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It’s not as simple as that. Some of the thirty GMRS frequencies listed in four different groups have specific limitations for power and bandwidth. The easiest way to ensure you comply is to purchase a radio that has been certified for GMRS. A better way to think of this is to understand that your license doesn’t license you to use specific frequencies, but rather to use certified GMRS radios. There are amateur radios that are not certified but allow you to transmit on GMRS frequencies. It’s highly unlikely you would be cited; almost nobody ever has been. I don’t know if the UV-82 is one. Personally I buy GMRS radios for GMRS. It’s just easier. And I buy amateur radios for amateur radio use. That way I don’t even need to think about it. If someone tells me to use channel 20, I know what exactly they mean. Repeater channels only need CTCSS or DCS tones added because they’re already programmed.

Add another Okie to your list, Im located in Miami, Use GMRS mainly for farm communication, but also to communicate with buddies around the county.

The fact that there are so many new CB radios out now (some of them not cheap, either) leads me to believe there is a big CB market. Companies like President, and a lot of the cheaper CCR-type manufacturers, are coming out with all manner of new radios, including handhelds, thanks in part to the addition of FM. I don't think they would be putting that much R&D and production effort into CB radios if the market was fading. Someone's buying them.

Personally, I don't think that GMRS freqs are congested. Yes, there seems to be a lot of FRS type traffic on the GMRS simplex channels but those users don't seem to prevent other users doing the same thing in their small area footprint of use and then you have the repeater traffic. Just because a person can't immediately key up and use the repeater and has to wait is usually impatient anyways doesn't mean the channel is congested its just in use. Most GMRS users don't understand what channel loading means.

I don’t see how my question strikes you as a negative comment. I was just surprised to hear you suggest 11 meters needed more users when many users of GMRS are upset about congestion.

I dropped Windows OS when XP went dark and switched to Linux Mint, which I’ve used since 2015. A pretty easy way to do it is using this GitHub page, simply download the Chirp-Install.sh file to your computer, open a terminal in the directory where the downloaded .sh file is and run these two commands. chmod +x chirp-install.sh then run ./chirp-install.sh It will download and install all the necessary dependencies and install the newest version of CHIRP. To update to newest version I simply type into the terminal pip install (space) then right click on the newest any.whl version and select copy link address and paste it into the terminal on the same line as pip install and hit enter. Should look like this.

I received my email in around two days, click on the Licensing Manager link in the email you receive and log in, and it should take you right to your license page, at least mine does. My brother got his in less than twenty-four hours, had to help him over the phone navigate the site. It's bad enough doing it yourself when you have some decent computer skills, it's probably one of the worst government websites to navigate.

None of what he suggested is ever going to happen, so it's not worth getting your knickers in a twist.

Maybe DMR, maybe P25, maybe some other kind of digital protocol...

Actually I remember what it was I was looking at now. It's on the chirp home page, if you search TD-H3, there are people posting comments, some of them address the changes and also the issues. I realize though that this is not the place where the actual firmware is updated but some of these people are in direct communication with TidRadio and they have some info about what changed. https://chirpmyradio.com/projects/chirp/search?utf8=✓&scope=&issues=1&q=TD-H3&wiki_pages=1&issues=1&changesets=1

Yes. And as indicated by your multimeter, there is no continuity between the center conductor and the outer shell, which is correct.

The silver washer with teeth bites through the bottom side paint and into metal. You might want to try that first before you go nuclear with the sanding. In any case, it looks good from the top, and on the bottom it looks like there's paint interfering. The multimeter is your friend that will tell you if you have a good ground and other connections, like between the antenna element and the center conductor at the other end of the coax and the outer shell of the connector and the ground end of the mount. Also, there shouldn't be continuity between the center conductor of the coax and ground.

Such a half-assed merging of CB and GMRS seems crazy to me. How would one tell who is a GMRS user? You want some to be required to use call signs and others not? Since a listener can't always tell who is using high power it would be a free-for-all for everyone to use 50 watts if they have it. It would be a regulatory disaster, kind of like their past mistake of putting FRS and GMRS together on shared frequencies.

They don't seem to post a changelog anywhere that I've ever been able to find, but there are videos put out sometimes on YT which discuss changes. Here are a couple of them. Hopefully they can answer some of your questions.

I'm going to make a couple of suggestions since I have no idea what you did. Make sure the ground is good between the mount and the body. You can check this with a multimeter. The mount itself, (not the center conductor), should show continuity to the vehicle body. There may be some kind of coating on the inside of the roof that may be preventing a good ground. I'm sure there are other possibilities, but this is a simple one to test. If you have an SWR meter, check the reading. Under 2:1 is acceptable. The closer you get to 1:1, the better. Over 2:1 isn't good. High SWR and the resulting crappy reception and transmission can indicate, among other things, a bad ground or center conductor connection, defective coax, or an antenna that needs to be lengthened or trimmed.

In my experience, it took 2 days for the FCC to email me with my license. YMMV....

