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Before I begin: I've endeavored to obtain both a GMRS license, and an Amateur Extra radio license. WSCL244/KF0QNM. I have learned much since then, but there's always more to learn. - Installation - This was difficult, but only due to the fact that my type of vehicle (Ford Fusion 2017) is extremely difficult to get through the firewall. Since also installing an HF Radio (Yaesu FT-891), getting a power cord routed through the door jam from the battery was much easier, at the risk of interference, which fortunately was minimal. The center of my console fit the KG1000G+ perfectly. The antenna system I chose was the Midland MXTA26 6dBi whip antenna, and the Midland MXTA12 mag mount. These work perfectly with the KG1000G+, and the radio is quite happy with it. The mag mount is on the center of the roof of my vehicle, with the cables guided around the edge of the rear windshield with mild adhesive, going through the rear side of my trunk lid. The weather stripping is slightly depressed from the cable, but it has not caused an issue, nor has water traveled into the trunk. In retrospect, there is most likely a better way to route the antenna cable, but this would involve physically drilling holes into my car, which I want to avoid. Signal quality is 80% good. Rare moments of static, which is unavoidable because of my route to work and where I live. As the great Notarubicon would say: Your FARS may vary. I can communicate to repeaters pretty far. I was able to reach Lakeville from Brooklyn Park, MN, which is 40+ miles. I am wired directly to my car's battery. You can build a battery box for use inside the vehicle if you so desire. My KG1000G+ operates just fine between 11.8v to 15.1v. - Ease of Use - This radio does require a bit of a learning curve, but is nowhere near as advanced as a ham radio. Programming from the handset is possible, but is quite slow. Easiest way to program the radio is by connecting the radio to a computer. I recommend using a laptop if you're mobile. You can listen to 2 meter frequencies on the KG1000G+ as well. It does this quite well if you like to monitor certain frequencies. You, cannot, however, transmit on ham bands. There are no ways to "unlock" this radio to do that, either. That is possibly for the best. The buttons on the handset are solid, and the handset itself is decent. I'm currently hanging the handset with a vent mount. It's easy to switch from GMRS, NOAA, and the 2m/70cm bands. You can listen to FM radio on this thing, too, I believe... but why? It's best to treat this radio as a "set it and forget it" like a Ronco product. Know what you want to do and who to talk to, and all is good. I do have a scan function set on this radio with one of the programmable buttons on top. Useful if I ever want to eavesdrop on a conversation. Don't actually join in on someone else's conversation unless you can provide useful information, though. It's kind of the same principle of interrupting people when they're talking in person. I have used my KG1000G+ with my job, however. They use FRS radios, which are compatible with GMRS, and I can communicate to them just fine. - Complaints - Periodically, there will be buzzing on random channels. Worried that this was a problem with the radio, some people have told me that it might be because some people are using digital signals on GMRS, it's interpreted as garbage. The KG1000G+ is an analog-only radio. This has been the only issue. - Compliments - This radio has impressive range, both on send and receive. 50 watts is the maximum power allowed on GMRS, and it works quite well. I've met some people on the GMRS system and do talk to them every now and then. GMRS is touted as a tool, however, a bit of ragchew every now and then isn't too bad. I try to keep transmissions under 15 seconds. The fans do kick in after a while. This radio works well in very cold environment as well as hot ones, but if the temperature is too high, such as a car sitting in the hot sun, the radio may refuse to transmit. This isn't an issue, but rather, a feature to protect the radio. The KG1000G+ is very sensitive, and it's interesting to hear the conversations that my scanner will pick up on. It works well communicating long distances, works with my job, my handheld radios, and the Midland GMRS radio I have attached to my desk at home. - Tips - Get an external speaker. I got an Icom speaker for $20 on Amazon. It is MUCH louder than the speaker built into the radio. Oftentimes I'm having to hold the handset to my ear to hear better. Just get a single speaker for the channel you want to listen to the most. I don't think it's needed to have both speaker ports occupied, unless you really want to. - Final Thoughts - This was a pricey GMRS radio, and I know that cheaper ones exist, but honestly the Wouxun KG1000G+ has been solid and reliable, even if the installation was a pain. I recommend it as both a mobile and as a base station radio. One feature I've not used is operating it as a repeater (requires a second radio). I am not in the most ideal situation as far as radios go since I live in an apartment, so my "shack" is my car. Final Verdict: 7/10 + Good receive/transmit quality, + Handset and radio are solidly built, - Installation was difficult, but that's because of my vehicle type, - Doesn't like digital noise.

