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..and we are all VERY impressed!

According to the KG-1000Gplus manual "To reactivate a killed radio send the kill sequence again".

I did the same, under drivers seat. FYI - one need not use a Midland mic extension, any Cat5 extension will work fine.

There's nothing like a first impression, am I right?

The Btech GMRS 20V2 mobile will tell you when the radio has been killed. I had it happen to me several times. If your radio is setup to receive DTMF codes and you have not changed the default factory code, someone can send your radio the kill or stun code and lock up your radio. I recoved from the kill setting using CHIRP and reloading the initial factory setting image. I also reset all on the radio after it was restored. You adjust the DTMF settings in CHIRP. I suspect that there may be a bug in CHIRP for my radio and DTMF. I changed the factory code at a minimum and have not had an issue. CHIRP give the 20V2 the option to disable all TX and RX of DTMF codes with a check box. This may be the cause of my killed radio. It seems when I have the boxes checked i increase the odds of the radio being killed. Uncheck those boxes, no issue. I have not tried it out since the latest series of CHIRP updates. I dont use the BTech CPS so I do not know if there are other options or better ones.

Back to seriousness, @gortex2 is right. You don’t specify what kind of cable you have, but unless it’s pretty good cable 50 feet will cost you half of your power on transmit and half of your received signal in attenuation. The RT97 is built in such a way that it could be mounted on the tower right below your antenna. To your original question, better antenna placement is almost always more effective than simply adding power. That’s not to say that power is meaningless, but doubling the height of an antenna will almost always do more than doubling your power and usually for less money.

Apparently you feel that my suggestions were somehow insulting. They weren’t intended to be and I’m unsure why you would take them that way. Best wishes and welcome to the forum!

There’s a bug (in my opinion) with the site software that allows anyone to claim ownership of a repeater by registering it as “My Repeater.” This has happened numerous times, presumably by accident when people try to designate a repeater as one they favor.

Not to mention that antenna and cable improvements help both transmit and receive. For illustration, I tested some unlabeled cable (15 or 17ft) that came with a Midland mirror mount. With 43 watts measured at the radio, it measured 23 watts at the antenna end. Switching to a 35 foot piece of abr400 (and all other factors the same), I now had 35 watts at the antenna.

Just send it back and ask for a replacement if you think it is defective.

It’s not at all unusual for the RF output to deviate from the advertised value. Some may be more and some may be less and it really makes almost no difference in communications whether a radio puts out 4 watts or 5. It’s a classic case of diminishing returns. Plus there’s absolutely nothing that says your wattmeter is correct. As an exercise, jot down the power output for every channel. You’ll see that they differ, possibly greatly.

My KG-UV9D Mate will transmit on GMRS after a CHIRP modification. Not sure about MURS yet.

For those with unlocked radios, you can use CHIRP to turn TX off on individual channels by turning duplex to off.

Cut off 30' of cable ?

I have repeaters that sit dormant 6 months out of the year. Is there a reason it should be talking ? Mine are all closed so unless I'm on it or one of my friends its quiet.

I'm looking for a Mobile GMRS radio with Superhets, Digital, Bluetooth, and GPS, does one not yet exist?!? If not, when?!?

I'd rather have TWO good well engineered working radios than a sack full of junk handies.

Easy! It's because the FCC says so!

Yes, I am looking for a mobile that can do it, even if it's a future released product for Christmas... I'm surprised there's not been any announcements as of yet. Surely the crappy Baofeng can't be the only company producing such a beast yet, or coming out with something soon. I'd even settle for a Midland XT-511 update, that can do it, especially if it can also do repeaters and/or have a removable antenna for actual GMRS duties, not just FRS/Digital. I'd even be willing to forgo 2 of the 3 criteria if I can just get it how I mentioned above. "I'm more interested in Bluetooth and the texting capabilities via base than the GPS. Although GPS and Bluetooth would be beneficial via Mobiles too, minus the Texting capabilities, unless they're canned texts or done via Bluetooth TTS."

I finally received everything needed to mount my 2m/70cm radio and GMRS radio in my Escape. My stuff took the scenic route thanks to the ever efficient USPS. I am using a Comet SSB1-NMO antenna for 2m/70cm and a Tram 1174 NMO antenna for GMRS, both are on magnet mounts. I found a spot along the main wiring harness under the dash to pass the power wires through. Positive wires are to the battery and ground wires go to chassis ground. The Comet is in the center of the roof while the Tram is towards the back end of the roof. Both radios are mounted under the driver's seat and the remote heads are mounted to a Lido seat bolt mount. I did have to go with an external speaker for the 2/m70cm radio which is mounted to the bottom of the dash close to the door. I will have to wait and see if an external speaker will be needed for the GMRS radio since it has two speakers on the main unit and a good speaker in the hand mic. I am using a TYT TH-7800 dual band radio for amateur frequencies and a Wouxun KG-1000G+ for GMRS. Here is a photo showing both head units on the seat bolt mount.

Thanks for all the tips and educational posts. I have learned a lot. So the radio is working just fine. It’s the user not understanding privacy codes that will communicate with repeater channels. Which I understand now and have requested to join a repeater. I purchased the Baofeng 2pk UV-9G and tested NON repeater channels 15-22, and works. Except the UV-9G channel is not transmitting. Working on getting a pc to install the software and see if there’s an update and if I need to “unlock” that channel. Again thank you everyone for responding and educating this ignorant user.

DMR channels do not use 7.6 kHz of spectrum; they each use 12.5 kHz but they use time division multiplexing to share that portion of spectrum. In other words each current GMRS channel would only represent two DMR channels. Gil is correct that this would impact everyone who has an analog GMRS radio. Use of such a radio requires the entire channel, making it unavailable for DMR. Conversely, to those who have analog radios, every DMR transmission sounds like an impact wrench. “Here in California, CERT, neighborhood or fire watch, militia groups, etc. have implemented GMRS because 80-90% of their members have no direct interest in the technical aspects of amateur radio.” I don’t know how true that statistic is, but ruining GMRS for the rest of us isn’t the answer. P.S. People who have no direct interest in the technical aspects of amateur radio might have a tough go when they have to program a codeplug. DMR codeplugs are extremely technical. I guess you could sell the radio with a basic codeplug that’s simplex DMR on 1-22 and duplex on 23-30, but what do you use for talk groups, time slots, and color codes?

I seriously doubt that any setting or feature in the radio is going to decrease the power output other than the power settings and built in power limits of low, medium and high power channels. I think you need to move on from that idea.