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It would be better if they listed the tones used as not all radios use the same tone code scheme.

I understand your point here which makes sense for radio geeks like us, the problem I see is thinking that non radio people will understand tones… I mean how many times do people come here asking questions about tones? Here is one just from today. Most people that get an FRS radio just use it out of the box with whatever tones are or aren’t there. This is a large percentage of people that could be excluded from emergency monitoring.

Absolutely or even better they shouldn’t use tones. If I am in a situation where I’m using a radio in an emergency I think I’d like to be sure anyone could hear the call. The idea that someone has to have a particular tone set for an emergency call added with the fact that one manufacturer numbers may well be different than another seems to be promoting a problematic situation. I imagine the thinking is with tones set specifically for an emergency that one only needs to monitor those transmissions but this only helps those that know and understand tones. My two cents at today’s discounted price of zero cents.

On the VU-5R Radios you could adjust the squelch setting breaks. It did not have a potentiometer squelch, you set a level of squelch from 0 to 9 in the menu. With that by default, the settings where the break level was in a new radio was kinda bizarre, so any level you had from 1 to 9 was not much different. For instance: You could adjust the levels for each setting from 0 to 120, but in the top pic, I adjusted mine to a max of 60, as above that you were pretty much fully "deaf".

FRS radios won’t transmit on repeater input frequencies but they certainly can hear them and their ID tones as the receive frequencies are the same.

Geezus.. You should go outside.. and leave the radio in the basement.

I believe he meant this one. But the point remains.

85.4 hz isn’t CTCSS #307 on any radio. 307 was simply picked to denote channel 3, tone 07.

Number 4 should be it. I just looked up the manual and it does not list the tones. Here is what it says. "Selecting the Interference Eliminator Code Interference Eliminator Codes help minimize interference by blocking transmissions from unknown sources. Your radio has 121 Interference Eliminator Codes. Codes 1 – 38 are the standard analog codes that appear on other FRS/GMRS radios. Codes 39 – 121 are additional digital codes added for superior interference protection. 0 is the off position, no analog or digital codes are enabled. And " Note: You must set the Interference Eliminator Code to 0 on a radio that uses Interference Eliminator Codes to communicate with radios that do not have Interference Eliminator Codes. Select 0 for “no tone, no code” and OFF will flash on your radio’s display. Maybe this will help.

Another +1 on tones. If he has a privacy 'code' or 'tone' set up, his radios will be listening for that tone from a transmitting radio. If it doesn't receive it, his radios won't open the speaker (ok that's not really how it works, but that's the effect) and play the transmission. He can either disable the privacy code on that channel, or get what code / tone he's using and cross reference that for your radio. OR: GIven that it's a 5G+, have him hold down his PTT button, and hit the green button on yours. IIRC that should automatically scan the channel and tones. But yes your UV-5G+ CAN talk to any FRS or GMRS radio. They just need to be configured correctly

He probably has a "privacy" tone set on moto's that you do not on UV5G.

Racer math says if you otherwise like them but you want repeater capability, you could keep these to hand to friends and family when you're out and about doing stuff and just need to talk amongst yourselves, and get a repeater capable radio for yourself in addition. Is repeater capability a big deal? That's pretty much up to the individual. It does open up a lot more range (if you have repeaters in your area). Some people use them all the time. You're a lot more likely to find a random person to talk to on the repeater if that's what you're looking for. But if you just need radios to talk radio to radio among a small group, there's no reason these couldn't be part of the arsenal.