@Sonicgott, thanks for the well written and complete review. Also, if you’re new to the site, @Socalgmrs has a social problem that none of us understand. Apparently the only way he can feel self worth is to denigrate others and his most frequent targets are new members. The best way to deal with it is to simply place him on your ignore list until he bails out of this site like he did before. It should be a sticky somewhere for new members.

You need a different y adapter. the outputs on the back of the radio are one single channel each. So you can get a Y that has 2 male single channel plugs that converge into a female 3.5mm that is stereo or 3 bands. You then need a speaker that has the stereo plug on it. I pasted a picture here that has the male versions so you can see the difference. And labeled the Positive and negative parts of the jacks. So you want a y adaptor with 2x 2 pole male to 1x 3pole female, and a speaker that has a 3 pole male. You could get a y with 2 male 2 poles to 1 female 2 pole, but this would not be the best option but will work.

Out all the threads you quoted, one guy "may have" had a bad mic, but no resolution was shared. The rest of them were end-user problems. I would hardly call that an abundance of evidence that Midland products are unreliable. Especially compared to their reported revenue of over $19 million a year from their consumer markets. That's a lot of radios sold compared to a few threads from people who don't understand narrow band vs wide band, don't know how to use a computer, or no one will talk to them.

.--/.../-.-./.-../-..../...--/...-- Whew, I almost forgot to ID !

There are no FRS exclusive channels that allow you to operate a GMRS radio without identifying. Every FRS channel is a GMRS channel. Technically, if you want to operate without identifying, you must use an FRS certified radio. Whenever you are using a GMRS radio you are required by regulations to follow the GMRS regulations, which require identifying.

Another option if you want a custom length cable is ABR Industries. Yes they will cost a little more but they are excellent cables. You won't go wrong with cables from ABR Ind., Messi and Paoloni, Times Microwave, or DX Engineering. Another good source that I have only used for short jumpers is the Jet brand from R&L Electronics. You will be fine as long as you stick with LMR400 or a quality equivalent. Avoid the cheap stuff from Amazon and eBay. The Comet CA-712EFC is a very popular antenna that works well. It is long at around 10 ft. The Comet CA-GMRS is another good antenna if you need something shorter. There are other brands that will be suggested.

Very good point. In an emergency if you don't own it and maintain you just can't rely on it.

Go with what you like and don't worry about what others think of your choices, yea! I don't like all them other radios, and therefore, I DON'T TALK TO THEM!!!! I sleep with my Midland radio and it keeps me warm at night!!!!! With all the people I can talk to on mine, I'm thinking of renting out like a HOOKER to keep the local (all other radios) want-to-bes happy! Only thing I dislike is having to turn up the volume but I don't mine half the time I guess, not much is really being said anyway unless it's a Jeep Trail ride...hehehe. I talk and nobody even knows what I'm running anyhow. Stick that into your muddy grippers and crawl on-it!

Well I did my experiment. It was about 28º out and the SWR was sitting at about 1.13. I took my wife's blow dryer and zip tied it to a stick and went on my shed dormer and heated up the lightning arrester and surrounding areas for a while and had my wife test the SWR and no change. Did this several times heating the arrestor for a few minutes before keying up again. More than certain it got way above freezing and no change. So that leaves the antenna or connection. Either way that means I have to wait for the weather to warm up before I can borrow the bucket truck to get up there. Not even going to do any testing. Replacing the antenna and the cable. Since it's just 25' I'll put 1/2" hardline there and make sure the new antenna is an N connector instead of thr SO239 UHF connector. Nice warm weather coming up so that means poor radio response til I get this all taken care of.

I was thinking of the kind of regularity that bran flakes help, but okay.

But if you dont degrade others, how are you going to make yourself feel superior to them and show everyone how much of an expert you think you are?

The math proves that channel 16 is the ONLY channel for off roading: Off-Roading is usually referred to as 4X4'ing or 4x4 ... 4 x 4 = 16 There is no other choice but to use channel 16 when going 4x4ing ..

I’d be interested in seeing data supporting that claim.

You’re welcome! There are even more benefits to this radio but I did not want to confuse the issue of its abilities vs Midland. Only on this radio is Radioddity a clone of Anytone.

