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Let's beat this dead horse some more. It should have been turned into mush a long time ago. If you want to talk on linked repeaters then get your amateur license. We don't need to have linked repeaters on GMRS. I live in Mid Missouri and I sure don't want to have my local repeater clogged up by people from outside the area. Linked repeaters defeats the purpose of GMRS which is local communications. Stick with amateur radio or use one of them phone apps that gets mentioned if you want to talk to people all over the country/world. Okay back to trying to get the excess blood out of my caffeine system.

SO, I guess I better stop telling my wife "I'm on the way now - traffic was bad".

That could be a really good thing or it can open up a can of worms that we don't want. I say that because we all know some people want to turn GMRS into HAM Lite. We don't have enough frequencies/channels available for linking repeaters or different digital modes, etc, etc. I would hate to see GMRS turn into what the Chicken Band (CB) has become.

This was my handy work at a custom camo paint job on GM-21.....be kind

I’d for sure say ask the repeater owner but yes like already said that is what gmrs is for. It happens all the time on our local repeaters.

It looks a lot like German flecktarn pattern.

Hot Damn, This Horse is one tough cookie.. Damnnnnnnnn

Get that now and again with one group, as I have an 01 Explorer I run with the "Jeepers" (skid plates, 31's winch recovery gear), but we also have Toyotas, an occasional Samurai, Pathfinder, whathaveyouthat'snotaJeep. But when we hit the trails and they see we can off road with the best of them, they take it in stride. And we of course respond in kind with the insults, much like good friends do with each other. As far as who pulls who out of the Stuck, it's like being out boating, you always, I mean ALWAYS help out a fellow off-roader. We're talking moderate off road trails here, not rock crawling or King of the Hammers or mud bogging. The help you give today may be the help you need tomorrow.

That’s an ignorant comment.

Not necessarily true. Different dipole antennas have varying elevation patterns.. Some antennas mostly high gain commercial have low elevation patterns making them ideal for mountain top applications where signal is radiated more downward where many non commercial is just the opposite. Some antennas are designed for optimum performance at a typical 40' heights and others work better mounted on 200' towers sitting on mountain tops. The commercial guys know this and do their homework when selecting antennas. Likewise i think most of us settling up home brew repeater systems should research antenna patterns and select something that works for their applications.

What exactly is the end goal of this? Being able to sit at home and talk to some random person also sitting at their home using a radio? I am pretty sure ham radio has accomplished this with the many link systems in place. This can also be accomplished using Zello alone, no radios, no GMRS licenses needed just an app on your cellphone or PC and you can talk to as many random strangers as you want.

Any Tidradio that was defective was replaced within days of me complaining. They never ask for the old radio either so no hassle with returning it. Although I think the quality control could be a lot better, the service I get from them is just fine. And they seem to stand behind their radios. If you are complaining about a $25-30 radio that comes with antennas, battery, charger, instruction booklet, USB power pack and cord you really need to think about what a great value that is for someone who isn't looking to spend $200+ per radio just for quality. When you get a good one it stays that way, well... so far.

For just making sure your radio is generally transmitting about as much power as it should be, to make sure your antenna is not shorted and the SWR is "good enough", the SW-102 is perfect. Ignore all the propeller heads trying to tell you that you need to spend hundreds or thousands of $$ because they have no idea what it means to just do a quick-check on something without the need for adhering to mission-critical IEEE standards nor can they comprehend that your self-worth is not measured by how precisely-tuned your antenna is. Same thing goes for the need of a dummy-load.. You can measure the power of your radio with antenna connected to get a "good enough" power reading, if you even care about that. ..."some people" could over complicate a door-knob and they love to spend other people's money.

Maybe out of line, but when an agency feels threatened they usually do something to punish the public. Happened here when voters drastically reduced property taxes in the 70's. Eliminating regs could chaos and that could be the punishment for having their power and numbers reduced. If this is unacceptable, mods please eliminate the post.

We need to get FRS off of 15-22 for starters. Then we need dedicated repeater frequency pairs that are not shared with simplex. Then we need the fcc to enforce the rules that are already in place.

@OffRoaderX (aka Notarubicon) tested this myth on his YouTube channel and found that looping the cable didn't affect the SWR at all. That prompted me to test it myself with two different pieces of coax and three different radios from 5 to 35 watts, and I also found no change at all in SWR or transmission range. I'm about to put an antenna on my truck and I plan to leave a few extra feet of coax so I change the position of the radio, plug in an HT, or whatever else may come up. I'll just coil the extra into a loop and secure it with cable ties.

Am I the only GMRS user who is kinda frustrated with linked repeaters on gmrs frequencies. The more I’m using gmrs the more I’m realizing the frequency allocations for it just doesn’t leave enough space for linking on this service.

