Leaderboard

...or maybe @Sshannon was just trying to help someone out solely for the satisfaction of helping them. Unfortunately "some people" have no gratitude.

IF only there was youtube channel out there that has done at least one video on every single one of those topics!

You're way behind on that one. I think it was the second or third post for me.

Lately it seems like a few people are asking loosely worded questions and then snapping at people who give a knowledgeable answer. My ignore list has gained another.

If the reason you hijacked the thread was because you saw @OffRoaderX was here and you thought this was a good way to get his attention, a more appropriate way would be to create a new thread and tag him by typing the @ sign, then his username. Like this: @WRZM228 Of course if you’ve been ignored that won’t work. (How’s that for an attempt to bring the thread back to the OP’s topic?)

I have owned a couple of Kenwood THG71A handhelds, Yaesu VX6r and VX7r handhelds and at least two Kenwood mobiles (can't remember the models). I also carried Motorola radios for over 30 years in several different professions. All the radios with the exception of the Motorolas were amateur band radios. Motorola commercial radios are a different animal all together, and are designed and built to suffer the abuse of cops and firemen. I have owned 5 different models of Wouxun handhelds (four GMRS and one Amateur band) and one mobile. I prefer the Wouxuns over the Kenwoods and the Yaesus. I like the ease of use of the Wouxun and so far they have stood up to several severe drops. I dropped on of my Kenwoods three feet and it was toast. The cost of repair was more than I have spent on my Wouxuns. The Yaesus are good and sturdy but the two models I have are very small, which can be good if you don't have larger hands, and they have a steep learning and remembering curve. The Wouxun HAM radio I have transmits as well as the Yaesus and seems to be better at receiving. Of course this is all anecdotal and subjective and just my opinion. I have recommended Wouxun to several non-radio nerd type people and they have been happy with them as well.

Man, Moto is not even close to the same category as any of those radios. You are comparing radios that were $3,000 to $5,000 new, to radios that are $150 to $500 new. That is like comparing a an economy Honda to Bugatti. I am very fond of Wouxun, especially the KG-1000G. The brand stacks up very well when compared to Yaesu, but I think Yeasu makes a better radio with many more available features. I would put Wouxun on par with Icom, Kenwood, Alinco. I don't consider Anytone, Powerwerx or TYT in the same category of any of the aforementioned brands. They are really budget brand radios. I don't look down on them, but they just won't have the same longevity, features, durability, stability or performance as the higher tier brands. Also, I a assuming you are either asking for use an amateur bands or just general speaking. Moto is the only brand mentioned that has models that have the ability to be legally used in GMRS. All the other brands are good for amateur bands, and some will have LMR/business options, too.

I have had/used every brand of GMRS radio in my Jeep(s) and almost every model of every brand, and for Part 95 "GMRS" radios, I prefer the Wouxun KG1000G. It is a better quality radio than BTech and most (maybe all) the other brands, it outputs a full 50W, and has a remote-mount removable faceplate. Several of my off-road friends use this radio and they are all happy with it. And FYI - even though its spelled Wooks-On, it's pronounced "Ocean" .

Welcome @WRNN959 to the forum and retirement! That all sounds great, and a dog guy as well. What is this thing you call spare time though? Where can I get me some of that? I like your plan.

Welcome! That sounds like a wonderful activity for retirement!

Whoever gave you that information is flat out wrong. JVC Kenwood is still making new radios. Just delivered 25 new units the other day, and they all worked quite well.

This is my second comment on the forum after joining yesterday, and realizing I should probably introduce myself before just jumping in. Been working my way towards a long term retirement plan over the last two years. Started off with applying for my GMRS license, go figure. Where else do you start the process of retiring? Long story short, travel will be a big part of retirement for the next several years and off grid will be a large part of that. GMRS just seemed like a necessity with that in mind. Got a new truck, mobile radio purchased. Recently got the travel trailer, "base radio" purchased. Just today requested and gained access to a big part of the Midwest network. Still haven't started transmitting other than simplex practice in the neighborhood. Of course monitoring the channels on the base radio in my "shack". I'm looking forward to learning from and perhaps connecting with the seasoned veterans and well as the rest of the community in due time. What else does a retired guy do with his spare time. So here's a "hearty greetings from central Indiana" to the greater GMRS family!

