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If you are using GMRS to communicate between multiple vehicles in your group, or have any local GMRS repeaters, then using during storm chasing might be useful... but if you are looking for locals reporting on the storms, more likely to find it on HAM frequencies or MAYBE CB -- I would guess.

Just because it looks like it, doesn't mean it is. But in this case I think the cat squished the roof.

I started out with a KG1000 repeater and never had issues other than desense early on. A couple times a year the repeater got pretty heavy use during nearby off roading events. Yea, they do get hot, but they keep on ticking. I use two Maxons for a portable repeater, they never break a sweat and they are housed in a ventilated ammo can. Now my current Hytera Repeater can run 24/7 with no worries. Amazingly, I paid not to much more for the Hytera radio then the two KG1000’s. I think we all do this, we learn the hard way.

yup,, setting to busy only is the key and most of the cheaper controlllers don't offer this flexibility.. . I alwys laugh with i hear a repeater id every 15 mins.. rminds me of a dog p*ssing on car tires

Only that you simply open the forum in your browser. Why bloat an app when phones already have a browser?

I will grant you that my time in the USAF was fifty years ago. But, it wasn't unusual to put folks on alert and shift assets during times of international upheaval. It's possibly a preplanned response to existing conditions. in olden days the USAF had a concept called "Prime Beef" or cannon fodder as we called it. The idea was a group of folks equipped and trained to respond quickly (relatively speaking) to events around the globe. We were supposed to set up what today are called FOP's to rearm, refuel and provide light maintenance of aircraft. In my case it would be tactical assets like Phantoms and Wild Weasels. I can't count the number of times between ORI's (operational readiness inspections) and actual crises we were alerted. The Cold War tended to warm up from time to time. Mostly without the general public having a clue. I'm pretty sure those orders were transmitted with the highest encryption of the time.

Happened a couple days ago.

It might be a secret credit card number to use, billed direct to the government, when ordering out a pizza for deliver.

Manufacturers could design mobile radios to put out half a watt, but because FRS regulations require handheld radios and because GMRS regulations limit 8-14 to handheld radios, mobile radios could not be certified, even if they complied with the output power requirements.

As pointed out FRS channels 8-14 are low power, 0.5 watts max. That's why mobile radios don't include them since they generally can't lower their power to the legal limit, otherwise GMRS and FRS radios use the same "simplex" frequencies. FRS does not have access to the repeater input frequencies whereas GMRS does. Second if you have a GMRS license it's perfectly legal to communicate with FRS radios, even above 2 watts. On channels 1-7 you can use 5 watts max, and on channels 15-22 it's 50 watts max. The point to remember is FRS radios use exclusively narrow-band FM while GMRS uses normal, wide-band, FM. If it's possible using a GMRS radio the bandwidth should be set to narrow-band when talking to FRS radio users. I use mainly commercial grade radios for GMRS. Those have the ability to use either bandwidth. For those radios I program in two banks of frequencies, one wide-band for GMRS, and the other narrow-band for FRS. FRS-GMRS combined channel chart.pdf

I have tested a few 20 watt mobile radios and they only go down to 4-5 watts on low. And that is why mobiles are not allowed to use channels 8-14. Every Part 95 certified GMRS hand held will transmit on channels 8-14 and they will automatically transmit on low power even if you have them programmed to hi power, or at least that's how my Wouxun GMRS hand held's are. All bets are off when using unlocked/modded radios. An unlocked amateur mobile will transmit on channels 8-14 on any power level the radio has. As others have mentioned. just use channels 1-7 and 15-22 and yo will be fine. Someone with their GMRS license can use a 50 watt mobile to talk to someone using an FRS radio on those channels without issues.

@WRUE951 that sounds good. I'm glad you've had good luck with them. My experience isn't terrible, just not ideal results. Since most of mine are EmComm related, I never really ran one for more than a few days at a time, and mostly left them off until I/we need to use them. I know what you mean about learning the hard way. I struggled so much to avoid spending the money on a proper repeater that I probably spent 3 or 4 times more than if I just went for a regular repeater to start. I finally built a full-blown potable repeater system... it can do 2m, 70cm, crossband or act as a base station. It has a built-in 50 amp hr battery system and can run on solar or AC. Retail, it is about $17k to build, but thankfully some stuff was donated and I was able to get great deals on a used repeater and commercial VHF duplexer, which cut the cost down to about 10% of new/retail.