What does “duty cycle” mean? I bring up duty cycle every time I hear somebody talking about making a repeater out of cheap Chinese mobiles and worse any type of handhelds. Duty cycle is the maximum time an amplifier may transmit within a five minute interval, expressed as a percentage, to avoid overheating. Suppose a mobile amplifier is rated at 30% duty cycle. This means that it may transmit for no longer than 1.5 minutes and must remain off for not less than 3.5 minutes. Some people forget that a repeater is transmitting for 2 or more people, duty cycle will be reached quickly if you get into conversation. More people in the conversation just amplifies the issue. Once a radio reaches it's thermal design limits it will no longer be able to adequately cool the output transistors. Even if a radio is not hot to the touch the transistors are, in part because of the inefficient transfer of heat to the units housing or internal heat sink. The longer you exceed the duty cycle the more heat builds on the transistors, surrounding electronics and heat sink effecting it's ability to remain on frequency without spurious emissions. Exceed duty cycle long enough and you will need a new transmitter or radio. I have tested a few Baofang and TYT radios on my service monitor without great results. All of the radios started deviating outside of the allotted channel bandwidth after simulated conversation at 50% duty cycle, the longer I allowed this the worse if got. Testing was done using an Aeroflex 2975 IFR recently back from the calibration lab. GMRS is a tiny sliver of spectrum surrounded by the commercial land mobile part 90 service. It is important that any repeaters that are built or re-purposed are held to the highest standards and operated as to not cause any interference inside or outside of our allocated spectrum. I wont get into the part 90/95 debate but i do stand firm that non certified import equipment has no place on GMRS.

Well, it's here.... After using a bunch of feature-rich radios I wasn't expecting much out of it, but this was pretty disappointing. The only feature difference above the MXT400 is the split tone and (maybe) the weather resistance. The biggest disappointment so far is they advertise this unit as 50w and its not. I bench-tested it with two different watt meters and it maxed out at 38 watts on the 462 MHz channels and 32 watts on the 467 MHz frequencies. I'm going to play with it for a few days and see if there are any other disappointments. I'll let you all know what I think after I give it a fair shot.

I've read the rules that say use to your call sign every 15 minutes and when you get off. Also, you can use international morse code as your call sign. I haven't seen anybody talk about doing this on their own except through a repeater. Can I just use an audio file to play my call sign as morse code instead of saying it using my handheld GMRS radio?

The positional problems are likely frequency cancellation. When you have multipath signals coming in like Steve said there are areas in the room that those signal paths cross over each other. And depending on how the frequencies match up with each other they either cancel or reinforce the signal strength. Also know as an interference pattern. This is usually in weaker signal areas but can still happen in stronger areas. In my driveway, my normal parking spot I have a repeater that comes in weak and intermittent. If I back the truck up 4 feet the repeater comes in perfect. When I was transmitting to the repeater it made no difference which spot I was in, came in fine. When I'm in my house on my HT inches make a huge difference. And the funny thing is for the most part it doesn't change. We'll have to see as the leaves drop off the trees.

No.. Try this: Do a full reset. Reprogram the radio BY HAND, do not load anything via software if it does it again call BTWR and tell them to send you one that is not defective

That link comes back to this thread. Try again.

Channel 9 is an interstitial low-powered channel that can't exceed .5 watt ERP. Using a low-powered channel in any rural back country area doesn't make any sense at all. I think that was a poor choice.

The 5RM "driver" in CHIRP is still experimental. I am sure if the squelch levels can be changed in the 5RM, like they could in the UV-5R family, at some point they might be adjustable but it may not be possible with the firmware or how the radio is made. Its why its important to keep CHIRP updated. And why its important to keep the older versions around too. Sometimes the update takes something that worked before and messes with it.

Quick primer on how 'privacy' tones work on radios:

I think digital on the current frequencies will be a big nuisance to any channel they're on. If they want digital just make sure it has it's own place so the analog channels can still work properly.

Yup, probably privacy tone 4. If you don't want to do the tone scan function (tho it's useful to know how to use it regardless), I'd try setting yours up with Transmit tone 74.4

Just looked up those Motorola's. They call them "Interference Eliminator Codes" The manual should list what they are so you can find a match.

Do you have a squelch tone programmed on your channel 2? Anyway, if you're using your UV5G Plus in a vehicle you probably should get an adapter and a mag mounted antenna to get the most out of the radio.

Thanks Steve I did not know that. Doesn't seem to be very useful according to Randy. Maybe under certain conditions.

Some radios have deeper squelch settings that can only be configured with the CPS which allow you to control how the squelch works when you adjust it on the fly.

That explains it I’m new to gmrs thanks for the help

Paying to be in a club so you can use the repeater is the same as paying to use the repeater with a technicality.

