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Yeah, there is some info out there that the tower actually rotted out and fell and the station was off the air far longer than is being reported.

Try an external antenna before jumping ship on the Midland. There are many antenna threads on the forum. Search for “base antenna.” Don’t expect 200 miles. I don’t know the terrain around @WRXP381, but I don’t get 200 miles. I think he has something unusual going on.

I'm just being careful to not answer like "some people" that come in and decree something as if it is set in stone and has no variables and could never be anything different from what they once experienced or read in a book.. Those guys make themselves look like R-tards, and they're all over this forum. I crave to be different!

It’s an individual choice. If you choose to violate the regulations that’s your choice. You’re correct in anticipating that nobody can discern by listening whether someone is truly your relative. But many people like to fully understand what the regulations actually say. That’s not “going too far into the weeds.” If you’re not interested, just ignore the conversation.

GMRS is primarily Wideband except for channels 8-14.

In all my years of LMR work Hardline is preferred. The only time I've used LMR600 is when we had to pull some thru a conduit between two buildings. LMR400 all the time in the control station environment. Even my house has LD4-50A run to my antenna's. In my work environment we use up to 1 7/8" hardline. Connectors for hardline can cost more than your radio and antenna system combined....

The "request access" button is always there. In general, when it says "open" you do not need permission to use the repeater. I have seen at least one repeater (can't remember which one) where it was open but the owner stated that he only wanted people he knew personally using it. It's always best to read the description to make sure.

I have to agree with @Sshannon. Definitely try an external antenna first. Even a mobile mag mount antenna on a cookie sheet outside is better than an antenna inside the house. If you can afford it and have a place to mount it, I will recommend the Comet CA-712EFC antenna. And getting a 200 mile range is definitely not the norm with GMRS. Most guys in the wide open desert are getting 75 - 100 miles tops. Terrain, foliage, buildings and other obstacles will affect and limit your range. GMRS is line of sight. So the higher your antenna is and that of the person you are trying to talk to is, the better.

Jeezus...

Try tapping the '6' button.

Usually, in most cases, generally speaking, most of the time, for most people, on average, and assuming there are no issues with your cabling or connectors, you will get better send and receive performance using an external antenna vs using the HT antenna INSIDE the car. I would expect the external antenna to work a little better than the stock antenna outside the car, but not hugely. Dont forget that you are losing some power through the coax, connectors and patch-cord, so that could negatively impact the performance.

And the landscaping crew was only there because the station owners heard there was an imminent inspection. Everyone loves an “unexplainable myster “ but the truth is usually far less complicated.

I was a ham 30 years ago, just had a tech license but liked hanging around some of the VHF/UHF repeaters and made a few friends. The problem was we had two radio clubs that hated each other. If you got caught talking to the wrong person, you were shunned by one group or the other. It became a old wives club. I let my license expire, moved across 3 different states in those years and decided to give GMRS a try a bit over a year ago to see if I wanted to play with radios again. I got to be friends with a few guys on GMRS that went on to become ham's so I got went ahead on got my ham tech license back as well. For the most part I usually use simplex on ham and maybe one or two repeaters on occasion out of dozens available to me, just like the more more relaxed feeling of GMRS and the folk's I've met over the past year or two. The sad part is I was out riding my bike around 15 years ago through a park when it was field day. When I got back home I threw a few boxes of radio gear (a few radios, Astron power supply, SWR meters and the like that I had not used in since in the hobby) in the car, dropped them off at the club table and told them to do whatever they wanted with it. I wish I had it back. Oh well....

I chose GMRS as an additional communication mode to augment amateur radio. My friends who I spend time hiking and off-roading with are amateur radio operators, while my wife and I use GMRS.

Interesting. Here is a link to it. if you scroll through the photos you will see the mic close up. https://www.buytwowayradios.com/wouxun-kg-1000g-plus.html

A SWR meter will tell you if the antenna is resonant or not. And if it is not, then you will need to first check all connections and the coax cable. If all of that checks good, then you will probably need to tune the antenna.

