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I can't say I go "off-roading" just secondary roading.....logging roads and maintenance of repeater sites in areas where logging often takes place. I have an old Blazer and Suburban that get used for this purpose. Blazer for fun and shorter wheelbase, and Suburban when I want to camp or sleep inside a larger vehicle. For work and play, I use either Cobra 29 LTD classic CB and older FRS/GMRS radios, to include: Garmin Rino 120/520/530 radios, Anytone 878 variants, Motorola TalkAbout variants, Motorola Trbo XPR6550's, XPR7550e, and an all in the palm Cobra ST WX 75 CB. As others mentioned, CB is still the "Go To" for many, to include logging trucks and forestry workers....do not want to meet on of those trucks coming down the mountain when you are going up it. GMRS works great in vehicle convoy's, while CB is still more popular in my area and secondary road use. Work wise, my employer requires CB, and another form of radio, as well as cell phones for all drivers. The Cobra 29 series, 75 CB, and cell phones get used often for off roading and secondary road use. However, while the Cobra radios hold up, the microphones are garbage. Quality has gone down a lot over the years, even on older long lived models. Channels used vary by site, trail, road, or construction/logging crew.

The KG-S72C CB radio is roughly the size of a UV-5R.. Not bulky by any measure.. But yah, you do need a very big antenna for it to work well...

Forget CB. Most portable CB's are bulky, and the antennas need to be large to be the least bit effective. How far away with the SAG vehicle be from the hikers?

I use to do light dirt/gravel roads in my Jeep. Then I climbed a pretty rutted out hill and was hooked. Now I want to go hit trails and see what the Jeep can do without being dumb and trying to hurt it. I like to be easy and be smart about trailing. I only want to fix something if I have to. I do not get wild and just break things for fun.

I’m the same way. I don’t off-road just to be off-roading, although it looks fun. I off-road to get from one place to another and I intentionally choose the easiest route for my 4-Runner.

I mention the rules thing for one reason only. If it's not brought to to the forefront in the initial discussion, then it will be discussed, debated, and pontificated by a number of folks that may or may NOT have a solid understanding of it and possibly convey partly or completely incorrect info that then needs corrected. This always seems to turn into a thing, threads get hijacked, dead horses beaten. It's just a thing that happens with online forums. Nothing new or exciting, just a continuance of the norm. Unless you are connecting your .5 watt radio to a 30dBi gain 20 foot dish and purposely creating interference for others I seriously doubt that the FCC is gonna come knocking. That being said. You mentioned both dBi and dBd gain numbers. Gonna give a quick explanation of each, because it's not common knowledge. dBi is gain over an isotropic radiator. This is the default 'paper' reference antenna that radiates RF in all directions at all angles equally. It's basically a free space radiator that has a sphere of RF eminating from it. I know that I used a lightbulb as an anology, and it's not quite correct since it can't radiate out the bottom of the lightbulb, but it's a good point of reference for most all other directions. dBd is gain over a dipole. Dipole is simple, and does exhibit gain over an Isotropic radiator since it's pattern doesn't include significant radiation off the ends of the antenna. That power has to go somewhere, so the increased radiation at certain angles give the antenna some amount of gain over the paper antenna in those directions. One of the other interesting things with antenna's an gain as opposed to amplifier gain which of course is an active component of the RF string is the amplifier is typically uni-directional with it's gain. Take a typical amplifier with a 10dB gain design. You put in 1 watt and 10 comes out. This will make you be heard farther than before. But it does nothing for your receive. Now, gain in an antenna doesn't so much 'boost' the receive signal. The signal is what ever it is at the antenna. Once again, we bring in the light source. The light isn't brighter for the directional antenna vs the onmi directional antenna. It's the same level. I am not going to bore you with math and what is referred to in the big antenna college text books as power density. I am gonna go back to the simple light source. So what a directional antenna does to increase your ability to 'hear' a signal is it darkens everything else out other than what it's pointed to. Take a flashlight outside at noon, you can see it at 100 yards. But you can't see a candle at the same distance. There is too much other light source (noise) to see the candle. But take the same candle out at midnight, and it can be clearly seen as a light source at the same distance. The directional antenna does this by ignoring the light (signal) from every other direction and only looking at the candle. A receive amplifier can't do that. It's going to amplify the signal some, but it's going to amplify all the other signals that we don't want as well.

There is no standard that I'm aware of. Generally when you enter an active logging area you'll see a channel painted on a rock or tree or something. Sometimes it corresponds to a road number. I think whatever outfit is running the job picks a channel. I generally don't bother unless I know there is active logging going on. I think it's pretty unlikely they will ever switch to GMRS since they are often working with independent drivers and whatnot. It would have to be the whole industry making the move. Then there's the licensing issue. CB really isn't a bad option in that environment.

Hey folks, I figured I would start a thread since it seems like there is some interest. So, lets see if we can get a nice weekend-long offroad trip coordinated to Troy NC, wheeling in Uwharrie National Forest. I am tagging people I think are close and may be interested, but everyone is welcome to join. @StogieVol @gortex2 @hfd376 I am thinking a weekend in the Spring would be good, so we can camp. Of course, Uwharrie Cabins are an option too. Anyplace that will accommodate everyone and give us a place to relax and hangout after a day of wheeling. I am thinking April 20th or later would be good, since the average high temps are in the low 70's and the rainfall for the last two years was pretty minimal. However, I am open to suggestions for other dates. Ideas? Comments? Concerns?