The Utah Avalanche Center did something out here for the Wasatch mountains this year. I really wish it was just 1 unified way of doing it instead of peace meal (and extremely local...having 1 statewide way to reach help, potentially, seems a lot better than a bunch of different once depending on where you are), but I have it programmed into my radios: https://utahavalanchecenter.org/education/group-group-radio-channel-initiative

Are people paying for repeater use, or are they members of a club that pay dues to be a club member, and only paying members can use club resources? I would think if the only resource is the repeater... that would seem to be a violation. Not that the FCC cares anyway. I am a member of a Jeep club. There are free memberships and paid memberships. Paid members can vote in club elections and have access to resources (such as training and trail guides) that non-paid members can't access.

Charging people to use a GMRS repeater is a rule violation. And as someone who lives in a densely populated area where 2 or 3 people own and operate wide coverage area repeaters on every pair, I definitely don't see frequency use even remotely close to considered overwhelmed. We have several wide coverage area repeaters here in the DC metro area. There are many smaller nested repeaters inside those coverage areas and they work well together since they have implemented different tone squelch settings. Even in heavily populated areas, like DCA with ~10M people, there are less than 8,000 active GMRS licensees in the area. It does not cause problems because of how little use there is. Some days, I may not hear any traffic at all. Also, I don't see a problem with a person having large coverage area repeaters on every pair due to the benefit to the community members, such as in a regional emergency or communications blackout. That far outweighs any perceived inconvenience from having a wide coverage area or a single person owning a repeater on every pair. Even day-to-day, families are using these machines to stay in touch in areas with no cell coverage. Friends are using them to stay in touch as a convenient alternative to cell phones, too. There are already antenna height and power limits. I'm not sure how we could tell people who live in a higher elevation that they can't have a repeater, though. I'm sure that would turn in to a Constitutional Rights court case. I don't think we should, either. EDIT: Quick note on power. I have a 50w repeater, but its only a 50% duty cycle at 50w. It's 100% duty cycle at 20w. After running through a duplexer and 150 feet of cable, only about 5w gets to the antenna. Even if I run the full 50w (since it never sees 100% duty cycle), I still only get about 12w to the antenna. It's not great. Sadly, the receive is impacted the same way. On the antenna height side, my antenna base is at 40 feet and I only get about 3 miles of coverage out of it due to the terrain, which also sucks. If me and my son hop in two vehicle and drive anywhere away from my house, we can talk 8+ miles. So, my repeater at my house with the specs you are talking about, performs worse than mobile simplex pretty much anywhere else but on my street.

kind of reminds me of the 100's of new repeaters that people register but their status is always 'offline'.. Whats that purpose??? Are they trying to 'claim' a frequency they don't use... some pretty crazy thinking...

While my son was here from the Navy he order 2 radios and gave my one. We've been learning how to program it and understand all the functions. I've been able the hit the repeater 462.7250 in Wichita. working it with a homemade J pole 26' up in the air..

They've had free reign over us for 40 years because of that bad decision in '84. I think even though the decision was unconstitutional it would have been best for the people who knew better to make the decisions instead of a court that really didn't have the knowledge/experience to make those decisions. Unfortunately we are talking about bureaucrats who love power and would do anything to have more and more. And herein lies the problem with giving agencies power like that which they aren't authorized to have. They make decisions that give them more power and continue to do so and then make rules/regulations with the power of law behind them without any congressional oversight or even input. The courts got lazy and either didn't want to do their jobs or outright refused to do the job and deferred all authority to power hungry bureaucrats that only had their own interests in hand. This took way too long to get rid of. But at least now we are on our way to slowing new things way down because of overloaded courts. And we won't have bureaucrats making decisions that give them power over the people to expand the govt to give themselves more power. Yes, I'm one of those.

This will change given the SCOTUS ruling Friday re Chevron deference. Agencies will no longer be able to fill in the blanks on ambiguous laws. It's now back to the courts.

Every DMR and P25 system I have implimented CWID is done in analog. Thats one of the first things I set in my P25 stuff. It can send it "digital" over control channel also but it in analog 99% of the time.

I tend to agree. I generally don't even use GMRS except for repeaters. I'll use MURS simplex if it's just my wife and I. I rarely hear call signs on either simplex amateur 2 meter/70cm or GMRS. Although my amateur radio friends do ID on simplex.

I'm still not sure why Kenwood only allows this on it's NXDN "personalities". I wish the offered it on analog, P25 and DMR personalities as well. To use it for GMRS, you have to make the personality NXDN, but input the channel as analog, but it does work.

