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NaNa NoNo has spoken.

There are no USA made GMRS certified radios. There are commercial radios, certified part 90, and ham radios, which don’t require certification beyond part 15, made in countries more friendly to the U.S.A. which can be programmed to transmit and receive on GMRS frequencies. Garmin GMRS radios are made in Taiwan. They are probably the most expensive GMRS certified radios available.

Available from U.S. owned companies? (another attribute that matters a lot to many) - and remember, the key feature of this radio is the LACK of features (and complications) - So I am curious which you would recommend in its place?

I was told by a (former) Midland Marketing person that this is by design - the entire chassis is a heat sink so a fan is not needed, but yes, you feel the heat. Also, beware that "some people" are going to leave ssstupid comments in this thread declaring that this radio "sucks", "is junk", it's too expensive, it's gimmicky, etc, etc, because it does not have the features that THEY think are important. So bear in mind that Midland did not design this radio for them, they designed it for normal people such as yourself that just need to talk to people while driving. Midland did not design this radio for losers that sit in the basement searching for anonymous men to chat with over the radio to brag about how many buttons or knobs their radio has.

Now try actually reading his post, then try again.

Exactly! When the base of the antenna is getting warm, it’s being heated mechanically (thermal conduction) by the RF output transistor which must be much warmer. I would be more concerned about that than the antenna. Twice the power requires four times as much current. There’s very seldom any range advantage to merely doubling power for UHF.

Frequency? Every evening at sunset. Sorry. I know, bad joke.

I'm confused, some folks say they won't but Chinese made radios. Others say that all GMRS radios are made in China. What brand and models are made in the USA?

As TerriKennedy said in an earlier post, "Remember, if both radios are set up to properly use the repeater, that channel (or however you set it up) will not work for direct HT-to-HT communication without the repeater - both radios are transmitting on one frequency and receiving on a different frequency, so they won't hear each other without the translation done by the repeater. Many radios have a mode where they can flip their Tx/Rx settings so you can talk radio-to-radio without the repeater, but let's get the basics sorted out first."

Every brand of radio will have its positives and negatives. Just like every brand of GMRS radios are all made in China. Having a US company to deal is a definite plus if one needs to contact customer service. Yes there was a batch of Midland MXT500s that had low power output. But Midland did take care of those radios if the owners contacted Midland customer service. Midland radios meets the needs of some by being a simple to operate and program radio for those that do not want all of the bells and whistles. As far as why the MXT500 does not have a fan is probably part of it being IP66 rated for water and dust. And having an IP rating is a plus for use in open cab vehicles such as Jeeps and UTVs. It's simple, go with the radio that suits your individual needs and don't worry about what the Negative Nancy's and Nana NoNo's say.

Hold on. They recently put LED streetlights on my block. How do you determine their frequency?

I bought this radio in January and after 3 months, I still really like it. This radio gives you what you need. High power of 50 watts, mid power 20 watts and low power 5 watts. Using a dummy load, the outputs have been right on the button. It is super easy to operate and easily programmable from the front panel, I have no need for software The transmit and receive audio are very good and, YES, you can choose wide band or narrow band. It does, however, lack a cooling fan and can warm up pretty quickly in a longer conversation. I can only hope that Midland took this into account when working out heat dissipation in the design. It IS expensive, but having fond memories of using Midland gear back in the 70's, I chose to go with them again. Pete WSGL709

I know there is something very basic I must not understand. I have two different radios. There is a GMRS repeater close by at 462.650. 167.9 input/192.8 output. I set that into each radio for GMRS R5. One radio transmits perfectly to the other. The second radio show it is transmitting, but cannot be heard by the first radio. Can someone please tell me what I'm missing in my understanding of how to set up for GMRS repeater.

Said no one. He specifically said repeaters. Which is prohibited but I suspect as @OffRoaderX mentioned I doubt is worth any worries.

As you have acknowledged data transmissions over a repeater are prohibited, but a very short burst of data would probably never be noticed. However, given the limited bandwidth of FM over a repeater very little data could be transmitted. Also, there are only a few radios that send data anyway.

I have tried it on a 2m/70cm ham radio with noticeable success. There was perceptible increase in reception and transmit with the tiger tail pointed in the direction of the other station and 180° away and null or reduction at 90°. No real noticeable improvement just letting it hang. This was with a Baofeng UV3 with a Nagoya tri band antenna and the larger battery. It didn't make the Baofeng as good as my Kenwood TH6A without

Simple: The FCC does not care if anyone transmits data over GMRS repeaters, as evidenced by the fact that they have never, ever, not even once enforced this rule (in the context of your post). "Some People" are going to leave comments whining and howling and calling-names over the fact that people do it, and cry even louder that the FCC does not care, but thems just the facts.

Ah the M151 MUTT. They finally made National Guard and Reserve units park those things for good around 1990. They were more prone to roll overs than any of the Willy's GP vehicles they replaced. We found a couple that only needed fresh fuel and tires out in the training area at Ft Irwin in 1995 while cleaning up all of the old hard targets. The base Command Sargent Major made us go park them on the M1 tank range so the next rotation could destroy them.

Here's a mid 70's Model we used in the ASA making sure no one could use their radios

Because the regulations prohibit certifying a GMRS radio that can easily transmit on ham frequencies.

Get dragged out to the closest pavement and call AAA.

I have noticed that. I assumed it's just a matter of habit. Of course, repeaters that have been up for a long time aren't likely to change from CTCSS to DCS, but AFAIK, there's no significant advantage of one over the other and any radio built in the last 10 years is probably capable of both. Repeaters installed recently certainly could use DCS, but apparently most of them still use CTCSS.