Well folks- it gets better. The person claiming ownership of this site and also posting that nonsense on the site page has nothing to do with the site or its ownership. The owners are aware of this transgression but it doesn't appear anything's been done yet.

Hello Mike and welcome. @WRXB215 is correct, it usually takes a couple days at most for the FCC to put it in the database that this site uses to verify your call, unless the FCC is having issues. You can check the database here.

A flagpole trip sounds good. Uwharrie sounds good, I just have to do some research.

I don't trailer mine and have to remember, "I drove it here and will have to drive it home" and even my 2015 Rubicon has parts now are no longer in production!

Mike, it sometimes takes some time for the database to be propagated to myGMRS.com. Just give it a little time and it will show up and you will be able to register.

@roo_ster Welcome back to GMRS. I haven't been at it for all that long but have use it quite a bit since I started. CB doesn't have nearly as many offerings in HT as GMRS. I've used GMRS in the mountains around Cloudcroft NM and didn't have any problems. Although it is "line-of-sight" it isn't like a laser. My son was constantly out of sight around fingers and over hills and we never lost contact. The only problem I have had so far was trying to penetrate all the trees and houses in my neighborhood. That's were more power really helps. Bumping up from 4 watts to 7-8 watts made all the difference in the world.

I don't go off-roading either but some of the ranch roads I've been on sure feel like it, especially going up and down the really steep places with loose rocks.

I have not found any other antennas that work better than the stock 935G antenna.

@WRWE456 @WRYZ926 I was about to ask that question. If any antenna would make the 935g plus get out any better. Thanks

I agree. And knowing what radio he has will help. I find the Nagoya 771G works better than stock on my Baofeng radios but I didn't notice much difference when trying the 771G on my Wouxun 935G. The stock 935G antenna is a good one.

Woxoun is better than Mudlands any day, but depending on what you need a TYT or Radioddity are good choices too.

I only use the 5 watt minimum power setting on the KG-1000G. Have not needed more than that for my use, in fact the KG-935G+ works just as well on 5 watts. I don't use the .5 watt channels. The mobile rig will not tx on them anyway. In my situation we are right next to Canada so can't work that direction anyway. The Yagi pointing South covers my local town and others all the way to Seattle.

Except that it's not. "Family" radio service or not, commercial use of FRS radios is OK. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/section-95.503 Not saying that bubble-pack FRS radios would be the best choice for a school although I know there are many that use them. But there are LOTS of commercial entities using FRS radios, and even some government ones. One example? Flaggers for a paving or other road construction crew. Short distance, not emergency services, cheap solution works fine. I know of at least one local town that does this. Sure, their trucks have commercial radios on a DMR frequency, but the two people holding the stop signs on either side of the paving operation are using FRS. The FCC isn't going to hunt them down and impose a 10K fine, not just because enforcement of FRS rules is at the bottom of their list, but because they aren't doing anything against regulations.

So there are some issues using a beam specifically with simplex operations. First issue is beamwidth of the antenna. Think of an onmi-diredctional antenna as a bare light bulb, the light comes out in all directions pretty much equally. Then we get into a short yagi of 3 or so elements. That's like having a flashlight. It's a directional beam of light that spreads out as the distance increases but is still very directional as compared to the bare light bulb. Now we get into the longer boom yagi's. And while 7 elements isn't really a big beam as opposed to some of the 30 element ones that ham's use for Satellite work, it's still significant forward gain. That's gonna be like a cheap red laser that up close is just a dot, but at a distance, the dot might be a foot or two across. You need to point that dot at the other person you are trying to communicate with and hold it on them throughout the communication as it progresses. And the more elements, the smaller that 'dot' is that you need to hold on the other party. Because once they are out of the dot, they are no longer able to communicate with you. Second issue is more of a regulation thing. While the repeater channels are NOT ERP regulated and any sort of antenna system can be employed for these simplex channels, some of the simplex channels are indeed ERP regulated and the ERP is a calculation of antenna gain and input power to the antenna. A 10 watt radio into a beam with 3dBi of gain is the same ERP as a 20 watt radio connected to an antenna with 0 dBi of gain (typically an omni-directional antenna). If you get into 6 or 9 dBi of gain, your .5 watt radio is no 2 watts, or 4 watts, when you are regulated to .5 watts of ERP and FRS is always regulated on ALL channels hence the reason an FRS radio has an antenna that can't be removed and connected to a different antenna.

Man, don't you know it. Just had $40k in work done to my Gladiator... it hurt a little, but hot damn. 40" Mickey Thompson Baja Boss MTs and a Metalcloak 4.5" long-arm lift with all the bells and whistles... worth every penny. My son posing with it... (he did the build)

Got me some Broncos. Have CB in the old and GMRS in the new. Doesn't seem to matter as no one else seems to ever have anything that works . At least with GMRS you can toss 'em a walkie. As for channels, CB4(4x4) is usually what I run, however technically you're supposed to run whatever is posted on the logging roads, which was big part of my hesitation to switch to GMRS.

Hello Zeph, Do you have a call sigh from FCC? if no, start with that. Thank you, WRVD377

Parallels is great and I use it on my M1 Mac to program all my radios.. If your Mac is too old for Parallels then it will probably run Boot Camp, which lets you run Windows directly/natively on your Mac so you should check that out to see if it will work on your MacBook.

Hmm, I'll have to try and see if I can hit it from my mobile. HT from my place would be pushing it. It used to have a voice ID'er on it, come to think of it I haven't heard that in a while.

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.