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...that can also receive VHF & UHF, including 70cm. But chances are he was a a GMRS channel and was hearing linked repeaters.

I know a guy here on this forum that regularly/ALWAYS gets 200+ miles on all of his radios.. He apparently does this by purchasing every radio ever made and if it does not get 200+ miles, he just throws it directly into the trash.. All of his "friends" also do the same thing, so this method obviously works.

^^^ This! Exactly this! There is nothing in the rules that explains 'why' the rule is what it is. There are several conflicting parts and sub-parts, that I have pointed out in the past, that support that 'linking' as a whole is not prohibited. Only a specific method is prohibited. Whatever is not expressly prohibited is allowed. The truth is, I may retire this year. If I do, my time would be freed up enough to stand-up a linked repeater network and then wait to see if the FCC is up to a lively debate in Federal court. I don't know if I will, but the opportunity would exist and lately I am feeling kinda spicy about government overreach. Don't get me wrong. I have no personal animosity toward anyone in the FCC for simply trying to do their job and I have no intent on purposefully and intentionally violating any federal laws or rules... but we need a court case to settle the debate. All I have seen from everyone, including the FCC staff, is conjecture and opinion based on something that is NOT written, implicitly nor implied.

In this day in age I can't imagine a radio that can only be programmed by an outside source. Being able to input tones and such through the radio directly is a must in my book.

Good info, but personally, I would have just replaced the screw.

Ducting most commonly occurs associated with strong temperature inversions, either the strong night to day change around dawn or along storm fronts. I recall a few years ago consistently hearing a contact in Philadelphia PA for several spring mornings thorough central MD. Other times as storm fronts approached MD, hearing repeaters on Long Island discussing traffic on the LIE. If the long range signals persist mid day in stretches of calm weather, linking would be the main suspect.

How many people carry a copy of their ham or GMRS license with them in their car? You may be the ONLY one.

I'd suggest leaving the factory channels as they are. It's pretty much plug and play out of the box. Just change the tone required (in your case 159.8) for what channel (frequency) you want to use. Then go to "edit" on top of the screen and "option features" and change the default channel if you are using something other than .550 (channel 1) if you have a power outage but don't know if this step is actually required. That should be about all you need to get up and running.

"some people" are so funny, all trying to prove who's smarter over something that does not matter in any way - The FCC doesn't even care. "some people" should bicker over something that actually matters.

In medicine, we use the term "necessary but not sufficient" to mean a finding has to be present in order to make a diagnosis, but by itself, it's not enough. I think of an acceptable SWR as necessary but not sufficient to a good antenna. (I'm not going to get into what SWR level is "acceptable"; that's a whole conversation by itself.) The antenna may have very good SWRs but it's just kinda crappy at transmitting. What you know from the SWR is that the antenna isn't likely to damage your radio, but it doesn't prove you can get a good signal out. A higher-gain antenna will typically be resonant on fewer frequencies than a low-gain or no-gain antenna. I have 3 antennas with similar SWR readings to yours (except for marine -- I haven't tested for that), but they're all about 18" high and provide essentially no gain. For my purposes, that doesn't matter because I use them for repeaters in the local area. I have a couple more that knock it out of the park in terms of range, but they're only resonant on 2-3 bands. I have a massive 10' tall GMRS-only antenna that could probably talk to Easter Island, but it's useless outside the GMRS frequencies. You may find that your antenna is just fine for your local area but doesn't provide enough punch for the distances you want to use it for. There may be some instrument for testing that, but the easiest way to find out is to use it and see what you get.

Thanks for all the kind words and info from everyone. I have been having a lot of fun since getting my Tech and then General license. Lots of great contacts on 10M, 12M, and 20M. My farthest contact was about 6500 miles to southern Africa (Namibia). Amazing what you can do with 20 watts and a dipole antenna (at 30 ft elevation) when the ionosphere cooperates. Last weekend was a bit frustrating, but I was playing with an Inverted-Vee 10M/12M at about 15 ft. I am going to make it a 10M/12M/15M/17M and then get it up to 30 ft.

That would be correct. The repeater listens on 467.x (RX) and outputs (transmits) on 462.x (TX). It would be wrong if it was the other way around.

I liked the Midland 575 just fine, but wanted the ability to enter frequencies & codes more directly. Another wish was user configurable channels, so I could store all my frequently used repeaters. A louder speaker, preferably on the mic, was my last want. If I followed Randy’s video, it sounds like this new BTech is loud, so that’s good. The ability to enter frequencies & tones from an app, then do a back up of the date, is also a plus. It appears to have the channel capacity. I don’t need another radio, but will likely try this new one.

