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Mathafaka!

This link is pure gold for seeing the effect of feedline loss on your station. https://kv5r.com/ham-radio/coax-loss-calculator/ I have 100 feet of LMR 400 going to my 2m/440 antenna. At 465 mhz power loss is 48 percent. That does not count loss in the connectors or adapters inline too. I just call it more than half to be conservative. 50 feet of LMR400 is 28 percent loss. Feedline loss is evil because not only does it turn your transmitter power into heat...it also turns incoming signals into heat too. It reduces the sensitivity of your station while making the transmitted signal weaker. It's one of the things I hate about UHF. Good feedline is expensive. If you know anyone who works in LMR for a living beg them for scrap hardline...maybe you will score! I use a short run of 20 feet to my low antenna and use Bolton LMR600. Loss in the cable is 7 percent. This makes me happy. It is a great local work antenna system. Unlike your home station however, you can drive your car to the top of a mountain...and be the king of all signals while you are there! I have been on mountains and worked ridiculous distances with only 10 watts. I live near the blue ridge parkway so it's easy.

Either the feedline or the antenna on your house is not as good as the one in your car. The first thing I would suggest is that your coax might be attenuating the signal. What kind of coax is it?

Globdammut!

Hey all. I recently thought my over one year old GMRSPro was busted and I reached out to BTECH customer service. They offered me an RMA and replacement immediately with no questions asked. I was really surprised and impressed by how quick they were. In the end it was user error and the unit is fine (make sure you use your gear regularly and stay proficient with it, folks!). Anyway, just giving credit where I think it’s due. JM

@SteveShannon can be quick can’t he . I’m guessing that’s what that was a response to.

If you look in the conversation on the listing. This is in the conversation "I all been getting a lot of messages in here about the use of the 600 repeater it's open to use. Please use PL tone 141.3 for transmit and receive "

I hear that they might be shutting down for a while to stop the spread of MonkeyPox.

So, I have a similar issue at my house and it is 100% due to terrain and surrounding objects. I have my base antenna at 35+ feet and it's 10 feet tall, running a 60 foot piece of LMR400. There are only a handful of places I can mount my antenna on the roof. If I move the antenna a few feet in any direction, the recieve gets significantly better or worse depending on the other stations I'm trying to reach. The thing is, I can move my car to a sweet spot and just park it. That really isn't an option for my base antenna. Sometimes I just sit in the car and use the radio, depending on the station I want to talk to.

Set your squelch at the lowest level that just eliminates the static. Setting squelch too high means dropped low-level signals. The actual amount of squelch varies from different manufacturers as there's no real standard for the steps.

If it were HAM you could talk to strange lonely men about the weather/latest medical issues, but since you are on GMRS you will probably just talk to nobody. However, as someone recently pointed out, radio can be a lot like the movie Beetlejuice. If, on GMRS, you say CQ three times a HAM operator will magically appear to make your life miserable. Good luck.

Well, quit trying to make it taste better by mixing it with a little Jack.

What antenna, how high is it and what are you using for the ground plane?

What kind of coax are you using on the house antenna and how long is it?

You are overlooking the fact that you can never get a good/accurate SWR reading on an HT antenna, so don't bother - just make sure you have an antenna that is designed for use on whatever frequency range you use, and just enjoy your radio.

When people talking about two-way radios and use the term "net" they are usually talking about a meeting of sorts on the radio. Connected repeaters are usually referred to as "linked" repeaters which are becoming a thing of the past for GMRS in some areas.

I guess the FCC knew what they were doing when they assembled the Multi Use Radio Service. The FCC should have added 151.625 as a 6th channel, but I realize they're a lot of commercial businesses that use that frequency. Some users aren't really classified as business, but they are licensed for that frequency. For example, the North American Rail Car Operator's Association use 151.6250 as their primary channel when they run an excursion on a branch line. There are Hot Air Balloon Pilots that use frequency for ground to air operation, although I don't know that for sure. I must make a confession; I have programmed a DMR radio and made several tests on 151.6250. I know that violates Rules & Regulation, but I figure as long as I did it low keyed and not use it for casual conversation, what's the problem? Plus that frequency in my general vicinity isn't used. The Q mart uses it, but I'm at lease 4 to 6 miles away that I wouldn't interfere with them.

