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No, if you make it to the toilet it’s diarrhea; if you don’t it’s the shits.

Video record the front of your radio while it’s doing this and post it for us to see. In one case a person had dual watch turned on and had channel B set to the channel that was actually transmitting while he was wondering what was going on with channel A.

What, exactly, are you confused about? What is it you are not able to do? FIND repeater? USE repeaters? Something else?

important evidence attached for context

If its not the programming it most likely needs to go on a service monitor and get tuned. WHile many are out there that work just fine the manual even state yearly tuning of the XTL series. I'l at least get ii to a shop and have them check the receiver.

Hi folks, I'm new to the site and to radios; thanks for hosting the website and forums. I'll be reading as much as I can in order to learn how all this works! best regards, Stephen

Yes, I finally did it. I got my Tech (KD3AKT). Had a lot of fun on 10M on Sunday. Got 2 contacts from TX, one from OK, one from ND, one from OR and one from CA. All on 20 watts. What a fun hobby.

50% reliability brings it to 0.20µV

Bringing the reliability down to 96% the signal gets to 0.51µV which is plenty of signal. I accidentally did 462MHz and it was 0.00µV

I put your friend as a 50w transmitter and 7 meters of 7.2dbi gain antenna and you as the receiver with and HT

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. The range is not proportional to the power. The signal strength certainly improves with increased power, but terrain is usually the limiting factor at UHF, regardless of power. More power doesn’t make the signal follow the curvature of the earth and UHF stinks at skipping off the ionosphere. Once in a while the troposphere lends a hand though.

If you are pretty much set on a HH, I would look to Yaesu, Anytone, or TYT as alternates. These can all be unlocked for GMRS and have about the same capabilities but can be lower in price. One of the low-price GMRS "suitcase" repeaters would be sufficient for covering 5 miles with a decent base antenna or a good mobile antenna with a ground plane.

Those radios are spec'd at 3.07W according to their FCC data. It's doubtful you would get more than 5 miles of distance between them with outside antennas 20 feet in the air. I doubt you could get more than a mile or two across the reservoir with them in simplex (on the same channel). They don't seem to be repeater capable so were pretty much a waste of money IMO. Your best bet would be to contact a local ham club, explain what you are trying to do, and ask for help.

Wrong - I think what you meant to say is "it depends on where you are transmitting and what is around you"..

Its Baofeng BF-F8HP and Tidradio TD-H3 set as GMRS. The TDR is ON. I didn't realize that's the Simultaneous Receive (the acronym TDR confused me).

That might be. Although I doubt it. But nevertheless, I will try and see next time I am monitoring. Just to be sure. I would have to do that after work, unfortunately. Thanks.

You did not say what model Baofeng you have (they make a LOT of radios), but most Baofeng models do have Simultaneous Receive (TDR) as do most TidRadios.

it makes me very upset lol his radio doesn't work like mine

Did you change the default volume limits in the programming software?

Recently we have begun holding the National GMRS Net once per month on the last Sunday of each month. This is due to reduced interest in holding a weekly net, and due to quickly running out of fresh topics to discuss. We will still link each regional hub together nationally each week during the same time period, but won't hold the net on the other weeks. Feel free to chat on Sunday evenings and make distant contacts during this time, but also please be mindful to not hog the repeater system so others can jump in there and participate as well.

You’re probably just desensing the second radio. Desense happens when you place two radios too close to each other and transmit on one. The receiver on the other one gets overwhelmed, even though it’s on a different channel and as a result it cannot receive the weaker repeater transmission. Move it fifty or a hundred feet away and try asking for a repeater check.

Until you mentioned this I had forgotten of an issue I had once where when I had simultaneous receive turned on and would scan on say the upper section while set to a local repeater on the lower the scanning would stop on a GMRS channel where I would pick up a local medical frequency. I don’t remember the exact combination but it was always a medical response channel coming in on GMRS. Once I turned simultaneous receive off the issue went away.

I recall seeing a variant of this radio when I first saw "Jaws".

Did some digging on the repeaters, and I see a couple possibilities; I suspect the reality is a combination of more than one. My half educated guesses would be: First, you may be hearing linked repeaters. Less likely for the GMRS side now that the rules have been clarified to disallow connections via the internet, but not impossible. More likely on the ham side; i didn't see any notes or common call signs that would solidify it digging a little on repeaterbook, but there are a few repeaters west and north with matching frequencies. Second, an unhappy transmitter/amplifier throwing harmonics. that 446 frequency is a bit, but not horribly far off of 3x the 147 frequency. Third, you have a repeater (or a ham) transmitting close by with a fair bit of power, and it's simply overloading the front end of your radios, so it seems to be bleeding through on other channels it isn't actually on. While it sounds like they've improved somewhat (varying between models and even examples of the same model), it's still a definite possibility. (one of my UV5R's will go completely deaf (desense) with as little as 1/2 watt in close proximity, even on a different frequency).