In GMRS mode it's baked in. If you go into any of the programming softwares supported by the H3 you just put 462.xxxxMHz it the RX and 467.xxxxMHz in the TX. Or use the preprogrammed and add your tones. You can program up to ch55 with channels that transmit. ch56 and up are receive only for whatever the god zenu decided.

If that makes you sad, you should set up your own repeater so everyone can use it for free and teach them all a lesson.

Background: A friend has a 10,000 acre ranch in the middle of nowhere. Cell phone reception is spotty at best. We were looking for a reliable way to be able to communicate while at the ranch for quick status updates and for emergencies. About 2/3rds of the land is fairly flat with the other 1/3rd being draws and ridges that limit line of site. The challenge was threefold; 1) to find a location that allowed "line-of-sight" to as much of the ranch as possible, 2) to have a repeater located at said spot to "see" down the draws, and 3) to limit costs for an occasional use system. Equipment: Red's Engineering Simplex Repeater - $61.00 Boafeng UV-5R GMRS radios - $31.00 (2pk) A 15' pool cleaning pole - already had from previous project The Red's Engineering Simplex Repeater features from the website: Web based configuration via cell phone Works with the Baofeng UV-5R radio DTMF detection, enable disable repeater Fox Hunt Transmitter Mode Periodic Station ID 45 second message record time Station Identification (Morse Code generation) LED Indicators show current status Shield type enclosure design USB Power / Charging Open source software OTA Firmware Updates (WiFi) Long battery life, ~12 hours talk time, ~10 month active standby Set-up After charging the repeater and radio, the set-up was straight forward and is easily done through the app. You plug in the supplied cable to the repeater and radio. On the initial startup you must press the reset button. Turn on the radio and wait a few seconds, turn on the repeater, set the volume to about 50%, and you're ready. Within just a few minutes I had the repeater programmed, connected to the radio, and bench tested. In the app you can change the record time, toggle remote enable/disable function, program callsign and ID transmission, and a few other things. Since we are very remote and the likelihood that anyone else would ever find the repeater is slim to none, I didn't go through some of the whistles and bells. They may come into use later but I left most everything pretty basic. Real-world testing - Home After scouring Google Earth, Radio Mobile Online, and SCADACore line of sight generator I determined what I thought was going to be the optimum location for the "tower". The furthest we would need to transmit and receive would be about 5 miles. I unceremoniously duct taped the radio and repeater to a telescoping pool pole, ratchet-strapped it to the fence corner post at home and drove just over 7 miles LOS. I transmitted on channel 5 and heard the repeater, well, repeat back my message. Since 7 miles was well outside of the limits I needed I felt it was a good test and waited until the next trip to the ranch. The radio was wearing the Abree AR-771 antenna that came with the radios. Real-world testing - Ranch In a couple of weeks we went to the ranch. Still using the high-tech duct tape and pool pole, I found the location I had identified and set up the repeater. Over the course of two days, we tested the repeater at all the blinds we had around the ranch and routes along the way. We found that the repeater worked as expected and better, hitting one blind that we were skeptical of hitting. The repeater and radio were left up overnight and the batteries lasted both days. We were not carrying on conversations, mainly just checking the repeater function and checking in with each other occasionally. If we had 15 minutes of total talk time I would be surprised. I was very impressed by the simplistic, but reliable, function of the repeater. Take Aways This is a simplex repeater. You must accept that you will, at minimum hear your own message repeated back to you. In some cases, if you are in simplex range of the other radio, you may hear the original message and repeater message of both yourself and who you are talking to. While some find this cumbersome, it is just the fact of a simplex repeater and if you know it is going to happen you learn to deal with it. Personally, I didn't find it to be a problem for what we were trying to accomplish. For about $100 I don't think it can be beat for what we wanted to accomplish, basic communication for status checks and emergencies. We also accept that there may still be locations that simply cannot be reached due to terrain. That is why we stress that we let everyone know where we are going and when, within reason, to expect us back. No amount of technology should replace a simple "flight plan". Future plans I am now in the process of piecing together a weatherproof housing and solar backup. The internal batteries will last about three days (not using any of the power-saving functions) at our communication frequency, maybe more. In the event we are down there for more than a couple of days, solar will allow the batteries to remain topped off. Additionally, I am looking at "tower" options that allow us to put the repeater up and down when we come and go. I'm heavily leaning towards a 30' telescoping flag pole (staying with the limiting cost theme). That will allow us to have a permanent location that is easy to run up and down. All in I think I'm probably looking at about $300, radio, repeater, pole, solar, and bits and pieces. While I tinker with a lot of things, this is my first foray into repeaters, albeit very limited. The Red's Engineering gets my initial thumbs up. I hope to be back with updates soon.

