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You have come to the right place if you have specific questions. There is a lot of knowledge in these hallowed halls. However, as with every corner of the interwebs, you will get good answers, correct answers, and opinions on things you didn't ask. The key is to be able to differentiate between them all.

Welcome! As far as pointers go, I have a couple that may help. 1.) GMRS is a "bring your own contacts" type of environment. If you call out and don't hear much (or nothing) don't let it discouraged you. 2.) GMRS is in the UHF radio segment and is an RF line of sight service. So, when it comes to range, height is might. 3.) In radio, all the magic is in the antenna. Don't get to hung up on power output. That said, more power isn’t a bad thing. As far as setups/radios go, what is it you want to accomplish? Where and what you're doing, combined with your desire for simplicity or Bells and Whistles will determine what you need.

Welcome! Rule #1: Have fun and don't get too hung up on the small stuff.

The kind of short version is we share a well. The booster pump and reservoir tank are closer to my house. The tank is 10 feet lower than my house and 20 above his. Over the last 6 years we have experienced at least 15 power outages with several of them being multiple days long with the longest being 5 days. The pump house with it's own electric meter is closer to me. With a transfer switch we can run the well and booster pump on a generator. The 5 day outage was accompanied by 6 feet of snow over a week which made snow shoeing up and down the hill the only method of travel. We will run the generator for the well and booster pumps on a schedule and use radios for coordination. He was using one of my radios. Now he has his own. Last week we lost power three times for 3-4 hours at a time. We have started turning on our radios when we lose power just in case.

You're close, imo. Input for the repeater is what you're transmitting from your handheld, though it may be T-DCS or T-CTCS, depending what the repeater is using (dcs or ctcss)...I haven't seen the data for that repeater. Output tone is the signal coming from the repeater, which fits with your receive tone on your handheld. One easy way to (usually) tell ctcss vs dcs is the number format...if there's a decimal, it's ctcss. If it's just 3 digits, it's most likely dcs, especially if they're followed by a letter N (normal) or I (inverted).

I have a several Wouxun radios, different models, that have USB-C. Two have batteries with USB-C ports and one that has the USB-C port on the radio itself. All of them will charge with a USB-A to USB-C cable off of standard chargers and 65W charger. None of the three would charge using USB-C to USB-C. The radio with the charge port is a KG-S88G, a great little radio. The batteries were from a KG-UV9PX and the KG-935G Plus, a really great radio. Even though I can't use the C-C (PD) charging cable I like the idea of being able to charge from USB. Not have to lug a desktop charger on road trips is great. Carryuing a couple of power packs is still smaller and can be used off grid.

I bought the UV-5R PLUS not long ago. It was originally a ham radio, I unlocked it, programmed it for GMRS, replaced the ‘stubby’ antenna with the Authentic Genuine Nagoya NA-771G 15.3-Inch Whip GMRS (462MHz) Antenna SMA-Female for BTECH and BaoFeng Radios and love it! I’ve also gotten the UV-9G HT and it works equally as well.

Need an inexpensive cup holder mount for your small GMRS mobile? Try a 3" plumbers test plug. I got mine at Menards.

Hey everyone! Just got my license a couple days back, WRYF376. I grew up around my grandpa who was a ham/GMRS operator for most of his life, so I have a general idea of the goings-on in this community, but wanted to see if anyone had pointers or tips for any new kids on the block! Any advice on setups, radio suggestions and the likes are appreciated greatly!

Fellow GMRS friends. My rural neighbor gave me an old 30 foot aluminum tv ground anchored TV antenna and the huge concretre base. It seems quite sturdy--he did not guy it, but I thought I would. He used it before he went to a dish. Its been laying in the weeds for several years and its been talking to me lately. I'm thinking that it would be perfect for an GMRS antenna that would go well with some of the new 50 watt GMRS mobile / base units I'm seeing for sale in the $300 to $400 range. I live rural, but with rolling hills. Closest GMRS repeaters are around 25 miles. Any antenna suggestions? Many thanks. I a[[reciate anyone's time.

It's good to hear that your grandpa did both. As a grandpa, I also do both and I hope my grandchildren have at least some interest in radio because of me. You'll no doubt see some stupid arguments and snide comments here about ham vs GMRS. Ignore them. It's mostly some people stirring the pot to get a reaction. Ham radio and GMRS have a lot of differences in how they are used, but a lot of similarities in how they work. Enjoy both. Welcome in.