@Slickii yeah, it really is okay to use for ID and I think it's like 10 codes... in that there is an exception to every rule. As long as you are compliant, I wouldn't worry much about anyone else's opinions. All of my repeaters ID with Morse Code. Voice modules are expensive, so I'm not buying one. I know I joke a lot, but in all seriousness, if I had a mobile or handheld radio that could do Morse ID on a timer, I would use it.

Your Honor, I object!!! My client is being black-balled!

There's plenty of ways to your transmit a callsign as morse code. Plus, I can think of mutuple useful and applicable uses for morse code over verbally saying a callsign. I guess it's a matter of tech (also convenience) meets GMRS handheld radios would be the main reason people don't use morse code that much for identification. Also, culture, which is basically all this anyway.

Im not a lawyer, but I play one on the internet.

The 22 FRS frequencies are exactly the same as the first 22 GMRS frequencies. There’s absolutely no difference in the frequencies but there are differences in the power limits. None of the 22 are reserved exclusively for FRS.

The Jeep got the Midland MTX575 that formerly lived in the 4R. It also has the LP450NMO antenna, this time mounted in the removable cowl area on passenger side. It’s nicely low profile, but has a surprisingly good signal. It blends in well, eliminates the need for accessory mounts, and I think looks great. Here’s the exterior of the Jeep antenna.

Of course it depends on what you want to get from it. My favorite GMRS-only radio is the Wouxun KG-935G Plus. I am also a huge fan of my Wouxun KG-UV9D Mate H.A.M. radio. Other folks may not want to spend the money (I also have some cheapo Baofengs, like most here). My suggestion is to watch a bunch of YouTubes, get a feel for what you want to do with it, and get a feel for the wide range of radios that are available. It's kind of like asking "What's the best car for my needs?"

The last step is the 'SAVE-MODE" You have to finish with saving your settings. You may have missed this step.

Another quick update... I have to say, I do like the ease of the programing of the radio. The software is free, very easy to install and use. Also, being able to custom program channels 8 through 14 is a nice plus. I am currently setting it up to use channel 19 and 22 with 141.3 tone... and then used channel 8 and 9 for the 650 and 725 pairs for another PL so I don't have to change the PL when I want to move between the different repeaters.

Howdy. Most consider 675 to be the unofficial "travelers aid" or "emergency" channel. However there are certainly no restrictions on using it for anything. REACT where I live in Dallas, Texas has a 600 and 675 repeater in downtown, the 675 is open for anyone to use however it's reserved for REACT during events. During the downtown shooting where 5 Dallas Police Officers were shot and killed the 675 channel had emergency traffic on it for people downtown that were in the area, and it was heavily used. It was the only actual emergency I've ever heard over any radio service GMRS or amateur, I always have my base station at home and mobile in the car monitoring 675 for both simplex and repeater operation. WQXR714.

If you're calling another station directly, always start with their call sign first, then yours - ex " WYYY345, WZZZ123." A good way to remember this is to insert "this is" between the call sign and you'll never forget the order - ex "WYYY345 this is WZZZ123." If you're not calling another station directly, the usual procedure is to announce your call sign and "listening" or "monitoring" - ex "WZZZ123 monitoring." If you're just monitoring simplex you might add "WZZZ123 monitoring GMRS channel 20." If you're monitoring a repeater, you might say "WZZZ123 monitoring [repeater station name or frequency here]." If you're looking for a CB-style radio check, people generally ask for a "signal report." For example you may identify on a repeater like this: "This is WZZZ123 monitoring CityRepeater1, are any stations available for a signal report?" A listening station may respond indicating the strength and quality of your signal and/or initiate a conversation. If you receive no response, you could wait a few minutes, identify with your call sign again and request a signal report. If you are not receiving any replies after one or two attempts, you should clear the frequency with something like "No contact, this is WZZZ123 clear, monitoring." Also - you should avoid just keying up the repeater and not saying anything (a.k.a. "kerchunking" the repeater) . If you just want to test if you're in range or have the radio properly set up, still identify - ex: "WZZZ123 testing." Here is a link with some good info about amateur repeater etiquette, but a lot of it still applies to GMRS as well. Radio involves a lot of listening, so keep yours on often and see what you can hear - hope this helps!