Okay, car analogies aside for a bit, I think I get where you are coming from on the radio front. On the commercial side, I have almost zero experience with anything civilians can buy for private use, except for owning 4 Moto mobiles. That said, in my opinion commercial gear (like from Moto and assuming Kenwood based on other experience) will absolutely be a much better quality radio than non-commercial radios, such as radios designed for GMRS or Amateur use. Typical Commercial Radios Pros: Will typically have more physical durability. Better weather/waterproofing (in most, not all cases). Better/improved receive sensitivity. Better transmit frequency and power stability. Better protection circuits to prevent accidental damage (antenna shorts and thermal protection, for example). Higher power output options. Higher duty cycles. Something that me and my friends have experienced... you can more commonly run these radios for decades without needing repair and without noticeable degradation in performance. I have purchased 10+ YO commercial gear that ran just as good as it did on day 1 and still have them years later. There is no such thing as a commercial radio not being able to do what a purpose built GMRS or Amateur radio can do. You just need to purchase a model that will do what you want it to do. There are plenty things that commercial radios can do that non-commercial / private use radios can do, such as encryption, multiple heads, multiple mics, high volume ambient noise reduction on transmit, for some examples. As for as longevity of non-commercial radios go, we are in a disposable world. New non-commercial radios simply don't work as well or last as long as commercial radios. Once you abandon the commercial v. private/amateur gear categories, pretty much all non-commercial gear is the same. Just a question on if the price and features are there for you. Everything else is going to be opinion, anecdotal, and personal preference. I have noticed that, too. New troll technique?

I don't believe you.

IMHO, a simple radio should not require a computer connection in order for the operator to access a particular Repeater.

As @wayoverthere stated, the Midland MXT115 is not computer programmable. In order to use it with repeaters you have to use the FPP to enable the Repeater menu, so that you can set the CTCSS or DCS code. Midland also uses a LUT (Look Up Table) for the PL Tones. So you can't just program in 67.0 or DCS023N, you have to know what their value in the table is. Additionally, as of last year that model comes from the factory as NFM (Narrow FM), even on the repeater channels. So unless they are now shipping them out with WFM enabled for repeaters, you have to send it to Midland for them to update the firmware. That's only with the USB-C models, as the USB-Type A are not upgradeable to WFM.

Dont count out Hytera in this mix, these radios are as good as Motorola in many if not in all ways... And don't count out the Maxon's, they are pretty darn decent and compare equally to Motorola in many ways as well especially if using to build a repeater. Personally,, and for the HAM side, i have grown fond to the Hytera 600 and 700 Series radios.. These can also be set up as Repeaters but a little tricky, Maxon's are pretty easy. These radios mentioned also tune well into the GMRS band if you want..

If my two TYT dual band radios have issues, I will most likely replace them with either Icom or Wouxun mobiles. And as I mentioned the KG-1000g Plus replaced the Midland MXT500 for my GMRS base radio.

Books? Like that you pay for? For info that's theoretically on the internet? How 20th century...

I would go with the Wouxun KG-XS20G if you want a compact and durable mobile that is actually IP rated with an IP67 rating. Here is a good simple explanation of IP ratings: https://www.setra.com/blog/what-does-an-ip67-rating-mean Here is a photo of my XS20G mounted in my Honda Pioneer 500 UTV

Those Midland/Retevis repeaters have a very small internal duplexer that can barely create any decent isolation when the repeater is cranking more than 5 watts. There is no magic bullet. You are never going to find a good, cheap, compact duplexer that passes 95% of your transmitter power and still gives you 90+ dB of isolation. It doesn't exist. Every rookie with a wattmeter wants to get the MAXIMUM possible output power out of their repeater. I mean, 50 has to be better than 5, right? In my opinion, the MOST important spec in a repeater system is the isolation between transmit and receive. Especially if you're using portable radios out in the field that can talk back in with 4 or 5 watts of transmit power. What good is it to key up your repeater with 10 or 15 watts of power when you introduce 3 or 4 dB of desense into the system? 3dB of desense on the receiver just made your 4 watt portable into a 2 watt portable, and how well is that going to work? Better isolation = a better repeater. Want to have a cheap repeater? You will get what you paid for. Cheap is rarely good.