This request falls right into my personal experience: I purchased the Anytone AT-779UV ($99.95) and LGR Mag-Mount ($19.95) from Let's Get Ready Radios based here in Los Angeles, with fast free shipping in the USA: Out of the box easy use in GMRS, 18 watts, Repeater Channels, Microphone controls, cigarette lighter plug for easy installation and removal, NOAA channels pre-programmed. It is also known as the Radioddity DB20-G for more money from Amazon and others. These radios have been heavily supported here on myGMRS with only a few scattered criticisms. I purchased a 2nd one to use in my home! I have no affiliation with LGR other than that of a satisfied customer!

We have a battery backup system at our repeatr sites and also have the ARCOM RC210 controllers setup to give us a notification if the system switches over to battery backup. The battery backup gives us enough time to get to the repeater site and get the generator going. The limiting factor is if we cannot get to the repeater site.

I don't recall seeing any significant amount of threads from actual owners complaining about reliability. I have owned and used several and installed hundreds of them over last 4 or 5 years. I haven't heard a single person complain to me. If they were really unreliable, I think their sales would suffer and as a person who deals with them regularly, I would have had at least 1 person complain to me. The reality is, every Midland owner who came to me for service, either had antenna or coax problems. I've never seen someone come back to me who actually had a failed radio.

I did all the work on the ground. Not sure where the water could have gotten in. It's wrapped with 3M 2155 Rubber Splice Tape and then electrical tape. It's covered with that aluminum tube on top of that. No idea how water could have penetrated. Other possibility is the antenna itself.

A job is not done correctly if no blood is drawn.

LMR 400 available from many different suppliers. Antenna depends on height, and need.

I'm glad you figured it out. The new setup will make you very happy. One piece of advice. Do the work in the most hostile weather possible and make sure you draw some blood. That way you are assured of having a perfect install.

Let me review the specifications of the MXT275 and be back to you…

Hi-Point is the Baofeng of the firearm world (although less ubiquitous). Cheap, fugly, not respected, but it puts bullets downrange and if that's all you need to do, you'll be happy with it. Baofeng is cheap and not respected (not necessarily unattractive, though), but if all you need to do is put signals downrange, it will do the job. There's a lot of talk on the ham forums about how lousy their signals are, blah, blah, but every single time I've requested a signal report on mine, I've been told it's strong and clear. I don't know anything about Midland, but if it puts out a strong, clear signal and has all the features you need, it's a good radio. For someone else, it might be a lousy radio. Okay, actually I do know one thing about Midland. Their Ghost antenna works far better than I expected it to. I wish they'd make one for 140/440.

Most Y adaptors are going to be stereo aka 3 pole males to stereo 3 pole female. And that is where the problem arrises with sound quality. And @MSnow is correct that you will want a 3 pole in to dual 2 pole out adaptor along with a stereo speaker for everything to work correctly and sound good. I never tried a stereo speaker with the stereo y adaptor yet. But I can tell you that using a stereo y adaptor with a more single channel speaker sounds horrible when connected to both speaker outputs on the radio.

More info:

Hope things go well with your antenna placement. I use to have a CB base station in our last location but where I live now there is a HOA and we have restrictions on antennas. Not saying we cant have one just restricted to height. I'm waiting on my GMRS mobile I bought a few days ago. It's going in my work van for now BUT I WILL HAVE A BASE IN THE HOUSE SOON HOA! LOL

I've had my KG-1000G radios for about the same amount of time. I have one in my 2023 Ford Escape and the other in the house. My experiences have been similar to yours. Installing radios in the Escape was a bit of a pain too. There are very few spots to get wires through the firewall. I am running a Tram 1174 antenna for GMRS and a Comet SBB-1 for 2m/70cm. I have height restrictions since I park my Escape in the garage. Plus the parking garages at doctors' offices have low clearances too. The Wouxun KG-1000G is close to the same price as the Midland MXT500/MXT575 and it has performed better than the Midland radios for me. And don't let Negative Nancy poo on your posts or about what radios you use. Just ignore him like the rest of us do.

It is hard to find a used Yeasu radio that is functionally junk. Same for the other Japanese makers. If you only buy new, you are missing a lot of very good radios on the market.

