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The real fun starts at the close of the poles Tuesday night. I'm keeping the battery packs for some of my radios fully charged and a few backups too. Also will make sure the gas tank is full the night before. Even some of the usually sane people at work are worried now. It shouldn't be like this. I have the NX-1300DUK5 FM/DMR radio all programmed up with D-Ring headset and spare battery pack. Have GMRS/FRS and Ham frequencies in it. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/290-nx-1300duk5/?context=new

In IC physical design we refer to this as a "star routing". The currents involved in the IC world are on the micro scale, but ANY difference in a GND potential can results in voltage drops, the last thing you want are to different GND potentials. This whole antenna grounding/station grounding as been hashed over quite abit, so go with acceptable standards as outlined in established Antenna ground standards and you will be fine. With a issue thats been around for so long, don't try and re-invent the wheel. All info is good info, regards Its important that all grounds be at the same potentials. So they need to be robustly tied. Last thing you want is a possible voltage potential between two grounds. If you curious search for "star routing" to see examples. Star routing may be more applicable to the IC design world, but the fundamentals are the same. A few ohms difference in gnd routes, may work for very small currents, but hi current spikes may lead to voltage potentials on what you think may be a ground. Unless of course your intent is to make a ground loop, then all bets are off.

I’m out. You couldn’t keep it candidate free.

I guess it depends on what you call rigged and which “New World Order” you fear most and whether you think the country will look exactly the same if either candidate is elected in any of the races. it should be very obvious that the outcomes of the races aren’t predetermined. If they were, far less money would be spent both during the primaries and the general elections. But, yes, once the individual parties and PACs make a decision on whom they want to run there’s little individual voters can do but vote for the candidates the machines present us. Until something unexpected happens, like one candidate’s disastrous debate performance and the change in candidates that followed. I’m speaking only about the process of selecting and supporting candidates. I don’t want this to become a discussion that pits members of this forum against each other based on their personal choice of candidates. I will not engage in any discussion about why one party and candidate might be preferable to another. That would get this thread locked, removed, or at least moderated.

Apologies for the off topic but yes they are, good eye and thanks. One of my retirement projects. I installed Bluetooth. used it for Christmas music with family here last year. Dual cone Pioneer car speakers I had laying around. Transformer is below the wire wheel base

Why would you care what they say? Just tell them that its an iCom and they'll say it sounds great.

If having an IP65 rating for dust and water are important then I will suggest the Wouxun KG-XS20G Plus for $199. It is an excellent radio and very easy to program using the radio buttons or mic buttons. It has dual watch, NOAA channels, weather alerts and can receive 2m and 70cm bands. Here is the link to Buy Two Way Radios so you can read the specifications. https://www.buytwowayradios.com/wouxun-kg-xs20g.html?___SID=U There is nothing wrong with the DB2-G and it's very popular. But is is not IP rated if that matters to you. As far as antennas go, the Midland MXTA26 is a very popular antenna as long as you are not restricted on antenna height. If you need a shorter antenna, then go with a good bottom loaded 5/8 wave antenna.

All you are going to get is people re-enforcing their opinion that whatever they bought is the best.. and, you will get one that will say "brand X is junk and everybody i know that ever had one returned it or threw it away"...You can ignore him because we are all pretty sure that he is rhee-tarh-ded.. Tell us what is important to you in a radio and you will likely get some better recommendations ..

Got that solved. There's no bathtub in the shop/garaged although I do have a heat blower for heat shrink tubings.

Don't let someone tell you what obviously the don't have the answer or the authority to advise you. You did the right thing, always double with the FCC when it comes reporting hazardous conditions. That's what folks on CB Radio and Amateur Radio, I can't see why you can't do the same on FRS and GMRS.

Use Ignored users in your account name menu. If there is a simple one-click button I don't see it either.

Please be me. Please be me.

Git-r-done ! PS...... I'm now a premium member. Kinda sorta maybe like, 'The new phone book's here ! I'm a somebody !"

This was actually served in a chilled glass. The beer wasn’t too cold.

I hope you got the right band frequency range. Those radios come in two different ones. One of which would be basically useless. You want the 440-470 range. You should be able to tell from the FCC ID tag on the back of the radio. It should match the one found here: https://fccid.io/AFJIC-F21 Which seems to show the radio is certified for Part 95A, which is the old rule part for GMRS. This means it's still perfectly legal to use under the new rules. Looks like a nice solid basic radio. icom_ic_f11_f21_brochure.pdf

Anybody can complain about the government. That’s part of the first amendment, but failing to vote means you missed your opportunity to do something about it. .

All I can say is that is everyone's individual right to vote or not to vote. I have been stationed all over the world and there is still no where else I would want to live. I gave a good many years of my life defending the rights we hold dear. I only want to see everyone exercise those rights.

