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Geezus..Learn to read the room dude.. In my Jeep I started with a BTech GMRS 50X2, after a year or so i upgraded to the KG-1000G which I used for a few years and then replaced that with a Motorola XTL5000 (NOT recommended for most people).. IMO, the KG-1000G is the best choice for most people in this forum. The entire time I have been using a Midland MXTA26 antenna. A simple setup like this (any of the 3 radios I've had) will work more than well enough for most people, no need to learn about db gains or noise reduction %%.. Those terms, when over-used, are most often spouted by "some people" that feel an uncontrollable urge to try and show everyone how smart they think they are.

Yes I have the Radio. if you unlock the radio you can enter all the GMRS channels the same as a GMRS setup, then continue to add your Repeaters with different CTC tones for your different Repeaters that you use. Just don't go outside of the GMRS freq's to keep yourself legit, well kind of. Like Sshannon said.

I am a Jeep guy and many people would say I am also a radio guy. When discussing antennas and ground-plane, "Some People" get very confused between the phrases "will not work" and "may not work 100% efficiently". I mount my antenna on the rear tailgate, which the experts have proclaimed "will not work" because of the poor groundplane. And it is true, the groundplane IS poor, but the SWR is (barely) below 3:1 and the radio works fine - On simplex i can get over 30 miles, and I have hit a repeater at over 90 miles. Put either antenna anywhere on your Jeep (within reason), and based on my experience with leading (literally) almost 1,000 Jeeps with radios on off-road runs over the last several years, it will work fine for off-road and around town. All that said, my buddy with a 3db ghost antenna mounted on his roof-rack can receive signals slightly better than I can with my 6db antenna..although I can transmit slightly more farz.

UncleYoda, something you might try is to first save the configuration from the gmrs profile, then open up the radio so it can cover uhf up to 470. Then re-upload the GMRS channels you saved. That might leave the radio open to programming other GMRS channels wherever you want. And yes, I do have this radio, two of them actually.

Easy, tiger.

Hey folks, I am rescheduling a radio expedition up to Reddish Knob. Lets bring handhelds, mobiles, whatever you have. This is going to be a chance to set a personal-best for range of a contact and soak in some nice fresh air. If you have any non-GMRS gear you want to bring, this is a "let play radio" event. Bring it out. Additionally, I will be setting up my HF radio. Anyone who is interested in trying out the amateur bands and possibly talking to someone in another country from radio to radio, everyone will be welcome to operate my equipment. No need to worry about licensing, as you can operate under my station ID up to the limits of my privileges. No amateur license needed. We have chosen this location for ease of access. Its paved all the way there and the parking lot is paved, too. No high-clearance vehicle is needed. This is a "weather providing" event. It will be rescheduled if there are chances of rain and/or lightning.

Hey all, so in a moment of weakness, I snagged the hot new toy, a Talkpod a36 Plus. The reviews are just about all spot on. The menus are a goddamn nightmare without a real manual to explain them, but otherwise, it works about as well as several other GMRS HT's I have, but with a super-low price. Some of the Baofeng options cost more! I ran into one piece of weirdness, though. I normally keep a UV-5R with a Nagoya 771G antenna scanning in my office at all times, just to know what's happening in my vicinity, so I thought I'd try using this for the same one afternoon. It worked just fine, but had trouble picking up some of the more distant sources, so I figured I'd pop the 771G on it for a little boost. What I discovered was that I couldn't receive anything at all outside of a quarter mile from my desk! I immediately swapped back to the stock antenna, and it worked just as before. I retested the 771G on a Baofeng, and *it* worked just fine. So I guess Nagoya antennae and Talkpod a36 Plus radios are incompatible???

On the hood lip or swing gate... it won't matter. For antennas requiring a ground plane, as long as there is about 7" of metal under the antenna (regardless of the angle) it's going to work. As mentioned above, not all antennas require a ground plane. So depending on the antenna you buy, it may be a moot point. Also, the terrain and who/where you are trying to talk to will dictate if you have a no gain, mid-level or high gain antenna. No gain antennas provide much better coverage an hilly or mountainous areas and high gain antennas are going to provide better range in relatively flat areas. A 3 dB gain antenna is often a compromise. I just own both a no gain and a 6 dB gain antenna.

You shouldn't have to. You choose the weather channel you want to monitor which is only available in Area A. You can press and hold the AREA button for 2 seconds to enter weather mode. Once you choose the NOAA channel to monitor you can get out of weather mode and go to menu 7 and turn on weather alert. After that go to menu 23 to choose what kind of alert you want, there are 5 choices. Once you are done with that you are done. When the radio is in standby, you are not actively TXing, and there is an alert for the NOAA channel you selected the radio will display the alert according to the choice you made for weather notification. You do not have to be in the weather mode.