On my repeater-in-training* (The New JC 700) roger beeps are discouraged. The repeater sends a courtesy tone once it's done handling your traffic. It then sits for 30 seconds to see if anyone else keys it up. If not, it auto-IDs itself with my call sign. If someone else keys it up before the time-out and it doesn't get a chance to ID after 14.5 minutes of repeater duty, it will cut in and ID itself every 15 minutes until traffic stops. That seems like the best of all worlds, so it isn't pumping out its ID 24/7, but only IDs while it is passing traffic or after traffic stops. The repeater has one input tone, a different output tone, and sends Morse IDs with no tone. Right now the NMO-HDG antenna is using my chain link fence as a counterpoise. Once it gets warmer, I'll be running 7/8" Heliax up to the roof with a Commscope DB408-B on an additional 20' mast. That's as high as I can go without permitting and warning lights (approach corridor for Newark Airport). As I'm already up on the Kennedy Blvd. ridge in a 3.5 story building I should have pretty good coverage. I also need to pound a field of ground rods into the ground once it thaws for lightning protector earthing.

This is just my interpretation, but you can think of watts on a radio as brightness on a flashlight at night. Line-of-sight, a bright flashlight will be clearly different than a dim flashlight, but you will see both. However, if there's a hill, a brighter flashlight is more likely to have a "halo" that you may see from the reflections, but a dim flashlight you may not. Think of someone coming from a road behind the hill that you can clearly tell has their high beams on, even though they're not directly in your face. So, more power may get you around difficult terrain, but if you're on flat terrain, or high on a hill, you may be able to achieve communication with less power.

I do wish that Wouxun would have a mic gain setting on their radios. The KG-1000G mic is a bit hot. I haven't had any complaints when using the KG-935G or KG-Q10H. But then again I am not holding the radios too close to my face either.

GMRS is definitely a Bring Your Own Friends service, especially when out in the desert.. We do off-roading/Rock Crawling in JV all the time (will be near there tomorrow).. Keep an eye out for the big orange jeep and say hello - we'll be on channel 16, the official off-road GMRS channel..

I think it is hilarious how "some people" so are completely incapable of grasping the simple fact that just because they dont like something, nobody else on the planet possibly could like it. As @marcspaz noted, many people are more than willing to pay for a simple, easy to use, no frills/no bells&whistles, "americanISH" product. Just because it is not the right choice for you does not mean it's not the right choice for someone else.

They market to the Jeep crowd, including via event sponsorship. Excluding some quality issues with a couple of the recently introduced models, it seems like more of the complaints boil down to the limitations of the radios than something actually being "wrong" with the radios. Some of this may be attributable to their marketing, or just unmet expectations. Midland has their marketing down pat, and they do the simple "plug in and go" pretty well, and while they've improved on it with some recent models, they're still somewhat limited feature wise, especially for the price point....if they work for you as they are (and you're okay with the price), they aren't a bad choice.

"can".. but, based on their enforcement history over the last 15 years, they won't.

As far as I can determine, in the history of the FCC, nobody has ever been cited solely for transmitting on a radio which was not type-accepted for that frequency. Of course, if you were being an ass and causing problems, they'd probably throw that charge in as well "just because". That said, the power and bandwidth restrictions exist largely to keep someone on that frequency from interfering with other users. If you decide to use the 5RM on GMRS, please be a decent human and set the bandwidth (wide/narrow) and power to the "legal" GMRS limits. The 5RM won't go below about 2-3 watts, so you should probably block transmission on channels 8-14, which are restricted to 0.5 watt. You can program them in and then set duplex to "off", then if there's some urgent need to use one of them, you can turn duplex back on fairly quickly from the keyboard on the front.

Welcome! I’m relatively new to GMRS, all things radio, and this forum too. Tons of stuff to learn and already finding this site so helpful.

I read about the rash of robberies happening to GMRS users, so I started using FRS instead. /s

It seems to me that someone is forgetting the 10% rule or the operator head space and timing is off.

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.

Doesn’t upset me a bit either. Wish him the best with his radio and I hope he figures out the issue.

He never said that he did. He is a longtime ham (second sentence) and describes the radio’s power under 2 meters and 70 centimeters. But even if he does use it on GMRS it wouldn’t upset me.

Not worth risking the heavy-fines or possible jail time ! SOURCE: "some people" right here on this very forum.

No, the Fox is sending a one way transmission, which is only allowed for certain reasons. Foxhunting isn’t one of them. Here is the list of approved one-way communications: b) One-way communications. The operator of a GMRS station may use that station to transmit one-way communications: (1) To call for help or transmit other emergency communications; (2) To provide warnings of hazardous road conditions to travelers; or, (3) To make brief test transmissions.