You will want to get your general class amateur license if you really want to use the HF bands.Technician class is limited to a very small range on 10 meters (28.3 MHZ to 28.5 MHz) for phone (voice). Here is a list of all bands open to technician class. https://www.arrl.org/files/file/Tech Band Chart/US Amateur Radio Technician Privileges.pdf As you can see, technician license holders are very limited when it comes to HF bands. I edited this reply after seeing that I posted the same link as Sshannon.

Well, after 3 years without a CB radio, I bought a new unit. It's a Cobra 75 All Road. I haven't been following CB, but i do know the FCC rule changes about a year ago now allow FM use. I have been curious about it, especially knowing how well FM works on 29 MHz. I had a customer tell me they were interested in this radio, asked if I had an opinion about it and asked if I would install it for them. So, I bought one to check it out. I have to say, it's a little weird running a "stock" CB... but so far, I like it. It's just AM/FM with weather channels, but the transceiver is remote and the controls are in the mic (a familiar setup). BUT, the mic and all the controls are done wirelessly. The mic plugs into any USB port you have, or comes with a power outlet adapter. The mic works over Bluetooth so well, that I had the transceiver in my Jeep, but tested the mic range in my son's Jeep. It works about 30 feet away, which was awesome. I haven't chatted with anyone yet, but I was listening to AM Skip from all over the country. The receiver sensitivity seems real good so far. I am going to ask a friend of mine with an FM CB to help me do some range testing. I'll follow up soon and share the results.

Just login or sign up as instructed to access the internal items on the websites.

CB is definitely not dead in my area, but there is risk of reduction of IQ by listening for any extended period. Also suprised by the number of freebanders running amplifiers

Thanks for the help to everyone. I went with the MXTA24 cable, MXTA26 antenna and the NMO fender mount. Had to modify the plastic spacer for the cable to work with the mount but I'm used to doing stuff like that with jeeps. Hit the Sheraton hotel repeater in Dallas which is close to 30 miles away. Going to try again tomorrow at work which is to 40 miles away.

Look at the question you asked... you 100% asked for opinions about quality. Based on the second post I quoted, if you really felt that way, you would just buy the BTech or whatever budget radio and not waste time asking the question. There is a reason 1 car cost thousands and the other cost millions, the same reason why some radios cost hundreds while others cost thousands. You can call it category, class, quality, whatever. It's the same question.

@WRQC527 I used to be a technical writer. Let me know if you want some help. The questions by @WRZR764 reveal some good topics to cover. Like the fact that giving your ID every 10 minutes is for amateur radio, every 15 minutes is for GMRS.

BTW: I ordered the Laird B4505CN. Its coming in on Thursday. I'll deal with the return of the other one the next day. I'm so busy at work and all the stuff right now. If you have any plans of buying something, I just wanna remind you that X'mas is just around the corner. I did what I had to do the whole year to get what I need before the traffic jam. I am predicting in the next 2-3 days, it might be a difficulty getting any orders for X'mas due to the holiday rush..

Kenwood quit making radios when JVC purchased them in 2014. You'll only find used equipment now, not saying they're not still good but, I am more interested in equipment I can still get readily available on the shelves over the junk on eBay. That being said, it's good information to know.

I think I'll give the XS20G a try, I found it on Amazon for $200. Thanks for the recommendations.

Might be true of new models. However I own a bunch of older Kenwood radios the have Part 95 certification, and some of those are digital voice capable. My carry radio for GMRS and Ham UHF is the Kenwood TK-3170. A few others here use it as well. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/263-tk-3170jpg/ TK-3170 Grant.pdf

CBs are different than Ham radios, apparently. Though from my understanding, past models of CB radios also had issues with power output, which is where the term "peak and tuning" the radios came from. A little bit of work and it's corrected. I've never had a Midland that didn't burn up on me. Why I'm very hesitant to get one of their GMRS radios. The Cobra 19 I have, (version IV,) isn't any better than the Midland, though at least it didn't fry, that I'm aware of. I've had just about every model of Cobra mobile they've ever produced and the 25's, 29's, and the 148's are their best models. Still, the Unidens, IMHO, sound better to me, though, aside from the 125, they're the same radios and have the same internals. (They don't, or at least didn',t make an equivalent to the 148.)

I didn't know that @marcspaz thanks!