Another thing you might consider is doing is: 1. Get a cheap magnetic NMO mount and antenna, something like: https://a.co/d/fL53Q6C . (I know others will say its junk and to get the midland stealth or MTXA26, but were testing and want cheap. Plus you can still use the mag mount and get another antenna. MTXA26 and Midland mag mount links incase you want to pay for good stuff https://a.co/d/2GPfkmc https://a.co/d/1Hoan00) 2. Magnet it to the center of a steel sheet pan and place it in an open window on your top floor aimed at the repeater. (you'll need an adaptor like https://a.co/d/9q4bDhf to attach it to to your HT.) 3. Test if you can hit the repeater. Additionally, there is 18' ish of cable so you could potentially place the antenna and pan on your roof or even mag mount antenna on the roof of your vehicle for mobile testing. Good Luck! Edit: Saw this on Notarubicon. Gotta give credit where credit is due.

Very cool. Tentative with possibly one other vehicle.

OK, so it looks like this topic isn't getting much love, but I gotta tell you, this thing has an amazing feature I just found. One of the action options for the programmable buttons is "PTT-B", which lets you transmit on your displayed B-channel without switching to B as the selected channel! Since I always keep one channel searching, while the other is set to my family's channel, this makes it super easy to call my kids without having to stop and fiddle with settings. It *does* terminate the search on the A channel when I transmit on B, but I'd much rather have to just fiddle to restart that after I'm done than fiddle to stop it and change channels beforehand when I want to talk, then still have to change back and restart after. This thing just moved from new toy to favorite radio!

It sounds like there isn't much traffic on that repeater. If you are hearing the station ID in morse code that shows the repeater is operational. Keep listening and if/when you hear people talking wait until there is a break in the conversation and ask for a radio check. If someone answers you then you can ask them about the amount of traffic that repeater normally experiences.

Well I have tried that to, I'll try what you said and wait to here something or someone you might say. Thanks for your help Sshannon and if you have any other ideas let me know. Thx

I don’t know. I would monitor 462.625 with no tones to see if you hear anything at all. Maybe it isn’t operational. I doubt that it’s simplex, but I guess it’s not impossible. If you hear someone, try transmitting on 467.625 with TX tones set only to see if they hear you. If you have two radios have a relative or friend listen on one from a distance to see if they hear you on 462.625 when you transmit to the repeater on 467.625 with TX tone set.

Perfect is the enemy of good enough.

Its true, the groundplane is much not optimal in that location.. But "some people" really seem to confuse "will not work" with "may not work 100% perfectly as it possibly can"

I've had the same conversation about my JK with some people around here. They must be right, though. I mean, William McKinley was their volunteer examiner when they took the ham test.

I use an MXTA26 mounted on the rear tailgate of my Jeep, which gives me a very poor groundplane, and all the of the experts tell me it wont work.. I've hit over 30miles with it on simplex and can hit a repeater 92 miles away, so it works good enough for me.

What kind of coax do you have? This could be a very good reason for this exact issue

Amateur Radio. Available in three classes: entry level Technician (mostly VHF and UHF access), General (adds more >VHF bands, and most of HF), Amateur Extra (full privileges)

One nice feature for any radio you get is to be able to lock the keypad. We were using our radios earlier this year and I left my wife the KG-935G and I took the KG-S88G with me into the snow because of its IP67 rating. My wife was concerned she would mess something up on the 935. It has three different lock settings so I locked it so the only thing she could change was the volume. You might want to check what ever radio you decide on to see if has different lock settings.

Welcome Of those radios I only have personal experience with the KG-935G plus and I’ll say it’s my favorite every day radio and I haven’t heard anyone that has it that doesn’t like it. I know someone with the GMSR v2 and his sound quality is good into a repeater between us, where he is probably 10 miles away from the repeater. I’d say watch some videos like NotaRubicon and get a feel for what the different features are and what may be important for your use.

For a line of site that includes terrain try this tool.

I hedge my info to bring out "some people" so all the normal people can laugh at them... I'm glad to see that it's still working.

So your family members won't contribute to your repeater expenses?!?

WRCI350 had it right. Remove the receive tones, at least as a diagnostic step. The fact that you get into the repeater indicates you have the transmit tone correct. The fact that your receiver doesn’t break squelch on receive may point to a mismatch in receive tone. Pressing the Moni button bypasses the receive tone and temporarily turns off squelch. Turning off tone squelch or setting the receive tone to none and testing will confirm whether it’s the tone. Then you may be able to scan for the right receive tone or live with it by leaving the receive tone clear.