At 12 miles out (level ground; the West TX Plains) to-and-from another SBB-7NMO antenna mounted 25ft in the air at my house, ... I made a Real-World Performance Test between the two antennas ... AND ... My OPINION is that the SBB-7NMO (without any modifications) performs better than the CA-2x4SR. I was using 5 Watts Transmission from a BTECH-GMRS-V1 and got clear transmits and receives ... The CA-2X4SR transmitted with some-static that the SBB-7NMO didn't have ... (Note: This test was made 3 times by switching-out both antennas to verify this difference). So, I decided to check the SWR on the SBB-7NMO antenna sitting in the middle of the roof of a 1999 2-Door Tahoe ... the results are as follows using the Low Power Setting with a BTech UV-50X2 ... (NOTE: BTech Specifications say 10watts; I'm showing 20watts on my SureCom SW102 Digital SWR Meter): ----------------------------- SBB-7NMO - No Modifications ----------------------------- 462.5500 GMRS 15 1.40 462.7250 GMRS 22 1.42 467.5500 REPT 15 2.00 467.7250 REPT 22 2.01 151.8200 MURS 01 2.09 151.8800 MURS 02 2.11 151.9400 MURS 03 2.13 154.5700 MURS BL 04 3.71 154.6000 MURS GR 05 3.73 146.5200 2M 1.10 446.0000 70CM 1.00 ----------------------------- I contacted a Comet Representative about what needed to be done to tune the SBB-7 Antenna for Dedicated GMRS use ... His reply was the following: I have 4 of these antennas and decided to take a chance of destroying one to find out IF some modificaton(s) would improve the SWRs. I found the following adjustments (or cuts) accomplished My Goal ... as follows: -------------------------------------------------------- SBB-7NMO - Rods Cut Lower-3/4" Middle-3/8" Upper-3/8" -------------------------------------------------------- 462.5500 GMRS 15 1.00 462.7250 GMRS 22 1.00 467.5500 REPT 15 1.15 467.7250 REPT 22 1.15 151.8200 MURS 01 1.45 151.8800 MURS 02 1.51 151.9400 MURS 03 1.54 154.5700 MURS BL 04 2.96 154.6000 MURS GR 05 2.99 146.5200 2M 1.54 446.0000 70CM 1.09 -------------------------------------------------------- - In conclusion, I have shopped around for quite some time looking for a High-Gain GMRS Mobile Antenna ... but ... without finding anything to my satisfaction ... BUT ... with THIS Modification, My Quest has Finally Ended !!! The GMRS Transceiver that I will be dedicating to this modified Comet SBB-7NMO Antenna is a BTech GMRS-50X1 which has 3 power settings 50 Watts, 20 Watts, and 5 Watts. Just for completeness, the Mag Mount that I am using with all of my antennas is the "TRAM 1267R 5 1/2" Magnet NMO Mounting with Rubber Boot" that I have purchased from Amazon. Happy GMRS'ing !!!, FWI .

Sorry to have to be the one to break this news to you but bragging about not being a ham BUT how easy it would be to pass the examS "if you wanted to" is a strong indicator of being a latent sad-H.A.M. .. Your other posts already proved you also fall into the "some people" category.. And as the inventor of the term Sad-H.A.M., my declaration is final and cannot be disputed or overturned.

PL, CTC, CTCSS, are all the same. DP, DCS, DTC are all the same. USUALLY a DP/DTC/DCS tone is "N" (Normal) unless specified as "I" (Inverted) In your example D205N = 34 on your chart. If your radio only allows you to enter the 2 or 3 digit numbers (34) then that is what you enter on the radio. MOST radios like the KG-Q10G allow you to choose the actual CTC/DCS tone (ie; 141.3 or D023N) - you dont "enter" it, you choose it from the list in the DCS TX or RX menu setting.

We have two repeaters that cover virtually all of Southern California and the use of roger-beeps is very strongly encouraged.. This discourages "some people" from using the repeaters making for a more pleasant repeater experience for everyone. One of the repeaters also has it's own roger-beep.

I call BULLSHIT - just another Sad-HAM disguised as a GMRS user. YOUR radio YOUR choice - if the sad-HAM control freaks dont like it, they can change the channel.. HOWEVER - as you mentioned, if the repeater owner requests that you not use a roger-beep on his repeater, then following the wishes of the equipment owner who's equipment you are using would be the polite thing to do, IMO..