As mentioned, none. HOWEVER -- Midland is based in the United States, unlike most of the other low-cost GMRS radio companies.

Actually, I have a dual AGM battery system. One battery is the primary for the starter and vehicle systems and the second battery is the Secondary battery for the accessories like the winch, air compressor, and other accessories such as Flashlight chargers, etc. My radios are powered from the primary battery system using one of the Four Auxiliary switched circuits that is a 40-amp circuits. The other Aux circuits power my Trail Lights.

Are you asking about the frequency of interference (RF) or the frequency of the light produced (which must include multiple wavelengths in order to be white)?

Ultimately, the person listed on the license is responsible for all authorized family members and has to answer to the FCC when requested to do so and will have to identify those family members when a rule infraction/violation occurs.

You get what you paid for. If you buy cheap then it is cheaply built and you're really not saving money and time in the long run and you run the risk of it unexpectantly failing. If that is your style, go ahead and be cheap. I prefer to buy it once so I don't waste my time in dealing with it again. It has worked very well for me in all these decades. I refused to buy cheap Pandaland POS junk.

I don't see a trailer being pulled with the batteries and generator to power those radios.

Or Detroit, or Chicago or ....

This is especially true when you have several people using the repeater that have the same first name. We have several Johns, Ricks and Rons that use our amateur and GMRS repeaters. Plus we have quite a few people traveling through the area that use our repeaters. Most of us will ID at the beginning of our conversation, every 10/15 minutes and then at the end of our conversations. I have not heard anyone ID after every transmission on any of the 2m, 70cm, and GMRS repeaters. The last time I used call signs after each transmission was in the military, but the was SOP.

That's what I thought ... Hopefully lol.

Oh me too, because I love England !!

There is no need to ID after each transmission on either GMRS or amateur radio. Periodically (15 minutes on GMRS, 10 on amateur radio) and at the end of a conversation. The point of IDing at the beginning of a conversation is just that ... identification. "Joe this is Bill do you hear me" is not as specific as "This is <callsign1>. Callsign2 do you hear me? Sure, if it's a private repeater and only you and other members of your family are using it then just names works fine. But in the general case, not so much.

My criticism is there are similar radios with the same features that cost less.

IF you have nothing NICE to say, then maybe you should just say NOTHING AT ALL, rather than make an ASS out of yourself !!

On one of our trips I ended up using one of my wifes Yeti lunch coolers... figured I better get somthing designated. I ended up with this Go Pro case from amazon ($18). I use usb-c cables to charge and I can get three radios and cables or two radios and a small battery bank ($20). I got one for the Surecom, dummy, cables and adapters as well. I used some velcro strips to keep stuff where I want it. Probably something better out there but it was cheap and it works.

I have a pair of UV-5G Plus radios. Using Chirp, you have to set the radio as a Radioditty UV-5G Plus to program the radio. I have added many 2m and 70 cm ham frequencies for monitoring, unable to transmit on the channels. You can also add as many GMRS coded simplex channels, or ham band channels and GMRS repeaters, up to all 1000 channels. The 5W power is nice, as I can hit many repeaters from my house using a mag-mount on a pizza pan. They come in clear. For dedicated GMRS radios, they work well.

Possibly. Just a guess, but try going to batteriesamerica.com and enter your Radio or Battery Model number in their search bar. I have seen Higher capacity batteries they offer for several different radios. If not, then maybe just order a Second battery from Retevis.

I think a more proper term would be RF Frequency Storage Location Position Allocations... If we're going to over-complicate things, we need to overcomplicate theshit out of them at least as well as the H.A.M.s Radios operators do.

I would like Mr. Queen's take on this, do we now call channels "Frequency Storage Location Radio Positions" or just "Channel" positions?

Well....I'm sitting almost exactly 30 miles from the top of Mt Bachelor here in Central Oregon. I was setting up one of my mobile radios with a MTA 26 antenna and noted that I was hearing 'ski chatter'. We're getting some good snow today and there are folks up on the mountain making the most of it. You can actually see the mountain from my house (when it's clear), so no real surprise, but I can bet they are all using blister pack HT's! Turned on one of my CCR's (UV-5G Plus) and was still hearing it with that although a tad more crackly. So yeah! A little altitude and a clear line of sight does a 'lot' for communications. There's a HAM repeater on top of that pile of dust, but not a GMRS repeater. Not that I'm too worried as I am a licensed HAM, but even so. Would be useful to have both options!! Image below taken with one of my long lenses. you can see the chair lift to the peak.

Which antenna is much less important that trying to get it as high as you can. A "better" antenna will not make up for being too low.

A word about selecting the COM port... I have aKG805G and version 3.0.4 of the PC Write software. After messing around for long. I found out that Running the Application as Administrator will allow you to select an available COM port. The software is still very amateur, I honestly don't like it

Dude.. The chicks must be flocking to you!

Josh? Jason? The old guy? Oh, wait...

I heard that one of the big GMRS youtubers is going to be reviewing this radio in the next few days.. FWIW, ones shipping now come with a programming cable and the antenna is removable - no screw, no glue..

I figured it out! Not only do you have to right-click KG905G desktop icon--> properties--> compatibility mode, you must run the app in Windows Admin! Thanks for the help, guys.

The Red Cable should work just fine. The issue is with the software. Software needs to be run either in Admin’ or ‘Compatibility Mode’. There is a FAQ about it on the BTWR site. As I recall, you can right click on the desktop shortcut for the 905 software and choose compatibility mode setting from on one of the tabs accessible from there. Michael WRHS965 KE8PLM https://www.buytwowayradios.com/blog/2021/05/how-to-install-the-programming-cable-and-software-for-the-kg-905g.html