and doors off and still use the radio. I have aggressive 37" tires that hum so loud, that with the wind and tire noise, I can't talk to my passengers if the doors are off. BUT... now I can still use the radio! I setup my home-based FTM-300DR to record and went for a spin. The slowest I was going was 45 mph, at the very beginning. The fastest I was traveling during this test was 70 mph. I'm pretty happy with the results. You can hear the processor work its magic when I first start to transmit.

Like I tell my wife, user manuals are just how one guy did it.

Impressive aren't they? Warming popcorn for your install of the ftm500. Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

I've got a VGC VR-N7500 Bluetooth 50watt base radio that is totally controlled by a Android or iPhone app, doesn't even have a head on it. The Bluetooth works about 40ft, good enough that can sit on the back porch with my tablet or cellphone to use it but not on the other side of the house. However if I leave my tablet connected to the radio and on internet, I can run the app on my cellphone and access the radio anywhere over internet (kinda like Zello) and can control the frequency and tone of the radio remotely - but not scan or other features. It's a fun radio to play with but I hate the interface so it sits on the shelf most of the time.

Congrats! TK-880 is a robust chunk of a radio. 250 programmable channels, zones, operator-selected tone, reasonably fast scan, you name it.

That's really great! My wife and I use the Kenwood TK-880s for our base and both our vehicles. I find them reasonably priced, easy to program, and overall, just a great radio. Good luck with it and have fun!

He wasn't suggesting trying with no antenna, but rather and external antenna, one mounted outside the vehicle, on the roof or elsewhere, replacing the radio mounted rubber ducky antenna.

I run the 275 in both my JK and JT. On the JK its wired direct to battery for 12V+ and Ground goes to stud next to battery on fender. On the JT power goes to the AUX Switch harness in the front kick panel. Ground is on a stud on the kick panel. Antenna on JK is a stainless bracket on front driver fender at hood with 1/4 wave UHF antenna. On JT antenna is on my light mount on the cowl passenger side. I see no noise on either radio. How is your battery ? I did have some issues on the JK with noise and it ended up being the LED headlights I installed from amazon. I swapped them for Holley ones and no noise sine. I'd definitely double check grounds and the antenna mounts for good ground connectivity. When checking the mount disconnect the antenna cable from the radio so your not using it as the ground.

Thanks WRXE944 I did see that thread. Currently I do not have a use for a mobile MURS at the moment. I will just use the HT with a mag mount antenna.

One example would be the BTech GMRS-Pro. There's also a few adapters that connect via the headset port on an HT.

This is pretty wild. I don't check everyday, but this is either the third or fourth major storm I have seen this Spring. I haven't used the radio tonight, but I have to imagine this is causing some issues to some degree. I noticed the MUF is really high, too.

This was commented about on the Facebook group and I figured I would share it here. We did have (there were a number of us on the air at the time) an interesting contact a few mornings back. A guy keyed up and said he was coming through the Johnstown PA repeater. Problem was there is no Johnstown PA repeater. I was on the Johnstown600 which is in Ohio and could tell he was coming through that repeater since it has two different courtesy tones. One for local keyup's and one for linked keyup's. So I knew he was on my repeater. It got interesting when I corrected him about where the repeater was and he replied that he was on a handheld radio in Wheeling WV. which was later verified to be 127 miles from my site. Obvioulsy he was on a hill over there and not down in Wheeling since it sits in a big hole. But that's pretty good for a 5 watt portable radio. Yes, the propagation for UHF has been interesting for about the past month.

So angry Oh the humanity, they did what? Aye aye sir. Ooooh I can’t wait ? please let it be you… Why do you care if he does? Even where you may be right you are coming in a little hot for such trivial things. IMO That’s just me though Whisky Romeo Uma Uma 653 ?

It really depends on where you are and what you’re doing. I only use GMRS to talk to friends and family when we’re engaged in a shared activity, such as at a rocket launch or on a hike. I don’t have any interest in random conversations on GMRS with people I don’t know. To me that’s something I would do within my ham activities. I only use my call sign on GMRS to be legal. Everyone in my group use first names.

I use phonetics a lot. I wish more people did. I have been able to decode only about half of the GMRS local area users callsigns because they all rush through their IDs. Maybe FCC can make sense of that but I can't. So I'll keep using phonetics as often as I feel like doing so.

A sure fire way to get ignored, and for others to turn their radios off to not hear it being repeated every 20 seconds. We have a ham repeater locally that you can 'converse' with. At the top and bottom of the hour it will ID. If you key up it will ID again, with a different ID. If you key again the OTHER IDer unit will then ID. All within 20 seconds. repeater: Voice ID, ME: KB8VUL, who's that? Repeater: Second Voice ID ME: Say it again, say it again Repeater: 3rd voice ID. NO one talks on the damn thing because you have to wait for it to ID so much. It's frankly annoying. So no one uses the repeater. They never bothered to set the controller and secondary Voice ID unit to CW ID in the back ground when the repeater was in use and the Secondary ID unit doesn't recognize it's in NET mode so it still VOICE ID's every 15 minutes. During sever weather nets and the like. As said, toss your ID and that you are listening, monitoring or ask if anyone is around. THat is not going to change in 20 seconds. YOU ARE NOT ON HF HAM RADIO. You are not looking to make a contact to someone that is spinning around on their VFO trying to find someone else to make contact with. GMRS don't work that way. Ham operators recognize that type of thing right off, sort of like speaking your call phonetically every time you give it. Don't do that crap either on ANY FM service. Phonetics are for poor signal situations to pass traffic in less than idea situations. NOT to have normal conversations on FM radio. Whne was the last time you hear a broadcast radio station use phonetics for their call sign? When was the last time you heard a public safety dispatcher or officer use phonetics to ID their stations? You haven't because they don't. And for FM stuff, you shouldn't either.

There's a guy here in SoCal who lives on a boat and uses the same worn-out line every time he gets on, often multiple times a day. He asks for a radio check, and as soon as some poor sap responds, this guy says "I was doing some work on my antenna and I want to see how it's working." Seriously, how much work, and how often, does a two-meter quarter-wave antenna take to keep on the air?

...just please.. for the love of Xenu, do not do it in the middle of a conversation - wait for them to finish.

First, you have to understand the history of the restriction. This type of rule is what is commonly referred to as a Sentence Enhancer. Meaning, if you are committing crimes... you are going to be charged with violating the law. If you use a radio to commit the crime, you now have violated another law and will be charged with another crime. If you used codded messages, concealment or some means to hide the fact that you are breaking the law while using a radio to do it, this Rule becomes a sentence enhancer for the Law you violated and you are now charged with 2 counts of violating the law restricting the use of the personal radio service to commit a crime. If you are very obviously talking in some type of code, are caught and are suspected of committing a crime because you are violating this rule, even if you are found not to be committing a crime, you risk getting anything from a No-No letter from the FCC to jail time. So, since I am pretty sure you already know the answer to your own question, just don't be a dumb-dumb about it and you will be fine. Don't attempt to define the undefinable. If what you are saying is public knowledge, generally published, or generally excepted as not a cipher, code or some form of concealment, everyone listing will know. Context is everything.