I think it's great that they came up a solution, and as much as I love the KG-UV980P hardware platform, I would never use a KG-1000 nor a KG-UV980P as a full-time unattended repeater. 1.) As good as they are, they are not designed for continuous duty cycles or 24/7 operation. 2.) They may overheat or flat out fail with prolonged use. 3.) The transmit/receive isolation is not as good as a proper repeater, leading to desense issues. 4.) Audio quality and levels can be inconsistent. 5.) VOX or Carrier Operated Switching methods can introduce delays, distortions, and clipping. 6.) There is zero remote monitoring, diagnostics, or telemetry unless you engineer something yourself. 7.) Paired mobiles are extremely inefficient with regard to power consumption. The only time I ever have or ever would use paired radios as a repeater would be for temporary field use and as an emergency backup (maybe). In an emergency, the FCC isn't going to ding anyone for not having the repeater ID on it's own, and for temporary field use the control operator is IDing the repeater every time they ID themselves... so an add-on device is really not needed.

I like either the AR-5RM or the XTS5000, depending on how many monies you want to blow and how strongly your radio-dork gene is presenting.

His request doesn’t make sense. Any GMRS mobile radio will talk to FRS radios except for channels 8-14 which may only be handheld portable units by regulation. GMRS handheld radios can talk on 8-14.

The logical assumption is that there’s are CTCSS tones or DTCSS codes somewhere that you don’t realize are there, either on the FRS radio or on your other friends radios, or the radio is transmitting on frequencies the other radios are not receiving. We can’t really know for sure without more information, such as you posting a screenshot, a chirp file, maybe a device like the SW102 showing the output power and actual frequencies of the transmissions that others are not receiving. But we can speculate a bunch: Bad programming. Bad firmware. Both. But here’s something to try. When it’s transmitting and other people’s radios don’t seem to receive it, put your UV5R into “scan for tones” mode to see if it’s actually sending with a tone that the other radios filter out.

As far as I can determine, exactly 3 people in the US use FM CB. Is that better?

True, but if they had used the radio as little as they probably really did, the movie would have been much less exciting. I believe you're referring to Bat 21 which was supposedly based upon an actual incident. I give Hollywood a little slack on some of these things. Nobody wants to see a movie about a bunch of soldiers who spend 20 days standing around scratching their b@lls and then have a 3.6 minute firefight.

Have to say, I miss the hay-days. Back in the `70s and `80s (a little of the early `90s, too), I had an absolute blast on the CB. I had a base station and also a mobile in every car. My base setup had an ERP of 122kw. When I would fire it up full power, none of my neighbors could watch TV. One of the people closest to me said he was pretty sure my radio caused his refrigerator to hum. LOL Compared to back then, it sure feels like nobody is using it.

Yes, I have driven extensively in the central US with a CB and I hear some traffic on AM but nothing on FM. Others in CB forums have had the same experience. Most (all?) CBs sold in the US today have both AM and FM capability, but it seems that it rarely gets used. I don't count myself as a "user" of FM CB because I just listen. I haven't randomly gotten on CB and announced my presence for several decades. Would someone answer if I did so on FM? I don't know. I use CB almost exclusively to monitor road conditions, and all of that is on AM. My TYT TH-9800 will scan both AM and FM frequencies and I have yet to hear anyone on FM. I have a CB on a separate antenna in case I want to transmit, but I hardly ever do. Mostly I just hear a sh*tshow with occasional business use and highway conditions.

Using two-way radios may not be of a benefit when sophisticated DF gear is used. The local PD likely won't ave this kind of gear, but the US military, including the National Guard, might. Things get really crazy they will start looking for people. One example is this brochure. The portable units can act together in a networked configuration for faster and higher accuracy location determination. https://scdn.rohde-schwarz.com/ur/pws/dl_downloads/pdm/cl_brochures_and_datasheets/product_brochure/3606_9591_12/MP007_bro_en_3606-9591-12_v0600.pdf

This is correct. A phone that has been turned off but still has its battery in can be traced through the built in GPS chip. And most new phones don't have an easy way to remove the battery. As far as the rioters using GMRS or amateur radios without licenses, I don't they even care.

