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There's Roger Rabbit !!

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

Very nice job. I absolutely agree though, I would probably loose this radio and contribute to the unlicensed use of GMRS by woodland creatures

That would be my concern too. @Reklaw you did a good job on painting your radios. You might have to attack an Apple AirTag to them incase you loose them.

Looks Good, but now you'll lay it down, and not be able to Find it again !

Your best bet is to call or email Heil since they don't list anything for Wouxun radios. I searched but could not find if the Wouxun radios use a dynamic mic or an IC electret mic. The two are not interchangeable without mods. I did find the mic cable pin outs that should help once you figure out what type of mic is used. Microphone and data cable pinouts for the Wouxun KG-1000G PS, just ignore Negative Nancy

I guess I'm the odd man out, but I don't understand why so many people malign the UT-72. It seems to usually revolve around a claim that its transmission is not good, but I haven't had that experience at all. Every check I've done with mine got a report of "loud and clear, full quieting" in any location where I've been able to use other antennas. Maybe some people are trying for more distance than I am, but in my area, wherever I can't get a clear signal out with the UT-72, I can't get a clear signal out with any other antenna either. Right now, it's sitting on a steel pizza pan in my living room floor attached to a 5 watt HT and I participated in a net this morning on a repeater 20 miles away. Maybe some people are just expecting too much from a $35 antenna, I don't really know. It does require a decent ground plane, but that's typical of mag mount antennas. It's the only antenna I've tested which showed SWRs of less than 1.5:1 from 144 to 467 MHz with several different radios. That includes a Larsen and two Comets. Yes, SWR doesn't mean much if you don't get good performance, but as I said above, its performance has been just fine. I like it so much that I'd use it on both of my vehicles if weren't a mag mount unit. I bought the NMO-72 but it isn't exactly the same antenna. I can't really complain; its performance as is just as good and all SWRs in the GMRS, 70cm, 2m, and MURS bands were below 2:1, but I'd rather have 1.5:1. I had a similar experience with the GMRS-specific UT-72G and I recently passed it on to a friend who's a new GMRS licensee. So I'm curious... If you don't like the UT-72, why not? What experience did you have with it? What were you trying to accomplish that it wouldn't do? For that matter, if you tried it and did like it, why? Admittedly, this is a sample size of one, and maybe I just got lucky, but I'm curious what others have experienced. I don't discount the experiences of knowledgeable people, but when my own experience is significantly different, I wonder why.

Details Event by Marc Spaziano and NOVA GMRS Reddish Knob, Saturday, March 29, starting at 10 AM. Public · Anyone Come join NOVA GMRS for a Radio Expedition up to Reddish Knob and play Radio for the afternoon! Everyone is welcome to bring their handheld radios, mobile radios, or "portable" setups and discover the amazing range of your gear that is associated with high elevation of the mountain top. Lets find out how far Your radio can reach! Reddish Knob is located in the George Washington National Forest, outside of Dayton / Harrisonburg, Virginia. While this is a knob on the ridge-line in the forest, it is paved all the way to the top. Any vehicle can comfortably make it all the way to the top without an issue. Along with your radios, bring a camera, warm clothes, and something to snack on for lunch. There is nothing nearby... so bring everything you need to be comfortable for a few hours. For those not familiar with the area, we can find a meet-up spot if you would like to follow me from town, up to the main lot.

It is in this part of the state. Heavily wooded. Rolling hills.

The main thing is that it works for you and your situation. We strive for the lowest SWR but as long as you are 2.0 and below it will work. I definitely could use my Comet SBB-1 for 2m, 70cm and GMRS since the highest SWR on all three bands is 1.8. Its at 1.8 at 467 and 1.5 or below for 462 and the 2m and 70cm bands. But I like having a separate dual band radio and GMRS radio in my vehicle. The Tram 1174 needed to be cut/tuned for GMRS but it too works well. The SWR on the Tram is 1.4 at 467 MHz and 1.2 at 462 MHz. I would love to run the Comet 2x4SR on my Ford Escape but it is too tall to fit into my garage or any of the parking garages when I go to the VA.