Just FYI, New repeater will be online soon near the cross roads of rts 51 and 48 in Elizabeth. It will be on 462.725 with pl tone of 131.8 Hopefully online by April 5th 2025 Hope it will be of use to the gmrs operrators out there. Now Online and open for your use.

All regulatory agencies interpret their rules to their favor, from the ATF to the other end of the list. FCC is no different. Unlike some of the other agencies they don’t seem to enforce their interpretations very often. I have no idea how you reached such a conclusion, and it’s not worthwhile trying. I’m glad they post both the rules and the regulations . I even agree with many of their interpretations.

You had fire? That must have been invented later.

The Red's records off of the carrier signal and not just the audio. As long as you have the transmit button down it will stay open (or until the timer times out).

What fun would that be. Some of us look for stuff like that to "fix" for the heck of it. My wife was complaining that the new larger paper towel rolls wouldn't fit her holder. I said buy a new one, she like the existing one. So out to the garage, a full roll of the triples a tape measure and the appropriate sized drill bits. Less than five minutes. She's happy and I got to use tools.

I made one up and put it in my wallet.

I appreciate you telling me what I won't be happy with even after I have had satisfactory experiences.

Do be sure to state your preferred pronouns and ask those of the other person. It shows you are both “enlightened” and silly. I’m told this is also a good idea on Grindr, but I’ll defer to The Queen for clarification.

I sure don't carry a copy of my amateur or GMRS licenses. I'll happily give them my call signs and they can look them up if they really want to.

In my experience, that's actually pretty rare, but the few a-holes make a lot of noise. Most of the hams I know have the attitude that different services are for different purposes, but radio is radio. I'll bet at least half of them have GMRS licenses. Many (most?) hams are old enough to have grandchildren, and we help them learn the basics on GMRS. Don't listen to the haters. They're wee todd it.

One advantage of amateur radio is that there are repeater counsels to help prevent that kind of mess. Though that is harder to do with GMRS repeaters since there are only 8 repeater channels available.

CORRECTION: Not "illegal", but a violation of FCC rules..

OffRoaderX is correct and Like others said, charging for repeater access or a club fee is not illegal. Making it a commercial venture and profiting from it is illegal. If a person properly sets up a non-profits and "plows" back any potential profit and keeps the rest for maintenance, administration, upkeep, more repeaters etc... its not hard to do. As mentioned, be a pillar of the GRMS community, spend the thousands of dollars to set up a high quality public use repeater, hundreds to thousands a month on tower fees, set up good back up power, and put up with all the BS that goes with repeater ownership. Do you think you your thoughts on charging for access to a repeater might change a bit? Perhaps.

Tropospheric ducting is more common in spring and fall when there is bigger change in temperatures between sunrise and a few hours afterwards. I live in Central Missouri and can talk to people in Springfield Illinois on GMRS when there are good openings. The distance is between 115-120 miles. We also occasionally will hear out of state repeaters using the same frequencies and tones come across our repeaters when conditions are just right. This happens on our 2m, 70cm, and GMRS repeaters.

I would bet linked repeaters considering you are listening on HT's. Lot's of them around

AS long as you are following the guidelines, then GMRS is for what ever you want to use it for. There is no right or wrong way to use GMRS as long as the rules/guidelines re followed.

Thanks, I have gotten the cables and the software for the radios, and have had some success programming them. I have 2 CP200's and one CP200d. The CP200d is fully programmed, with no issues. I had to use CPS 2.0, and get a wideband entitlement, no problems there. The CP200's are programmed, and are functioning, but only on narrowband. When I try to change the bandwidth to 20kHz, I have problems. First it tells me that I need to get the 20/25kHz entitlement key. I have one, and it worked for the CP200d, so I go to the 'register application features' option, and put in the key. Then it tells me that it can't reach the license server. I'm not sure what the issue is. This is using CPS_NA_R05.18. The computer can connect to the internet with no issues. Any ideas on what I need to do to get the wideband entitlement validated? EDIT: AAANNNDDD.... Got it! I finally found a copy of CPS_NA_R05.16 and was able to program these with wideband. Yay!

That's oaky too since I have my amateur and GMRS licenses.

They write them this way so they can be "interpreted". That way it can mean different things at different times. Which is exactly what it shouldn't be. And since these rules are for normal people, normal people should be able to read them and understand them without the need of lawyers and oiija boards.

