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This is true. It is also true you have the on-line personality of soiled bedpan.

Using HTs, there will be no discernable difference in range for GMRS or amateur frequencies. "

According to the BTech website page for this radio, yes: Scanning Receiver (136-174.99MHz (VHF) 400-520.99MHz (UHF))

This sounds like a beautiful and glorious land of milk and honey! Literally where we have been house-shopping & planning for when we make our escape from my current State.

Please keep asking your questions and ignore the noise. There is not one among us that knew it all starting out, and probably not one among us that knows it all now.

if your HT can't get 200 miles right out of the box it should go directly into the garbage can. Source: Rheet-hard

He owns the repeater. You can use the frequency all you want. Simplex, Duplex just don't access his repeater. There are a whole bunch of different tones you can use besides the one single one he's currently using.

It's funny how he thinks he can give the govt $35.00 and he has free reign on anyone's equipment whether they want you to use it or not. Doesn't understand that all I'm doing is using the frequency and I don't think I own it. And the repeater isn't active unless I'm using it which is minutes a day, which doesn't impact anyone. And the license means he can purchase his own equipment to use on the "free airwaves". If he's cheap he can buy a couple HTs. Or maybe he can buy a mobile and a base setup and use the "free airwaves" to talk to all his friends and family. Or better yet, spend a lot of money and setup a repeater and then open it up to the public so everyone has access to it. And all of these are his own choice because all that $35.00 does is give you permission to press the PTT button on the transmitter. And that's it.

So Put Up Your Own Repeater On That GMRS Frequency. He Owns The Repeater, Not The Frequency Or Squelch Access Tones. Repeater CWID Is Not A Requirement, Nor Is That Relative. Not Sure Why This Is Such A Big Deal. The Repeater Owners Have Their Option For Allowing Use.

Yep, they stop just short of saying it doesn't require a ground plane. As @73blazer commented, DX has a good reputation which is why I didn't question their statement. And as 73blazer also observed, it probably does better with a ground plane, but even NGP antennas do that. I might get more farz with a ground plane, but TBH, I doubt it. I think the topography is such that a more efficient antenna wouldn't give me more than I already have. I'm happy with the antenna; I just feel a bit silly recommending it as a NGP when it isn't. I added an edit in my original post.

Except for the Jeep trails, I thought he was talking about The Villages, FL.

Rules Seem Pretty Clear To Me. 95.1705 Individual licenses required; eligibility; who may operate; cooperative use. (d) Individual licensee duties. The holder of an individual license: (1) Shall determine specifically which individuals, including family members, are allowed to operate (i.e., exercise operational control over) its GMRS station(s) (see paragraph (c) of this section); (2) May allow any person to use (i.e., benefit from the operation of) its GMRS repeater, or alternatively, may limit the use of its GMRS repeater to specific persons; (3) May disallow the use of its GMRS repeater by specific persons as may be necessary to carry out its responsibilities under this section.

Yes, one of the reasons I left So Cal nearly 40 years ago. Too many people in general and a high percentage of those with an exaggerated sense of self-importance. Rural Nor Cal was an enlightening experience for me back then. Friendly people, much less sense of rush. Many neighbors helped us out when we were trying to get established and basically starving. Since then, I have tried to pay it forward. If that means setting up an open repeater on the travel tone, so be it.

My parents still use a 49MHz cordless phone system in their house. I never looked at what type is was before until just a couple months ago when we switched them from AT&T's rape job $110/mo landline to a $6/mo VOIP service. My dad just got some new batteries for the handsets last year!

I'm not sure about the milk & honey, but we do have a lot of pucker bushes and giggly weeds and plenty of means to get dirty. I left the same State you're speaking of that is to my left 6 years ago and I haven't looked back nor will I go back and visit. I'm glad I made the move and should have done it sooner.