And as @CogentRadios described his system, other networks have to be used in order to connect to community repeaters while traveling. It's no different than people using the Allstar apps on their phones to connect to Allstar nodes connected to repeaters. Cell and internet connections are still used to make the connection.

You gotta watch them waskly wabbits, they are almost as bad as those evil squirrels hell bent on taking over the world. It's a conspiracy with them. They only act cute so you let your guard down.

That is currently done with Allstar nodes on the VHF and UHF amateur bands. And you are still using other networks, internet or phone, to make that connection back to your community repeater. Plenty of guys have the Allstar app on their phones to talk to the local repeater while they travel. Again they are still using either internet or cell phone connections to reach the repeater. That is still against the FCC regulations that they recently clarified.

Desense... There is more to a repeater than just duck-taping two radios together.

And not everyone lives in the wide open desert where it is flat. Our GMRS repeater antennas are at 400 feet above ground and our 70cm repeater antennas are at 900 feet above ground. We get around a 30-35 mile radius range on both. Again due to local terrain and lots of forested areas. In comparison, our 2m repeater antennas are on the same tower and also at 900 feet above ground. We get around 80-85 mile radius range on 2m. This clearly shows the difference between UHF and HVF. If it was a height issue then we would see better coverage with the 70cm repeater than the GMRS repeater. But both have the same coverage. We actually encourage that type of use on our repeater. Most families won't "rag chew" for hours on end so it's not an issue. Most of us get a big kick out of listening to one of our member's grandson when he gets on the repeater to talk to Grammy and Papa. The kid is only about 8 years old and does a great job with using proper etiquette on the repeater.

If anyone other than a family member operating under the repeater owners license the repeater must self ID using the repeater’s owners call sign.

Did you look at the map? Arab is about midway between the Huntsville repeaters and a repeater called Palisades Park 650.

I'm just one person. I own a UT-72G, Tram 1174, and a Melowave Shadow. The UT-72G using a small SMA mount is a negative as you can't easily swap different antennas using the UT-72G magnet mount without using adaptors. I have also found that the performance of the UT-72G I have, is not as good as the Melowave Shadow. The Melowave Shadow is the same as the Midland Ghost. The Tram 1174 outperforms both the Shadow and UT-72G. Others have had similar experiences as I have. The UT-72G does work and it is inexpensive. But you can usually get something a little better for not much more money. Plus having a NMO magnet mount lets you easily change out antennas if you want. And not everyone lives in a wide open desert area or next to a big lake. Most won't get 60, 100, or 200 miles range out of a 20 or 50 watt mobile radio using a mobile antenna. 30-35 mile range is the normal range of GMRS and 70cm repeaters where I live. UHF just doesn't have the range like VHF does.

That only works if @WROH500 uses the repeater every time anyone else uses it. Besides, it’s not just an IDer; it’s also a repeater controller, which @WROH500 might need if they’re wiring two Baofeng radios together.

You need a regular license, and a lot of time, money and research to set up a repeater - over in the General Discussion forum there's a sticky titled "You just got your GMRS license, now you want your own repeater?" which is well worth reading through. To summarize - a 5W repeater with an antenna on your balcony isn't going to perform better than a handheld with the same antenna on your balcony. By the time you're thinking about higher power, higher elevation, etc. you're talking serious money. Even with a 50W repeater that "fell into my lap" (ouch!), I'm probably looking at $2500 for the survey, antenna, feedline, mast, etc.

Looks great!

I've been using a UT-72 with an AT778-UV for more than an year now and have not had any problems. I almost always get good reports. When I don't get a good report, there is usually an obvious reason like weather, distance, trees, buildings, etc. This is a very inexpensive setup and I'm quite pleased with it.

I think is a fine antenna and would serve the prepose. But the mount type limits the ability to switch antennas to a different (NMO like) one with more range/coverage and options. It could also be a QC issue with some users who don't like it? But ultimately if it works for your needs noting else matters.

That’s really the essence of the problem. The GMRS rules don’t truly prohibit linking repeaters; they prohibit placing GMRS communications onto a network.

....good point, I was considering painting my Iphone too, that would complicate finding the radios!