You can do a not for profit and not be a registered 50x. The 'trick' is that anything you take in you keep record of. You put those funds in a specific account that's only for repeater maintenance and you don't pull / spend that money for anything outside of that. If you do that, and it gets questioned. You have records of the incoming and outgoing money and it's a mute point. If you are just dropping the money in your personal account or similar and spending money out of that account then you REALLY need to be careful about tracking what's coming in and what's going out. And if you aren't doing any of that, then if it's looked at, they will consider it for profit. But the first thing that would have to happen is someone get mad and file a complaint on you / the repeater owner. Now this does happen when someone gets told to get off a private / pay to play repeater. The user gets his feelings hurt and calls the FCC to inform on the repeater owner. Now, is that gonna bring the FCC to their door. Who knows. At this point, the FCC has said that they will ONLY respond to INTERFERENCE related complaints. Of course, this ain't that. So again, who knows. But is it legal to 'charge' for access to a repeater? And the answer is, it depends on what you are charging for. IF it's 'CLUB DUES' then yes 100%. If it's actual access and there is no club, then all the stuff above applies, records and such. And to have a 50x you about need a club or organization to have that tax status. Personally I just don't bother with fee's or due's because it's a pain in the ass. Trying to NOT piss off people while running a wide area coverage repeater is not worth my time. If someone hands me some money to support the repeater, I put it towards the electric bill, or tools, or other stuff for the repeater. And honestly, I have has the repeater on since 2021 or so, and the grant total of donated money has been 90 bucks. So again, not worth the hassle.

I have a better use for grass.

Often times there is no benefit to most people. When asked, I generally recommend to never bother with an update unless said update fixes some specific issue that you need to be fixed. "some people" often just blindly apply any update they come across and they sometimes learn the hard way that the risk of permanently brick'ing the radio is high.

Just tell the HAMS this is your "First Step" in your radio journey and will be following up with a HAM license. Probably will get all the help you need, or is that false advertising. lol

I hear you. My adult sons take great pleasure in telling me if I forget to be a "normie" and get a little to military. I usually start with, "well at your age I was blah blah blah," as if they care. LOL

You're not alone. I've read similar comments over time.

The Frida 700 Station Has Never Been Built Out Or Put Into Service. Some Folks Like To Post A Station To Mark A Geographic Area They Are Considering For A Repeater Someday. The Problem Is That "Someday" Doesn't Seem To Happen. You're Welcome To Put In A Request For My Niles 725, It's In Service & Has A Good Footprint For South Western Lower Michigan & Northern IN. You Will Also Receive The Indiana Osceola 600 Which Covers A Portion Of Southern Michigan As Well........

On the topic of proper GMRS etiquette, I was in a heated conversation with one of my friends and was overcome by a bad case of flatulence and had to let it rip during my train of thought. Fortunately, I had proper upbringing and was taught to extend my pinky on the hand holding the mic. It was a real tear jerker.

It's less expensive than both the KG-1000G Plus and either of the 50W Midland radios, both of which are very good sellers.. So far, based on my sales analytics, this radio is proving to be very popular.

Maryland's cell phone law says "cell phone". Someone got a ticket using his ham radio, took it to court and won. Precedent set, in MD, using a 2 way radio while driving is OK.

I looked at Pennsylvania's bill, and see that the exemption for Amateur radio was removed, so it applies, as written, to all mobile radios. However, this part may actually be interpreted such that a mobile radio is allowable, provided you aren't switching channels and are simply talking using a hand held mic, pushing only one button. So it may be okay. I will take it as such. This wasn't in the earlier iteration of the bill. It has passed and has been signed by the governor. " Defines the use of an interactive mobile device as using at least one hand to hold, or supporting with another part of the body, an interactive mobile device, dialing or answering an interactive mobile device by pressing more than a single button, or reaching for an interactive mobile device that requires a driver to maneuver so that the driver is no longer in a seated driving position, restrained by a seat belt."

Missouri just enacted a hands free law at the beginning of the year. And they specifically state that amateur radio operators are exempt from the new law. Though no one should be driving distracted. Radios with everything built into the hand mic do have their place and use. A lot of newer vehicles just don't have the room to mount a complete radio or even a good spot for a remote head unit. And there is the factor of wanting to stay discrete with one's radios. These types of radios are not for everyone, but that is okay, variety is the spice of life.

A Fixed Station is one that's been repaired. /s

All I had to do is make mention of having a GMRS license on 2 meters. The attitude that came off of the Hams just about dissolved my speaker. Needless to say, I quit talking on ham. I hop on Ham on a rare occasion to check into a net or something but my days of having conversations is probably over. I got this same attitude over making mention of an experience I had on CB radio. Just say the name of another radio service and the most vile hatred oozes out of some Hams.

A lot of people make that common mistake of assuming one can overcome the loss of using that crappy coax by brute force and throwing more watts at the problem. The main issue they overlook, whether intentional or ignorance, is how much the receive is attenuated. You can pump the same amount of water through a 1/2" pipe compared to a 2" pipe by turning up the pressure on the pump. A wasteful exercise in futility.