I live approx. 25 miles northwest of Phoenix in "Old People Country" a.k.a. "Limber Dick Acres" where every time your hear a siren there is going to be a future Golf Car For Sale on the near corner and an Estate Sale, which is near a gazillion Jeep trails, and I am able to hit an analog wideband GMRS repeater approx. 80 air miles away that is southeast of Phoenix with a 40 watt XPR5550e on an analog narrowband channel using a Laird Phantom on my 23 Wrangler "IZARUBICON" 2 Dr. that is mounted on the hood just in front of the A Pillar/windshield. The radio does not have the wideband entitlement so I am regulated to just narrowband emissions for that radio which is not my primary GMRS and UHF radio. The radio is my primary DMR and Digital Channel radio. My primary GMRS and UHF radio is my XTL5000 Remote Mount. Also, I have a XTL2500 VHF remote mount with the base load 2 db omni antenna on a bracket on the side of the hood near the cowl/A Pillar and I am able to hit a low-level repeater on a four-story building approx 40 air miles away looking around the side of South Mountain. It appears that I fail way short for qualifying for the 200 mile club. I guess, I have more work cut out for me to make that happen and so I can hang with and shoot UHF skip for 200 miles away to anonymous "some people". Umm, maybe I don't.

Dang.... that woulda been soooooo much better than mine....LOL WSHS666 Here...

Just run open tones and you can listen to everything.

The other day I did a statewide search on the FCC GMRS license search site for "Terminated" licenses ("Cancelled" is a different field). There were 10 of them but it doesn't say why they were terminated. 5 of them appeared to be legacy business licenses and were cancelled 10-15 years ago. The 5 relatively recent were kinda obvious - ended in "666" or had "WSEX" as a prefix. Somebody does have WSEX666 though!

There's news lately that charging the battery while the unit is on may actually damage the radio/transmitter. It's an ongoing development. I have 4 TID H3s and one went bad. I have started charging the batteries while the units are off, and also I suggest NOT using the dock. The battery rarely seats well in the dock and I feel like it overcharges the battery. On a positive note, TID replaced my H3 free of charge after I sent them a video. Even though the bad radio can no longer TX, it can RX pretty well, so I turn it on when I want to monitor more channels. See video below:

Thank you. That is the best answer I've seen so far. Not that I didn't enjoy any of the other's... . I knew I came to the right place.

Just putting my two cents in, and reiterating what others have said... in the world of handhelds, GMRS and Amateur Radio UHF perform the same since they are in the same band and general frequency space. Again, specifically with handhelds, the lower in frequency you go (VHF and HF for example) the worse the performance will be as the antenna becomes less and less efficient. This is because the lower in frequency you go, the longer the radio wave length will be and the longer the antenna needs to be. Now, if you were to take an HF handheld and hook it up to a standalone antenna system that is the proper size, then you can literally talk around the world. The drawback is, the handheld is really no longer 'portable' for all intents and purposes.

Don't forget that he has 1998 reasons why Midland and Wouxun radios are total junk. Or are we up to 4995 reasons now.

Again it is going to depend on your location, terrain, amount of trees and buildings, etc. More realistic simplex range for 70cm and GMRS is going to be 2-10 miles, again depending on your surrounding and location. We have guys check into our weekly 2m simplex net from as far away as 55 miles straight line. They definitely are using beam antennas up high on towers and there is a good chance they are also running amplifiers too. I know we do have guys that check into the 2m simplex net that are 40-45 miles away and they are not using any type of amplifier and they are using vertical antennas. Again location and height of the antenna plays a key part on how far one can be heard. My dual band antenna is a GP-9 with the base at 22 feet above the ground. The farthest I have talked to anyone on 70cm or GMRS using my 50 watt mobile radio on a simplex channel/frequency to another using a base station with a vertical antenna at least 30 feet above ground has been about 25 miles. But that is pushing it. I use a short Comet SBB-1 NMO dual band antenna and a short Tram 1174 antenna tuned for GMRS on my Ford Escape. Now talking to someone 18-22 miles from my base radios to their base radios is normally not a problem when using 70cm and GMRS. There are a lot of variables on how far you can get out using VHF/UHF such as type of antenna, antenna height, your location and local terrain, etc. To answer the original question, you won't get out any farther using the 70cm amateur band compared to using GMRS when the radios and antenna setups are the same as far as power output and antenna height.