I'm playing around with this really awesome tool that I found. It factors in the topography (elevations), height of your antenna, the gain of your antenna, wattage (ERP), and it actually generates a detailed "heat map" overlayed on the standard google map showing how you're getting out. My example below. I've found it to be pretty accurate. I actually went out to one of the far flung isolated specks of red to try to get a copy from back home, and sure enough it came right in.. It's kind of a clunky old windows 95 era web page and it's in another language and you have to register an account, but if you're interested in getting your coverage map made I could generate one for anyone interested. I just need the key data points of your station.. -Your location (within a street or two if you're concerned with privacy) -Antenna height -The gain of your antenna (3db, 6db, 9db, etc) -Your output power in wattage -If you're using lossy coax on a 100ft run you should probably let me know about that too, it'll matter. This map will assume that receiving stations are mobile or HT with an antenna about car roof high. It's possible to adjust the parameters to assume higher receive antennas to see how you hit high mounted repeaters for example. Let me know.... I'm having a lazy Sunday and can sit here doing this for a bit..

I am curios, does anyone have there GMRS radio for social reason's? and by that i mean using it like a ham making contacts or talking to friends or making new friends. i always here people talking about having them for off-roading and backpacking but not much when it comes to the social side of things.

Thanks guys - sounds like I need to eliminate some variables. I think first I’ll take the rack off and move the antenna to the middle of the car. I really appreciate the feedback. If it works at least as good with the mobile setup as it does standing outside the car, I’ll be happy.

You can see some really weird stuff on the pages of some repeaters. I can think of one, this week it is "Permission Only". Next week it is "Open to any licensed user". Week after that it is "Permission Only" again; and on, and on, and on.

Is it the 72G/cable that is the problem, or is it the external mic/connection, or the "patch cord". That is what has to be determined by you. Since the HT seems to work ok with the 771G, you have eliminated that as the source of the problem.

Glad to see that “Advertising Law School“ is making a difference.

95.1751 GMRS station identification. Each GMRS station must be identified by transmission of its FCC-assigned call sign at the end of transmissions and at periodic intervals during transmissions except as provided in paragraph (c) of this section. A unit number may be included after the call sign in the identification. (a) The GMRS station call sign must be transmitted: (1) Following a single transmission or a series of transmissions; and, (2) After 15 minutes and at least once every 15 minutes thereafter during a series of transmissions lasting more than 15 minutes. So if you used a timer and spoke for 35 minutes you would ID when you finish the first 15 minutes, again at 30 minutes, and then when you stop talking at 35 minutes. But nobody does that. Just throw it out there when you think about it and when you’re done with your conversation.

Couple things. First is try loading a standard Raspian image to the card and verify that boots. While it says that it will boot and have the IP address of 192.168.something, and you can access it remotely. I would advise connecting it to a TV or monitor via HDMI with a USB keyboard attached so you can see what's going on. Pi 3 units are notoriously power hungry and not having enough power from the USB source will keep them from booting. First thing you should see when booting the Pi is a rainbow colored splash screen. It that's not being displayed or a lightning bolt shows up, it's a power issue. Try a phone charger or similar. Running them off a USB port on a computer rarely works.

Yep, and it doesn't appear that theft of the tower is even part of the story. In fact, theft or not, it would seem to be a massive undertaking to lower and dismantle the tower and remove it from the site. Call me overly skeptical, but the day I read the original story, my BS detector pegged and the needle broke.

right click and save those images, they zoom in better than it displays on this forum.

Ok so Ive generated 2 different ones. One is your simplex range to ground units, and the second is your "repeater range" that shows repeaters that you'd be capable of hitting assuming they were at least 150ft high.

There is a thread on this on RR, and there is a lot more to the story.