When they enforce it, I'll believe it.

Seems to be a lot of discussion on the repeater page about no response to permission requests. You may want to try snail mail to the owner or try contacting someone who has knowledge about the site locally. One poster said the repeater is open even though it’s listed as request required. If you find out what the status is share the info please. I travel out that way occasionally and would be curious.

The repeater list here at MyGMRS.com https://mygmrs.com/repeater/4116 Has a button for request access.

In my dealings with them they have pretty much stood behind their hardware when it fails.

Ok, I'll give it a test. The antenna is pretty close to the roof at the moment, definitely less than 15 inches.

It can be tested that way. First, put the sw-102 right at the radio and see what your power output is. Then move it to the end of the coax and see what the power output is. The difference is the loss. Another thing to consider is how close your roof antenna is to the roof. It should be up above the high point of the roof at least half of a wavelength or about 15 inches or so, more if possible.

For that, you should try the Grindr app. It opens you up to a whole new world of anonymous men to chat with.

Okay so we all missed that one about what antennas he is using. I am leaning towards the cheap Amazon coax being an issue then.

Thanks for the responses. I'm off to to talk to complete strangers about world events on my radio

I did program all of my Baofeng radios using CHIRP-next on my Mac mini. I usually keep CHIRP-next updated. I just don't remember which version I was using at the time. I have also used CHIRP-next on my Windows 11 computer without issues when making additional changes to my radios.

What software are you using to program the radios? CHIRP-Next will handle the RB26 and may show any additional tones in the radios.

Maybe the "legacy" version of CHIRP will do it......I still use it for UV5R, UV6R and UV5G - I don't have win 10 so I'm out of luck with the UV21 and GM21's - Fedora wkstn won't let me use CHIRP either.

are the radios at least 50 feet apart when testing?

It’s something you’re overthinking. Checking SWR on handheld radios is simply not accurately accomplished and unnecessary.

Perhaps I misunderstood what he was asking. I have been a bit punchy today from consuming cough syrup so…

Sung to the tune of Cool and the Gang’s Celebration edit - did I mention I have the flu?

This much was clear to me… 1) he meant Motorola, what radio we don’t know. 2) UV5R, self explanatory but again exact model could be a variation. 3) DB20 obviously Radioddity. Do we need more info? Yes. Yes, I have a suggestion. 1) Try to give more info when articulating a question. 2) Watch @marcspaz’s video “Intro to GMRS”. It really should be recommended viewing when joining the site IMO.

I have gotten around that but it's kind of a convoluted method. First thing is to save the factory configurations to your computer. Example UV5R-1 and UV5R-2 I will read from the first radio, make all of my changes and then save everything to the computer. For example, I will save the changes as UV5R-1A for the first radio. I leave that window open after writing to the first radio. Then I will save it as UV5R-2A. Disconnect radio 1 and then connect radio 2 After connecting the second radio to the computer and read from it. Again save the factory settings if you haven't already done it. You can then go back to the changed file that you renamed UV5R-2A and write that to the second radio. When you are finished programming both radios you should have a total of 4 configuration files saved to your computer; UV5R-1, UV5R-1A, UV5R-2, and UV5R-2A. You can name the saved files what you want. I just used -1 and -2 as examples. This method has worked for me with the UV-5R GMRS radios I have. It may or may not work for others. It has been a while since I programmed my UV-5R GMRS radios so don'r remember what version of CHIRP I used.

The repeater doesn’t have to be fancy. Plenty of commercial LMR radios built into repeaters using little controllers and pair of cables. Duplexer can be anything from the common cheaper “flat pack” notch type. Or the nicer (and much more expensive) lower loss band pass/reject can-style duplexers. The can-style usually pass a bit more juice through em. Coax and antenna are extremely important to get right. Don’t use coax with an aluminum shield. Ask how I know.. (Will cause problems and troubleshooting headaches later, google intermodal distortion) If possible grab a chunk of LDF4-50 or similar hardline. It’s expensive but buy once cry once. Use an antenna best suited for your terrain. Higher gain isn’t as important as the RF pattern. Taller pattern antennas usually have a more desirable coverage in hilly areas or more ground clutter. But no antenna at GMRS frequencies will eliminate the need for a clear path. Height… nothing is as important as getting that sucker up as high as possible. 5 watts at 100ft will go twice as far as 50watts at 25ft. And the most important thing with repeaters is to have a stress management plan. Beer usually does the trick.