I have set up sort of an network in my neighborhood. Now mind you geographically it's an area of about 4 blocks north to south and 6 blocks east to west. Not a large area. In addition it is a long established neighborhood with a lot of older residents who have been here for decades. It's a mix of Los Angeles City and unincorporated Los Angeles County. Jurisdictional issues are fairly frequent with both agencies at times saying it wasn't their area. Sadly, typical for SoCal today. This was motivated by a home invasion not long ago. The mother and child were home alone in the evening. It took the LAPD over an hour to respond. She did get a hold of a neighbor a few doors down after about 10 minutes on 911 hold. By then the invaders had left. The idea is simple. Folks have GMRS handhelds. We have a dedicated frequency. There are a lot of retired folks who can monitor the frequency. There currently isn't any established roster of who and when. But turns out there are more than enough to have it covered 24/7. Had our neighbor just called on a radio there could have had several "experienced" guys there in a minute or two at most. Most folks who are on the network have bought their own HT's. For others several of us have donated HT's. Obviously not everyone is onboard. You still have folks who insist that the police can protect them. This with clear evidence to the contrary. Now there is nothing on paper. No one has a list of folks or anything else. But it has already proven useful in several "property" crimes. Just neighbors helping neighbors. A lot like it was when I was growing up. Back then a kid got banged up (happened frequently when we used to "play" outside) you could go to any house and the adult there in would take care of you. Today that rarely happens due to fear of litigation.

Law Enforcement Radio Network = LERN, or LEARN. It's a group of networked GMRS repeaters throughout New Jersey. They reach into southeastern PA, DE, & NYC. You're supposed to be Law Enforcement to use the system. Not sure if it's still linked. I rarely heard anyone on it when I used to monitor GMRS in the area. /off topic

HTs on the amateur bands are basically limited to VHF (6m, 2m, 1.25m) and UHF (70cm), so not really any different than GMRS (UHF). Mode (FM) and power levels are basically the same as well. It basically comes down to the things you already mentioned, like terrain, as well as antennas, availability of repeaters, etc. In my area there are a handful of GMRS repeaters, but there is at least one ham repeater in almost every city in my county alone. YMMV

High Frequency (HF) amateur bands have the greatest range, but propagation can vary. Yesterday I was easily able to talk to a ham many hundreds of miles away (Butte, MT to Chelan, WA), but at the same time I could not hear a ham who was thirty miles away in Anaconda, MT because our signals were passing over each other’s heads. GMRS has no range advantage over amateur UHF. Neither does amateur UHF have a range advantage over GMRS. Their ranges are practically identical. But, there are many times more amateur repeaters than there are GMRS repeaters and unlike GMRS the amateur repeaters may be linked together in networks. On Saturday I used my 70 cm handheld and talked to a repeater 30-40 miles away which was linked to a worldwide net at the time.

Welcome to the forums. Only people in the Denver area are likely to be able to talk to you because of the distance limitations of GMRS. Your best bet would be to look at the map here to see what repeaters exist in your area and look at the clubs to see which ones are in your area.

Thanks for your input and the photos you shared, I'm going for the LMR400 equivalent. I only need 40 ft so it should work out for me,it just needs to make one 60º bend through a port in my exterior wall it should be flexible enough for that.

I do wish that Wouxun would include a way to adjust mic gain in their radios. And yes the KG-1000G mic is on the hot side. Another thing that greatly helps is holding the mic at an angle to your face instead of flat. PS: ignore Negative Nancy

He's got the 50W radio, he should make them change.. and they will have to endure his wrath if they refuse.

If his friends/Trail Dudes are using FRS radios the OP may be forced to go narrowband since most or if not all FRS radios are only narrowband emissions.

Just FYI - moving your antenna, swapping the antenna or even improving the SWR has absolutely nothing with the quality of the audio you are transmitting. As @nokones suggested, make sure your friend's radios are set to WIDEband.. also make sure you arent too close - like at least 1/4 mile away. and as @BoxCar eluded to, lowering the Mic gain would help, but the KG-1000G does not have an adjustable Mic gain, so ignore that - but when testing make sure you are speaking the exact same volume and with the mic at the exact same distance each time... Screaming into the mic and/or holding it too close to your noise-hole will cause what your friends are describing.

Mic Gain

Geezus phorking Khriest ... dude... Go outside and get some fresh air and sunshine.

Unless removed they should still appear when old data is selected.

Because not all repeater owner's want their repeaters listed for what ever reasons. And it also keeps from have multiple listings for the same repeater on the website. Another thing is if someone besides the owner listed a repeater that requires permission, then the repeater owner will not get any requests at all through MyGMRS.

The most common reason I've heard is to keep the repeater use limited, as in to keep hoards of users away. But the most used repeater in my area still has lots of dead air.

Socalgmrs lives in a great area for UHF. He really needs to take a trip out to the NE and experience hilly and mountainous regions where sometimes 50 watts won't get you 2 miles.

Sorry but it wasn't meant to be snarky. It honestly does help if you know how to use the map. Is that not correct?