I live in a port town. For my entire life I have driven past a marine electronics store. Not needing "marine" electronics (radar, sonar, gps and its predecessor LORAN, and of course radios). I never had a need to visit. But as it turns out the store carries all sorts of GMTS, FRS and HAM equipment. And not just for boats. i called yesterday and found out that not only do they have probably everything you find all your needs met in one place. Plus and more importantly, they are more than to share decades of knowledge and experience. Heading down tomorrow with a list of needfuls and more importantly a list of questions.

Some how this post got duplicated.

Check your Device Manager to make sure that the cable is recognized and that the appropriate port is selected in Chirp. If your Device Manager shows a "yellow" symbol for a specific port than you may need to load the FTDI driver so the computer recognizes the cable. Also, try using the Radioddity programming software for that radio. You may not experience the problems you're experiencing by using the factory programming software.

I agree with TrikeRadio, I have two DB-25G's and use Chirp, exclusively, to program them with not a single problem. One nice feature of the DB-25G is during up and down loads it gives visual indication of its progress so you can see it begin, progress and finish. Only thing I can think might be problem, only because I've done it, is accidently plugging the programming cable into the HEADPHONE socket next to the identifically sized DATA socket. The DATA socket is silver and the one closest to the fan.

I have a repeater that is 204 miles away and it comes in crystal clear and it’s not linked. It’s running a 50w radio and a 12db gain antenna radiating about 780watts at 6000ft and I’m at 4500ft I check in on it all the time. Sooo not impossible in any way shape or form. As a matter of fact I’m 204 miles to the west and a buddy was in a 3rd state 190miles to the repeaters south east and we could talk to each other no problem. Line of sight and a good antenna is key

Hmm, perhaps I am unwelcome here. My off road vehicle is a Jeep. The same CJ-8 I've been driving since 1982. In the past 40 odd years I have been helped and helped pretty much every brand of vehicle. Including the unstuckable Unimog. I suppose there are Jeep owners who adopt a superior attitude because they have built Jeeps. But if you check the undercarriage you'll find they have never left the asphalt. Once you get on the trail it is all just good natured ribbing between owners of different brands. And yea, many aren't ever going to know all the ins and outs of "radio". That's not their focus. GMRS to them if an adjunct to their hobby. Much like CB was and still is to some. Just a better means of communication. Beats yelling down the trail.

It was my pleasure and I am glad to see that it benefited another person.

Agree.. I personally have two TD-H3s (and I bought them off amazon) for over 8 months, never had a problem with them, in fact they have surpassed my expectations for them. several other friends have bought them... for a total of 8 radios. Of all of those one had a problem and like you said it was quickly replaced no questioned asked.

Ok, but please don't raz me about my Caffeine and Sugar Free Diet Pepsi. I have plenty in my refrigerator in my Jeep, it gets hot on the trail. I don't drink beer and it is one of my many personal faults. If need be, I can keep your 12-pack ice cold for you.

In all fairness, the dude is right. There is so much buggy crap out there on the market that should not be, especially among those brands he listed.

Yah right, BS. How did you confirm that accuracy? Did you compare it with another Pandaland POS instrument? I had a 849 that was far from being accurate and it was sent back to MFJ for a recalibration and 9 months later, I finally got it back saying it was recalibrated, and it was still far from being accurate. I ended up putting it in the garbage. Also, I had a MFJ269 that I sent back for recalibration. They had that instrument for four months and while I was waiting, I had my Bird 43 recalibrated and purchased a RigExpert. The RigExperf appears to be a good unit. I ended up giving away the 269 to Sir Steve because I no longer had a need for it.

People. It’s government. They aren’t ever going to make anything better.

This would tie up comms across the country...

I had no problems looking up license information an hour ago or so.

Being that I build datacenters I would give you that if this was a mom and pop shop that paid for the cheapest package at rackspace or WIX but this has been every hour on the hour since 3/9/2026. (I have a script running check this crap every hour) The main FCC site is up with the non-sense they are changing on it up there, but the meat and potatoes ULS DB being down from every Server, PC and MAC I have access to across the world tells me that they are purposely keeping it down. And if that is the case what happens to anyone that is trying to get their licenses upgraded or new licenses. Are they just going to be black holed. That isn't going to stop any of us from getting on the air. And now I can tell my friends to stand back and stand by as it looks like they might not have to bother taking any of the tests to or register any more to do any of this. So that just leaves all of us that have done the thing exposed with out info out there for the yahoos to do with what they wish. Like the "joke" the first commenter made. In any event, I have people waiting on license notifications and of all times for them to dick around they do it now.

Yes, I am always concerned about unintended consequences when changes are made to satisfy people who don’t fully understand the history and context of rules.