Faraday bag doesn't care if your phone is on/off/battery removed. As an aside, late third generation Toyota Tacomas had a fob to open and start the truck. Someone figured out the fob was constantly sending out it's signal unless steps were taken to shut it down. Didn't take crooks long to figure out how to intercept the signal, clone your fob and then just drive away in your truck. I'm pretty religious about disabling my fob, but sometimes even I forget. So, it automatically goes in a small faraday pouch.

Yeah, and I am the guy that has some of those 12K radios. And I can say that wide band FM is wide band FM. Same thing coming from a 38 dollar Baofeng and a 12K buck Motorola. Same thing with wattage, if 4 watts is measured at the output of one radio, and there is 4 watts measured from another radio, that's the same power. The 12K buck radio may continue to work in a high RF noise environment when the lesser radio gives up and looses the ability to lock onto the signal of interest, but that's the difference. The 38 dollar may start mixing those other signals that are getting into the transmit circuits and begin to have issues on the air with a clean signal, but again, 12K gets you a LOT of shielding that's not going to be in the 38 dollar radio. But outside of that, FM is FM. If the 38 dollar works at all, it's going to work the same if it has the same power output and deviation (modulation) as the 12K Motorola. And the ham / GMRS operator that has that 12K Motorola will NEVER be able to give you a reasonable and honest answer on why they 'need' that radio. Because no one will ever admit that it's purely vanity that gets them to drop the silly amount of money required to get such a radio. There is no special function that makes those radios superior to even the cheapest radios in 99% of the operations they are expected to perform, which is talking on the local repeater. I have Boafengs too. I can't take them downtown on rooftops and expect them to work. The RF noise in those locations drive the radios nuts. My high dollar Motorola works in those situations just fine. But if I am out in the country at home, no one can tell if I am talking on the Baofeng or the Motorola. While they don't sound exactly the same because that 12K gets you a bunch of audio processing, dual mikes, noise canceling and other stuff that 38 bucks isn't going to buy, you have to decide if 12K is too steep a price to pay so you can talk on the local repeater while you're on the lawn mower with all the engine noise being canceled out or not. To address the FCC type acceptance thing mentioned by others. If you don't understand the type acceptance procedure, that is done by the manufacture, not the FCC. Well you might read up on that before stating claims about it. Manufactures do their own testing. And may or may not be required to submit equipment for testing to the FCC for additional testing. And even when there is a requirement for sending in radios, it's up to the manufacture to ensure that the radios going out the door for sale are the SAME design and function as the radios that were submitted for testing. Some manufactures do verify that every unit is equally good as it leaves the factory. And some manufactures make 'wonder knives' like the 'as seen on TV' ones that saw bricks in half then slice a tomato. Can a knife be made to do that. But when was the last time you were at a state fair watching the guy saw a copper pipe in half and then cut bread actually sell the knife HE'S using, not the ones on display. Or randomly take one of the ones for sale for 19.99 and do those things with it, and then attempt to sell THAT knife. Because NOTHING about the knife the seller is using is the same as the ones you will go home with other than looks. Now, would China based companies do such a thing? Well they put lead in toys, ship Fentanyl to us, send helium balloons into our country to spy on use, and a full list of other things that would fill a page here but then verify that every last radio coming out of their factories is the same as the one they sent for testing that cost 10 times to make? I am not going to hedge my bets on that. But you are more than welcome to.

H3 is a fantastic little radio. But that damn Queen made me order a RockyTalkie 5W radio... dammit. To the OP: Screw anyone telling you the radios aren't good enough and as others said, tell them it is an icom or a kenwood or a yaesu. They can't tell.

The first critical rule of radio programming is to immediately save a copy of the codeplug to your hard drive or a flash drive after you have read the radio for the first time. That way, you can always go back to a working codeplug if things go sour. If you create a good working codeplug, save that, too. I maintain an inventory of over 50 radios. I meticulously save codeplugs as I update or change them.