That is what I have done as well. Now that the 935G Plus is out I bought an extra battery with C port. It fits the 935G, 935G Plus, and the 905G. It is 2600mah vs. 3200 mah but it still last all day. When it comes to batteries, especially when away from a 120V AC outlet, two is one and one is none. That goes for other things as well.

I have never owned a Boafeng radio but recently purchased the UV9G for my neighbor. You can input frequencies in the Frequency mode and then save them to a memory channel. Then you have to switch back to channel mode and go to the channel where you saved the new frequency. You should then be able listen if the frequency is outside of GMRS or transmit if you have set up a repeater (GMRS). I don't have it in front of me but I am pretty sure that is what we did. I read the manual paragraph for switching from memory mode to Frequency mode and thought I must have read it wrong. Surly you don't have to turn the radio off, hold the menu button while turning the radio to switch... Well, yes you do, and don't call me Shirley.

I also have this for the KG-S88G and the KG-935 plus. I particularly use the USB charging with the 935 as I can plug it right into the battery (no cover to remove). As mentioned it’s handy not to have to use a desktop charger. That said I can confirm that my charging experience is the same as@WRHS218. I am not able to charge USB-C to USB-C. I have gotten in the habit when I order a new radio that I just bite the bullet and order a second battery and rotate them.

Okay so I read your post again and 32 is 462.575. If you are trying to put in 462.675 it will be on your repeater channel/diy in locations 28 or 36 and the offset will already be in there. It is easier to see and program in chirp. Hope this helps.

@txrodehog thanks for showing a side-by-side comparison. I got my UV-5R and the letters on the number keys are really hard to read. It looks like the ones on the UV-9G are much easier to read. I've been thinking that my next radio might be a 9G and that photo puts me that much closer in the direction of the 9G. P.S. I will click like on your post as soon as the system will let me. Too many reactions in the current 24hr period.

Let me know when you want to test and I can probably monitor the repeater to see if I can hear you.

There is no TONE SCAN button on the Midland MXT400 so...... I found thru experimentation that I can SCAN CTCSS/DCS tones on the MXT400. The procedure is easy to do actually: 1. Select the frequency of the repeater then: 2. Push the TS/DCS button once and then: 3. Hold down the TS/DCS button until a scan starts I believe it will scan until the MXT 400 determines the proper code. While in the SCAN Mode, I turned the frequency selection knob and see that it changes/reversed the order of the actual scan too, cool!

What kind of radio are you programming? Were you able to first download a copy of everything currently in the radio and save it to your system? I would recommend you then save another copy with the word WORK in it so you know it isn't the original that you might need should you accidentally brick your radio. The rest of this is my "opinion" and may be contradictory to what you hear/read but if you give it a try it probably will get you on that repeater. <Wink> After editing you should be able to first save your "WORK" then upload it to the Radio... In your case you probably will wind up with a line that reads something like this at one of your locations: Loc # = Self explanatory Frequency = 462.625000 Name = (Something like) RPT625 Tone Mode = Tone Tone = the value of the PL code he/she gave you to transmit into the repeater (if you click on the space a nice drop down menu will pop up) Duplex = + Offset = 5.000000 Mode = FM (then again it might be WFM depending on what specific radio you are programming - don't use NFM) Power = High (generally - but up to you). All the rest should probably be blank just to get it working.... OK, there is my two cents, for what its worth. Hope this helps get you going. I sure wish you luck and want to say Welcome to GMRS! Dave453 WRPZ453 OBTW, in my experience, there is no reason to set up my radio with a receive tone, you will hear what is being said anyway and its just another step that can get fouled up. If you had two repeaters fairly close by, and you only want to hear what is said on one of them - I guess you could use the receiver "trick", but to be honest - seeing that situation generally is pretty rare. JMHO. A final thought - some of the Chinese radios that have been getting FCC approval for GMRS have a problem if you try to edit more lines for GMRS use than the 8 they have pre-programmed. I have a BTECH GMRS 50X1 that is like that. If that is the case you will be forced to edit the line that already contains the repeater frequency you want to use and just set the Tone properly to get in. Again, good luck with this!