All SWR meters are directional power meters at heart. The SWR meters that were manufactured by Nissei for MFJ are okay, about the same as any other mass produced SWR meter. They’re a compromise between cost and accuracy and because they try to measure very wide frequency and power ranges they excel at none. The biggest problem I see with them is an inability to measure low levels of reflected power accurately, leading to very optimistic SWR values at low power. But good enough is good enough. As far as antenna analyzers (which are not SWR meters) I also prefer RigExpert. They’re easy to use and have a lot of functionality built into them that I suspect many people never use. For instance, if you know the actual length of a cable you can use the RigExpert to determine the actual Velocity Factor (VF). If you know the actual VF you can measure the length of the cable using the RigExpert. Once you know the VF, save it so you can look it up. Then, if a long cable starts acting strange remeasure the length using the RigExpert and the saved VF. If it’s anything other than what you measured originally it tells you the general location of a problem. But a RigExpert will not tell you forward power or reflected power. For that you need a directional watt meter. Once you have those two measurements you can very easily calculate SWR. That’s where Bird or Telewave stand head and shoulders above all of the cheap SWR/wattmeters. Their sensors are calibrated for the exact range of frequencies and power levels you wish to measure. The McBazel SW-102 is inexpensive, does a lot of different things, including measuring the frequency (something that neither the high end wattmeter nor the moderately expensive antenna analyzer can do, except for the MFJ 259, 269 series), forward power (within limits) and reflected power (possibly even more limited at the bottom end), and calculates the SWR based on those limited measurements. I think they’re very handy for a go bag for use with a specific range of power outputs.

The Surecom is not the most accurate but it is the simplest to use if all you are wanting to do is check the SWR. And this is normally good enough when checking the SWR on mobile antennas. I will always suggest getting a NanoVNA or a good antenna analyzer for tuning/cutting antennas. They make life easier when tuning by showing exactly where the lowest SWR is. You will know right away if the antenna is too long or too short. I have a Surecom SW-102 that I use for quick SWR tests along with a Comet CAA-500 analyzer and a Rig Expert Stick Pro analyzer. I use the SW-102 for quick SWR checks and the analyzers if I need to actually tune the antenna.

MFJ is far from even coming close to being accurate. RigExpert appears to be pretty accurate and is an excellent tool. Bird 43s and Telewave meters are accurate, but you have to use the chart to determine the VSWRs.

I second the SW-102

I use CHIRP to program my Radioddity DB25-G without any problems. What are you having trouble with? .. just connecting and reading the radio... or have you been able to read it into CHIRP but not update it? define your problem with a bit more for us to go on.

You forgot to mention: Also transmits on GMRS with 100+Watts, jams H.A.M.s and GMRS repeaters with music when bored and broadcasts on H.A.M.s radios frequencies with no license, just so I can feel something. C'mon man, if you're going to be butthurt and whine like a girl, at least be complete and accurate about it.

This is gonna be fun to sit back and watch!

So in a nutshell you want to charge users for a service that some use already with zello. I guess I dont see the need to add LTE to a repeater that is for local use. If I wanted extended coverage I'd either install a second repeater or go to a service I can do other stuff. I have SAR stuff linked to Zello and it works for what it is. I clearly do not understand the facination of making GMRS into ham radio or commercial LMR all the time.

1. What was the purpose of establishing a worldwide repeater system when other countries do not have GMRS? 2. GMRS has only a few repeater frequencies. If all the repeaters in the United States operate on the same frequency, it will lead to interference, including with some rescue repeaters.

This is exactly why i got into GMRS and not ham. We offroad, hike and camp. I dont want to be in the California desert and hear someone in Nevada calling out trails, talking to their point man or tail. Its a local system for local use.

I look forward to hearing what you discover. Although the technology is interesting I think it will be turned down for the most basic reason: You’re connecting a GMRS repeater to a network, which means you are carrying GMRS communications on a network which is prohibited by the FCC interpretation of the rules. Here’s their interpretation: GMRS stations cannot be interconnected with the public switched telephone network or any other network for the purpose of carrying GMRS communications, but these networks can be used for remote control of repeater stations.

A community is best served by a reliable repeater that covers the community - hearing conversations from across the country on a linked system does not benefit the local community who are wanting/needing to communicate with folks in their local area. Let Ham Radio be Ham Radio, and let GMRS be GMRS.

I understand your frustration. GMRS is easier to get into than HAM, especially for families. No, there is not enough bandwidth, that's why linking untimely isn't allowed.

You're still connecting over the internet, and for the purpose of carrying voice. Yes, this ^^^ Others have tried the tactic of ignoring the FCC for profit and paid the fine. The "illegal marketing" by Rugged Radios back in 2020 comes to mind. They don't do that anymore. I expect there are others. The risk you may well find is yours.

Meanwhile, up in Mammoth today, i ran into a Frostitute

Even I, in all my glory, could not pretend to be that socially mal-adjusted and brain dead..