You should also be able to tune the Ed Fong to get a better SWR reading. You will need something better than a Surecom to tune the antenna though. Check to see what frequency the antenna is resonant at and adjust accordingly.

I agree. I don't think Baofeng is a suitable replacement. I only used it to get an idea of what could possibly work. It is the only set of radios that I have on hand that we can transmit in the building to see a comparison. I'm not sure of the exact size or square footage of the building, but it is a decent-sized building and one of the bigger ones in our district. The entire building is pretty much made of brick, which I suspect is the cause for the interference, but it still doesn't make sense to me as to why the Baofengs worked so well, but the Hyteras don't. There is one location specifically that the principal has concerns for and that is the location where the students who are in I.S.S. (in-school suspension) as well as students who are being sent out of class for disruptive behavior. The room gets very poor reception even with cell phones and the Hytera just sends static, but again when I tested the Baofengs from that room to the front office and cafeteria, etc, they were loud and clear. Anyway, I do appreciate the help and information, I will compile all this info to give to the principal and continue to do more research on the recommendations you have all given. Thank you very much!

The 5 watt limit rule is for the 462 MHz Interstitial channels and the .5 watt applies to the 467 MHz Interstitial channels. The 50 watt limit rule applies to all 462 and 467 MHz main channels and that is 50 watts out of the radio not the ERP from the antenna.

I have the KG-1000G Plus in my truck paired with the Midland MXTA26. No complaints. Good luck!

I understand the reasoning, but this is GMRS - a huge percentage of GMRS users just turn on their radio and start talking with their group - they aren't thinking about power levels or anything else, other than "can my friend hear me" ...

Welcome to the forum. I recommend that you start here:

It would be nice to have one set standard with GPS. It is the same with digital stuff on amateur radios, too many different systems that don't work together.

Easy way to remember the bands 80m - 3.5 Mhz 40m - 7 Mhz 20m - 14 Mhz 15m - 21 Mhz 10m - 28 Mhz The higher the freq, the smaller the meters.

I agree with you on that. I should have studied more for the general before I took my technician test.

I'll say that someone should go for General regardless, since it is not that much harder than Technician and grants plenty of extra privileges.

Not sure if anyone mentioned this, but receiver sensitivity is a big deal as well. If you are blasting out but you can't hear a return call, that might be frustrating to say the least.

Not as much as going from 5 watts to 20 watts or even 50 watts. And in most case one won't notice much difference between 4 to 10 watts.

Almost all of the bands have a portion reserved for phone (voice) and a portion reserved for CW (carrier wave - which is very effective for Morse code). The use of phone or CW is also limited by class of amateur license (Technician - most limited, General, or Amateur Extra - least limited). A generic chart showing which class is allowed and where for each band is called a “band plan.” Some states have slightly different band plans as well. I’ll post the general band plan here: https://www.arrl.org/files/file/Regulatory/Band Chart/Band Chart - 11X17 Color.pdf

I got to do a range test today and I am very impressed. In an area I typically get about 5 miles of simplex range with a 50w VHF or UHF radio (Ham and GMRS) I was able to have a conversation at 14 miles apart, while moving. One of my friends who also has a good AM/FM CB and a good antenna setup were able to run a test while driving in Norther Virginia. I have to say, 14 miles for both AM and FM is fantastic around hear. The furthest I have ever talked on a CB on the local level was 26 miles, using a 104" (1/4 wave) steel whip antenna and 12.5w peak. This 14 mile contact was using 3.5w and a 86" Diamond HF10CL antenna, which isn't as good of a performer as a 1/4 wave would be... but it's pretty darn good. Much better than if I tried a 3 foot or 4 foot Firestik, I'm sure. This radio seems like a win for a compact FM CB.

I just built an Android app for this: https://github.com/nathanchilton/remote-identifier With the app running on an old Android phone, connected to a BTECH GMRS-V1 using a BTECH APRS-K1 cable, it listens for traffic. If it hears any sound (via the HT) after the last time it has identified, it will use speech-to-text to transmit an identification through the HT, which then is also transmitted via the repeater. It is a bit of a hack, but it means that the device just needs to be within range of the repeater for this to work (no direct interface to the repeater is needed). It isn't as good as a real controller, but I think it's better than nothing.

One of my favorite hobbies: go war-driving for GMRS/Ham repeaters and decode their input codes! ?