What's the reason you chose GMRS over other options price helps a lot of people and no test is a large reason. Maybe you went to a Ham radio club and you felt you was the child there My main reason was for safety at work and family which are both driving Unfortunately the safety issue is a problem, so ham is going to work out better i would say, because there was a bad wreck just outside Seguin where a lady and child came of the road and hit a building so she called for help on a repeater channel and no one would answer her even though there was people on there, so this lady has gone back to HAM, she has been a Radio operator for 20 years and she got GMRS because family did not want to do a ham license. She has zero cellphone coverage people can panic and not use the callsign and you could be ignoring a urgent message, the lady was ok but the 3 year old had a broken leg and collar bone. If your HAM or GMRS you could save a life

That's not sad; you did a good deed... And your reward is that now you get to purchase technologically updated equipment!

It traces back to Groucho Marx...

That’s slick. I’m game. 3323 Kewaunee Rd. Bellevue, Wi 54311 30 feet 2-3db gain 25 watts (about 15w after duplexer and line loss) Thanks.

The mission is simple,.. Get your antenna up high. If you want to spend $4,500 on a proper 35ft tower, that's alright. but the result is essentially the same as doing things like this. My tower has been up in the state that is is for nearly 6 years..

Man that was brazen! I have heard of pirate radio but this takes it to a new level.

Go to Device Manager in Windows 11 and report what it is saying about the Serial or COM ports and what, if any, chip driver it is reporting. A screenshot would be helpful.

Nice. I went cheap also. Two 3/4” x 10’ chunks of EMT conduit with a coupler from Menards. Two cheap mounting brackets off E-Bay. Bolted the brackets to the garage. Cut a chunk of wood and mounted it to bird house's 4x4 post, then drilled a hole near the end to run some zip ties through attached to the mast. Helps eliminate some swaying. Height of antenna (gmrs tuned j-pole) is roughly 30 feet off the ground. Total cost was less than $50. Whatever works right?

Or what cable..

I bet it's unfavorable. It's too bad radio forums degenerate to bashing other services. I mean, I guess all forums have that problem, but my take is that there's so much to share, and some folks would rather pee in the punchbowl.

Where did anyone mention Chirp?

I'm just thinking of a college student and his ability to set up much of ham station. Would depend on his living situation I guess. I'm sure he could handle more studying for another test LOL!

My friends were using it on the rocket range.

The question was "Why did you choose GMRS", not "Why do you hate amateur radio". Without hating on amateur radio, why did you choose GMRS?

I didn't choose GMRS, it chose me.

I've had a amateur license for decades. Got it for the communications aspect during desert adventures. Unfortunately most of the folks I went with decided not to get a license. Moved to GMRS because most of the family and friends I am around now will use it. A couple of friends and some other family members have GMRS licenses now. I'm talking to a few neighbors about getting GMRS licenses and using the radios to check up each other during winter weather events and during wildfire season. I have a couple of older neighbors that don't have cell phones. I will keep my amateur license as well. As others have said, having more tools is good.

That concept of “additional tools” is why our club is discussing putting up a commercial repeater at the same site of our Amateur repeater so that in an disaster we could hand out commercial radios to specific unlicensed people.

Same for me.

You need to understand how tones work. When a radio or in this case the repeater has an input tone, it will squelch out any signal that does not have that tone. So, the repeater will ignore you unless your signal has that tone. When the repeater sends out a signal with a tone, you can still hear it when you use no tone at all. But you also hear all other signals. To squelch out all the other signals and just hear the repeater, use the repeaters output tone.

We have to keep in mind that the primary purpose of GMRS is for families and other small groups. Using repeaters is just a bonus. For everything else, HAM is the way to go.

Really depends on what you looking to listen to. If its public safety and trunking systems the SDS series is about whats there. There are older BCT15 or 996P2 but they all have drawbacks. For air my BCT15 is a solid unit. SDR is great but takes some knowledge in software and scans different than a scanner. In additon requires a computer on all the time to scan.