Thank you for putting this out there because I was starting to think I was the only one with this issue. In my case, I like to monitor channel 5 and people near me know that so if they try to contact me, they use that channel but I also listen to local fire and EMS and a GMRS repeater channel on the other three and it drives me crazy that I can not find a way to set the channel 5 as a primary where it will pick up anything on that over the others AND also leave the selector on that one instead of jumping it around to any of the other that are picking up traffic at the moment. I, like you, would love to see if someone has an answer or solution on how to fix this.

Do you know the difference between diarrhea and the shits?

You mean since the thread from a few days ago asking much the same question? No, still not.

Good afternoon. My name is Justin. What have I gotten myself into, Originally started looking for family walkie talkies to talk to my son who lives around 25 miles away most of the time. He wants to be a pilot and the more down the rabbit hole I went the more fun i saw. We bought 2 Baofeng 5rh pro's and two 25rm radios. I got the GMRS license and we will both be studying for the HAM tests. Still trying to figure it all out.

Congratulations. Now you get to spend even more money on radios and antennas.

That must mean I’m a random person

I don’t think it exists anymore. Here’s the announcement Rich placed on the main page:

Work had me get rid of a bunch of old Motorola HT220's, various versions (some with PL capability, some with more than one channel), all pretty beat up, but kept a few for pictures....this type of use.

New to the GMRS scene, looking to gain more information on this site. Right now I have 4 Tidradio H3 radios to use around my farm. Still have much to learn about the radio and GMRS in general.

Welcome from this Army Security Agency/INSCOM Vet here in the Twin Cities! Depending where you are up there in the North, some decent coverage repeaters. I use a few of them that are strategically located near a couple of the OHV Parks I like to off road the Truck in. If you get down to the Cities, there's a decent group of us on Ch. 19 Simplex, as well as some good repeaters that sometimes have traffic on them. Otherwise, you will find that GMRS can be a bit of a "bring your own" radio service. My wife and I use it up north where cell phones are spotty, as well as around the spread at home so as to keep in touch without having to yell!. Enjoy going down the rabbit hole! 73 de WRJG283

We are using an Arcom RC-210 controller on our 2m repeater. It is setup with a 5 second squelch tail and a curtesy beep. The time out timer is set to 3 minutes. The way we have the RC-210 setup is that the timer resets right after the curtesy beep. So if you tail gate another person before the curtesy beep then the timer will not reset. The timer will reset if you wait for the curtesy tone and then transmit before the repeater drops out. We are going to set things up the same for our 70cm and GMRS repeaters once we get another Arcom RC-210 controller. I don't care for that setup 100% because too many people like to tailgate which doesn't allow others to get into the repeater without doubling. I do understand why it is done since it is easier on the repeater. I am giving a quick class on repeater etiquette at our monthly meeting this Thursday and will discuss allowing the repeater to drop completely out now and them so others can use the repeater. It can be frustrating at times when you can't get a word in due to the quick keyer's AKA Ricochet Rabbits.

1. It really depends on the repeater how much traffic you hear, but the nature of Famished that you only hear one transmission at a time. Let us know if I misunderstood your question. 2. Tune to the correct repeater channel. Program the repeater’s input tone or code into your radio as the TX CTCSS or DCS. At first, leave the RX tone empty so you hear all traffic; you can always go back and set it if you receive too many transmissions that don’t come from the repeater.

Who you talkin-bout Willis?

As the one who shall not be mentioned says, perhaps Grinder is better for contacting strange men. The intent of GMRS is different.

Hello community, This is a formal letter to inform everything that the Crete 600 GMRS repeater will be shut down some time between 11/1/2024 and 12/31/2024. Until then, you can continue to use the system as it sits. Between the FCC changing the rules to not allow GMRS repeater linking and the lack of funding to even cover tower rent to keep it on the air, combined with fact that this repeater isn't used much is what weighs in on this decision. This has been a hard decision to make but know that even though this GMRS system will be shut down, an even better system will be put in its place. As such, I encourage everyone to please email me regarding the new system that will be put in it's place. My email is my call sign @ Gmail: WRDU235@gmail.com I look forward to hearing from everyone interested in the new system over the next couple of months! Please also know that the Rugged 575 GMRS repeater is not going anywhere. Those of you that are within coverage of both of these 2 fantastic machines are encouraged to use the Rugged 575 as well. Thanks ROB - WRDU235

I am a new GMRS user but I have had some exposure to amateur radio from a young age. My Grandfather held his license back in ‘39 and was an avid ham operator building his own equipment and making connections around the globe. Recently I’ve discovered his radio logs and old Chandler Morse Code Courses. It’s really fascinating stuff. My goal is to learn as much as I can, meet people and make connections while helping others and providing a service. I’m looking forward to getting to know others and soak up the knowledge. Shawn WSEZ511

If you buy the $18 Baofeng and it does exactly what you hoped it did, there's definite case to be made that it is in fact the "best" GMRS radio.