I was torn on this radio due to the price and some of the other issues they were having with it and almost went with the UV-5G Plus. In the end I decided to spend the extra Monies, crossed my fingers and eded up purchasing the KG-Q10g (it's notarubicons fault). I have owned and currently own some Boefengs and the Q-10 just seems to perform better, I have no problem hitting my loaded repeaters, sound quality is excellent and the feedback i get from others is that is comes through loud and clear on the transmission end. Build quality seems to be fairly stout overall, and the not removable antennae was actually not even glued on, so there is that as a plus. So far no regrets on this purchase.

Another DB20-g user here. It's not perfect, but for <$100 it's hard to beat. More money to spend on a good antenna mount and antenna. And it meets your brief. Will receive NOAA radio, dual band listening (...unless you unlock it). And like WRUQ357 said, it's as easy as changing to a repeater channel and setting the tones. You can even program in channel names from the face of the radio (ie: without plugging in a computer) if you want. My only real complaint is, like many cheaper GMRS radios, it's super restrictive on what it'll allow you to program (ie: it wants the channels in very specific places. Channel 1 goes in memory slot 1, etc) and it only has 8 or 9 'extra' repeater channels. But that can be... fixed (see above). Something to note: The Retevis flavor of this same radio (they're both basically Anytone 779UVs with different stickers on them. My DB20-G even said "ANYTONE" on the power up message when I first got it) does *not* come with a programming cable, that I've seen. The Radioddity does. So if that's something you want, keep that in mind. You can buy the cable for a few bucks, but Amazon shows the Radioddity $10 cheaper than the Retevis that doesn't come with it. There are some programming quirks (and the manual sucks) but there's plenty of info out there, including on this site, with user guides. TLDR: Not the best radio, but does what you want for relatively little $.

When tar and feathering becomes a thing again, maybe I'll get interested.

They use to have many many places to vote. Maybe a couple thousand people assigned to each location. At the end of the night it was easy to count all the votes and then add them to the larger totals. Now they insist on having central voting locations that deal with 10s of thousands of people which makes it hard to tally all the votes in one night. This is by design. Central planning and having things done from one area. One size fits all is the govt way. Much better to have many small locations who can count all the votes before midnight. If there is an error it's is a small error instead of a catastrophic error with huge consequences. Small countries can have the results before midnight and yet state with multitudes less population need a week or two to tally the results. We no longer have election day, we have election season. This needs to be trimmed down a lot. Maybe Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon and then election day. More than enough time to have everyone cast their vote. Mail in voting should be limited to people overseas that can't be present or people in the states with valid excuses. The machines were suppose to make it easy and with quick results. Now the machines make it complicated and the counting takes substantially longer than in yesteryear when we did it by hand.

Maybe watch some video reviews and user experiences on YouTube, so you can get an idea of the various features offered by different brands.

I will suggest getting a mobile radio with a good IP rating since you said you want to use it while off roading especially if you are in an open type vehicle such as a Jeep or UTV. Knowing what features you want will help us give suggestions. And don't forget that you will need a good antenna.

The antenna should have its own ground rod to avoid the length to the house ground rod. You want any problem with the antenna to get to the earth as soon as possible and not travel around Robin Hood's Barn to get there.

I knew the callsign changed but I didn't know it was moved. The repeater listing (RB) still says 350 Feet Ant. Height I'll try listening again [yep, digital still there, can block w/ tone but I didn't want a tone on simplex channel]. He's still fighting the burper though.

Got the bugout bag of radios always ready along with a small repeater system.

I used to work for SC ETV and maintained that 147.000 repeater - the tower is empty minus the cell site on it now and the county's bus and bus maintenance repeaters. There's definitely room on the tower and in the building at the base, but ETV is getting picky about people putting things on the towers unless they're a ham club (GMRS might be doable if I talk to my old boss) but otherwise they want to charge rent for the site. I am down in the Gilbert/B-L area so I am hoping to get something to cover a little better. I did finally notice the .725 issue some time ago but I think its stopped since - unless my radio is just not unmuting for that mess anymore.

Guinness. Slightly cooler than the average room temperature. Poured to spec from a proper tap. Not that I'm picky, or anything. As for the premium link thingy, thanks !

I don't know who @LeoG is, but that post in X has already been debunked by the Republican officials in Kentucky: https://www.wlky.com/article/kentucky-voting-machine-issue-rumor-trump-laurel-county/62784535 And it would not surprise me to finally hear that "Nick Sortor" on X is either a Russian Bot located in St Petersburg, Russia, or funded by them to spread this information: https://apnews.com/article/russian-interference-presidential-election-influencers-trump-999435273dd39edf7468c6aa34fad5dd "Let the Buyer (of internet 'information') beware!"

It’s hard to complain about the anchovies on your pizza if you don’t speak up when the order goes in. my food analogy to voting.

Bluemax49ers has been my source for cables for most of the LMR radios in my collection, and some of the software as well. It does look like he has a cable for those Icoms, too, with an option to add the software. https://bluemax49ers.com/product-explorer/icom-ic-f21gm-ftdi-programming-cable-opc-i478/

Yup, no offset on any of the the non-repeater channels. Good job figuring it out!

DMR radios require licensing anyway. Is there some reason why you want the 900 MHz instead of license free MURS in the VHF band or license free FRS in the UHF band? Either can be had for pretty low prices.

The ability to buy and sell in the classified section and the ability to download database extracts from the repeater directory. No advertisements. Free beer at Rich’s house. Most importantly the knowledge that we help pay for the site.

To add, it does not play well with chirp. If not for some of the members on here helping with that i would still be frustrated. Once i got it to shake hands with chirp it programmed fine.

youll spend more money and time trying to rig something up that may or may not work. a NMO mounted in the roof is your best and cheapest solution. I had 6 on my F150. Frilled the holes with 6 miles on the truck. My $100K challenger had a hole in it with 26 miles.... If you do it right its better in the end and wont affect any value of the vehicle.

I'm sorry to hear you say that. I haven't given up hope yet.

What's that got to do with elections? FCC positions are appointed are they not? I am so sick of election coverage and all the baloney from both sides on the air and other 'news stations'. 2 year presidential election campaigns make me want to puke and in the end it's all lies anyway. I have election fatigue and wish it was all over and done with. I'm not 'picking sides' here and what I do is my business in the voting booth. Trying not to be political here, but really, enough is enough!

I highly suggest you read the PDF that @SteveShannon posted a link to. @WRZR953 I have a ground rod right below where my coax cables enter the house and another ground rod at the base of my antenna mast. Both are tied into/bonded to my service ground which is in the middle of both locations. Follow the actual NEC codes for proper station grounding.

Yes, if they have no tone squelch enabled, they should be able to hear you fine. I would recommend improving your communication plan, however. While it's not likely you will get in any trouble, one-way communication is heavily restricted to specific types information. Not to mention, if you can't hear them to know they received the message, it can very likely lead to confusion and missed messages.

Good grief. That’s 100% wrong. Although it’s possible to have additional ground electrodes they are all required to be bonded together. It they are not there’s a possibility that you can have current flowing along the shield of your coax.

Don’t make a long coax run to your electrical box. Your antenna isn’t grounded to the electrical panel. Instead it is grounded to your grounding electrode outside. If anything run a bonding conductor outside the house from where your coax enters the house to your intersystem bonding terminal block. See this article: https://reeve.com/Documents/Articles Papers/Reeve_AntennaSystemGroundingRequirements.pdf

They don’t, unless the radio is transmitting digital data. Ordinarily GMRS radios have removable antennas.

What Steve said tongue and cheek is actually right and why we are going to see a ham test for at LEAST the next 10 years even if the requirements are relaxed by the FCC. I am 53 and got licensed when I was 22. Not long after the creation of the "No Code Tech" license. We only had allocation for voice above 50Mhz so we couldn't do too much damage. But others will tell you we were lepers, the bane of ham radio. We were going to bring about the end of ham radio and the hobby would be gone. That was the Fud's opinion of it anyway. The ARRL isn't going to be able to allow a test-less ham license because the old guys that are now older and much more opinionated will raise 9 kinds of hell at them for even thinking about it. Nut that mentality will fade as those guys shuffle off their mortal coil and begin fertilizing the flowers at the local cemetery. But I will say this. The test ain't that hard. And there are some here that if you put 1/10 the effort into studying for the test that they do in winding people up in here and beating dead horses, you would have your license in no time.

i once farted on the radio, someone told me they were gong to call the FCC on me.. I'm still here and waiting..

Sorry I thought we were on a GMRS website. We get spun up in arguments over ID'ing your repeaters and everything else but daily conversations over how to mod your ham radio to use with GMRS. This is a HAM radio. Go to a HAM radio site and talk about it. Its also a CCR in a box. If your annoyed call Baofeng and tell them. Most likely they dont give a rats a$$ about it. But then again if it fits your youtube stuff I guess its all your gospel.

Nice job documenting the problem. Ignore the naysayers. They’re just upset because you’re smarter than they are.

First this is a CCR. Deal with it. Second this is a HAM Radio.

Thanks for the reply! Question is , What would I set the CTCSS/CDCSS Encode to? There are many to choose from on the drop down.