I like @BoxCar's solution and would like to add that if you go with an HT like @WSDT603 said, you may want to use a BNC adaptor for the antenna. I've heard that SMA isn't designed for repeatedly adding and removing the antenna and therefore more prone to failure after repeated use than BNC which is designed for repeated use.

I wanted to share my results of my 2nd Ed Fong GMRS antenna. This is on a 18' MFJ tripod mast on a Retevis RT97 GMRS repeater go box, powered by a 50AH lithium battery charged by tactical solar or wall charger through SAE ports on the box. Also using a repeaterid.com ID system with morse code. Couldn't be more happy with the results, the machine ran all weekend and solar kept it fully charged, and hardly any battery loss over the night. Using the 462.550 / 467.550 repeater pair with TX and RX codes. SWR under 1.1 and getting 5.2W output after the duplexer. The Fong GMRS antenna is the star, so lightweight and portable, with no need for grounding. Using 18' of Messi & Paoloni Ultraflex 7 with the good waterproof connectors (also have a 25' run of it if needed, love this cable and connectors for tactical or shorter runs). If anybody has any questions regarding this set-up, I will be more than happy to help.

THIS IS NOT TRUE!!!!1 STOP LYING!!! if you use an illegal radio the FCC will triangulate your position and WILL issue a $10,000 fine or you could face prison! Its your choice to take the risk! ...i have literally seen "licensed ham-radio operators" tell people this online, so it MUST be true.. because they have a license!

@numnutz6383, Okay I gave this a shot in Chirp. I changed the frequency limit to 485.000 on UHF RX, uploaded to the radio and I can now set the radio with a RX of 484.4000. Of course this is RX only. Give it a shot and see if you pick up the station.

FCC Line A also excludes people in Seattle, Detroit, Ann Arbor, Lansing, Michigan's Upper Peninsula, most of I80/90 through Ohio, Buffalo, Syracuse, Montpelier and 75% of Maine, from using GMRS channels 19 and 21.

I actually go offroad with a small group of Hams... there is usually much less conflict over what frequency we use. The conflict with GMRS is some radios don't cover all FRS channels or there is a lot of congestion. Especially at big events like the Boy Scout Jamboree, Mustang Week, Beach Week, etc. In Ham radio, if we adhere to commonly accepted spacing, there is an equivalent of 267 channels, plus digital voice, analog voice in AM, FM and SSB. On top of that, we still have hundreds of squelching combinations. Plus all amateur VHF radios cover all the same frequencies. It's pretty easy to just agree to use a quiet frequency. Me and my group usually use 147.525 MHz, C4FM modulation, group code 16. The chances of us hearing anyone else while noodling around the mountains or downtown Daytona are almost zero. That said, FRS and GMRS makes life a while lot easier for a family. Again, why I use it... mainly to talk to my family and a few very close friends and their families. The ease of use is what's so attractive for many families.

I would also comment to those who seem to argue this would work, to provide current examples of where it is working (excluding the off road crowd who does seem to have made it work to some degree to support their activities. The off road groups are not, however, traversing the country on the interstates). Indeed, the more common response/experience to trying to use a 'travel channel' is more along the lines of, I believe the word was 'crickets'. FWIW I operate an open repeater on the 'travel channel of old' frequency, with the old 'travel tone' (141.3) and, it solidly covers approximately a 10 mile segment of I-40. Within the range of my system are at least 3 major truck stops. I've yet to hear anything or anyone using the system beyond myself and a couple of locals. Indeed, there is substantial, travel related traffic, on CB CH19.

My current repeater is actually two Kenwood TK-800s I fallowed this for the RX radio and poped our an RJ-45 out the back of the radio. http://n0keg.com/index.php/2017/10/02/kenwood-tk-880-as-a-receiving-radio-for-a-repeater/ The controller is just a Raspberry PI running open repeater, I forget what kind of pi I used as I had it laying around. The TX radio is completely Unmodified, and has ran solid for over two years Here’s some old pictures of it getting built and where it is now, the duplex is also different now then in the pictures https://imgur.com/a/qo1c28w