Is there a page somewhere that shows what the updates are for the firmware versions, using the GMRS version myself but Im curious it seems everywhere I look there is no mention of this. I've kept my radios up to date with the latest firmware but I have no idea what is being fixed. Also, I am curious about picking up CB chatter, I cant seem to hear anything but static on any of the CB frequencies, not matter what antenna I use. Would specifically like to listen to channel 19 when I am traveling.

And the other issue is personalities and 'friends and not so much / enemies' on a forum. Keeping personal feelings out of it can be difficult. You and I have had a couple 'issues' of course. Not a big secret. If either of us had been a moderator with ban hammer abilities, the other one of us would have been gone. At least for a minute until the board owner got involved and unbanned whoever, and probably removed the other from being a moderator. And that would have been a detriment to the board if it would have happened to either of us. We both have made significant contributions to the 'shared knowledge' on here.

It used to be true, in amateur radio, now the rules are lax - the call sign you started out with will be the one associated with your location - then you can use it anywhere in the US or change it with a 'vanity call' like I did. I started with WB6 call in CA but here in PA I now have a K3 prefix

The number in a ham license indicates geographic region but no such indicator for GMRS.

@koni13 meet @OffRoaderX, the queen of all things GMRS.

Ah, ok. Thanks! I got a bit confused since both of my friend's call signs were almost identical to each other.

Has anybody configured 2 Tone signaling on the DB-25G? I have figured out encode and call, but the receive is an issue. Basically, I want the speaker muted until it receives the proper 2 tone signal, then I want the speaker unmuted until it is reset. Kind of like a pager. I also want to be able to leave it on a local channel and muted until I send tones from my mobile to open the speaker so my housemate doesn't have to listen to others on the channel until I want to call her. I cannot use DTMF or CTCSS signaling for this. I see menu item 19 SPMUTE that gives the AND/OR option for unmutng the speaker with CTCSS and/or 2 tone, and have that set, but I'm not seeing any way to actually mute the speaker to wait for the tones, or how to reset it after it opens. Thanks for any help. Michael

I have that same antenna. it's alright. If you're looking for a 3dbi antenna it's a solid performer. If you take it off-road you might want to look for one with a spring instead, though. A 5dbi or 6dbi antenna would get you a little more range, though it would be a lot taller. For mounts you can buy any NMO mount that fits your application. Through the roof, lip mount, magnetic mount, mirror bracket, there are a lot of options. Middle of the roof will get you the best performance, so that would be a through-the-roof hole or magnetic. Midland sells double sided stickers in case you wanted to make a magnetic mount more permanent.

It will make sense when you have the antenna and that cable in your hand, You unscrew the big part from the cable fitting and put the little part of the fitting up through the hole in the roof and screw the big part back on, that holds it to the roof. Then the antenna will screw onto that big part.

You'll want this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0842B1WFS/ref=sspa_dk_detail_3?psc=1&pd_rd_i=B0842B1WFS&pd_rd_w=x2cE1&content-id=amzn1.sym.386c274b-4bfe-4421-9052-a1a56db557ab&pf_rd_p=386c274b-4bfe-4421-9052-a1a56db557ab&pf_rd_r=9YZT9E1TH5RETEYTT830&pd_rd_wg=YGa5N&pd_rd_r=342e6db3-d9e7-4982-9774-5635fddbabc5&s=aht&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9kZXRhaWxfdGhlbWF0aWM

Forum moderators take all the fun out of forums.

Sometimes they get big-heads and go rouge.. I had that same issue.. You know what they say: Absolute power absolutely can be a problem..

Two of the old moderators were the biggest troublemakers. He bounced them and hasn't put anyone back in the role.

Im a constitutional scholar with a gifted IQ, but my wife said I can't comment on this because it's mean to make strangers on the internet cry.

Agreed. Amazon should run it.

Here is the link to the license search page. I think I'm one of the few who actually got the email.

I received mine through email. It does strike me as the sort of thing that could go to a spam filter though so I would check that as well as the aforementioned teeth pulling website using your FRN number as Randy has suggested.

Its like having teeth pulled navigating the websites.

So, I gave it a shot, as programed in my attachment above from chirp, I key up and it opens the repeater, I call for a radio check and it seems like I'm getting a response per my meter/receive light but I can't here the response/any traffic. To rule out the no traffic on said frequency, I put my other H3 in frequency mode, punched in the frequency 462.xxxxx and I can hear traffic loud & clear. To be able to communicate rather than just listen, I know my Rx is blank in chirp as one pointed out so I figured that was the issue, but when I go into chirp and try to enter the 243DPL in Rx DTCS, it won't take. Any thoughts? Any suggestions or reconfigurations I can try? Am I missing/overlooking another setting? I'd really like to figure this out as it's one of the very few repeaters in my area I can clearly hit. Once again, many thanks for any help/info!! This is the info from my gmrs I'm trying to get set up properly..

CHIRP works on Linux also. Quite well, in fact. My understanding is that it was developed for Linux, but I wouldn't swear to it. I had it on a Raspberry Pi that I used as a desktop until the Pi died.

Did you have the radio turned on? Was the programming cable plugged in all the way?

Update. No more water in the nmo after 2 days of sporadic heavy rain. I think putting some dielectric grease in to the hinge and showing it closed may have stopped the water entry. Not positive but no more water. Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk