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No. Getting a bigger/better antenna and/or getting it higher will help more.

I don't understand what the confusion is. 95.335(a) clearly says that an exception must be listed in the applicable subpart and Subpart E for GMRS does not have any exceptions listed. How is this a debate?

Which reminds me of the people who want those "High Power" HT's claiming 10 watts plus output. I don't have a link to it but there are some FCC specifications for specific absorption limits based on frequency. Hams are "supposed" to do basic RF exposure calculations above certain power levels at various frequencies per the FCC for RF safety.

As @SteveShannon, certified & anointed H.E.R.D. mentioned, there is no limit specific to handhelds. And if you look hard you will find several 8W units, and if you really apply yourself, you might even find a 10W or two.. But it is important to understand that in most cases, on-average, usually, most of the time and in most situations, most people will not notice any difference between 4 or 5 watts and 8 or 10 watts other than noticing the battery draining much faster.

..we will reserve judgement for now. With a UV9g, you dont need to think about the offset - these are the basic steps: Put the radio on the correct REPEATER CHANNEL - Probably listed as either "Repeater 20" or Channel 28 Go into the Transmit CTC menu and enter the tone IGNORE/REMOVE the Receive tone as it is optional and at this point its only going to add to your confukulation Be sure to save all your changes (you may need to resort to the manual) Push the talk-button and talk, let go of button and listen for the Kerchunk/Static back from the repeater, or someone responding If it doesn't work then either you have the wrong channel, the tone is wrong, you are not close enough to the repeater (just because you can hear it does not mean it can hear you) or the repeater is down/broken/offline. The fact that you said you "have the offset" leads me to surmise that you've done it wrong.

Found some!

Now if you wanted to put a repeater in that trailer we’d line up to engineer the shit out of it!

If the trailer gets loose, you've got much bigger problems than damaging your coax.

I thought that when you buy a UTV/SidebySide it was in the purchase contract that you must turn up the over-powered stereo volume to full-blast whenever within 5000 yards of other people trying to enjoy nature.

O I get that. those days don't happen for me. Been sober for 2 years and plan to stay that way.

Yes.. and throw in your callsign once in a while.

The hill is going to do what it does. Where that additional power sometimes can help is if you’re transmitting through vegetation. Vegetation attenuates the signal so more power can make a difference. Hills block the signal and power won’t overcome that. But a high antenna can. In fact the single most effective improvement most people can make is to get their antenna up in the air. The second is to feed it with a cable that doesn’t convert the signal to heat. Power is way down in priority.

Recognized.

Correct; they’re only called out separately when regulations apply to them differently.

When i had my Jeep i had a Midland MXT 575.. It stayed with the Jeep.. I loved that radio and i want it back. I even like it over my current Hytera HM782.. Well almost.

Ha! I just wanted my pedantry to be recognized.

Many people use the Midland models that are fully water/dust proof and have the built-in intercom port/plugs in them. They also have a simple screen and simple controls (only 1 or 2 knobs) - which is useful when plowing through vegetation and animal habitats at unsafe speeds while drinking beer with the music blasting at full volume.

Under FCC Definition, handheld radios are mobile radios. Straight from § 95.303 Definitions. Hand-held portable unit. A physically small mobile station that can be operated while being held in the operator's hand.

You are absolutely correct. Although, Part 95.335(a) gives an exemption for Part 90 LMR radios to be operated in Part 95 radios services and there no rule or regulation saying differently in writing. There are no expectations that any rule, regulation, or statute to have any e.g. and e.g.s are not binding or make it regulatory to the rule where examples are giving. As I previously stated, certain exceptions are given in each subpart regarding how a Part 90 LMR may be operated on the respective freqs. Also, listing the two e.g. references was a mistake and should never have been written in 95.335(a).

Unless specifically called out a handheld is regulated the same as a portable or a mobile. Thus, while not practical, you could have a 50 watt handheld on some of the channels.

You think that's bad? Try reading technical patents! What would take a few simple sentences in engineering speak to describe takes a couple of paragraphs once all the legal mambo-jumbo is added.

We were in silty mud this past June.

This is why you need stupid people to write the actual regulations. They'd spell it out instead of referring to this which refers to that which in turn refers to something else. Reminds me of reading the NEC regulations where you need to look at the whole book every single time because nothing is stated in a sentence that doesn't refer to some other part of the book.

YES. Unfortunately the FCC allows a bunch of other crap to operate there as well. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-A/part-15/subpart-C/subject-group-ECFR2f2e5828339709e/section-15.240 Some examples: https://hackaday.com/tag/433-mhz/

I don’t agree. Although the numbers of two examples of exceptions are listed, one from subpart C (RCRS) and from part E (GMRS), the actual exception belonging in the GMRS subpart no longer exists and thus cannot apply. 95.335(a) clearly says that an exception must be listed in the applicable subpart.

It does not say that it is permitted. It says if there were exceptions, they would be listed, and they aren't. Insults from people like you are meaningless to me.

My license was granted on 2025-07-22 and has no mention of Line A or any frequency restrictions.

I'm sure any of those will be nicer to use than my old boat anchors.

It's exciting. Almost like getting to the prize in a box of Cracker Jacks. I can't wait to find out what it is.

..this section of the forum is so dead, I didnt even know it was here.. Anyway.. I just setup my Spec5 Trekker Bravo, so, i'm IN !

Maybe change your post title to New to Interwebs message boards?

I'm sure I seem like a broken record to the people here, but pay attention to the FCC's restrictions on power and bandwidth. They exist for a reason; some FCC desk-jockey didn't just pull them out of his ass. Exceeding authorized power and bandwidth can cause your signal to "spill over" to an adjacent frequency or stomp all over someone on the same frequency, thus interfering with someone else's enjoyment of the airwaves. Radios which are compliant with Part 95 Subpart E (GMRS regulations) typically have the limits "baked in", but lots of people use amateur radios on GMRS frequencies. That's technically a violation of FCC regulations, but I don't care and neither do other reasonable people. For that matter, as far as I can tell, neither does the FCC. However, ham radios often (usually?) can be programmed to exceed the power, bandwidth, or both authorized on GMRS frequencies, and I do care if someone is crushing my signal. Hams are taught to use the lowest power output that will work for your purpose, and that's a good practice for every radio service. Just be a decent human. Be polite. Don't curse, be intentionally offensive, or otherwise act like a jackwagon. My rule is that if someone seems to take offense at something I've said, I just drop it. There are other channels to talk on and other people to talk to. If someone is being an a-hole, move your conversation to another frequency or use CTCSS/DTCS codes so you don't hear them. Periodically take a break in your conversation in case someone else wants to use the frequency, especially if you're on a repeater. There is no such thing as privacy on a radio. CTCSS/DTCS codes can keep you from hearing other people, but they won't keep other people from hearing you. Don't discuss your sex life or where you hid the house key.

Here is another example of how changes in the atmosphere effects UHF radio waves. My bother and I both have Allstar nodes and both were set to the same frequency and PL tones. These nodes only put out about .05 to 1 watt of power on transmit. And we have our radios set to 5 watts or less when using the nodes. We are 19 miles apart and 5 watts is normally not enough for us to hear each other. The other day there was a storm cell in between us and we could hear each other. My brother was using his Allstar node to talk to guys in Texas. I could hear him but not the other people. He could also hear me when I was using my node. The storms and low cloud cover was bouncing the 5 watt signal 19 miles. Granted neither one of us had a very strong signal as the signal strength meters barely moved, but it was enough of a signal that we could hear each other. We both ended up changing the frequency that our Allstar nodes use to stop this from happening.

Yes.. LJ...

Probably not allowed here, but I find gunfire generally tends to drive those folks away. Not in their direction mind you.

Of course. Depending on the trailer and what's in it, it could be a REALLY bad day. It'd be worse if it takes your headliner or half your dashboard with it, depending on where the radio's mounted and how the cable's run. I'm just saying that, in my opinion, the juice, what of it there may be, just ain't worth the squeeze of dealing with a remote antenna.

"As I mentioned in my previous missive on the matter..."

GMRS is nothing like the CB craze. (Much more civil) IMO your best chances of making contact with someone on GMRS is on a repeater channel. Like Steve said, just get on an open repeater or one you've been approved to use and talk away. BTW,, welcome to GMRS. Hope you have fun and buy more than one radio

Copy that. I’ll try that.

Yes.. Get at least 50 feet apart and try again, then report back.

@SteveShannon you don't think I read the whole thread, do you? LOL

Sounds funny, but it's a real thing. Some Ham 70cm repeaters had to be dialed down in power level to stop interference to Pave-Paw radars. https://www.arrl.org/news/new-70-cm-coordination-agreement-reached-for-new-england https://sites.google.com/site/arrlsacvalley/pave-paws

I'm currently running a TYT TH-8600, Comet 2x4SR antenna and a Midland SPK100 20 watt speaker. Before switching to the TYT TH-8600 I was running a Wouxun KG-XS20G. I have a modified expanded metal hitch rack mounted on the back of my Honda Pioneer which provides a good ground plane for the 2x4SR. The reason for the Wouxun KG-XS20G and TYT TH-8600 is that they are IP rated for dust and water. The Midland SPK-100 allows me to hear the radio over the engine and road noise even when cruising at 35 MPH down gravel roads.

I once had a professor in a technical writing course ask the class "do you know why all your user manual and instruction manuals for the things you buy are by and large all terrible? It's because the person they get to work with the technical writers to put together the manuals is the guy the shop foreman or engineering manager can most stand to do without for a couple weeks. And do you know who THAT is? Literally their worst and / or dumbest employee." Which is a long way of saying "no, I don't think getting stupid people to write regulations would actually be an improvement" Should they be written in plain language instead of legalese and spell things out? Oh absolutely.

Thanks for the quick responses.

Radio specs are submitted by the manufacturer to the FCC and the FCC issues a certification. Look and see if the radio has been certified. A certification identifier should appear on a label attached to the radio. However, you’ll soon learn that as long as you make any attempt whatsoever at following the rules the FCC will never know or care.

This is the way I do it on both GMRS and ham. I give it in plain old alphabet first and if the other party doesn't understand then I give it again with the NATO phonetic alphabet. However, when someone uses the NATO exclusively, it doesn't bother me a bit.

So, really it’s not the call sign, it’s that someone is trying to chat with your wife? Maybe he’s intrigued at hearing a female voice on the radio. Try using CTCSS or DCS so he can’t easily interrupt.

You are looking for 1225LS_RSS_V3.0.zip. I have a copy of it which is about 5 meg in size. It's designed to run on WinXP or Win95. For best results, it should be run on an older machine which has a true serial port (COM1). If you open the radio and it has an LTR Passport accessory board made by Scholar-Johnson, you can simply remove the board and the radio will revert to a standard M1225 which can be programmed with the version 4.0 1225 HVN9054 software. The Scholar-Johnson board is desirable by some hobby folks. I sold one on Ebay in less than a week.