If you can do one you can do the other. Do you realize you won’t be able to make sure you aren’t transmitting over the top of someone that is using simplex? Just because you put a repeater on a frequency doesn’t make that frequency yours. GMRS doesn’t have the amount of channels/frequencies that Amateur Radio has, nor does it have the coordination that makes such things possible. Want coms for a community nation wide, use a group text or Facebook neighborhood group page.

Did you even read the purpose of this, its amazing how many people in this forum fail the concept of seeking to understand but have an opinion. This is not linking and creating a national network, its creating access to a community repeater to users in that community on a national level. Let me simplify, you are a regular user on a GMRS repeater and travel out of the area you can still access your community repeater, its that simple. This is not for having Joe Blow operator from NY tying up repeaters in LA. I would not want that either. It makes no sense that this is not permissible other than telecom lobbying against it. The rest of the challenge is legal definition and interpretation of rules.

Keep in mind, that by using a Desk mic of any kind, you'll lose your other microphone shortcut functions that your hand mic has such as dtmf, lock, scan, etc.

This time in my Ranger instead of Edge

Linked to an amateur radio repeater?? (WC4PEM) You can listen to it but can't transmit there without a ham license. Is that what you mean?

Hi Channel 28 is preprogrammed for that frequency, just configure the following Input tone - menu item 12 (T-CTCSS) Output tone - menu item 10 (R-CTCSS) You may also do it via software Input tone - TX CTS Output tone - RX CTS

The repeater has to be associated with a licensed GMRS user, so according to the FCCs, you need a GMRS license, but that is all you need.

All true in general. This original poster told us about the trees around him. For him, it is most important to get over those trees. He didn't say anything about a 200 ft tower or hilltop. For him, my original advice stands.

Check Heil’s products.

It looks a lot like German flecktarn pattern.

Hi thanks, I used some paint I had laying around from old project. Its Rustoleoum camo paint. The key is sparing no expense on the applicator, I used a Q-tip lol Here is another photo of a radio I did a few years ago in slghtly different camo color, but the same Rustolem camo paint and Q-tip method. The approach is to use 3 (or more) colors. Considering the case is black, that counts as one color. Then add in the darkest paint first, leaving plenty of black spots showing. Then add in the lighter color. Repeat back to the dark, then light again until you get a mix you like, keeping some of black showing. At first you will be saying to yourself "What the heck am I doing?". But push on. It dries to the touch in just an hour or two, but give it a good day before handling too much. Be careful not to get paint in the mic hole or speaker, and around the buttons.

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.

I wanted to give everyone an update on this. I just received an email from RT Systems. So far the only one showing a Mac version is the KG-XS20G when I checked their website a few minutes ago.

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

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

this is geared to de-regulate the big TV/telecom/internet industry and will have zero impact on GMRS.. So to the folks that think this is their gate to 'heaven' to loosen the rains on GMRS,, think again, the FCC will not waste a second reading letters that we need Linking, etc..

No, but often times the Morse ID is sent without a CTCSS tone or DCS code and voice messages include a tone or code. In that instance setting your receiver tone or code will filter out the ID.

Setup the radio for the Bartow repeater (462.725 141.3 tone). Easy to reach from Lakeland even with a HT and is one of the more dominate repeaters in the area. On Tuesday nights at 7:00 there is a net you are welcome to check into with around 30-35 folks checking in a week. Have fun!

WSHJ950, nice job. Most of us knew what you meant. Learning how to use repeaters with their radios is a stumbling block a lot of new users encounter. So I am glad things seem to be working out for you.

I mainly have it for off road use. But i have no friends so i keep buying more radios in hopes someone will show up one day to use them with me.

If you know you’re going to travel through another state you could download a file of all of the repeaters for that state and load them into Chirp to program your radio.

There, I fixed that for you.

I remember reading about that shortly after it happened. Some articles include the fact that he’s a ham in the headline, but that had nothing to do with the fact that he was disrupting their communications on 151 MHz and attempting to redirect firefighting resources. I would have loved to see the interaction when the official drove over to his location and clarified things. I have absolutely no sympathy for this jerk. He’s the kind of guy that reflects poorly on all hams.

The 22 FRS frequencies are exactly the same as the first 22 GMRS frequencies. There’s absolutely no difference in the frequencies but there are differences in the power limits. None of the 22 are reserved exclusively for FRS.